Hot Rocks

aching was now shaking. She sat, stared at her hands while she listened to liquid hitting stoneware. “I think I might be in love with you, too. It’s probably an awkward time to mention that.”
    “I like hearing it.” He set the mug in front of her, then sat. “Whatever the time.”
    “I’m not playing you, Max. I need you to know that.”
    “Baby, I bet you’re good at it. Considering. But you’re not that good.”
    The cocky tone was just what was needed to dry up threatening tears. She looked at him then with a definite flash of amused arrogance. “Oh yeah, I am. I could swindle you out of your life savings, your heart, your pride, and make you believe it was your idea to hand them over with a bow on top. But since it looks like the only thing I’m interested in is your heart, I’d rather it really be your idea. Jack could never play it straight with my mother. He loved her. Still does, for that matter. But he could never play it straight, even with her. So they didn’t make it. If you and I go into this, I want the odds in our favor.”
    “Then let’s start by figuring out how to handle your father.”
    She nodded and picked up the coffee he’d brought her. She would be steady, and she would be straight. “He sent Willy here to give me a share of the take. For safekeeping, from what I can gather. You should know that if that had gone through, I’d have taken the stones, then passed them back to him. I’d have given him considerable grief about it, but I’d’ve done it.”
    “Blood’s thick,” Max acknowledged.
    “From what I can gather, he got worried because Willy didn’t call him—and his, Willy’s, cell phone’s been off. So he changed the plan, came here to pick up the dog.”
    “What dog?”
    “See, it was a pooch, not a pouch. Or, the pouch is in the pooch. God, it sounds like a bad comedy routine. But I didn’t get the pooch with the pouch, so my father figures the cops scooped it up with Willy’s effects. And he believes Crew—he verified Crew, by the way—tracked Willy here, just like you did, and that’s what spooked Willy and had him running into the street.”
    “There’s not enough coffee in the world,” Max murmured. “Go back to the dog.”
    “Oh, it’s not an actual dog. It’s a figurine of a dog. It’s one of Jack’s old gambits. Hide the take in something ordinary so it can be passed—and passed over by whoever’s looking to get it back—until the heat’s off. Once he hid a cache of rare coins inside my teddy bear. We strolled right out of the apartment building, chatted with the doorman and walked away with a hundred and twenty-five large inside Paddington.”
    “He took you on a job?”
    His very real shock had her lowering her gaze to her coffee mug. “I didn’t have what you’d call a standard childhood.”
    Max closed his eyes. “Where’s he going, Laine?”
    “I don’t know.” She reached out, covered his hand with hers until their eyes met. “I swear I don’t know. He told me not to worry, that he’d take care of everything.”
    “Vince Burger has Willy’s effects?”
    “Don’t tell him, Max, please don’t. He’ll have no choice but to arrest Jack if he shows up. I can’t have any part in that. You and I, we don’t have a chance if I have a part in that.”
    Thinking, he drummed his fingers on the table. “I searched Willy’s motel room. Didn’t see any dog figure.” He brought the room back into his head, tried to see it section by section. “Don’t remember anything like that, but it’s possible I passed over it, thinking it was just part of the room’s decor. ‘Decor’ being used in the loosest possible sense.”
    “That’s why it works.”
    “All right. Can you talk Vince into letting you see Willy’s effects?”
    “Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I can.”
    “Let’s start there. Then we’ll go to Plan B.”
    “What’s Plan B?”
    “Whatever comes next.”
     
     
     
    It was a little distressing how easy it all came back. Maybe it was easier, Laine thought, since she didn’t have to talk to Vince. But she was, essentially, still deceiving a friend and lying to a cop.
    She knew Sergeant McCoy casually, and when she realized she’d be dealing with him, quickly lined up all the facts she knew about him in her head. Married, Gap native, two children. She was nearly sure it was two, and that they were both grown. She thought there was a grandchild in the picture.
    She added to those with