Chapter 45

CHAPTER 45

A t seven that night, I dressed in my best black t-shirt and cargo pants, the ones without holes, to take Rose to the Wok Inn. I figured in a nice, quiet, public place, we could talk about me leaving, about what I needed to do before I went in order to keep her safe—definitely more self-defense lessons—and to make the building safe without any of the "I don't want you to leave" trauma. Just a nice, quiet dinner out.

Then I met her downstairs.

She was wearing a red dress, no apron, and it was clear she wasn't hiding any weapons on her body. Or anything else. That dress fit like a second skin. And Rose has great skin.

I must have stared because she said, "Is this too awful? It's really old, older than Poppy, but I don't usually dress up."

She looked uncertain, so I told her the truth: "You look great." But now I had second thoughts about taking her out in public.

The thing about Rose is, she's round all over, and the dress was made of something stretchy, so there was some bounce going on, the same bounce that had pretty much laid me out an hour earlier, the kind of bounce that said "Touch me" really loud. The last thing I wanted was Rose's bounce meeting Rowan, let alone her pack of idiot suitors. But she was happy to be going out—that was a real smile on her face when I told her she looked great, the dreamy-smug smile she got after sex plus the excitement about getting out of the shop—so I said, "You look beautiful, that dress is a killer," which was true.

Then I went upstairs to Oz's apartment to see if there was a jacket in his closet. That dress deserved more effort on my part.

There was one dress jacket in Oz's closet and it was a little strange, wrapped in a dry cleaner bag but with the tags still on it. Who dry cleans stuff right after they buy it? Not that I'd know—dry cleaning hadn't been a big part of my life—but I still frowned as I took it out of the bag and tried it on.

It fit okay, thereby reinforcing why everybody looked at me and saw Oz. Same size. But the jacket was weird, as if it was stuffed with . . . something.

I felt in the pockets and pulled out hundred-dollar bills. A lot of them. Same with the inside pockets. But there were more lumps, so I took the jacket off and turned it inside out and pulled up the bottom hem of the lining that had been stitched down by somebody who didn't know how to sew and pulled out more money. I finally just shook the rest of the cash out. When I had it counted and stacked on the bed, the jacket was a lot lighter, and Rose was fifty thousand dollars richer. Again.

"Max?" she said, coming to the bedroom door. "Are you okay? Do you need to rest? You don't have to go, you know."

I pointed at the bed. "You're buying dinner tonight."

She stopped in her tracks.

"Fifty thousand," I said, shrugging back into Oz's jacket. Now it fit.

She turned to me, her eyes wide. "You're wearing a jacket?"

"Did you miss the fifty thousand?"

She smiled at me, that smile that kneecapped me every time, her real smile. "We find fifty thousand all the time. You in a suit jacket is new. And very tasty."

She came close and put her arms around me under the jacket, and I had all that stretchy red dress under my hands and Rose underneath that and some vivid memories from a very short time ago. "You are not allowed to smile at men tonight," I told her. "I really don't want to beat anybody up, but I will if I have to."

She kissed me for that, and for a minute, there was a chance we wouldn't go to dinner at all, but she said she was starving, and I like Chinese, and we needed to talk, so we stashed the 50K in the bag with the rest of her swag under her bed and walked to the Wok Inn.

I was definitely still feeling ill, still sneezing at odd moments, which was annoying me and everyone around me, and I was definitely feeling hostile toward Rowan Masters, although it did cheer me up some that he, too, would be wearing somebody else's jacket. I didn't care that he hadn't been driving the Cybertruck when it came after me, I was going to blame him anyway. He'd brought it to town. Plus, it had occurred to me that there had to be some sort of a kill switch in the thing, although it had happened pretty fast, and he'd said it was a borrow.

But for now, I wasn't going to be thinking about him or anybody else in Rocky Start. I was going to make sure Rose was all right with me leaving once the serial killer stuff was done. I knew she'd say she was fine with it because Rose didn't ask for anything, but talking to her in a nice place that didn't have memories of being shot at or harassed, just the two of us, maybe we could just rationally discuss what was happening to us, what she wanted, what I could do besides the self-defense stuff before I left.

That sounded mature and thoughtful.

And maybe I could trip Masters as he walked by the table, ogling Rose.

When we got to the restaurant, it felt like we were walking onto the set of a spy movie. It was dimly lit, lots of black silk and ivory lanterns with Far East paintings on the walls above black lacquered tables. There was more black lacquer on the bar that I glimpsed through a vaguely Chinese-inspired archway off the main dining area. It was hazy in there and there were ashtrays, which meant whatever law had been passed prohibiting smoking didn't apply there. At least there was a powerful exhaust fan in the ceiling in the bar area, sucking all that smoke out so the dining area was smoke-free. It made sense that federal and state regulations had no place in Rocky Start. A little smoke was the least of our problems.

