Dim Sum Asylum(92)

“Good, then you can also be a part of his while he is laid up in the hospital. It is a neutral place, one where you can meet without having to bend your massive egos,” she teased. “Promise your grandmother you will go see your Sofu. At least once. Let him… apologize to you. Or as much as he will.”

“What does he have to be sorry for?” I frowned as she moved toward the front door. “I’m the one who shot him.”

“He shouldn’t have involved you in this, and then there’s his pride. You were right when you said he couldn’t help himself. If he is going to trust you to do something, then he needs to let you do it. That is what he needs to apologize for.” She waited for me to open the door for her, subtly enforcing manners I’d already been taught. “I will call you once he is home, and we can see where it goes between us.”

“Looking forward to it.” I opened the door, and she turned toward me, stopping on the threshold. “What?”

“You do know Bob is a mimic dragon, yes?” Yukiko motioned to where my cat sat squatting on the counter, eating the cereal out of the box she knocked over.

“Yeah, I know,” I confessed sheepishly. “But she likes being a cat, and, well, it’s not illegal to own a cat. Downside is, sometimes she gets in the fridge and sucks all the eggs out of their shells. But we’re working on that.”

I kissed my grandmother on the cheek and watched as she headed down the hall toward where the Maori and my cousin waited. After closing the door, I straightened the cereal box, then wrestled my twenty-two-pound shape-shifting lizard over to the couch and sprawled out onto the cushions, arranging Bob on my chest.

Stroking her back, I waited until I heard her squeaky purr, then kissed the top of her furry head. “Grandma’s got some cunning there, Bob. That’s a woman who knows things aren’t always what they seem.”




THAT’S HOW Trent found me, dozing on the couch with Bob the Cat stretched over me and oozing out the occasional grumpy rumble when I breathed too aggressively for her liking. My partner tossed his gun and keys on the counter, then came over to kiss first the cat’s forehead, then my mouth.

Pulling back, he smacked his lips and asked, “You ever notice Bob tastes kind of like chicken?” Wincing, he clarified, “Okay, that sounded a Hell of a lot better in my head. Not like eating chicken, but… that smell pigeons and other birds have. That powdery taste their smell leaves in your mouth.”

“No, I get it. And yeah, it’s the breed.” I sat up, much to her royal pseudo-catness’s displeasure. I got a hiss, then a tail shimmy as she moved from my lap to Trent’s. “My grandmother was here. Came to share all kinds of interesting gossip… starting with—did you know she’s a retired almost-assassin? Oh, and the old guy? Red stars all over his wings? Sato? That’s her father. So, not only did I shoot my grandfather, I also shish-kabobbed my great-grandfather. ”

Trent’s face was priceless, growing more so as I filled him in. By the time I got to my grandfather’s actual wife losing her grip on Sato’s reins because of his health, Trent’s eyes were glazing over. Grunting, he maneuvered the cat into a more comfortable position between us.

“I… wow, okay, so you’re descended from a family of assassins and criminals. No holiday family dinners for us, then. We’ll need food tasters—”

“My mother’s family are cops and distillers—might have been some bootlegging along the way, but decent folk. It’s the Takahashi side that’s really a slaughter circus waiting to happen.” I jabbed my elbow into his ribs as I turned sideways, laying my legs over his lap to annoy the cat. She shifted, flowing her body over my shins, and began to knead my knees in retaliation. “I’m not all bad. You’re the one from a secret military organization who took in spliced orphans.”

“It wasn’t secret. I was in Special Forces, Investigation Division, and the orphanage is in Santa Monica,” he protested with a laugh, dislodging the cat more as he leaned over to kiss me. “Good news—or more good news, however you look at it—Gaines said you’re off desk duty, so we are both officially back on the street. IA cleared you right before I left the station. He told me I could give you the good news since I was heading over here.”

I don’t know what made me wince more, Gaines knowing about us or Bob the Cat excavating a trench in my thigh with her claws. Plucking her claws out of my jeans, I asked, “So he knows about us, huh?”

“Everyone knows about us. We are apparently shitty secret keepers. Okay, cat’s got to go.” Transferring Bob to the love seat, Trent said, “He asked if we’re coming to dinner this Sunday. Apparently you owe him a couple of visits, and he’s calling them in.”

“You ready for that? You’re the one who just kyboshed family dinners.” I sat up, because as wide as the couch was, it wasn’t big enough to take both of our lengths, and neither of us was light enough to lie on the other. “It’s one thing to have people whispering about us behind our backs—”

“Oh, they’re not even whispering,” Trent interjected. “And you can forget about this behind our backs shit. Valdez straight-up asked me if your tongue rolled out and wanted to know what you could do with it. So yeah, I’m in. All the way in. Or at least, I want to be. How about you?”