Anger was still thrumming through my veins as I headed out of the room. Flexing my hands, I wandered aimlessly for a few minutes and finally made my way to one of the windows that opened onto the second-floor platform of the fire escape.
The metal slats were still warm from the afternoon sun. Stretching my legs out across them, I stared up at the sky that was coming alive with stars and pulled a joint from my pocket. I knew better than to ever smoke in the house, but no one could complain about me mellowing out when I needed to out here.
My periodic vigils out here had gained me a little friend too. As if on cue, claws clicked across one of the windowsills lower down. With a little mew, the stray tabby cat who’d been keeping me company for the past few months leapt up onto the fire escape. She brushed her furry body against my arm, already purring.
“All right, all right,” I muttered, but I was smiling at the same time. She was a greedy little thing. After her first couple of visits, I’d started buying packets of cat treats and keeping them on me. I fished my current one out of my other pocket and opened it while attempting not to wave the joint in her face. Then I sprinkled a bunch of the treats on the interlaced slats of the floor. “There you go. Happy?”
The escalation in purrs sounded like a resounding yes. I took another drag on the joint, letting the soothing high sweep over me, and scratched her striped back.
A creaking sound above me brought my head jerking up. When I saw a figure poised on the platform above me, my whole body tensed.
“It’s just me.” Mercy was staring down at me, her blue eyes darkened by the growing dusk. Through the mellow of the joint, it took me a second to figure out why she looked so cautious. Oh, right, last time I’d talked to her I’d been ready to rip her head off.
Maybe I should still be ready for that. I peered up at her. “What are you doing sneaking around up there?”
“I wanted to take another look at the crime scene. Not that it’s helped much.” She paused. “Got a soft spot for strays, do you?”
“She’s lonely. And hungry.” I glared through the bars at her, trying to summon more of my previous wariness. “And I guess I have a bit of a problem being suckered in by kittens in need, yeah.”
Somehow the comment came out sounding flirtier than I’d meant it to. Mercy’s lips twitched to somewhere close to a smile. She hesitated again and then moved to the ladder, easing down it until she reached the platform beside me. She stayed there, leaning against the railing a few feet away from me. At the cluck of her tongue, the cat went scampering over to her.
As she stroked the cat’s back, I frowned. “She’s usually skittish. I have no idea how she’s okay with you doing that when she just met you.”
Mercy arched her eyebrows. “How long have you been coming out here to make friends?”
“I didn’t come out here specifically to— It’s just a habit.” I waved the joint. “She happened to come by.” It’d taken me weeks to convince her to let me pet her even briefly. Probably Mercy was getting the advantage of all my past work gaining the cat’s trust.
“Habit, you say.” Mercy gave me a shrewd look, and I realized what that sounded like. I looked above and could still see the mangled structure through which Titus had fallen.
“I wasn’t here when he died,” I said tightly.
She shrugged and pet the cat some more, scratching below its neck. The animal seemed to like it, because she leaned into Mercy’s fingers and pushed herself even closer. I made a mental note of that.
“What a good kitty,” Mercy said to her in a coo that did something funny to my insides, and then looked up at me. “I wouldn’t still be checking evidence if I thought the case was closed.”
Easy for her to say. She could have been out here searching for clues that would point to me. I straightened up. “Or maybe it’s an excuse not to go to the groupies’ room. Afraid of what you might find there?”
We held each other’s gaze for a few moments. “I’m not afraid of anybody,” she said.
“Maybe you should be.”
“Of you?”
“Aren’t you? Most people are, for good reason.” I bared my teeth in a sharp grin.
“But you’re a softie under that hard body of yours, aren’t you?” she said, definitely teasing now. “Taking in stray cats as your new besties. I bet you’ve even named her.”
Shit. My expression probably gave away that she was right. She laughed—light and almost relaxed in a way I didn’t think I’d ever heard before, but I immediately wanted to hear it again.
“Her name’s Mittens,” I admitted.
“Mittens?”
I scowled. “Is there something wrong with that? She’s got those black marks over her front feet like, you know…”
“Mittens,” Mercy filled in with a crooked smile. “No, it sounds like the perfect name.”
The silence between us felt companionable in a way that niggled at me. I couldn’t let her get under my skin all over again.