Lies. I’d probably quit and work there instead.
Mmm.
“You’re drooling.”
I snap back to reality and wipe at my mouth. No drool there. “Ass—this isn’t the turn for the station.”
“Someone’s observant this morning.”
“Why are you taking me on the road to Austin?”
“Because all three of your brothers spent thirty minutes this morning arguing over who was going to take you to Austin to buy a new car. Since I have to question you anyway, I thought I’d save everyone the headache and do it myself.”
“Aw, are you being nice to me, Drake?” I grin, shifting in the seat slightly.
His eyes quickly cut to mine. “You had a rough night. Just doin’ my job.”
“In that case, I wanna stop by Gigi’s because—”
“They forgot your cupcakes. Yeah, Noelle, I heard. The whole fuckin’ block heard you.”
“I could fire them for that,” I say seriously.
“Is it in their contracts?”
I pause. “I need to update their contracts.”
Drake shakes his head, but his lips twitch. He has a really bad poker face. But his biceps make up for it.
Sweet hell, what is my obsession with this man’s biceps?
The curving bulge… The vein that trails along the inside of his arms…
Jesus. I’m making out with his biceps in my mind.
What is wrong with me? People are dying and I’m thinking about licking his arm.
I snap my eyes away from his very delicious-looking arms, mentally slap myself around a little, and wriggle my foot in my boot. The gun gets a little uncomfortable after a while, and it’s kind of a tight squeeze.
“You can take the gun out, you know. I have two on my belt.”
Involuntarily, my eyes flick to his pants. His belt. Shit, no, that’s his crotch.
Why can’t belts be around necks?
Why the fuck am I even thinking about this?
Self-preservation, you wonderful thing, you. Not.
I pull the gun out of my boot, but I leave it on the floor by my feet. Call me paranoid, but it’s the floor or down my bra. Gotta be able to grab it in a pinch, after all.
Drake glances at me but doesn’t say anything. Maybe he gets it—I don’t know. It’s cop instinct to have a gun nearby. At least, for me, third-generation cop, it is. My granddaddy never went anywhere without his, Dad still doesn’t, and all three of my brothers have them permanently attached to their sides. It’s practically in my DNA.
“Get on with it, then,” I demand. If I’m going to be stuck in a car with Drake Nash for forty-five minutes, we better actually talk. I don’t want to spend more time with him than I absolutely have to.
“Your alibi has been confirmed.” Drake scratches at his temple and rests his hand on the gear stick. “Honestly, there isn’t much I can ask you until we get the results back from Tim and toxicology.”
“And even then, all I can know is the name of the victim.” I look away. “Great.”
“I can’t give you the autopsy report when we have it,” he says slowly and quietly. “But I can tell you that preliminary findings show that we’re looking at the same killer for both Lena and our John Doe. Their bodies were mutilated in…similar…ways.”
My hand covers my mouth. I don’t have to be Albert Einstein to figure out that what Drake means is that the victim’s genitalia has been ripped to shreds. In this case, his penis.
Jesus, I feel sick.
Tension threads through the silence, tightening the atmosphere in the car. It wraps its way around my body, squeezing my neck until I can’t breathe. Every word Drake says confirms my suspicions that I have something to do with this.
“So, he was poisoned, too?”
“We’re assumin’ so, yeah.”
I lick my lips again. My chest is so damn tight that it’s burning, and there’s a big-ass lump in my throat that won’t seem to go down. Or, indeed, come up. I’d take vomiting right now over this horribly sickened feeling. I honestly feel like I’m about to vomit anyway. My stomach is churning ferociously, and I shift in my seat.
My foot moves closer to my gun. Again, I know he notices, but in typical Drake fashion, he says nothing. Just quirks his eyebrow.
We’re thinking the same thing. I know we are. There’s a reason there’s an elephant on the back seat. It may as well be bright pink with green and yellow polka dots, singing the national anthem for how obvious it is.
Drake clears his throat. “You got any enemies, Noelle?”
“I piss people off a lot, but they ask for it.” Ain’t that the truth. If you hire me to find out if your spouse is cheating on you, don’t be mad at me when I give you an answer you don’t like.
“Anyone hate you enough that they’d want to try to frame you in this? Involve you at the very least?”
“Apart from you?” My tone is dry. “Not that I can think of.”
“Not that you can think of?”
“Ask Grecia. She fields all the pissed-off calls because there’s a slim chance I have a bit of a temper.”
Drake coughs to cover a laugh. “A slim chance, huh? Can’t imagine why you’re not allowed to talk to angry clients.”
“Oh, I can deal with clients. It’s their spouses that piss me off. If you don’t do the dirty, I can’t catch you. It’s their own damn fault.”
“Can’t argue with that kind of logic, I guess.” This time, he lets his laugh go.
I don’t think I’ve heard him laugh properly before. It’s low and rich, the deep sound rumbling through the air between us until all the hairs on my arms are standing on end.
“What?” I half smile, glancing at him through a curtain of hair. I push it from my face and sweep it around my neck. “It’s true. If you don’t cheat, you won’t get caught. The problem with the guys I bust is that they’re not sorry they did it—they’re sorry they got caught.”
“Have you ever been caught tailin’ someone?”
“Once. I got my heel stuck in a drain and she came out of the restaurant. That was awkward.” I screw up my face. “I should probably wear my boots more.”
“Is that why you carry a pair of Converse in your purse?”
“You know about my Converse?”
“It’s a running joke with your brothers.”
Bastards. “They’re just jealous because they never learned to walk in Mom’s heels. Or got the ass to.”
Drake’s laugh rumbles again. “They wore her heels?”
“We played princesses and knights, but we were all princesses.” I sigh. “They’re good brothers. Sometimes.”
“They look out for you.” He prods my thigh just as his phone rings. “If I didn’t respect Trent so much, we’d have given each other a few black eyes by now. Can you get the Bluetooth device from the glove box?”
I shoot him a confused look. What did he mean about Trent?
“Bluetooth piece, Noelle!” Drake snaps.
“Shit.” I pull it out and hand it to him.
He fits it to his ear and taps the green accept circle on his phone. “Detective Nash… You have? … Do you know? … Fuck… Okay, thanks… Yeah, it helps. I need to read it though. Can you get it e-mailed to me? … Thanks, Trent… No, not yet. Later… All right. Thanks.” Drake hangs up and removes the earpiece.
I stare at him as he drops it into my hand. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes have hardened, and his normally curved, pale-pink lips are in a thin, straight line.
“Put it back.” His words are sharp, and his jaw snaps shut as soon as he’s said the last word.
Doing as I was told, I gently place the small device back into the box. The tension is back, this time stronger and tighter. Pure frustration is radiating from the tautness of Drake’s body, and when I focus my gaze on him, I see a vein bulging in the side of his neck.
He flexes his wrists on the steering wheel. “Stop lookin’ at me like that, Noelle.”
“I’m not stupid. I know why you didn’t let me listen.”
“It’s confidential. You know that.”
“Bullshit!” I bang my hand against the dashboard and twist. “You got the autopsy report. You know who the victim is.”