Page 87 of Nothing More

Toly’s rough voice entered the conversation for the first time, and the sound of it plucked at Raven’s spine, turned her head. “There’s a new problem. That’s why I went by the restaurant.”

He stood against a jukebox that glowed softly and looked as though it actually worked. He had his arms folded, mouth unhappier than ever, a tight slash save the loop of his ring. He caught Raven’s gaze across the room, and said, “You can’t go home tonight.”

“What? Why not?”

“Miles called me. Someone tripped the motion sensors on the cameras after you left this morning. A man – we don’t know who,” he said, as she started to ask. “He wore a stolen jumpsuit and he never showed his face. Covered the camera lenses. He messed with the shower trap, Miles said. Cleaned it out.”

She wished now she hadn’t bolted her drink, because the room gave a spin. She leaned harder against the table’s edge. “But…why?”

Tenny said, “Shit. They were after hair. DNA. They’re gonna try to pin a crime on you,” he said to Raven.

But the way Toly’s jaw worked said no, that wasn’t his worry. His gaze flicked around the room, touching on all of them, briefly, before it returned to her. “Or try to pin one on me,” he said, with low-voiced reluctance.

Tenny opened his mouth to fire off a retort, and then stilled. His eyes blew wide, and his lips parted. His face lit up like a sunrise. Disbelief. Delight.

“Tennyson,” Raven sighed.

He looked between them, grinning. “Shit.Shit. Ha! Oh my God.”

“What?” Reese asked, monotone.

Toly shook his head, gaze dropping to the floor.

Tenny twisted around on the tabletop to face his husband. “Think about it. How could someone nickhisDNA out of Raven’s shower drain?”

Reese stared at him.

Tenny huffed. “Why wouldhebe inhershower?”

A beat. “Oh.” Then Reese’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

The room spun again, a slow, see-saw revolution that forced her to drop down into a chair. “You’re being ridiculous,” she said, without the conviction she’d hoped, but her voice didn’t waver too badly, at least. Perhaps it was better not to snap; that would make her look guilty. “And, once again, needlessly dramatic. There’s been a whole host of Lean Dogs camped out at my flat for the past month. It’s close quarters, and long nights. Am I supposed to sit around and smell them all? Allow them to go unshowered? Suffice to say: nothing untoward has happened. There’s likelyall sortsof DNA samples in all of my shower traps at this point.”

Ian, she noted with a quick glance, was working hard not to react, a faint lift of brows, an expression of acceptance, though he alone knew the whole dirty truth.

Prince puffed on his cigar, genuinely disinterested.

Reese’s eyes returned to their normal size. “Oh,” he said again, and nodded. “Makes sense.”

Tenny, though, smirked at her, not fooled for a second.

She said, “Dogs are going in and out of my flat at all hours. We haven’t a clue whose DNA they were after – or if that’s what they want at all, anyway. Maybe he has a hair fetish.”

“Suuuure,” Tenny drawled. “Alright, so, someone got into your flat.”

The room steadied a little, when the smirk dropped off his face and he grew serious. Raven didn’t check for Toly’s reaction, because she didn’t think she could bear it.

“Mybrother,” Tenny said mockingly of Toly, “is right. You can’t go back.”

She’d told the truth to Prince earlier: she did hate feeling helpless. Like a burden, a possession to be looked-after rather than her own person.

But the idea of taking her sister back to an apartment where a stranger had let himself in with the super’s key, had stalked her halls, and dug around in her shower…unconscionable.

But thought of a hotel was shudder-inducing also. The panic of finding their luggage rummaged and tossed at the Ritz, the lipstick note on the mirror.

She stood, and looked to Prince. “Ladies?”

She thought there was a sympathetic cast to his features, but maybe that was a trick of the dull gold light from the wall sconces. “Through those doors, hang a right, and it’s down the hall on the right.”