Sullivan had known, somehow, what was going through Tobias’s head. That narrow, bony face had shifted from fury to surprise to awareness with electrifying speed. Tobias had felt exposed and uncertain and quivering, like a bit of kindling might feel seeing the match approach, and Sullivan had been inches away from doing...something, God, Tobias wasn’t sure what, but he wanted to know. He wanted to push, wanted Sullivan to push back, wanted it to burn.
Tobias had liked it.
He was hard.
“Jesus,” he whispered, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He should be focused on finding Ghost, on making sure he gave Sullivan enough information to get the job done, but not so much that he didn’t need Tobias’s help anymore. He needed to be on his toes, not distracted by whatever twisted sexual tension had managed to spring up between them.
His phone buzzed, and he sighed, the irritation bubbling up even before he looked at the screen. Manman again. He’d been avoiding her calls, and it was probably unfair, but he wasn’t sure he had it in him to talk about anything without yelling yet. He let it go to voicemail, deleted it without listening to it, and sent a text: I’m safe, but I don’t want to talk. Unless it’s an emergency, I’d appreciate some space.
After a couple of minutes, she replied: All right. We love you. Let us know if you need anything, and be safe.
He stared at the words for a second before putting his phone away.
Sullivan came back when he said he would, his knock crisp and loud. Tobias let him in and returned to the bed. The brown hair at Sullivan’s temples had darkened with sweat and he had a laptop bag slung over one shoulder. Some of the wild energy he’d been trying to curtail earlier had faded, although his tone remained hard when he said, “There are rules to this.”
“If I agree, perhaps.”
“No. If you don’t agree to these, you could get someone hurt—maybe yourself, maybe me—and I’d rather take my chances getting fired or going to the cops. These are my nonnegotiables. If you don’t like them, you can fuck off.”
The inflexibility in his voice tipped into aggression by that last bit, but when Tobias lifted an eyebrow, Sullivan took a deep breath and reined it back in. “All right?”
“No promises,” Tobias said slowly. “But let’s hear them.”
Sullivan dumped the laptop bag on the desk, then turned to lean against it, folding his arms. “Rule number one. If you lie to me, even once, we’re done. I don’t care if we’re talking about whether you like pickles on your hamburgers.”
That made sense enough, so Tobias nodded. “No problem.”
“Rule number two. You will not display initiative of any kind. Sometimes things like this end up going to court, and that means everything has to be done a certain way. Having a random citizen sticking his fingers into the case would make my testimony questionable. I’m not having someone get away with a crime on my watch because you decided to take a peek at something that wasn’t your business.”
“And if I have a good idea?”
“Tell me. You can help plan strategy and you can be present for some things if we agree upon it in advance, but you’re not going to be interviewing witnesses or sneaking into people’s offices to find murder weapons, so get that sort of thing out of your head now. Don’t take it upon yourself to investigate something if I haven’t given you permission because you might end up shooting me in the foot without meaning to.”
“Okay.”
“Rule number three,” Sullivan said. “You do what I say when I say it.”
“But—”
“No buts. My word is law when we’re in the thick of things. I’m not always going to have the time or the inclination to explain why something should be done to my specifications, but between the law and standard practices and safety, sometimes things simply have to be done inefficiently. We can argue until the cows come home when we’re talking like we are now, but I have the final say. Even if you don’t like it, you need to obey.”
Tobias’s jaw tightened even as his belly went unnervingly warm and liquid at that word: obey. What on earth was wrong with him? “Fine.”
“Fine.” Sullivan pulled a laptop out of the bag and booted it. Once he’d found what he wanted, he spun the laptop around so Tobias could see the screen. “Read this. Type your initials below the fee chart. Note that while I won’t unnecessarily reveal information about you, my client, I make no such promises about the facts of the case, particularly if addressed by law enforcement officers. I reserve the right to use my own discretion in these instances. Type your name at the bottom—it’ll count as an electronic signature.”
Tobias read through the metric ton of legalese, signed, and wrote out a retainer check.
Sullivan put it in his pocket. “Now tell me who’s in the pictures I took at Ghost’s place yesterday.”
“Not yet.”
Sullivan rounded on him with such visible antagonism that a thread of unease crept up Tobias’s spine, and it took considerable effort to hide it. “I want to know about your missing person first. I don’t know what information to give you until I know how it might go together.”
Very quietly, Sullivan said, “If you’re fucking with me, you’re not going to like what happens.”
Tobias’s unease grew stronger. “I’m not. I’m just covering my bases.”
There was a beat of silence before some of the hostility began to fade from Sullivan’s expression. “Okay. Bare bones...back in 1992, an idiot who wanted to be a crime lord got himself and some of his thugs killed in a turf-war thing. He also managed to get his hapless housekeeper killed at the same time. The housekeeper’s ten-year-old daughter, Nathalie, went missing. My client is a family member and he’s been
