(Blood and Bone, #2) Sin and Swoon(58)

He wraps a hand around my mouth. “Shhhhhh.”

When we get to the counter, poor Mark is sweating. I’ve clearly asked him to do the hardest thing since inventing the telephone. His eyes dart at Dash, no doubt assuming he’s a mark or a spy or a Fed too, but not sure which. But then Dash speaks: “I would like to buy the tables at a discounted price because of the odd number.” The salesguy rounds the corner and slaps down the tags and gets Dash to start filling out the forms for delivery.

Mark continues whatever he’s doing for me as the guy and Dash finish the sale.

Everyone’s face drops, including mine, when he says England. The cost of the tables isn’t even half the cost of the shipping, but Dash doesn’t bat an eyelash at spending that much. I’m ready to stab Dash, but I don’t, mostly because I need Mark to focus on the paperwork and not on the spurts of Dash’s blood getting on the store’s merchandise.

The pretty salesgirl continues eyeballing Dash and then stink-eyeballing me. I ignore it. I’m actually excited to leave so Mark can tell them what was going on. I can imagine just the way he’ll do it, flailing his arms and exaggerating the whole thing. He seems the type—enthusiastic.

Mark slips me a bag of thumb drives and paperwork as Dash completes the paperwork for the shipping. Mark winks on the sly, only not on the sly. I offer an awkward wave and walk out. “Why are you shipping that to England?”

Dash shrugs. “We don’t have Barrel & Barn in England; it’ll be a novelty there. Besides, it suits a lodge we have in the north for hunting. The wood is similar to the mounting my great-grandfather had done in Africa. I’m almost curious if that was rubberwood he used. So I’m sending it home, and we shall see.”

I don’t know what to say, beyond maybe make a face. Mounting things from Africa certainly means animals, often rare animals. The sort that are endangered.

He offers up a look like he’s annoyed with me. “Not that any of that nonsense matters. From the look of things back there I have to assume he hit on you. Did he?”

“What?”

“He winked, I saw him.”

I roll my eyes. “Yeah, guys are hitting on me in front of you, ’cause they know they stand a chance at getting me out from under your fat thumb.”

He grins. “You like my fat thumbs.”

I walk faster to escape his version of a dirty joke as he chuckles to himself like an old pervert. I don’t know how to respond to dirty jokes about stuff we have actually done.





17. Frequent flyer miles




I don’t understand why in the gods ya had to go all the way back to Seattle to do that. Isn’t Dash getting a wee bit suspicious about the file that doesn’t seem to be ending? Does he suspect you’re avoiding the new job?” Angie asks, gazing over the pages I have brought back to DC. Meeting her at the office for nighttime chow and research hasn’t ever happened before. We meet for random things, usually involving my health and welfare. Or things not work-related at all.

“No, he thinks this is routine. You and he are never part of the debriefing afterward, so I have been able to buy a bit of time with that. And whenever anyone from the team flies, we use one of the Fed jets, so it’s no hassle. Or helicopters for short distances. It isn’t like going through the airport.”

She cocks an eyebrow. “Right, but you and Rory have never had a file unsolved before.”

“I know. It’s driving me insane. I don’t know what to do. The Feds are on it, the locals are on it, everyone is on it, and it’s going nowhere fast.” I sigh, feeling a sickness wash over me every time I think of it. “We are searching high and low for connections to possible avenues we haven’t searched yet.” I lean on the desk and sip my tea.

She has an orange highlighter, and I have a yellow one. She marks down the bed purchases, since Mark was only able to print out the days where one sold, with all the other sales included. After spending three hours searching the Internet for the exact bed and then flying all the way to Seattle, this is nothing.

I highlight the customers who left an address to run in the system. I’m assuming we won’t find Mr. X in the system, but weirder things have happened, directly to Angie and me.

“So, on a scale of one to ten, how bad was Thanksgiving?”

I scoff. “Forty.”

She laughs. “They were that evil to ya?”

“Hands down, Dash’s family are the most evil people I have ever met. I mean aside from this job and criminals, but then again I never spent enough time with them to know what they were truly capable of.”

She stops laughing. “You’d know right away if you were sitting next to evil, true evil! You’re very good at judging people. I’m shite. One drink and I love everyone.”