I wasn't surprised to see Barry Mason, Oz's lawyer, anchoring the end of the bar given that his office and bed were upstairs and he was a man who liked his booze. No chance of a DUI on the way home, although a good possibility of a broken neck falling down the stairs. Given he was talking out of shop about Rose possibly having millions, I considered the fall on my wish list. A cigarette dangled from the side of his mouth. He was talking to Geoffrey Nice, who wasn't smoking and had what appeared to be a glass of water in front of him. Behind the bar was a tall, angular man with a bald head covered with dark splotches, smoking a pipe. Pike had filled me in on the owner and proprietor of the Wok Inn since they were contemporaries. Hugh Fulton was biracial, half English, half Chinese, born in Hong Kong many decades ago during World War II. He'd grown up in the turbulent Cold War colonial days of that city and joined the police force. From there he'd been recruited by MI6, the British equivalent of our CIA.

He perked up when he spotted me helping Rose with her coat, put the pipe down, and came out of the bar area to greet us while Barry and Geoffrey gawked at Rose and her red dress, which I now realized had fringe on the bottom so it wasn't nearly as long as I'd thought it was. I'd been distracted by the low neckline, but now I could see Rose flashing a lot of leg when she walked.

Rose has great legs.

"Rose!" Hugh said to her, not looking at her legs. "It's been ages. And you must be Max. I've heard a lot about you."

I never like when people say that because it could as easily mean hearing bad things as good and, in my case, bad was more likely. But Rose seemed genuinely happy to see him. I was getting better at seeing through her Cheery Boost for authenticity, and I think she actually liked Hugh.

Barry, on the other hand, had now swiveled around to leer at her. I was already irritated with Barry because he'd told people too much about Rose's possible money and whispered rumors about treasure, but I was pretty much irritated with everyone right now except Rose. And Poppy. I was glad I'd left Maggs and Marley in the shop with Poppy, both poised to rip the throat out of anyone who came near our girl.

Barry motioned for Rose to come over, and I was tempted to go into the bar and put some hurt on him, but we hadn't eaten yet and I had a feeling that wouldn't be proper date etiquette, although I hadn't been on a date since prom. Where I'd put the hurt on the star quarterback for ogling my date. That had not turned out well—expulsion and then joining the army—so lesson learned.

Who says people can't change?

Plus, Rose ignored Barry to smile at me.

I waited a moment as Hugh led Rose to a table next to a large fish tank, but Barry turned back to the bar, so I followed her, half expecting to see a couple of miniature sharks inside the tank, perhaps with a kraken, given it was Rocky Start. Instead, there were a number of very colorful fish swimming around underwater plants. It was actually quite pretty and almost soothing.

Hugh indicated my seat, which faced the door, which might've been coincidence, but I didn't think so.

"Will Poppy be joining you?" he asked Rose.

She shook her head. "Not this evening."

"Ah," he said, looking from her to me and then back. "Very good."

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

"And now, what's your pleasure for this evening?" Hugh asked in a sort of British accent, inflected by a life in the Far East, where he most likely spoke more Cantonese than English.

I picked up a menu, but Rose just started with "Crab rangoon. A lot of crab rangoon."

"That kind of day, is it?" Hugh said, sympathy in his voice.

"It's a four-crab day," Rose said

Hugh looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "What did you do?"

I shook my head. "Nothing."

Hugh shook his head, too. "Four crab rangoons? There's something."

"And cashew chicken," Rose added. "And potstickers. One order. Don't be stingy with the dipping sauce, please."

Hugh nodded and looked at me. "And for you, sir?"

He sounded like he was asking me what I wanted for my last meal. "Same thing," I said. "Minus the crab rangoon. Possibly an eggroll."

Hugh nodded. "Certainly."

He picked up the menus and left, and I looked at Rose. "Four crabs? What's that mean?"

"I like crab rangoon," Rose said. When she saw I hadn't bought into that lame excuse, she explained. "A few years ago when Poppy wanted to put the shop online, Ozzie got furious with her. Angrier than I'd ever seen. He yelled at her, which was a first. And a last. Anyway, to make it up to her and me, he took us here for dinner. Ozzie was notoriously cheap and he'd always limit what we ordered to one of anything. But I was still upset with him for yelling at Poppy, even though he'd apologized, so Poppy and I each ordered four crab rangoons. Ozzie's face turned red, but he didn't say anything. Ever since, whenever Poppy and I come in, Hugh asks her what we're having and she tells him how many crabs the day has been. One is a normal day, two has been annoying, three has been hard but we'll be okay, and four is Very Bad. It's been a joke between them ever since."

