The Frame-Up (The Golden Arrow #1)(79)

“If you were kissing like this at fifteen, you needed to teach lessons.” My phone buzzes again. “I really do have to go. But I’ll call you later, okay?”

Matteo’s hands settle back around my waist. Then he snuggles my coat around me further, buttoning the top button. He pulls me in for a sweet peck. “If you must.”

Something in the pocket of my coat sticks into my side, and I frown. I haven’t put anything in my pocket.

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. There’s something poking me in the side.”

“I didn’t think it was that obvious.” Matteo gives a bawdy wink, and I laugh.

“No, I’m serious.” I dig in my pocket. There’s definitely something in there. Something like a book. I definitely didn’t put a book in my pocket. I extricate it with difficulty and hold it up to the meager light.

It’s a softcover journal.

It’s a black softcover journal I’ve seen before. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

Matteo’s eyes widen as I flip quickly through the journal. “Is that what I think it is?”

I snap the journal closed and shove it back into my pocket. “My journal of ideas? Yeah. I forgot I had this with me. Ideas for the new Hero Girls.” But it definitely isn’t my journal. It’s Casey Senior’s missing journal, the one whose sketches showed up in my test copy of The Hooded Falcon. What the hell? Who snuck this journal in my pocket?

Matteo knows something is up. I can see the light of suspicion dawn. “Are you sure that’s your journal? Because if it belongs to someone else and you took evidence, you’d be a suspect and off the case.”

The warning is clear. Come clean now and stay on the case. Lie and risk losing my freedom and the man offering me so much more. But he didn’t see the note at the back of the journal. A note to me. It simply said,

MG, Rabbit in the Glen. Tonight, 11 p.m. Follow the arrows.

If I turn this over, the journal pretty much frames me as the Golden Arrow or, at the very least, an accomplice.

I offer a small smile. “I guess that would be one way to solve the problem between us?”

Matteo grits his teeth. “I can’t date a suspect either.”

My phone buzzes, reminding me of my appointment with fate, and now with a warehouse. I don’t wait to see if he’s hurt or angry. I’ll deal with that fallout later. I square my shoulders. I give him a swift kiss on the cheek. “Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m not one.”





CHAPTER 23

I race out of Genius Comics as fast as I can without looking like I’m fleeing a fire and find the Millennium Turd in the parking lot, lights on, Lawrence at the helm. Thank God his drag family was close enough for him to make it up here in under an hour.

“What’s shakin’?” Lawrence calls as I throw open the passenger door and fling myself into the car.

“A whole lotta shade,” I respond, putting my arm over my eyes. So much has just happened, I don’t know where to begin. “We need to carry out Operation Janeway tonight.”

“Like right now?”

“Now. Well, right after I show you this.” I fumble through my purse and retrieve my phone. My fingers slip on the device in my haste to pull up the picture I took inside. “Do you recognize this man?”

I hold out the picture, realizing now just how blurry it is. Photographer I am not.

L rubs his jaw and looks at the picture. “Maybe?”

I throw down my phone in frustration, and L shoots me a look. “What, MG? That picture sucks. Who is he? Why should I know him?”

“He’s the old police chief. The one who was in charge when Casey Senior died.”

“The one who cleaned up the streets in the eighties, single-handedly reduced crime rates, and took LA into a long stretch of peaceful living?”

I grit my teeth. “Yeah. That one. I think he’s the White Rabbit. I wanted to see if you recognized him as the cop from Casey Senior’s house or any of your superhero stuff.”

Taking the phone from me, Lawrence studies the picture again. He gives a noncommittal shrug. “I mean, maybe. But it’s hard to tell. And anyway, MG, are you really going to accuse someone like that of being the White Rabbit?”

“Not without proof, no.”

Something occurs to me, so I snatch the phone back and navigate to an internet browser.

“What are you doing?”

“Googling.”

“Girl, we don’t have time for that—”

“L, you said that picture sucks, and I’m trying to find a better one. This guy was all over the news in the eighties. There has to be a better picture.” The silence stretches as my phone maddeningly halts on the load screen. Stupid dead zones. “Come on, come on, come on.”

Lawrence sits in silence maybe a full thirty seconds. “I thought you said we needed to be quick.”

“We do!” I growl in frustration. The few pictures that have loaded are articles about tonight’s gala, nothing about the younger Munez. I’m facing having to start the search over. Maybe ’80s Munez? But what if all that come up are articles about the drug bust? I literally beat my forehead with the phone in frustration.

Lawrence sighs, watching me. “Even if you could find it online, this dude is so old. Highly doubt he’s donning a cape and spankies.”