Page 150 of Long Way Down

He stared at her, then turned back to the TV and shrugged.

She stepped inside and turned to face Contreras. “Let me know if you find out anything. I just need a few hours, tops.” Frustratingly, she yawned again.

“Get some sleep,” he said, tone paternal in a way that no longer left her grinding her teeth. “I’ll check in later.”

She sent him off with a wave, shut the door, locked it, and turned back around.

Toly was watching her, graceless and openly assessing.

Fatigue made her honest. “You’re very unsettling, you know.”

“Da.” He lifted his plate. “You want some leftovers?”

~*~

Rob’s on his way, Dixie texted, ten minutes before they were supposed to meet Benjamin Crider, and Pongo’s mind immediately leaped to a worst-case scenario.

Where r u?he texted back.

Your place. He said I had to rest?

Well, that took away his immediate worry. She added,Toly’s here.

Good. Will let u kno how it goes??

Don’t do anything stupid, she texted.

Me??? Never.

“You look stupid when you smile at your phone like that,” Kat observed beside him.

Pongo slipped his phone away and slung an arm around tense shoulders that was immediately shrugged off. “Ah, Katsuya, my friend.”

“Donot.”

“Jealousy’s hard, I know. Don’t worry: we’ll find a nice girl for you. We just gotta…change everything about your personality first, no big.”

Kat spared him a withering glare before he glanced toward the door again, and then nodded. “Cop’s here.”

Pongo didn’t have a problem with Rob Contreras being a cop – just with the fact that helookedlike a cop. He came into the coffeeshop dusting raindrops out of his dark hair, wearing a blue pea coat and scarf over a blue suit and a garish tie and everything about him screamed Law Enforcement.

“Guys,” he greeted, when he joined them, and wanted to shake hands. “It’s Kat, right?” he asked, and earned a reluctant, tight-lipped nod from the man in question.

It was awkward, then, and Pongo wasn’t sure what to do other than face it bluntly, head-on.

“Okay, so, look. I don’t normally work with” – he gestured to Contreras and earned a nod – “so I don’t know how you wanna play this. I was gonna pretend like we” – gesture to Kat – “wanted to join this weirdo’s Bad Touch Club, or whatever the hell it is, and see if he would tell us something useful about its members that way. But if you’re here, you can just flash your badge, ask your questions, and we don’t even need to be here, I guess.”

In fact, Kat had suggested they leave a few minutes before, shoulders now jacked up around his ears with uneasiness.

“Actually,” Contreras said, “I was thinking I’d sit over there, pretend to be playing around on my phone, and let you guys talk to him.”

Kat hummed an unhappy noise.

Pongo lifted his brows. “But…you won’t be able to use anything he says to us.”

Contreras shrugged, and for the first time since Pongo had met him, adopted a posture that was, given the hands in his pockets and the tilt of his head, almostcool. Almost. “Not necessarily. You’ve given Melissa intel before, right? When she was in Vice?”

“Yeah.”