"You and Poppy belong here, in this town," I said, thinking back to how Coral welcomed them like family, about the kids that made up Poppy's pack, about Lian and Rose finally telling each other everything.

Of course, I was trying to ignore that Rose had just ordered four crab rangoons and what that implied.

"Well, I do now," Rose said. "I'm happy here now."

"That's good," I said. "See, you really don't need me."

Rose straightened, and I saw the flash in her eyes and braced myself for Five Rangoon Rose.

"Do not try that on me again," she said.

"Right," I said. "So, I guess what I want to know is, what do you see as your future?"

"Self-defense training," she said.

"Uh," I began.

"Not anything with guns or knives. I want to be able to defend myself, not kill." She looked at me, almost pleading. "That was bad with Harvey today. I couldn't get away, he was grabbing me too hard. What you and I did today was good, I'm more confident now, but I want to know more, especially more about how to get away."

"Yes," I said. "We can work on that. But what I meant was, what do you want from life? What do I have to do to leave you in a good place?"

She glared at me. "How the hell should I know? I mean, how much more money are we going to find? Because my future depends a lot on that. My immediate future is much healthier, thank you for finding another fifty thousand, but it's not enough to make me independent forever. I just need?—"

I really wanted to know what she needed, but Lian and Rowan came through the curtained opening from the lobby and I frowned, distracted.

Rose turned to see what I was looking at.

Lian was wearing a black leather dress, slit up the side and showing more leg than Rose, which was good. Lian could distract Rowan from my date.

"I've never seen Lian in a dress," I said. "Always a suit."

"And now you have," Rose said, turning back to me.

Then I got a good look at Rowan. "Crap."

Rowan was also dressed sharply in a well-cut suit, which was annoying since I'd been feeling pretty good about Oz's jacket until I saw him. "You don't bring a cannon to a skeet shoot" I wanted to tell him. Plus, where the hell had he gotten that if all his clothes had been in that spaceship? I'd expected a Cousin Vinny secondhand-store type of outfit. He was the kind of guy who could fall in shit and come out smelling like, well, not roses, too close to home, but not like shit.

I frowned at her. "Should you be in favor of him seeing her? She knows he's digging for dirt, right?"

"She does," Rose said. "But she's no dummy and she's entitled to do her own thing. Look who I'm sitting with."

I didn't take the bait on that.

"Besides," Rose said, "we've already let the cat out of the bag about the serial killer thing."

I wasn't thrilled with that, but the last thing I wanted to talk about was Rowan, so I let it go. Hugh led them to a table on the other side of the room. Lian gave Rose a small wave and a thumbs up, and Rose returned the wave. I glared at Rowan, but it was a waste of facial energy as he ignored me.

"So you were telling me what you needed. I think the self-defense lessons are a fine idea, but?—"

Rose shook her head. "Why are you jealous of Rowan? If you're leaving, you shouldn't care who I see once you're gone, and you know I wouldn't cheat on you while?—"

She stopped because the restaurant had fallen silent behind her, and she turned to see why.

A stunningly beautiful blonde had walked in, her lush body encased in tight, bright blue lace, with a neckline so low it made Lian and Rose look like they were wearing turtlenecks. One good sneeze and we'd see nipples. Her large, dark, heavily lashed eyes surveyed the room, knowing that she was the center of attention and loving it, practically purring back at us. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen, and also the most terrifying. And I've seen some really terrifying women.

"That's Louise," Rose whispered to me in the silence, and I saw that Lionel Ferrell was behind the blonde, at the moment looking at her ass. "And Lionel. He must have forgiven her for Peru."

"There's no blood in his brain right now," I told her. "He's only capable of one thought."

"He pretty much always has only one thought," Rose said.

Hugh showed Lionel and Louise to a table off to the side, out of the sightline of anybody who entered. Hugh was a smart man.

He stopped by our table after seating them. "The crab rangoon will be right out," he said jovially and then dropped his voice. "Are you armed?" he said to me.

"Yes," I said, not sure where he was going with that.

"It's shaping up to be an interesting evening," Hugh said. "Pike informed me that you have generously agreed to shoulder what were once Oz's duties. I might require your assistance to maintain a fa?ade of civility."

"Yeah," I said. "About that. I'm here to be with Rose, although if Harvey Ware shows up—oh, hell."

Dottie Ferrell had just walked in, dressed all in black: stockings, short leather skirt, short leather jacket. She didn't look hot, she looked sharp, like the blades I'm sure she was carrying underneath that jacket. She headed straight into the bar. A woman with focus. I was just grateful she hadn't scoped out the restaurant and spotted Lionel and Louise.

The restaurant was very quiet.

Hugh followed Dottie into the bar.

