Becoming Rain (Burying Water #2)(28)

“Well . . . I’m assuming you don’t have what you need in your fridge.” He strolls over to look inside my refrigerator. The cartons of leftover Chinese food and Warner’s beer answer for me. “So?” He flashes me a chemically whitened smile, one that I’m betting works well to get him what—and who—he wants.

As if in answer, my phone beeps with an incoming text.

Dad’s ready. Go.

I guess that answers that.

“It’s your favorite kind of weather outside, too. If you’d open the blinds, you’d know.” He hits the button on the wall and the blinds revolve to allow dim daylight into one side of the living room. “That’s my condo over there. I live right across from you.”

“Seriously?” I plaster on my best mock-surprise face and then focus on sticking my feet into my Hunter rain boots, trying to play it off. “Talk about a small world. That’s crazy.”

I catch his secretive smile as he passes by me and I follow him out, locking my door behind me. I watch my target’s sleek movements and rigid muscles as he moves ahead of me, Stanley trotting beside him. A thrill courses through my limbs. By my turn of luck in this case, I tell myself. Definitely not because of Luke Boone.

I’ve been a cop for over four years now, two of those undercover. I’m used to back alleyways and seedy motel rooms as meet spots for my cases. Pockmarked targets named Jorge and Bruce, who bathe in cheap drugstore cologne and think complimenting a woman’s breasts should prompt her to take her shirt off. I’m used to walking through the front door of my small apartment after a day of work and climbing into a long, hot shower, happy that I’m only pretending, that my life’s road hasn’t led me to such a sad, sordid reality.

Now I’m standing in front of an adorable meat shop in downtown Portland with a gorgeous target to my left, admitting to myself that I’ve felt nervous flutters like this only once before . . . when I was seventeen and going on a first date with the high school quarterback.

Shaking the stupid out of me, I ask, “What do we do with Stanley? He doesn’t take well to being tied to a post.” I’m just guessing, seeing as I’ve known the dog for all of three days. But the last thing I need is him going Jekyll and Hyde again and attacking an unsuspecting passerby.

In answer, Luke scoops up the chubby dog, tucking him under his arm, as if he weighs nothing at all. “No worries. I know the owner, Dmitri. He won’t care.”

Dmitri. Sounds Russian.

I remember a case that the Washington MCU was overseeing a couple of years back, involving Ukrainian mobsters. They ran a butcher shop in Columbia Heights. It’s probably just a coincidence. “Kozlov’s Butcher Shop,” I read the sign out loud, assuming Bill or one of the other guys on my detail right now will make note. I haven’t seen them tailing us. Not that I would. They’d never risk being made by getting close enough to be spotted, not like in the movies, where they make surveillance teams look like complete tools. “I haven’t been in here yet.”

“I’ve been coming here since I could barely walk. My grandpa used to work here. He and Dmitri were best friends. ”

Right. Luke’s grandfather. Oskar Markov. Warner gave me the rundown. Luke, his sister, and their mom moved in with Oskar and his wife, Vera, after Luke’s father took off. They all lived together until Oskar’s death from lung cancer ten years ago, two years after his wife’s. Both heavy smokers. Somehow Luke didn’t get the message, because he still lights up. I wonder if that has more to do with addiction or the simple fact that Rust still smokes too.

I trail Luke in, inhaling the garlic-permeated aroma. It’s obviously an old store and family-run, based on the dated black-and-white checkered linoleum floor and the rows of black-and-white pictures of men in white butcher’s aprons covering one side. The owner isn’t too concerned about design, and yet there is something decidedly charming about it. Something you’d expect in an ethnic suburb and not in the trendy downtown core.

Jars of pickled herring and borscht line the front of the meat counter, and a wiry gray-haired man with thick-rimmed glasses stands behind it. “Luka!” he exclaims in his thick Russian accent. “I wouldn’t recognize you, if not for your deda’s eyes.”

This must be Dmitri.

Luke dips his head, his usual confident smirk replaced with a sheepish grin. “I’m sorry, I’ve been busy.”

“How is your mother? And Ana?”

“They’re good. They send their love.”

“And you’re taking good care of them?”

“Of course, Dmitri.”

“Good boy.” Gray eyes flicker to me, prompting Luke to introduce us.

“Dmitri, this is Rain.”

Dmitri nods, first at me, and then at Stanley, whose flat nose is twitching from all the various scents. “Yours?” he asks Luke.

“No.”

Another glance at me. “I didn’t think so.” Dmitri wipes his hands on a rag and then grabs a slice of salami and tosses it right into Stanley’s waiting mouth. “What can I get for you today?”

Luke taps on the glass in front of the tray of ground meat. “Half a pound each of the beef, veal, and pork. That’s what you said, right?” He looks to me for an answer.

“Yeah. I mean, it depends how hungry you are.”