Dragonfury 02 - Fury of Ice

lunchtime. Left work early, complaining of a headache, to take another swim at the Y, pushing herself so hard she could barely lift her arms by the end. But oh, no. Nothing worked. MacCord stuck like gum to the bottom of a shoe. And no amount of mental shuffling scraped him off.
    Leaning forward, Tania rested her forehead against the steering wheel. The urge to thump herself—just crank her head back and take her anxiety out on her frontal lobe—warred with self-preservation for a second. But giving herself a goose egg wouldn’t help. She’d just end up looking like a bad version of Frankenstein when she saw MacCord. ’Cause…yup. She was going in there. To hammer him over the head with the fact she’d been doing his job. Had dug up some new information about her missing best friend. The case MacCord was supposed to be working on solving. Flipping jerk. He was supposed to be keeping her in the loop, not the other way around.
    With a sigh, she pushed away from her perch, took the keys from the ignition, and reached for her handbag. The Coach purse came when called, settling in her lap while she dug inside for her iPhone.
    “Please, please, please,” she murmured as she scrolled through her missed calls.
    Nothing from Angela Keen, partner extraordinaire to the jerk. Crap. She’d left…what? Seven messages? Yet Detective Keen hadn’t called her back. Which seemed strange since Tania got the feeling the cop never missed a beat. And especially since she’d laid out the new lead in the voice mail.
    Myst was alive. Still MIA, but alive .
    Tania knew because she’d discovered the damp towels. Okay. So that just sounded crazy, but someone had used her best friend’s shower. Left shampoo bottles in disarray. Makeup strewn all over the bathroom countertop. Ransacked Myst’s dresser drawer—the one where she kept her hospital scrubs—and left a pile of terry cloth behind. Proof positive. Myst had been in her loft sometime in the last twenty-four hours.
    She knew it like she was sitting in her Mini, her handbag clutched in her lap. Why her friend hadn’t called she didn’t know. Maybe the kidnappers had a tight leash on her.
    Tania shook her head. She didn’t want to think about it or any more awful scenarios. It was now or never. Time to oust the detectives from their roost.
    Popping the latch, she swung the door wide, careful not to hit the truck parked beside her, and stepped out onto cracked pavement. The click of her three-inch heels disappeared beneath the high whine of a buzz saw, getting swallowed up by men’s shouts as firefighters cut through steel. Tania watched the sparks fly, arcing into the air as she crossed the lot. Slipping between cars, she bypassed the downed telephone pole and headed straight for the front doors: shoulders back, head held high, acting as though she belonged. The last thing she needed was for someone to stop her, turn her away…tell her to come back when the SPD was done cleaning up the mess.
    Not gonna happen. Not today. Myst needed her.
    Her pace even, she reached the front entrance. Cold metal settled in her hand, chilling her palm as Tania swung the door wide and stepped inside the lobby. The smell of sulfur and floor cleaner made her nose twitch. Ignoring the toxic mix, she nodded to the janitor, skirting his mop and the yellow Caution! Wet Floors sign, and hightailed toward the front desk.
    A bleached-out blonde already occupied the real estate, updo teased within an inch of its life. The closer Tania got, the more details jumped out at her. Yikes. The woman looked like a racing stripe. Red lacquered lips tipped up, she leaned against the high countertop and flirted with the cop on desk duty. Black skirt painted on tight. A severely cut leather jacket over a frilly, barely-there top that left nothing to the imagination. And the shoes? A pair of leopard print Louboutins. Hmm…very nice footwear. And about the only classy thing about Ms. Man-Eater.
    “Look, Ms. Newton, I’d love to—”
    “Clarissa,” the woman murmured as she leaned in to straighten the officer’s tie, giving him what amounted to a free peep show. “We’re on a first name basis now, aren’t we, Clark?”
    And jackpot.
    Clark’s eyes dipped, diving straight into Ms. Man-Eater’s cleavage. He swallowed. Tania’s lips twitched. Sexual manipulation at its best. The woman knew what she was doing.
    Fiddling with his tie pin, Clarissa glanced at him from beneath her lashes, acting demure.