Almost as big as my own.
I walk over to Ryan. He’s standing with his arms crossed over his chest, watching me with narrowed blue eyes.
“What’s going on?” I jerk my chin in O’Doul’s direction. He’s huddled with Chan in a corner of the room, gesticulating and shaking his head, obviously annoyed.
“You tell me. Why do you look like your face was on fire and someone tried to put it out with a hammer?”
I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “Here’s the part where I tell you to mind your own business, brother.”
Ryan bristles. “I told that broad in no uncertain terms that if she fucks with you—”
I clap my hand on his shoulder and look him in the eye. “Number one, don’t call her a broad. It’s disrespectful. Number two, dial it down a few thousand notches. I don’t like you threatening her.” My voice softens. “Number three, I appreciate your concern, but this is one battle I’ve gotta face on my own.”
His look sours. “Yeah, well, it looks to me like you’re walkin’ into this battle with a slingshot while the other side has a mile-wide fuckin’ lineup of tanks pointed at your head.”
I slowly nod. “Sounds about right.”
“Listen, brother—”
“I’m a big boy, Ryan,” I say, my voice nearly a growl in my throat. “Leave it alone.”
He cocks his head, folds his tattooed arms across his chest, and thoughtfully strokes his goatee like he does whenever he’s trying to suss something out. After a second, he says, “Huh. Never thought I’d see the day.”
I drop my hand from his shoulder. “Don’t even want to know what that means. And don’t tell me either!” I snap when he opens his mouth to say more.
He shrugs. “Suit yourself, ‘big boy.’” Then he smirks at me. “Just make sure I get an invitation to the wedding.”
“Gimme a fuckin’ break, will you?” I say, scowling.
Ryan has the balls to laugh.
Then O’Doul calls Tabby’s name. Unsmiling, she appears in the doorway of the adjacent office, looking like she’d rather be anyplace else than here. She leans against the door frame and looks him up and down with her lip curled and her nose wrinkled, a hand on her hip.
Ryan says under his breath, “At least you’re not the only one on her shit list.”
I mutter, “Shut up.”
O’Doul’s tone is brusque. “The location file was corrupted. Whatever data your program extracted was useless in determining S?ren’s whereabouts. On that front, we’re back at square one.” A loaded pause follows. “So about that phone number you have.”
Tabby says innocently, “Oh, so you need my help with your case again?”
I can already tell where this is going, but O’Doul doesn’t know her as well as I do, so he just nods as if he’s not about to get his balls handed to him on a platter.
“Obviously we’ll take every technical precaution so the call can’t be traced from his end. On ours, you only need to keep him on the line for—”
“And what do I get out of it?”
After beat of silence, a flush of color crawls up O’Doul’s neck. “You get to stay out of prison.”
With perfect indifference, Tabby yawns and then inspects her manicure.
Ryan hides his chuckle by coughing into his fist. For my part, I don’t think this is funny at all, but she’s made it crystal clear how much help she wants from me, so I clench my teeth and keep my mouth shut.
O’Doul steps slowly forward. A flush rises from his neck to his face. Against the starched white of his shirt collar, his skin is the color of a boiled beet. He says, “There’s this fun thing called ‘obstruction of justice.’ I’m sure you’ve heard of it?”
Tabby tosses her hair over her shoulder and looks at him down her nose. “There are also these other fun things called ‘coercion,’ ‘undue influence,’ ‘duress,’ ‘illegal compulsion,’ ‘oppressive exaction,’ ‘extortion’—”
“What do you want?” he interrupts, exasperated.
“I want,” she replies with the air of a duchess, “my computer, all my equipment, and a written statement from you that whatever happens from this point forward, I’ll be immune from prosecution for any and all assistance I may give on this case.” She bats her lashes. “Since I obviously can’t trust you to keep your word.”
I hope O’Doul doesn’t have any undiagnosed heart problems, because he looks as if he’s about to have some kind of major cardiac event.
“That’s blackmail,” he says, seething.
“No, that’s negotiating. Blackmail is when you threaten to send someone to jail unless they do what you want.” She gives him a bland smile. “I forgot to mention that one in my ‘fun things’ list.”
While everyone else in the room watches this interaction as if it’s the best reality TV episode ever, Tabby and O’Doul stare at each other like pistoleros in a Mexican standoff.