Touching Silver (4 page)

“Don’t get the bacon.” Isaac slid onto the bench opposite Olivia and nodded at Kenny behind the counter—their unspoken code for his usual. “They always overcook it.”

Olivia looked up from her menu as the waitress, Betty, approached. “Can I get the breakfast special with extra bacon and over-easy eggs, please?”

“Would you like more coffee?”

“Keep it coming.” She passed the menu to Betty and finally acknowledged him. “Good morning, Detective.”

He gave her a broad smile. He’d spent the night reading up on her. An exemplary service record. Numerous commendations. Sterling reports from superiors. He could do a lot worse than teaming up with Olivia Wright. Especially if she looked this hot at five-thirty in the morning.

“Let’s try something new here. I’ll be Isaac, and you’ll be Olivia, and we’ll leave the ‘detective’ to anybody who’s not us.”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “This isn’t a date, Detective. Please try to keep that in mind.”

“There’s always the option I be Olivia and you be Isaac. But your legs are better than mine. Nobody in a million years is going to believe I’m you.”

“That’s true, but it’s not because of the legs. I’m punctual, professional and considerate. Three things that you are not.”

His eyes narrowed. Nobody called him unprofessional and got away with it. “I have an exemplary record.”

“I never said you didn’t. You’re still inconsiderate, unprofessional and…” She looked pointedly at her watch. “Late.”

“I’m never late to breakfast. Ask anybody.”

“You are according to my watch.”

“Your watch is fast.” He turned his wrist so Olivia could see the face of his watch. “I’m never late for breakfast.”

The corners of her mouth lifted in a small but easy smile. It even reached her eyes. “Fair enough. I guess I shouldn’t give you a hard time. It looks like you’ve been burning the midnight oil.” She sipped her coffee. “I can show you a few tricks to cover those bags under your eyes, though. A little ice and foundation should do the trick.”

“So would sleep.” He settled in, stretching his arm across the back of the seat. The new light that shone in her eyes made it very hard to look away, so he didn’t bother trying. “But I’ll bet sleeping won’t be a high priority for either of us until we get Gabriel for Stacy’s kidnapping.”

“It’s rarely a high priority for me. How do you think I learned my ice and foundation trick?” She was still smiling, and he expected her to follow up her rhetorical question with a complaint. Most sane people did when they were low on sleep and high on stress. “Do you keep a change of clothes at the station too?”

“Two,” he admitted. “But I forced myself to run home for a quick shower before meeting you. I still smelled like smoke from the arson last night.” He smiled up at Betty when she set his coffee in front of him and promptly reached for the sugar. “Things will be tough enough without ruining my appetite too.”

Olivia tilted her head. “Why are you being called out on arsons?”

“Because you’re not the only one who recognizes my brilliance. The dead body they found at the fire last night was one of Gabriel’s. Ali Cristó Garcia-Jimenez. A new kid on the block comparatively, which is probably why he was green enough to get caught in his own fire.”

“I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise,” she said. The
Fight Club
reference made him grin, but she looked solemn as she toyed with an unopened pack of sugar. Her nails were short and well-kept, her fingers strong. They were the kind of hands that could fight with the best of them, but still know how to play when the dust cleared. “I’ve heard some rumblings that Gabriel has been more active since the summer. Noticeably so.”

“You’ve been doing your homework.”

“Just part of my investigation.”

Betty returned with their breakfasts, giving him breathing room to figure out how to proceed here. Olivia wasn’t messing around. If she recognized the upswing in Gabriel’s activities, asking questions was the next logical step. And he’d already spent every other minute since leaving her at the hospital wondering how he was going to deal with the issue of the coin. No idea how he could work his way around that one without sounding like he lived in a rubber room.

Her gaze fixed on him. “What about you? Did you finish all your homework before breakfast?”

There it was. Logical step number one.

It was part of his job to be observant and read people as they talked to him. He’d figure out last night that when she got direct, her eyes grew clearer. What he’d been too distracted to notice then, however, was how striking they became, the blue more vivid, her obvious intelligence more unrestrained. Her inquiries might leave him a little uncomfortable, but he’d encourage those kinds of questions all day.

Smart women had always been his kryptonite.

