Roz Fox - She Walks the Line

Maybe the situation would’ve gone differently if the friends had been more experienced in their individual fields. Instead, after working the required street patrol, they’d barely been settled into their new jobs—Mei in Corporate Crime Investigation, Risa in Sex Crimes, Lucy in Missing Persons. Crista was in Homicide, but with a different unit. Abby had worked part-time with the crisis intervention team.

At the first catastrophes their friendship had collapsed. Mei hadn’t known what to do—hadn’t known what to say—to comfort Risa. She recalled a phone conversation that had ended badly. Even after IA cleared Risa, one thing led to another and it was as if their earlier friendship ceased to exist. Some blamed it on falling in love. Grady Wilson had backed Risa, and their relationship had deepened. Jackson Davis had come into Lucy’s life at the very point when everything was so confused. Mei felt both men were exactly what her friends needed.

Mei hadn’t been as willing to admit that Alex Del Rio was good for Crista. Of course, she’d always felt more like a sister than friend to Crista. Abby, who’d already been in and out of love, suggested Mei might be jealous of Crista’s happiness. Mei Lu had given it serious thought, but honestly believed jealousy wasn’t part of her reaction. Truly, Mei had never met such a dark and brooding man as Alex. She’d been concerned for Crista. Alex was…intense. And he’d been married before, but his wife died of a brain aneurism a couple of years ago.

Looking back, Mei had no idea why his having been married was a sticking point. After all, they were of an age where many of their contemporaries were divorced and some had children. She was probably the oddball.

But boy, talk about intense. Thomas Riley, the former Delta Force officer Abby Carlton had fallen for, could be another poster boy for intensity. Still, as Catherine once said, every one of the men was sinfully good-looking. “Hot” was how she’d put it.

As Mei parked in front of her duplex just after six, she actually paused to wonder if Catherine would attach that label to Cullen Archer. Hot. In Mei’s opinion, it certainly fit. Flustered, she grabbed her purse, notebook and keys, and flew into the house. Thankfully Foo’s effusive greeting steered her priorities in another direction.

“Yes, I’m glad to see you, too, mutt.” Shedding her suit coat, Mei locked up her weapon, then hung her jacket in the closet. The next thing she did was find one of Foo’s squeaky toys to toss across the room. It was a nightly ritual. His ambling gait on stubby legs too short for his big feet never failed to make Mei laugh. The shelter had said no one there wanted to venture a guess as to the breeds in his background. Built low to the ground like a basset, his soft fur, perky terrier ears and pug-like face expelled him from that breed. To say nothing of his waving plume of a tail. But he almost smiled, and Mei had loved that about him from the minute she set eyes on him. Life held enough sorrow; she liked surrounding herself with bright colors and silly offbeat objects that always lifted her spirits.

She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and took Foo out into her compact backyard so he could chase a ball around. She supposed her propensity for lots of color and things her parents would call junk came from having lived amid such order all her life. The Ling home could grace the pages of Architectural Digest or House Beautiful. On the high-ceilinged, ice-toned walls hung rich brocade tapestries that provided splashes of color. However, her mother rarely spoke of their beauty; rather, she added up their monetary value. Mei and Stephen had grown up in a veritable museum. Stephen, Mei’s elder by two years, had slipped easily into the family habit of collecting for the sake of owning. Once close, the siblings had a clash of principles the last year Mei spent in Hong Kong at the family business. Leaving the firm had been heart-wrenching, one of the hardest decisions she’d ever made. But it’d been for the best. She’d found her true niche in police work.

She heard her phone ring. Aware that Catherine’s meeting might let out around seven o’clock, Mei raced inside to scoop up the receiver before her answering machine kicked in. “Hello,” she said, still out of breath.

“Lieutenant?” a male voice inquired. A vaguely familiar one, too, but Mei couldn’t quite place it.

“Yes,” she said more hesitantly. Her home phone number was unlisted, as were most officers’.

“You sound like I caught you running a marathon or something. This is Cullen Archer.”

“Mr. Archer?” Mei found it even harder to breathe normally. “I haven’t been home long. You caught me playing with my dog.”

“Ah. Well, I’m down at the Port of Houston.” He rattled off a dock number, and Mei automatically stored the information. “We have a second corpse. A second dead courier, I’m betting.”

Mei’s thundering heart nearly stopped beating. “Oh, no! How? Why? Did you call Homicide?”

“They contacted me,” he said. “There’s a second photograph and another note in Chinese. If I might interrupt your play, I’d like you to come and have a look. I’ll see that security lets you drive straight in.”

Mei bit her lower lip.

“Well?” he demanded impatiently.

“Of course. I already turned my report in to the chief, though. I’d assumed you wouldn’t require my services again.”

“You thought wrong. Do I need to call your chief first?”

Mei realized she was squeezing Foo’s ball out of shape. She tossed it lightly across the kitchen and closed the back door after the dog streaked in and dived after the blue ball. “I’m more than half an hour away. Shall I meet you at the morgue, instead?” She hadn’t applied to Homicide because she’d never gotten used to the smell of death. The morgue, while sterile, gave her the creeps, too. She had huge respect and great empathy for what Crista and Risa did.

Her caller spoke to someone out of Mei’s hearing. He came back almost immediately. “The team says we’ll be here at least another hour trying to figure how the courier and his assailant breached security. Get here as fast as you can, okay?”

Mei pulled the phone away from her ear and frowned at it. “Yes, sir,” she said in a syrupy sweet voice. “Am I to report to you, then? I don’t know your rank. Or does Interpol naturally take precedence in local investigations, kind of like the FBI?” She heard Archer clear his throat several times.

“Please come, Lieutenant. I have extensive experience in tracking down international art thieves and next to none when it comes to murder.”

She bent a little. “On that score we’re even. If you don’t mind, I’d rather leave that particular aspect of the case in the very capable hands of our homicide squad. But I’ll head out right away. I admit I’m curious about the photo and this note. See you in about forty-five minutes.” She hung up, debating only a moment as to whether she ought to change back into the suit she’d worn earlier, or go as she was. Vetoing the suit, deciding it would take too long, she did pluck her revolver from its locked box and secured it under her belt at the back of her jeans. To heck with packing a Taser. The docks were spooky at night. She felt more secure with an equalizer.

Mei grabbed a cherry-red blazer to throw on over her white T-shirt. Red might not be appropriate attire for a murder investigation in progress, but it gave her confidence. And to face Archer and a dead man, Mei Lu needed all the confidence she could muster.

“Sorry, Foo. I’m abandoning you again.”

The dog sank to his belly and put his chin on his ball, gazing up at her with soulful eyes.

“All right, come on, then. But I’ll have to leave you in the car.”