Page 26

26

T he following morning did not go as planned, but Juliana was hard-pressed to care. Rather than meeting Monk, Philly, and Viper at the clubhouse, she and Simon tended to Sherman—their new dog.

First thing in the morning, Simon made a run to the store and picked up essentials—food, bowls, a collar, a leash, a bed, a brush, and flea shampoo. They hadn’t seen any signs of the vermin, but they didn’t want to take any chances. Sherman—named after the size of the tank, not the commander—hadn’t minded sleeping on the bed of blankets in the laundry room, but she suspected he’d prefer to be near them, and they wanted to ensure he was flea-free before they allowed that.

After a messy bath and an even more chaotic combing session, she’d made an appointment with the local vet to scan him for a chip. Both she and Simon believed he’d been dumped, not lost, but if they were wrong, and a family was looking for him, they couldn’t in all good conscience keep him. And if he wasn’t chipped, he’d need a full health workup and likely some vaccines.

They treated him as they had the day before, feeding him treats and talking to him. They also loved up on him. A lot. And when it came time for their appointment, he followed them to Simon’s truck, then into the clinic, where the doctor confirmed he had no chip. After performing a basic exam, she declared him likely a mix of rottweiler and retriever and placed him at about six months old. Other than being a little malnourished, he was otherwise healthy.

By the time they walked into the clubhouse at close to three in the afternoon, Sherman trotted happily alongside them, sporting his new leash and collar. They hadn’t been sure whether to bring him to a new location so soon after officially deciding to call him their own. But he’d given them the sad Yoda eyes when they’d tried to leave, and they’d been suckered.

“You weren’t kidding when you said he’s a tank. Or will be,” Juan said, looking up from where he sat at a table doing paperwork.

She and Simon stopped in the middle of the room, Sherman taking a seat beside them. He seemed undisturbed by the new surroundings, but they didn’t want to rush him.

“Look at those feet,” Philly said, walking over from the pool table.

“And that mane,” Viper added, joining Philly from where the two had been playing a game.

“It didn’t look like that last night, but after his bath, it sort of…” Simon hesitated, cocking his head.

“Fluffed up,” Juliana said. Yes, their new puppy had a mane of hair that resembled a lion’s, only Sherman’s was mostly black with a strip of brown down his throat and chest. His pointy ears nestled in the thick hair, and when he tilted his head, the ends swayed adorably.

“He’ll scare the hell out of people when he’s full-grown,” Juan said. Sherman’s tail swished across the floor, and Juliana would swear he smiled at the growing group. “At first, anyway,” he added.

“Can we pet him?” Monk asked, squatting ten feet away.

Simon walked over, Sherman trailing behind. A few times, he looked up as if to gauge Simon’s reaction to the other people in the room, but he didn’t hesitate. No doubt sensing Simon’s ease.

It didn’t take long for others to appear and soon, five men—Juan, Viper, Philly, Monk, and Marley—sprawled on the floor playing with Sherman, alternately wrestling, playing tug with his leash, and tossing a ball someone had produced.

“We may still discover some quirks, but I’m thinking he’ll be a pretty well-adjusted dog,” Juliana said to Simon as they watched the antics.

“How big does the vet think he’s going to be?” Marley asked.

“She said about a hundred pounds,” Simon answered.

“Are you going to start training him soon?” Viper said.

“The vet gave us some resources,” she replied. “But she suggested giving him a few days to settle down with us.” As she spoke, it struck her that she was answering as if she and Simon lived together, as if Sherman would always have them both around. They’d both be in his life, of that there was no question. Despite what she’d said, though, she wasn’t sure what the arrangements might be once they resolved the situation. Logic told her it was far too early in their relationship to think about moving in together. If she told logic to put a sock in it, though, the other little voice in her head reminded her that they’d both shared things with the other that they’d never shared with anyone else. A level of trust already existed between them that couldn’t be explained by a few days’ acquaintance. Well, technically, they’d known each other a few months, but they hadn’t spent more than a few hours together until the past few days.

“I texted the trainer, though, and asked her to send the information,” Simon added, either oblivious to her presumption or okay with it. Experience had her assuming the former, but a deep-seated knowing —that she was afraid to admit—knew it was the latter.

