Chapter 13

I’d noticed it in the Seven Galbi parking lot in the morning: brown Crown Vic, a lumpy cow of a car, no lights and no stickers, but there was no hiding that cop shape and sheen. I glanced through the window. No one inside. Nothing on the passenger seat. Could’ve simply been parked there—the lot was almost always empty in the morning—while the owner interviewed suspects or looted a doughnut shop. No need to jump the gun. Not every cop in this city is looking for you, Jo. Get it together. If it was still there at lunchtime, I would start to worry.

“Is there a Crown Vic parked outside?” I asked Jackal as soon as he dragged himself into the office. Not quite lunchtime, but still plenty to worry about. I leaned in his doorway and watched him ignore me from behind his computer screen, giving me the chance to stare at him. I can’t say it wasn’t an effective ploy on his part—he was so handsome. Damn him. I glanced around his office, looking for the contraband photos. I’d warned him that, even if I wasn’t going to say anything, he needed to get rid of them: couldn’t afford any chances for Lou to notice them. We both knew where her loyalties lay. I wasn’t sure if he’d taken my advice, or if he even intended to.

Jackal didn’t look up. “Don’t know. Didn’t check.”

“Some private eye you’d be,” I said, “with all those keen observational powers.”

He made a big show of tearing himself away from whatever he was working on and stared at me. Those dark green eyes fringed by lashes a mile long. Money eyes. “You look tired,” he said finally. “You didn’t call me last night.”

“There’s that silver tongue that charms all the ladies.”

“It doesn’t have to charm when it’s skilled at other things,” he said, a small smile quirking one side of his mouth.

He’d honed some talents in the workplace, for sure. “Have you ever thought of retiring? From the Lady’s line of work. How would you go about it?”

“Are you trying to make an honest man out of me?”

I smirked, laughing despite myself. “Never. I just wondered if you’d heard Lou talking about that before. Retirement.”

“Tired of the game?” Jackal squinted at me. “Or tired of the whole outfit? We could make a great team, you know. You could get back in touch with the marks, then I’d lay it on them . . .”

I shook my head. I wasn’t touching his side business with a ten-foot pole. “Has anyone done it before?” Watching him. Maybe he didn’t know what the Lady had done to his ex, either.

Jackal shrugged, looking bored. “Dunno.”