"Now what?" I asked Rose.

"Suspense." Rose picked up her napkin and put it on her lap. "Making bets on who's going to take who out. Big money will be on Dottie; the question is who she goes for, Lionel or Louise."

"They really think?—"

"They think Dottie's had enough of Lionel. And Lionel has to be an idiot to bring Louise here. And Louise must have a plan, something she wants from Lionel that is probably not the thing he wants to give her. And Rowan will be taking notes, assuming he lives through the evening."

I frowned. "So Dottie's going to gut Lionel in the Wok Inn? Isn't that, like, against the rules?"

Rose shrugged. "Maybe. As Hugh said, Ozzie was the one who enforced the rules. And you're the new Ozzie, so you tell me."

"Maybe Dottie just came in for a drink."

"Not likely," Rose said.

There were loud voices coming from the bar area now. Dottie and Barry, her divorce lawyer, with Hugh quietly trying to placate them.

"You know, I really wanted to talk to you tonight," I said, annoyed.

Rose nodded. "I figured you were up to something. Asking me out in public when we could be home in bed? Not like you."

I frowned at her. "We do other things."

"Like what?" she said and smiled at me Cheerfully.

"We could do other things," I said, trying to retrieve my dignity.

"Like what?" she said, and then Pike and Coral came in, smiling at each other like they'd just gotten out of bed. Which they probably had. I wanted to say, "See, Coral's not complaining about sex," but I was just smart enough not to.

They came over because evidently nobody understood that I was on a date .

"Hello, lovelies," Coral said, evidently giddy with satisfaction.

"The famous Louise is over in the corner with Lionel Ferrell," I told Pike.

"That's all we need," Pike said. "If Dottie finds out?—"

"Dottie's in the bar with Barry," I said. "And that journalist, Rowan Masters, is right over there, with Lian."

"Is Harvey in here?" Coral asked.

"No," I said.

"Good," she said. "Blood at dinner is upsetting."

Pike looked at me. "What are you going to do about all this, Marshal?"

"Have dinner with my girlfriend," I said, and Rose looked surprised, probably because I'd volunteered the "girlfriend."

Pike looked exasperated but didn't say anything.

"You're staying?" Coral said, delighted.

"For a while," I said. "Until we get this serial killer stopped. Then I finish the Trail."

"If it's only for a while, she's not your girlfriend." Coral was scowling now, moving aside as a young waiter brought our tray of appetizers. "Ah, a four-crab night, of course," she said, looking the tray over, and Rose said, "Thank you, Owen, that looks amazing," and the waiter ducked his head and grinned, and I recognized him as one of Poppy's posse, the one who was dating Reggie. This was the most people whose names I knew since I'd memorized a list of high-value targets during one particularly tough op. Even worse, I knew relationships that weren't terrorist networks. Rocky Start was warping me.

"Are you armed?" Pike asked me.

How many people go to a restaurant and get asked that? Twice?

"I am not going to shoot Dottie for you," I said. "I'm on a date . I'm trying to make time here."

Pike looked at the four orders of crab rangoon on the tray. "Yeah, good luck with that," he said and guided Coral away as Hugh beckoned them to another table.

"So," I said to Rose. "I was thinking?—"

Bea Handler came through the archway and came straight to our table.

"Thought you'd be here with Har vey," she said to Rose, clearly braless and just as clearly drunk.

"I am here with Max," Rose said patiently. "I hate Harvey. I don't understand why you don't hate Harvey. The mustache is awful and the flamingos are not flattering, and he attacked me in the woods today and grabbed my breast and ripped my apron, so no, I hate Harvey."

My face must have changed because Rose pointed at me and said, "No," before she went back to a shocked Bea.

She went on. "I would not touch that creep with a ten-foot barge pole. I am very happy with Max, who, you will notice, has no mustache and is wearing all black so he can fade into the shadows. He is also very good in bed, which Harvey was not based on one mistake I made long ago when I was young and dumb. Trust me, Bea, I do not want Harvey. Harvey is all yours, although I'd think twice about that if I were you. Harvey is a disgusting, moronic attempted rapist. And he might not be long for this world if Max has his way. Or Pike. Or Coral."

Bea blinked at us. "You're damn right." She looked sober for a moment. "Maybe that's why he didn't come home today. Probably left town."

"If he knows what's good for him, he did," I said.

Bea nodded a little unsteadily and went into the bar.

"One mistake?" I said to Rose, appalled.

"Now let's talk about who you've slept with," Rose said.

"So about your future," I said, and voices rose again from the bar, Bea with Dottie chiming in, and I realized that while there might be murder tonight, there was one upside.

I wouldn't have to do any investigating; we'd have a ringside seat when the deed went down.