“As much as you did before showing up at the station last night. The important thing is, we’re on the same page now, right…Olivia?”

“I hope so, Isaac. I’m assuming if I hadn’t passed muster, you would have stood me up this morning.”

“Nah. I don’t stand up beautiful women. Especially those who carry a gun.”

Olivia lifted the coffee to her lips, as if trying to hide her smile. “Shamelessly flirting with women who carry a gun might be hazardous to your health.”

“Maybe.” He dug into his Spanish omelette. “But it’s a hell of a way to go.”

Silence settled over the table as they both focused on their breakfasts. She dug into her food like a real person—another point in her favor. But the over-cooked bacon…
Nobody’s perfect
.

“What about your friends?” She reached for the pepper. “Ms. Capra seemed upset last night.”

He shrugged. “Remy’s a Roman candle, always waiting to be set off. I’m sure she’s fine this morning.” He had to bite his tongue to keep from adding,
Nathan’s probably fucked her all better by now.

Olivia didn’t seem convinced. “Normally when women run off like that, it means they’re pretty upset. What about Mr. Pierce? Will he be willing to speak to Stacy again? He didn’t seem happy about the situation either.”

“Yeah, he’ll talk to her. He’s got as much of a stake in seeing Gabriel go down as either of us do.”

“That’s good. I considered speaking to her myself, but she seems receptive to him.” She chewed on her bottom lip thoughtfully before adding, “He told her about his neck wound. Is that why he retired?”

Though a swift swell of acid rose in his stomach at the mention of Nathan’s injury, Isaac tamped it down with an extra large bite of sausage as he nodded and then swallowed. “About five years ago, we were trying to take down a gang that was bringing weapons into LA, and it turned out Nathan’s girlfriend was setting us up. He quit the force and didn’t even date anyone until he met Remy last summer. So if they seem a little…invested in each other, that’s why. They pretty much saved each other’s lives.”

Olivia chewed her last piece of bacon. “So you were awarded the medal of valor for taking out your partner’s girlfriend?”

“That’s one way of putting it. I prefer to think of it as taking out the bitch who betrayed my best friend and broke his heart.”

She shook her head. “I think they left the part about you being a romantic out of your record.”

“Oh, it’s in there. Except when you’re on the job, they call it being ‘dedicated’ instead.” He speared more of his eggs. “Which, oddly enough, is the same code they use for ‘difficult to work with’. Go figure.”

“Oh yes, I love the code. For the record, every time you see ‘dedicated’ in my official reviews, they just mean difficult. I frustrated a lot of plans when I made my transfer request.”

Isaac shot her a sly grin. “A woman after my own heart. Reading between the lines paid off for me this time.”

“Oh, really? And what else have you seen between the lines?”

He paused. That was flirting. She was
flirting
with him. He hadn’t expected that. Hell, he hadn’t really expected her to agree to a first-name basis, let alone sit and have a decent conversation with him, especially when she deliberately ordered the one item on the menu he’d warned her against. But the reaction wasn’t unwanted. Far from it. She was beautiful, he was available, and he was most definitely not a stupid man.

He leaned closer, his comeback ready. Before he could speak, his phone began to ring.

With a sigh, Isaac sat back and pulled it out of his pocket. He frowned when he saw the display. Nathan wasn’t a morning person.

“What the hell are you doing up at this hour?” he said in lieu of a greeting.

“Packing. And good morning to you too.”

“Considering how many times I’ve had to pound on your door to get your ass out of bed, I don’t think it’s a wholly unjustified question.” He paused, frowning. “Did you say you’re packing? Did Remy finally come to her senses and decide she can do better than you?”

“No, not yet. I give her another six months, tops. In the meantime, we’re going to South America.”

He blinked. “Since when is Remy your Sundance?”

“Don’t be jealous, Isaac. You know you’ll always be Sundance to my Butch. Besides, they went to Bolivia. We’re taking a trip to Argentina.”

“The day you’re Butch…” Olivia’s brows shot up the second before he realized what that sounded like. Clearing his throat, he shifted in the booth, leaning against the wall with his leg cocked up on the seat. “You better be yanking my chain here. Because there is no way you’re abandoning me on this kidnapping case.”

