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Lucas wandered to the kitchen an hour later for a second cup of coffee when he was greeted with a sight he had been dreading.
“Damn.” Hollis Banner walked right by Lucas, past the dining room table, to one of the walls of windows. “I always wondered how Odin saw the world from so high up in his tree.”
“Who let him in?” Lucas lifted an eyebrow at Andrei, who was standing near the island in the kitchen.
“I brought him up with me,” Sarah announced as she clicked into the room on her high heels. Heels that still didn’t bring her up to the detective’s shoulders. “I’ve met him before. He’s a real detective even if he seems like an amalgam of every bad boy cop movie actor you’ve ever seen.”
“Hey now. My feelings could get hurt.” Banner turned back to the window and waved as he leaned closer. “Hello, peons!”
“Don’t grease up the glass with your face! It’ll make Lucas grumpy.” Sarah scowled at the cop, then walked to Lucas. She didn’t stop until he was forced to look down into her eyes. She tilted her head up, her sharp black suit impeccably spotless, her even sharper gaze going over his face. “You look better.” She nodded. “Good.”
“So glad I have your approval.” He gave her a smile to take out some of the sting in his voice. That damned cop rubbed him the wrong way. He looked at him just as the man sneezed and fumbled for a tissue out of a pack he’d had in his pocket.
“Sorry,” Banner said, his voice considerably more nasally.
“You weren’t sick when we saw you yesterday.” Lucas tilted his head, took in the rumpled clothes. “And you’re wearing the same clothes. Rough night?”
“Yeah, but I wanted to see if you remembered anything before I headed home and collapsed.”
The cop did look beat—like to the bones beat. Lucas would bet that only sheer determination and bull-headed stubbornness held him up. Lucas motioned for them to sit on the sofa while he settled in the one chair. He started to cross his ankle over his knee, but his bruised thigh complained with the first movement. “Three men grabbed me outside the Laundry Room, and no, it wasn’t a random mugging.” Lucas caught the slight lift of Sarah’s eyebrows, questioning the wisdom of his words. He hadn’t discussed anything with her yet about what had happened. She was willing and able to swoop in if he said the wrong thing, but that was only after the words were out of his mouth.
“The Laundry Room has a particular reputation…” Hollis drawled, pinning Lucas with his piercing gaze.
“It’s a gay bar,” Lucas said. There was no beating around the bush or hedging on this. He had nothing to hide. “As my companions likely told you already, I was there with Dr. Frost and Rowan Ward. And before you stumble forward with any more inane questions, no this wasn’t a hate crime either.”
“Seen them around before?”
“I didn’t get the impression that was their kind of place.”
“What can you tell me about them?” Banner stuffed his tissue in his pocket.
“Not much.” Lucas lifted a hand and started to run it through his hair but stopped suddenly with a wince of pain. He had five stitches on the back of his head from where it had busted open on the concrete. “It was dark. After two in the morning. They were careful to keep their faces covered. Hoods, remember? Two of them were big, muscular. The third was only about five seven or so, but he was fast, strong and fought with a shitload of anger. Liked to kick.” Lucas touched the slacks on his bruised leg. “We could probably get his shoe size off the bruise on my thigh. He also had a thick southern accent, like he was straight out of the tobacco fields.”
“You heard his voice then. What did he say?”
Lucas frowned, fighting to get the words out. The idea of pulling the cops into his business rankled him to no end, but he’d just told Rowe the night before that they were sticking to the goddamned straight and narrow on this and that meant cluing in the cops. “He told me I should have stayed out of Price Hill. That I might not get the chance to sell it now.”
Banner jerked upright, his mouth hanging open for a second. “Wait. They were telling you to get out of Price Hill? What the hell is that about?”
“No idea. The property I recently purchased there has been vacant a long time so I’m not sure what their interest is in it.”
“And you didn’t think this was a little strange?”
Lucas forced himself to sit back, resting his hands on the arms of the chair rather than clenching them into fists. “Less strange the second time around. It was the same thing someone else said to me two weeks ago as I was leaving Rialto.”
