Page 22 of Long Way Down

“Did…” He looked between the two of them, chest lifting sharply on a deep breath. “Did he break in?”

“We’re not sure. She let herself in with her key, she said, and didn’t notice any obvious signs of a break-in.”

“He could have picked it,” Melissa said. “Or maybe he had a key of his own.”

“A key of his…” She watched the penny drop.

Jason’s mouth shut with an audible click of teeth, and he surged suddenly to his feet. She’d forgotten how tall he was, but she refused to take a step back, to show weakness.

“You don’t think,” he said, “I don’t – are you saying – you don’t think I…?”

“We’re not saying anything, Jason,” Contreras said, the picture of unbothered. “We’re just asking around to all her friends and classmates, trying to get a feel for who might have wanted to hurt her.”

Jason’s chin firmed up, jaw clenching. His hands clenched too, she noticed; white-knuckled fists that shook at his sides. He shot Contreras a narrow-eyed glare. “I wouldneverhurt Lana. I love her. I wanted to marry her!”

“Hey, I’m sure you did,” Contreras said, showing both palms, cool and smooth. “But if you love her, if you want this guy caught, you gotta understand where we’re coming from, yeah? We have to ask questions. No stone unturned and all that.”

Jason’s nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. He jerked a nod.

Melissa said, “Where were you last night?”

His head snapped around, and for a moment – just a quick flash – she saw a burst of anger behind his eyes, a hardness that any young woman would have recoiled from, been disturbed by. All the color rushed back to his cheeks, two bright flags of fury. “At home. With my roommate, you can check.”

“We will,” Melissa said, evenly.

He let out a loud, hard breath through his nose. Aggressive. “Are we done?”

“One last thing,” Melissa said, ignoring the glance Contreras shot her. “Would you be willing to give a DNA sample? Purely for elimination purposes.”

His eyes flashed. “Yeah. After you get a warrant.” He stormed off toward the front of the store, the breeze of his passage ruffling her hair.

Melissa smoothed it down and caught Contreras’s wry look.

“That’s a good way to make him feel comfortable and cooperative,” he quipped, without any heat.

“I don’t like him.”

He snorted. “I can tell.”

“You’re telling me that performance wasn’t sus as hell?”

“Oh no, it was. But there’s no sense in pushing him out of reach.” His brows lifted, driving the point home.

It rankled, just as every correction had…but less so because he’d handled it calmly, without throwing his weight around. “We were losing him anyway,” she defended, without feeling. There was a part of her that was always going to buck a little under authority, she’d learned once she joined the force. Misplaced aggression she should have employedmuchearlier in life.

“Still. Keep that in mind in the future, yeah? Jason’s a wreck, but we can’t let him know that ‘til we’re slapping bracelets on him.”

Melissa sighed – and took the L with a nod. “Yeah. ‘Kay.”

He motioned toward the door, and she led the way out of the shop. Jason was at the register, all smiles as he dealt with a customer; he paused to shoot them – her, specifically – a dark look, and then popped his smile back in place like a movie prop. It was eerie as hell.

Melissa suppressed a shudder and pushed out onto the sidewalk.

~*~

Hauser’s Pub had been established in the fifties by a Swiss family in a spot that would later become a no man’s land between Italian, Russian, Irish, and Japanese crime family territories. It had seemed like kismet, and so it had become a Hell’s Kitchen staple, a place where all were welcome, violence wasn’t tolerated, and treaties could be hammered out beneath its Tiffany lamps.

It hadn’t changed much since its opening, if the black and white photos on the wall were anything to go by: same rectangular, scar-topped tables, same dark wallpaper, same cherry wood bar with a tarnished brass footrail. It had a homey, Old World feel to it that Pongo had liked straight away, and the storied blend of cultures spread across the tables lent him an air of anonymity, even when he was flying his Dog colors.