I tapped on the dash of his truck. "Let's go. Time's a wasting."

If I wanted to get any information out of my contact at the morgue, I had to make it there quickly before someone else beat me to it.

Tony took a deep breath and let his foot off the brake. Now we were getting somewhere. Except not somewhere fast because he drove the speed limit down Main Street.

He'd just passed the high school when he asked, "Why exactly do you need to bribe the mortician?"

"Technically the assistant mortician." The head guy, a seventy-year-old man with poor fashion sense, did not accept bribes. Ask me how I knew.

"Regardless of his status, why are we bribing an employee of the morgue?"

He was a curious fellow. Most people learned it was better for their plausible deniability to not ask too many questions.

"So I can learn what they told the cops. I need to be on the same page as Detective Anderson."

Tony took his eyes off the road just long enough to give me a weird glance. "Does Detective Anderson realize you're on the same page?"

"No, that's why I need you."

He drove past the wooden pelican that greeted people as they came into town and sped up when the speed limit changed. "Now you've lost me again."

"I need you for three reasons." I held up my hand with three fingers raised. "One, I need someone to watch NB. I can't take him to the morgue because there are too many bones. He can't handle the distractions."

Tony nodded. "Oh yeah, makes total sense," he said but didn't sound quite reassured.

I put down another finger. "Two, I can't leave him in my car. It's too cold. I don't want his little paws to get cold."

"Absolutely not. Cold paws are the worst." He sounded a little more truthful that time, so I ran with it.

"Exactly." I jerked down the third finger. "And three, if the cops see my car parked at the morgue, they'll know I'm up to something."

NB repositioned himself on my lap to get his tongue higher on the window. Tony pretended not to notice, and we carried on as if my dog wasn't painting him a Sistine Chapel truck window.

The badass bounty hunter ran his fingers through his hair, looking like he had something to say but thinking better of it. A tattoo peeked out from the top of his jacket, but I'd never dared ask him to see it.

"Broadrick will not like this, princess."

I knew he should have kept his mouth closed.

"He'll never find out." We didn't need to bring my surly SEAL into this situation. Things were complicated enough.

Tony chuckled, more to himself than to me. "Oh, he'll find out."

Well, that made him sound totally suspicious. "How do you even know Broadrick?" I asked and then sniffled. Tony didn't seem like a man who carried a box of Kleenex around in his truck.

"He came to see me," he said as I moved his heat vent away from pumping directly into my eyes.

"What!" When the hell did Broadrick find time to harass my bounty hunter? I assumed the harass part because I couldn't picture the two of them sitting down for a nice cup of tea or a cookie.

Tony shrugged as if he wasn't remembering the worst day of my life. "We had a guy talk."

"What the hell does that even mean?"

What did men talk about besides things like football? And why would those two be talking to one another? Tony had no incentive to tell me, and from his expression, he wasn't planning to spill the beans. But with a little work, I could get it out of Broadrick.

"Turn here," I said when we got closer to the turnoff to the morgue. We had to visit the county offices because even though Pelican Bay had a ridiculous amount of crime, they didn't have the resources for their own morgue. "You have any gum?"

I wanted to make sure I had decent breath when I bribed Kelvin. He might only be the assistant at the morgue, but we had to treat him with the respect that any accomplice deserved.

Tony didn't answer, so I repositioned NB and popped open his glove box. A heavy object clattered to my feet. "Holy shit."

"Hey, put that back," Tony said, jerking the truck wheel, so we swerved on the road for a second.

I fished around at my feet to retrieve the item and pulled up a heavy pistol. "Is this a semi-automatic?"

"It's a Sig P220," he rattled off like that meant something to me.

"Is it legal?" I asked, moving the gun from one hand to the other.

Tony slapped his hand at me like he really thought I'd give him the weapon. He was driving! "Mostly, now put it away. A man's glove box is his personal space."

I shoved the gun in the glove box and slammed the door closed to keep it shut. "Broadrick is totally against me getting a gun." He'd never given me a great reason, but every time I mentioned taking the class to get my license, he went ghostly white.

"Yes, I've heard," said Tony with a crooked smile.

The man was full of surprises. "When?"

"When else? Our guy talk," he said, turning into the parking lot of the county morgue.

I wanted to question how he knew where to go without me giving directions, but if he said Broadrick told him during their talk, I'd panic. The county morgue was just a random red brick building on the side of an old highway. It looked like every other government building besides the big sign out front.

To make myself feel better, I pretended Tony read the sign and turned in on his own. Not that he hung out here randomly on his days off from catching criminals.

Tony stopped the truck in a spot close to the front door, and I handed him NB who immediately turned his body to give him a better position to lick the driver's side window. He was a weird dog, but I loved him so he could lick as many windows as he wanted.

I opened my coat and pushed up my boobs, quietly telling them to stay perky. I didn't plan to flash anyone in the morgue, but a girl had to recognize her best assets and be ready to use them.

Tony watched from the corner of his eye. "Yeah, Broadrick will not like this."

I rolled my eyes. What Broadrick didn't know wouldn't hurt him. "I'll only be ten minutes. Don't leave me."

Tony chuckled. "That's not a very nice thing to say about the morgue guy. Men don't want to get a reputation as a two-pump chump."

I sneezed. "Seriously? That's how you think I'm going to get the information?" How little did he think of me and my amazing PI ways?

Tony shrugged. "I never critique another colleague's methods."

Well, when he put it that way. I wanted to preen a little at him calling me a colleague, but I didn't have time. "Just don't leave me."