“He kind of sidetracked the day,” she said, directing the comment to Viper, Philly, and Monk.

All three men shrugged, but Monk was the one who responded. “Lowery and Polinsky aren’t going to do anything—not until they know how much you know or what you’re going to do with it. I’m not saying you can take a vacation, but a couple days’ delay isn’t going to matter one way or the other.”

She supposed these men, men who’d lived and breathed and fought strategy, would know. The anxious part of her wanted everything to be over, though. But as she couldn’t do it on her own, she needed to trust them and figure out a way to deal with her anxiety.

A few creative ways to do that came to mind. She and Simon had shared a bed again the night before, although they’d both been apprehensive about Sherman and jumped at every noise coming from downstairs. Still, they managed to learn a little more about each other’s bodies, about each other’s likes and reactions. She smiled thinking of the common ground they’d found—shockingly, neither could get enough of the other’s mouth on them. Simon had a very clever tongue, and he’d been very vocal about his appreciation of her oral skills.

“Oh, she’s got that look,” Philly said, rolling from his side to his butt and rising.

She glanced around, then realized she was the only woman in the room, so he must have been talking about her.

“I don’t think I want to ask what look,” she muttered, heat filling her cheeks.

“You really don’t,” Viper said.

“Yeah, you don’t,” Juan added as others chimed in with similar responses. Telling her that they all knew what she’d been thinking.

Beside her, Simon chuckled, but thankfully changed the subject. “Do we have time to go over anything today?” he asked, directing his question to their three partners in crime—or, more accurately, their partners in investigating.

“We can go over it tomorrow,” Viper said. “Like Monk said, one day isn’t going to matter. You should hang out with Sherman. Take him for a walk or swim or something.”

She didn’t like the idea of dropping the investigation altogether. Simon either sensed her unease or he felt the same—or both—because he shook his head. “We may not have been able to do much today, but you all did. A debrief would make us feel better.” Beside him, she nodded.

Philly studied them, but neither Viper nor Monk hesitated. Rather than head to the atrium, though, they all took seats at one of the tables. Juan went back to his paperwork, and Marley to whatever he’d been doing in the kitchen before coming out to meet Sherman. The puppy stood between her chair and Simon’s. Once he seemed reassured that they were staying put, he lay down and set his nose on his paws.

“I’ll go first. It’s probably less interesting,” Viper said. “Well. Not less interesting, but I don’t have a complete picture yet. I’m still looking into a few things.”

“But you have the start of something,” she said with an encouraging nod.

“That I do. Over the past fifteen years, Gregor has worked on twenty-four projects. Eighteen were in San Francisco and the rest in other parts of the Bay Area from up north in Healdsburg to down south in San Jose. Of those projects, eight of them received federal funding.” Viper paused and crossed his arms, his attention focused somewhere on the opposite wall. “Of those eight, four definitely have something fishy about them.”

“In what way?” Simon asked.

Viper’s lips pulled down into a frown. “That’s what I need to look into more.” He paused again. “There were discrepancies in the finances, but it was worked out to the government’s satisfaction. Something doesn’t feel right about the review process, though. It went too fast? Or the reviewers were too junior? I don’t know,” he said with a shake of his head. “But I’ll find out.”

Simon nodded, then turned to Philly and Monk. At her feet, Sherman let out a deep sigh. She and Simon glanced down to find his eyes closed. It warmed her heart knowing he felt safe enough to sleep.

“Our morning was a little more interesting,” Philly said, taking over reporting duties. Not a surprise, since Monk preferred silence and Philly was happy to talk a mile a minute. “Of the projects Gregor worked on in San Francisco?—”

“The eighteen?” she clarified.

Philly nodded. “We reconfirmed that all the surrounding areas experienced an uptick in crime. Ten of those projects were in the precinct Polinsky covers.”

“Which is?”

“Taraval,” Monk answered. “The biggest.”

Philly nodded. “It covers a huge part of the southwestern part of the city. Including the neighborhood where Lowery lives.”

“Convenient,” Simon muttered.

Philly wagged his eyebrows. “Anyway, so we have ten projects in that area. We cross-referenced those projects against the crime that occurred, then identified the officers involved in taking the reports. It was the same eight people. Seven men and one woman.”

“I don’t know anything about police organizations,” she said. “Are there enough officers in the precinct that it’s weird the same eight were involved?”

