49
“What do you mean,you lost the doll?” Ash asked.
In the distance, Liv sat at a picnic table, earbud in place, while she FaceTimed with someone. Zeke kept his attention fixed on her as he and Ash made a circuit around the park’s asphalt trail.
After a hard and fast round on her bed, where they screamed their release in unison, Zeke had pulled Liv into the shower for a slow and thorough lovemaking.
Once they fed their sated bodies, he finished cleaning up the mess in Brodie’s room, while Liv made a few phone calls. She checked in on Claudia Rogers, tried Ivy again, scheduled tradesmen to fix Brodie’s window and walls, and sent Pierce to relieve Callie so her sister could go on a shopping expedition.
Returning Brodie’s room to what it was before the break-in would be impossible, but Liv was determined to get it close.
Sometimes it was good to be a trust fund baby. Money made shit happen fast.
“Are you thinking?” Ash asked after a protracted silence. “Or avoiding?”
“If I was avoiding, I would’ve called instead of standing beside you and enduring your scowl of disappointment.”
Liv lifted her eyes from her phone to look their way. Even from here, he could see the worry on her features. She’d wanted to help him explain to his brother how they failed him, but Zeke had refused. This was his shitshow to set right.
But he wasn’t about to let her out of his sight, so this was their compromise.
“Nicola St. Martin offered to show us her private museum. Which was our primary purpose for attending the event.”
“Yeah, I got it. You needed to confirm the artifact’s location and know how to get in and out of there for when you swiped the doll later.”
“Recovered.”
“If that verb helps you sleep at night, great.”
Zeke stopped. “The FBI, your agency, hired BARS for a recovery. Are you telling me the CI isn’t the doll’s owner?”
Ash’s jaw clenched. “What does it matter? You lost it.”
“I didn’t fucking lose anything. Someone stole it while I was doing my job.” His attention drifted back to Liv.
“When did you start doing recon work?”
Since getting a bead on a priceless fucking heirloom with mystical leadership voodoo.
“I had a personal interest in seeing the St. Martins’ museum.”
Ash studied him for a long moment. “What are you not telling me?”
Zeke resumed walking. This was a mistake. He should have called Ash, told him the case went south, apologized for fucking up his career, then gone on a twelve-hour bender.
Ash caught his arm. “Slow down.”
He shrugged him off, keeping his eye on his destination.
Liv.
“Zeke,” Ash planted himself in his path, an arm stretched out between them. “Talk to me. What happened at the St. Martins’ party?”
“I just told you.”
“Tell me the part you don’t want to tell me.”
He’d already looked the fool enough today. Telling his big brother that he thought having their family sword at the Friary, where he could see it, touch it, absorb its mystical, nonexistent power, was a humiliation he would not endure.