He looked across the room to the chest against the wall where the framed picture of Hettie was. A picture that hadn’t moved for four years, except for when he moved house and when his cleaning service dusted it.

Fuck.

He put that thought aside, tossed the phone back to the table, nabbed his drink, threw it back, heaved himself out of the couch and went to bed.

* * * * *

Like he had a sixth sense (and in his business, he had to), Turner called him the next morning five minutes after Nick’s workout.

“You make contact yet?”

Nick looked from his orange juice out the sunny window.

Cold. Warm. February. July. In Denver, the day dawned, odds were it’d be sunny.

“You wanna tell me why you’re asking?” he requested.

“One of her boys got dead last night.”

Nick’s back straightened but his eyes dropped to the stainless steel countertop.

“What?”

“Eli Cook, street name Green. Not sure why. Cops say the crime scene, that bein’ his apartment, looked like he was packin’ to leave town. Not sure why about that either. Don’t got a lot of insight into the Shade family dealings anymore, but no word on the street sayin’ there was an issue. He had a gunshot wound to his thigh that was not mortal, but was fresh, though not as fresh as the ones that were mortal and no one knows jack about that either.”

Even though Nick knew all about Green, including who shot him considering he had surveillance all over the Shade warehouse, he had nothing to say so he didn’t say anything.

“This is not good, Nick,” Turner went on. “The House of Shade has been a house of cards for years now. A cold wind blows, it’ll blow away and everything stacked inside will go with it. And I gotta tell you, with them taking desperate measures years ago to diversify dealings, that going so far south it dropped off the face of the earth, and them constantly scrambling with not much coming of it, now Eli Cook biting it for no apparent reason, I feel a seriously fuckin’ bitter wind kickin’ up.”

“Fucked her last night,” Nick shared.

There was a pause, then, “Say again?”

“Set it up I was with her last night at the club for the initial meet. Apparently, she liked the scene that was playin’ out and wasn’t feeling the idea of delayed gratification. She made it clear she was good to go; I took her up on the invitation. We fucked. She gave me her number after so we’re gonna do it again. But before that, it was reported to me she called in at just after six to book her viewing. She was there by ten thirty. She left at just after eleven thirty. Tail on her said her driver took her right home and that’s where she stayed. When was her boy done?”