“There are about a hundred officers assigned to the station,” Philly answered. “Big enough that if people bothered to look at the data, they’d look twice at those eight.”

“What do we know about them?” Simon asked.

Philly inclined his head. “That’s for tomorrow.”

“If the other projects weren’t in Polinsky’s precinct, or even in San Francisco, could he have been involved?” she asked, making a note to herself to pick up a book on how police departments organized themselves.

“That’s where it gets interesting,” Philly replied. “For the remaining San Francisco projects, those occurred in three other precincts and, like in Taraval, the same officers responded to the events in their respective beats. There are six, and each has ties to Polinsky even if they no longer work together.”

She cocked her head. “Strong ties?”

“All of them either once worked for him at the Taraval station before transferring or they worked with him when he was with the Mission precinct after moving to San Francisco,” Philly said.

“Is it the same with the projects outside of San Francisco?” she asked.

“Those six are interesting,” Philly said. “The two up north had no uptick of crime, but both were less populated settings—one winery and one small shopping plaza.”

“So even if dealers used the sites for drug drops, they were in locations where the incidental petty crime that we’ve seen around the city developments wouldn’t occur,” she said.

Philly nodded. “Exactly. Maybe they weren’t used, or they were, and it’s as you say, but we don’t have data either way. The other four were housing developments in San Jose. They experienced similar low-level criminal activities as the San Francisco sites, and just two cops covered every incident.”

“Any ties to Polinsky?” she asked.

“Do you even need to ask?” Monk replied.

“The senior officer of the pair—who are partners—worked with Polinsky in San Francisco prior to transferring to his current station,” Philly answered.

“Too many connections to be a coincidence,” Simon said.

“All still circumstantial, though,” she said.

All four men conceded the point with shrugs or nods. “We’ll find something concrete tomorrow when we dig into the officers,” Philly said.

“Can you do that?” she asked. “Seems like you’d need to hack into bank accounts or interview people or, well, I don’t know, things like that.”

Philly grinned. “Leo’s coming back over tomorrow. We’ll hit him up. We can send folks out to talk to people, but we’ll talk to Leo first.”

“In the meantime, you guys should get out of here,” Viper said, gesturing with his head to the door.

“Before we do, what about the two men sent to Mystery Lake? The ones who put the cameras in my house?” Juliana asked.

“They left town after installing their gear,” Viper answered. “The tracker I put on their cars says they’re in San Francisco.”

She let that information sink in, then glanced at Simon in silent question. He nodded and they both rose, Sherman jumping to his feet with a startled yelp before plastering himself to her leg.

Simon reached down and ran his fingers through Sherman’s mane. “I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about him wandering off.”

“Ungluing him, but not wandering,” Monk said.

She didn’t mind. Maybe she would in a few years, but she suspected that he’d eventually grow to trust that she wasn’t going anywhere, that she was his person. Or one of them. But even if he did stay a Velcro dog, his warm body leaning against her leg and his silky fur teasing her skin wasn’t a hard thing to live with.

A few minutes later, Simon opened the back door of the truck and Sherman hopped in, his back feet scrambling on the frame before Simon boosted him the rest of the way. Once he was secure in his dog harness, she climbed into the passenger seat, and Simon slid behind the wheel.

“It’s too early for dinner,” she said. “What do you want to do?”

“I have a plan,” he said.

“One you’ll share?”

He glanced at her as he pulled onto the main road. “Depends. Do you like surprises or not?”

She considered the question, never having been asked before. After a beat, she answered. “With you, I like them.”

He smiled. “I like that answer.”

They drove in silence the rest of the way, the late-afternoon sun rays casting shadows across the road and fields. There weren’t many people heading in their direction, but a steady stream of cars flowed toward town. Not as many as there would be in a few days; with Labor Day weekend coming up—the last hurrah of summer—the hotels would be full, the lake packed with boats, and the trails filled with hikers.

When they arrived home, she hopped out of the cab and unhooked Sherman. “Do I need to do anything? Get ready? Pack anything?”

“Change into shorts or a summer dress or something,” Simon said, ushering them into the house.

“And shoes?”

He glanced down at her Chuck Taylors and smiled. “Those are perfect for where we’re going.”