“I’m not abandoning you.” The humor disappeared from Nathan’s voice. “Detective Wright thinks those girls are dead. They’re not. He’s got to be sending them somewhere with the Silver Maiden.”

“How is that even possible? I thought it didn’t work that way.”

“We don’t really know how it’s supposed to work. Which is another reason to find out as much as we possibly can. So we’re going right to the source.”

“The source is fucking here in LA. Big shootout. Remy’s poker face. Ringing any bells?”

“Oddly enough, I haven’t forgotten the time I nearly died and you used my girl as
bait
to save me. But we need to know more about the coin itself. Look, I’ve spent the last six months doing whatever research I could, but there’s just no info here in LA. Might be something in Argentina, though.”

“Might be? You’re leaving me alone here for a
might be
?” He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Pulling his wallet from his pocket, he tossed a twenty onto the table and slid out of the booth. “Don’t go anywhere. I’m on my way over.”

“We’re leaving in about thirty minutes for the airport.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.” Snapping his phone shut, he shot an apologetic glance down at Olivia. “Sorry, I gotta cut this short. Can I meet you at the station in, say, two hours?”

She bolted to her feet, the food forgotten as she darted around to block his path for the door. “Is Pierce leaving? Where is he going?”

“Nowhere, if I can help it.” When he tried to sidestep around her, she matched his movement. He sighed. “Fine. He’s got tickets for Argentina that he’s going to use over my dead body.”

“
Argentina
? No, no, no, he’s not going to Argentina. He needs to help me talk to Stacy. I’m going with you.”

For a second, he considered arguing with her. She didn’t know about the Silver Maiden’s powers, and it was quite possible she’d learn something that would have her running to his captain demanding Isaac get a psych eval.

On the other hand, she had a gun. And if it came down to it, he wasn’t so sure she wouldn’t be able to take Remy in a fight.

He had a brief fantasy of bikinis-clad Olivia and Remy wrestling it out in a pit of orange Jell-O before giving her a sharp nod. “Let’s go. And I’m driving.”

Dawn had yet to crack over the horizon, but already the city was coming to life, roads growing thick with commuters. Olivia sat next to him, silent and resolute. Every time he turned a corner, he caught a glance of her delicate profile, distracting him almost as much as the light musk of her perfume. It even blocked out the smell of the smoke from last night’s arson, which he would have considered an impossible feat. But he was starting to think the word impossible didn’t exist in Olivia’s vocabulary. Tenacity like hers was admirable, especially in such a tempting package. The possibility of pursuing the flirtation once he stopped Nathan from leaving him high and dry was increasingly tempting the longer he considered it.

So was Olivia.

As he pulled into Nathan’s parking lot, Remy stood at the rear of the Mustang, wedging a duffel around a large suitcase in the open trunk. Isaac gritted his teeth as he squealed to a stop. “Thirty minutes, my ass.”

Remy barely looked up at him when he slammed his door and marched toward her. “You’re not sandbagging us. You know we need to do this.”

“I know neither one of you has probably slept,” he shot back without breaking pace. “Everything sounds like a fucking fantastic idea when you’re punch drunk.”

Olivia didn’t even pause to talk to Remy, she just followed Isaac as he headed for the stairs to Nathan’s apartment. Good. Two level heads against Nathan’s usually leveler one. Isaac liked his odds more and more.

Isaac didn’t know why Nathan didn’t find a new place. The apartment had served its purpose when Nathan took his five year vacation to drink and hide from the world—and it was better than Nathan trashing Isaac’s place—but Nathan had returned to the land of the living and still called this hovel home. It had been promoted from
shithole
when it started reflecting Remy’s influence. Mostly because she accepted Isaac’s expert advice in redecorating.

The old couch had been replaced by something large and plush—something that wasn’t a throwback to the best-forgotten seventies. Nathan also had a new computer and a sturdy mahogany desk scavenged from an estate sale. Besides the couch, desk and a full teetering bookshelf, the living room was empty of anything else except Nathan zipping up a bulging backpack.

“I thought traffic would probably hold you up.” Nathan looked over Isaac’s shoulder to Olivia. “I didn’t realize you were going to bring a guest to this meeting.”