Cloister didn’t look up from checking Bourneville over as he chuckled.She was leaning against his shoulder, idly chewing on a knotted T-shirt rope, while he crouched to check between her pads.
“Get the Fancy Reuben,” he said.“It’s the most bang for your buck.”
Boyd wrinkled her nose.“I’m vegan.”
This time Cloister looked up.“Does Gardner know?”he asked as he lowered Bon’s paw.
“Yeah.”
“They don’t have any vegan options at Bertinelli’s,” he said.
For a moment, Boyd looked genuinely aghast at the discovery, mouth slack and eyes wide.
“Bastard,” she said with an annoyed scrunch of her face; then she gave an alarmed look at Cloister as she remembered herself.“I mean, how funny.”
The flat delivery made Cloister laugh softly as he ran his hand up Bon’s leg, fur rough as it went against the grain.When that check didn’t turn up any hidden injuries or tenderness, he gave Bon’s shoulder a “you’re good” slap and braced his hand on the warm concrete to push himself up.
The eye-watering jab of pain that stabbed from his wrist up to his armpit as the just-healed joint took his weight took him off guard.His elbow wobbled under him, and he bit back a “fuck,” but he managed to scramble on up to his feet.
He exhaled, slow and controlled, as he rubbed his wrist.Bourneville moved away from him and shook her head violently, whipping her toy back and forth so it slapped the sides of her face.Slobber splattered over the sidewalk, and Boyd took a fastidious step back, bumping into the car.
“Get the Fancy Reuben anyhow,” Cloister said.“Give it to Mel.”
Boyd started to say something as she wiped the toes of her boots on the backs of her legs, stopped, and looked thoughtful.
“Huh.Good idea,” she acknowledged.Then she glanced over the front lawn of the house they’d just left, where Gardner was trying to placate the residents.It didn’t seem to be working too well.
The taller of the two householders, an older man with cropped blond hair, waved his arm back at the building behind them.
“We have a security system,” he said indignantly.“How the hell did he even get into our house?Forget that, why haven’t you dealt with thisany of the othertimes we called?”
Next to him, his partner grimaced and put a hand on his arm.Whatever he said was low enough that it didn’t carry, but Gardner gave a nod of approval.
“That’s probably the way to think about it, sir,” he said.
The older man shrugged his partner’s arm off.“Don’t pay any attention to Miles.That’sbullshit.He’s spent the last month jumping at shadows over everything going on in the neighborhood.We deserve to feel safe in our beds!The beds we wereliterallyjust in when your deputies kicked our doors in.”
That seemed to be far enough for Miles.The auburn-haired man glanced around self-consciously at the flicked-on lights in their neighbor’s houses and grabbed his partner’s arm again.This time, whatever he said worked, and he dragged the other, still muttering, man with him into the house.
“We pay your wages,” the man tossed back over his shoulder in one last volley.“Literally.Do you know who I am?You have a mortgage?I could pull it likethat.”
He snapped his fingers, and then the door slammed behind him.A second later, the prowler smacked his fist against the door of the patrol car, hard enough to make Boyd jump at the noise.They both looked at him, but he just slouched down more and rubbed his hand.
Boyd stepped away from the car and twisted her mouth.She crossed her arms.“You think they’d be grateful.We stopped a home invasion in progress.”
Cloister traded a look with Bourneville over the heavy lifting that the “we” in that sentence was doing.Or he would have done, if she hadn’t been occupied with tearing his old T-shirt to shreds.He shouldn’t have expected anything else.Working with Javi on the last few cases had just spoiled him—a human partner caught on much quicker when he wanted to be snide.
“Like the man said, the public pays your wages,” Cloister told Boyd as Gardner headed back their way.She almost rolled her eyes, but just about stopped herself.Cloister let the abortive exasperation pass unremarked on.“If you expect anything else, you’re in the wrong line of work.And it’ll show.”
She didn’t look receptive to the lesson.It didn’t matter.She’d either learn or flame out.That was up to her.
Gardner joined them.
“How well does that asshole think we get paid?”he asked sourly as he tucked his notebook into his belt.“A fucking mortgage in this town?I’d be lucky.Or crooked.”
“I own my home,” Cloister said mildly.
Boyd looked impressed for all of a second before Gardner snorted.
