Page 12 of Making His Bones

Gray dabbed my head with the small part of Kleenex that wasn’t drenched in blood. “I thought I told you not to investigate any of that shit yourself. You’re only a lab tech. You’re not used to field work.”

I pulled away from him. “I have a master’s degree in forensic science!”

“Okay, okay,” said Gray, soothing me. He steered me down a short hallway with a bathroom off it. Under the fluorescent lights, I looked like a witch from an underworld. Blood had apparently dripped onto the shoulder of my polo shirt. Gray got some sturdier paper towels, folded them, and poured water onto them. “I want to see how bad this injury is. What’d he hit you with?”

Did he know that when he stood behind me, the glans of his penis brushed my butt? The heat was incredible. He faced me toward the mirror, and when he reached into the sink, he nearly folded me in his silken manly embrace. I had an ever-increasing urge to stand on tiptoes, stretch my arms up, and weave my fingers together behind his neck. He’d be a captive. He’d have no choice but to reach around me, spreading his fingers as he encircled my ribcage with his touch, and—

Ow. That fucking hurt. “Oh God. I didn’t realize it was so deep. He only smashed me once.”

“With what?”

“A sort of baton. Hey, Galileo said you might’ve hit on the same operation in Seeker.”

“Did we? I was in the next room.”

I pouted. “Being sexy.”

He chuckled. “For the betterment of mankind. Jesus, this is deep, but I don’t think there’s anything to be done about it. It’s stopped bleeding. Do you have any bobby pins? Maybe we can hold your hair back out of the way, you’ve got a lot of hair here, lady—“

“Of course. In my purse.”

I held my hair in a ponytail when I went back into the front room where I’d left my purse. Galileo and Knoxie were bending over Tobiah’s screen, and Galileo was pointing to some sickening image Tobiah had paused.

Galileo said, “I know that kid. Tiago. He used to come into my dog grooming salon asking if I had odd jobs. He’s from Nogales. Well, he’s probably from farther south, but he keeps popping over the border at Nogales. Because he’s alone and underage, they just keep sending him back, they don’t detain him. I think he smuggles heroin.”

I asked, “Do you know anything about him? His real name? Where he’s really from?”

Galileo stood tall, about six foot six, and looked at me. He must be half-Yazzie. His last name is Taliwood, his eyes are blue, and his skin is pale. “No. I kept telling him I already had an assistant but I always ran into him in the bathroom. You know how it is. Men and their cycles.”

I asked Gray, “Did you ever see this bullshit in LA? I mean, you said you were a teen model.”

“That’s why we chose him,” Knoxie said evenly. Then he must’ve realized what he said, because he clapped Gray on his bare shoulder. “Oh, sorry, buddy. Didn’t mean to speak for you.”

Gray laid his hand over Knoxie’s. “That’s okay, buddy. No, I was a teen model, and yeah, this sort of thing happened to me all the time. So I know how these creeps operate. This particular operation, SpyDie, is selling their kit to pervs and then hacking their credit card info, so it’ll be a double win for us to take them down.”

“Preach!” cried Tobiah, like a nerd trying to be cool.

Gray ran his fingers through his spiky hair and exhaled deeply. “I just realized, if I’m going to face my fears, I’m going to make this planet a tiny bit less dangerous for some kids.”

Galileo said, “It’s good to do that. I was afraid of burglars until one was in my room. Then I realized he was going to kill me.”

He seemed to fade away then with glassy eyes, so I prompted, “Did he have a weapon? What made you think he was going to kill you?”

Galileo said, “Because he kept murmuring that.”

“Oh, Jeez,” we all whispered.

Knoxie said with authority, “And that’s why we picked Galileo.”

Z