Page 15 of Unseen Danger
At least she was sure Jazz wouldn’t join the religious trend. She had too many reasons not to.
And there was no way Phoenix ever would. The idea of religion and Phoenix Gray was like trying to pair…
The boss entered the room and strode past Nevaeh before she could finish coming up with an appropriate comparison.
Dagian, her sandy-colored multi-purpose K-9 kept in step at her side, as usual, though he was off-leash.
“Let’s get started.” Phoenix reached the farthest armchair she always sat in and turned to face the group.
Nevaeh glanced at her watch as she took her coffee and Cannenta to the love seat. Eight o’clock on the dot.
She’d never get how Phoenix could always be exactly on time and always in the nick of time for any unscheduled danger.
Nevaeh plopped onto the cushion next to Jazz, and Cannenta jumped up to sit between them, placing her paw on Nevaeh’s leg.
Jazz gave Nevaeh a smile over the corgi mix’s head. Having only been back for nine months, Jazz was still getting used to Cannenta’s cute behaviors.
But they were so much more than cute. Cannenta putting her paw on Nevaeh was intentional. She’d probably sensed the small spike in Nevaeh’s blood pressure because the meeting was about to start. Not that she dreaded these meetings. Hanging with her PK-9 family was one of the best things life had to offer, right next to hanging with her blood relatives.
But she figured what would be on the agenda today. Debriefing from last night.
How much would they cover? She didn’t want to think about the…triggers Cannenta and Jazz were still helping her recover from. And would Sof have noticed anything about Nevaeh’s behavior—her fear—that she’d feel she had to share with Phoenix? Or question Nevaeh about?
“First, commendations are in order for Nevaeh’s actions last night.” Phoenix’s dark blue eyes locked on Nevaeh across the distance. “You went above and beyond to save a life. Well done.”
“Yeah!” Sof started clapping as she grinned at Nevaeh. The other PK-9 girls joined in the applause, and Jazz added a whistle that drew the shocked gaze of every dog in the room.
Even Gaston lifted his furry head off Sofia’s lap to stare at Jazz.
Heat rushed to Nevaeh’s face as her pulse accelerated. What if they talked about the other things that had happened last night? Jazz would never snitch, but Phoenix always seemed to have ways of finding things out. Sof could’ve noticed Nevaeh’s absence when she lost it and went—
A small body moved onto Nevaeh’s lap. Cannenta. Her solid presence, the contact and warmth between her and Nevaeh’s chilled legs, interrupted the early start of a spiral.
Nevaeh donned a grin. “Stop it, gang. Y’all will make me blush.” The smile felt more real by the moment as her family smiled back at her. She’d missed the look in their eyes. No judgment. Just pride and joy.
The same way she’d felt when Bristol had bested the terrorist bomber, when Cora had survived the drug cartel’s attacks, and when Sof had, well, done everything awesome she always did as easily as normal people drank water.
“Intel on the fire indicates arson,” Phoenix continued in her emotionless delivery. “No progress in finding the perpetrator as of yet.”
Arson. Someone had intentionally sabotaged D-Chop’s concert? Jazz had probably learned that last night, but Nevaeh had been such a wreck at the time, she could see why Jazz hadn’t told her.
“The perp apparently didn’t use any explosives.” Bristol gently scooted Gaston’s back end off the cushion at the far end of the sofa so she could sit there. The dog pulled his hind legs under him and sat up between Sof and Bris, his massive body taller than they were.
Nevaeh chuckled at the sight as Bris finished what she was saying.
“Toby and I checked the equipment on stage in our search before the concert.”
“Correct.” Phoenix turned her head slightly toward Bris, the angle causing a shadow to fall over her eyes under the bill of her gray baseball cap. “The pyrotechnics had been tampered with.”
“Should we investigate who caused the fire?” Cora, seated in the other armchair, stroked Jana’s ear as she looked at the boss.
“We’ll give the police more time.” Phoenix and Dag, sitting at her side, looked like immovable statues as she responded. “We were not in charge of overall security at the venue, so the responsibility isn’t ours, unless we let someone slip by while we were patrolling. Given that we weren’t scheduled to arrive until the doors opened, I’m quite certain we weren’t at fault. A job like this one was likely executed hours in advance.”
“But why?” Nevaeh couldn’t keep the question from slipping out. All eyes turned to her. “I mean, why would someone want to sabotage D-Chop’s concert? Do you think they meant to hurt him instead of his hype man?” The thought thumped her pulse harder for a different reason.
Phoenix stared at her for a second. “The motivation and perpetrator aren’t our concern. I’ll only look into it if there’s evidence we were lax in our duties.”
“Sorry, but I…have history with D-Chop.”