“As you should be.” Her uncle approved. “Ladies, I think we know why we’re here tonight. And it’s to discuss what Raine’s been up to. Jane, I know you’re worried about her.”
“So worried.” Jane nodded and made a face at her cousin when her uncle turned away to study Raine.
“I’m fine.”
“You would be if you’d come work with me,” Uncle Chris said, singing the same old song while Raine did the same old dance, rejecting the notion.
“Oh please. We’d be at each other’s throats.”
“At each other’s throats,” Jane agreed.
Uncle Chris frowned at her before turning back to Raine, but not before Raine gave her the finger. She hid it fast enough that their uncle didn’t catch it.
Jane smothered laughter and dug into the bread basket, famished. She sipped her wine, wondering if Matthew would like it.Text me back already.She didn’t like being so worried.
Jane regularly dealt with offenders through her investigations. In the past year, she’d handled them more in person than usual. While she took most things in stride, Kaminski seemed to be on another level of offender than she was used to, and that included the two serial killers she’d recently dealt with.
“…makes no difference to me, but you’re clearly out of your depth,” Uncle Chris continued, haranguing Raine.
“At least I’m not getting shot at every day,” Raine snapped.
The server paused by their table, his eyes wide, and set their dinners in front of them. “Anything else I can get you?” His gaze wandered warily over their uncle, imagining the dangerous man as more than the affable customer smiling through his teeth.
“No, we’re good,” Jane said.
The server darted away.
“Quit scaring the waiter or we’ll never get more water,” Jane warned them both.
They ignored her though they did lower their voices, bickering quietly about the dangers domestically versus those overseas. National security versus crime on the home front. Agency superiority, which they could at least all agree belonged to the United States Marine Corps, though none of them considered the military an agency, exactly.
“What about Jane?” Raine interrupted his next tirade.
Lost in her filet, Jane looked up. She took a moment to finish swallowing. “What about me?”
Crap. Now her uncle focused on her. Raine smirked and dug into her dinner.
“We need to talk, Jane.”
She sighed.
“Lionel’s worried, which makes me worry. You’ve stepped into a mess with your current case.”
“That’s no secret.” She studied him. “What does Lionel know he’s not telling me? Because that man keeps a bevy of confidences buried under other confidences.”
“Bevy. Nice. Still working that word-of-the-day calendar, eh?” Raine asked between mouthfuls of baked sweet potato.
“Say it, don’t spray it,” Jane said.
“Yes, Mom.”
Chris shook his head. “I’m sorry. Am I talking to my grown nieces or five-year-olds?”
“You treat me like a kid, so who knows?” Raine muttered.
Instead of turning back to her, Chris scowled at Jane.
“What did I do to get that look? I’m the good one, remember?” Jane didn’t know how the dinner had gone from her uncle picking at Raine to him coming down on her.
