so much. God, I don’t know what I’m saying, but it’s not a coincidence, right? I mean, first, they drug the water, and I was supposed to be on that panel. And now I’m—I mean, someone pushed me down a flight of stairs, and I could have died.”
“Why would someone have wanted to hurt you?” Shaw asked. “If you’re right, and if someone was expecting you to be on that panel, why would someone want to hurt you?”
Hunching her shoulders, Karen let her gaze slide to the floor.
“What’s going on, Karen?” Shaw asked quietly as he rubbed her back. “What do you need to tell us?”
She shook her head; she was crying again.
The curtain rings shrieked along the hang rod, and Jadon stood in the doorway, Cerise behind him. The female detective was wearing a tiny grimace. Jadon looked furious.
“Let’s go,” he said. “Right now.”
“Hi, Jadon,” North said. “I thought I saw you earlier. What were you…” North pretended to think and snapped his fingers. “You were chasing your own tail—was that it?”
“Right. Now.”
“Karen,” Shaw said, “whatever it is, you’ll feel better telling us.”
“Shaw,” Jadon snapped.
“Don’t talk to him like that,” North said, surging a step toward Jadon.
“I’m coming,” Shaw said. He gave Karen’s shoulder a final pat, stood, and positioned himself between North and Jadon. To Cerise, he said, “Ok, let’s leave before the junkyard dogs start going at it.”
If anything, Cerise’s grimace just got deeper, but she turned and led the way out of the emergency department. Outside, the February air was razor sharp. Still, too; the only sound was their steps across the frozen cement. Something fluttered in the oblong panels of light cast by the halide lamps. Snow, North realized.
“You’re burning a bridge here,” Jadon said. The words were crisp and clear in the frozen night. “I’m not going to tell you again to stay out of my investigation. I respect what you do; I know, better than just about anybody, how good you are. But this is my investigation, and you’re threatening to compromise it.”
“This,” North said, tracing an invisible line between himself and Jadon, “this is about you wanting to mark your territory like a fucking dog.”
Shaw muttered something that sounded suspiciously like pot and kettle.
“You’re making a huge fucking deal about how we’re compromising your case. Give me a break. You’ve got two assault cases at a gay romance literature convention. They might not even be related. It’s not exactly the Zodiac Killer you’re trying to track down.”
“You know what, North?” Jadon said, pausing to blow out a thin streamer of breath. “You’d be a lot easier to like if you weren’t always trying to prove something. You’d probably be a better detective too.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“It’s a murder investigation,” Cerise said. “Scotty died shortly after he arrived at the hospital this afternoon.”
Chapter 24
INSTEAD OF A SLEEPOVER, North went back to his Southampton duplex. Truck was asleep on the couch—puppy-sitting had obviously worn hir out, because neither ze nor the puppy stirred when North let himself into the house. North showered, brushed his teeth, dropped onto the bed, and woke when his alarm went off at half-past five. He decided to skip working out, slept another hour, and still felt like he was running on fumes when he dragged himself out of bed. He texted Shaw. He made a quick pit stop to get ready for the day. He texted Shaw again. When he headed out, Truck was still snoring on the couch, the puppy asleep on hir shoulder.
North made three stops before he got to Shaw’s place, and when he pulled up, Shaw came out dressed in an eye-wateringly green Aran sweater, harem pants banded in geometric patterns, and quilted snow boots. The duffle coat he was wearing was at least two sizes too big.
“Is that camel hair?” he asked when Shaw dropped into the GTO’s passenger seat.
In answer, Shaw sniffed the coat and sneezed violently. “I guess so.”
“That seems about right,” North said as he pulled away from the curb.
Shaw sniffed again—this time, the air in the car instead of his coat.
Retrieving a cup from the cardboard carrier between his feet, North said, “I got you lesbian tea.”
“Made out of real lesbians?” Shaw sipped and made a face. “It’s, um, good.”
“No, I meant it’s from that lesbian coffee shop you always want to drag me to. It’s hyssop. It’s good for liver, gallbladder, the common cold, sore throat, and whatever other bullshit the lesbians could fit