Calliope paled and moved past him calling for Coco. She was met with a whiny growl from behind the living room couch.
“That’s where she goes when she’s done something bad—chewed my shoes or something.”
“Wait here.” Tox moved into the living room, Calliope a step behind. “Why do I bother?”
“I wonder that myself,” she added absently.
They both looked down to where Coco was gnawing away on a large rawhide bone, slowly inching away from them in an effort to keep her prize.
“I take it that’s not from you.”
“No.”
“Grab her leash. We’re taking Coco with us.”
Caleb Cain stood on the deck of the ferry from the DUMBO section of Brooklyn to Manhattan. He peeled off the beard and dropped it into the river. The tattered cardigan would go in the trash. He scrolled through Calliope Garland’s phone—luckily she had removed the password protection—and found nothing. He had lifted it from her armband as he moved around her. She had probably used a different phone while working at Gentrify Capital. Moreover, the late Phipps Van Gent had only come into possession of the item he sought a few days ago; it was improbable Calliope knew anything about it.
He removed the prosthetic nose and it followed the phone into the current. For a brief second, it looked like a small raft being circled by the fin of a shark. Then the phone sank beneath the surface and the nose floated off.
Caleb had returned to Gentrify and searched Van Gent’s office and private quarters more thoroughly. Other than the cap of the tube he had found the first time, there was no sign of the package or its contents. He had also had an associate in the NYPD get him a copy of the logged contents of the office; the tube was not listed.
Calliope Garland was the last person, other than the killer, to see Phipps Van Gent alive. The killer obviously had planned his attack long before Phipps had acquired the item in question. Caleb found it impossible that the man would grab what appeared to be a worthless tube in the midst of a violent murder. What did Sherlock Holmes say? Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.
Caleb considered the men who had ambushed Calliope. He would know who they were soon enough. A brief flash of guilt passed through him for not helping her, but he wasn’t here to play White Knight. He was here to do a job. Plus, he had a feeling Calliope Garland could take care of herself. So he had taken the opportunity to slip into Calliope’s home; there were so many ways in and out—front door, back door, back staircase to the apartment below, fire escape, roof access—he wasn’t worried about getting caught. He knew about her dog and had come prepared with a tasty treat. He had checked out the dining room, spotted a flash drive and some printed documents.
The files were still open on her laptop when he woke it. No wonder she looked so jittery leaving Gentrify that night. This is probably what those dumb-fuck apes chasing her around the neighborhood were looking for.
It was not, however, what he was looking for.
Caleb had kept to his task. He had checked her trash and recycling—she looked like an environmentally conscious sort—and found nothing. He looked in each room, most of which were empty so the task was brief. The tube was not in plain sight which meant one of two things: she thought it was worthless and somehow managed to discard it between the Gentrify offices and her home, or she saw what it contained, realized its value, and was hiding it. Caleb rested his elbows on the rail of the ferry and stared at the roiling water of the East River. Only one way to find out. Ask her. Most people didn’t realize how simple the fine art of information gathering could be.
Then there was the man at Calliope’s side. His jaw clenched and his nails bit into his palms. It had been years, but there was no mistaking the determined face of Miller Buchanan. He had been told by someone he trusted implicitly that Miller Buchanan was dead. There were very few people in his life whose word he took at face value; the breach of trust was as powerful a blow as seeing the man himself. He had accepted the declaration, abandoned his manhunt. And now…he had yet another complication in an already convoluted situation because he couldn’t continue on as he was with Miller Buchanan walking the earth.
Caleb found himself in a rare quandary. He loved complicated. He loved perplexing. He even loved confounding. What he didn’t love was messy. And he knew it like he knew every one of his seventeen aliases; things were about to get messy.
Back up on street level, Calliope removed Coco’s little orange vest and shoved it into her bag.
“That dog is not a service animal,” Tox said.
“She’s a therapy dog, you big narc. I’m not putting her in a pet carrier for a ten-minute subway ride.”
“Rules are rules.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
“Master Chief.” He winked.
God that was a sexy rank. Calliope watched him turn and head down Canal Street. Hawkers selling knockoffs jammed the sidewalks, yet everyone seemed to clear a path for the six and a half feet of muscular grace that preceded her. She was so caught up in admiring his sculpted prowl, she hadn’t realized she was blocking the entrance to the subway. She tugged on Coco’s leash and hurried to catch up. They walked east to Avenue B then cut up to Ninth Street. Calliope noted the strides Alphabet City was making toward gentrification: the community garden, a jazz club, a block of row houses surrounded by a construction fence. Tox’s block looked a little less promising.
Tox pulled Calliope under his arm as they moved past a group of young men huddled on the corner.
Calliope was indignant. “I have Coco.”
Tox snorted. “What’s she gonna do? Lick those guys to death?”
“Do not insult my dog.”
When they were about halfway down the block a shout came from the far corner. “Tox, you steppin’ out on me?”