Текст книги "Tangled Bond"
Автор книги: Emma Hart
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 18 страниц)
I raise my eyebrows. “It’s a very real thing. I’m hungry and angry, so I’m hangry. Really hangry.”
“You’re so fuckin’ weird.”
“This, from you.”
“Do you two ever stop fightin’?” Dad interrupts us at the door of the hotel. “Noelle, why are you eating?”
“Because I haven’t eaten a damn thing all day.”
“She’s hangry,” Brody inputs.
“What’s hangry?” Dad looks between us.
“Can’t a girl eat her cupcake in peace?”
“Noella!”
“Oh, fuck it.”
Nonna ambles up behind Dad and shoves him out of the way. With her silver-peppered black hair knotted into a bun on top of her head, she squints at me through apparently brand-new glasses and raps her cane against the floor.
“You-a eating cup-a-cakes again?”
I put the last bit of my cake into my mouth. “Eaten,” I correct her around the mouthful of food.
“Ah! Is-a not your-a job why-a you single! Is-a your manners!” She proceeds to lecture me for a minute about manners in smooth Italian. Something about how men don’t like women who have to pick crumbs outta their cleavage every time they eat a meal.
“Okay, Mamma. Let’s get you sitting down before everyone rushes in.” Dad clasps her shoulders and turns her before she starts on my lack of a relationship again.
Brody holds the door open for me and shrugs. “I don’t see anythin’ wrong with women pickin’ crumbs outta cleavages. View’s hella nice.”
I laugh. Yep, Brody wins that one. Not sure where Nonna got her idea from, because it is a seriously tricky business to remove crumbs from the girls without flaunting them.
I follow him into the ballroom-like room. It has many purposes aside from this one—indoor hotel weddings, prom, parties. Its versatility means the Oleander will never go out of business, as someone will always need this room.
Devin and Trent are sitting next to Mom, suited like I knew they would be. I see that Alison, Trent’s wife and one of my best friends, has gotten away with this. Probably because Silvio, their four-year old, will be done at daycare and Aria, their ten-year-old, will be done with school.
Next time this happens, I’m offering to babysit.
Dad takes the seat next to Mom, and Brody sits between me and Nonna. It’s no coincidence that the Bond women are split up by the men. Nonna and Mom are one step past polar opposites, and I have more than enough of both of them in me that I’m pulled into every fight because they always think I’ll side with them. That and no one wants one of their famous word battles to take the spotlight off the mayor.
I sigh and tuck my purse beneath my chair. Mom catches my eye as I sit back up and winks as someone takes a seat next to me. Nonna, seeing this, turns, but her gaze focuses on the person sitting next to me.
And by the thrilled glint in her eye and the way her grin becomes mischievous and intrigued, I know exactly who’s sitting there.
“All right, cupcake?”
“Screw you,” I whisper harshly at him.
Drake leans into me. “We need to talk,” he says quietly into my ear.
“In my experience, us talking is the last thing we need to do because it always ends badly,” I hiss back.
“I know, but I was out of line yesterday. I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted, and talking done.” I shrug and fold my arms, my eyes on the chairs set up on the makeshift stage in front of us.
“No, it isn’t.”
I sigh and look at him. “You don’t owe me an explanation, Drake.”
“No,” he agrees, his ice-blue eyes focused on mine. He brushes my hand with his. “But I owe you a do-over, at the very least.”
I unfold my arms and shake my head. “You’re crazy.”
“We’ve established that, but I think your nonna has one up on me. She looks like she’s planning a wedding in her head.”
Jesus, Nonna.
“We’re done talkin’,” I say, giving the crazy old lady a hard look.
Seriously, Devin proposed to Amelia in Italian at family dinner last week, and Nonna cried. And not just happy tears. She spent the next two hours singing in Italian and praising God for blessing my brother.
Then she zeroed on me like a sniper. I could see it running through her head. Two down, two to go, and we’re going in age order.
I Googled mail-order husbands that night. The fact that a lot were Russian only made it all the more tempting.
Brody had a fling with a girl with Puerto Rican heritage a couple of years ago, and when Nonna found out she wasn’t Italian like he’d told her, she literally whipped his butt with her cane.
Got that on video, too.
“Nonna,” Trent warns. “Put your bow and arrow away. You ain’t Cupid.”
Nonna cackles.
She was a witch in a past life.
“Still not done,” Drake murmurs as the mayor and his opponent, Alistair Harvey, step out onto the stage flanked by their wives.
“Way done,” I argue.
Slowly, he trails his knuckles down the side of my thigh. I shiver.
“You sure about that, sweetheart?” he asks.
“Touch me again and I’ll put your balls into a blender.”
He does it again, and I thump his leg.
“Noelle!” Dad scolds me in an angry hiss when the mayor starts talking on the stage.
Drake’s shoulders shake with his silent laughter, and I glare at him out of the corner of my eye. Bastard. Total bastard.
Ugh. All the seats in this place and he picked the one right next to me. Of course he did. For what, to apologize? He could have sent a text. That way, Nonna wouldn’t take a perfectly innocent seating arrangement and spin it into something huge that has me popping out babies within the next eighteen months, because that has to be what she’s thinking.
She has wedding bells in her eyes and they have my name on them.
I’ve long accepted that she’ll never understand my lack of desire to get married. Maybe my job has jaded it despite the fact that I’ve grown up with two stable marriages in the form of hers to Nonno and my parents’. And now Trent and Alison. The day they break up is the day the world ends.
But me… I don’t see it. It’s a piece of paper and promises said in front of loads of people. Hell, when I was six, I married Danny Bower in front of half of our class and we even signed our names on the wrapper of a Twinkie. We broke up three days later.
He was a total dick anyway. Still is.
Maybe, when I’m in a relationship with someone that’s steady and stable and safe, I’ll feel differently. Maybe I’ll want that one day, but right now, I’m happy to be with someone.
I take a deep breath as Drake shifts beside me. Jesus, I cannot think about this crap when I’m next to him. It’s total craziness. I have no idea what this is between us apart from totally screwed up.
On the stage, the mayor steps back from the podium, and the room breaks out into raucous applause. Brody elbows me, clapping, and I unenthusiastically join everyone else.
Drake leans over, clapping himself as someone whistles behind us. “How much of that did you listen to?”
“Not a damn word.”
He laughs as the mayor calls for quiet so Alistair Harvey can say his piece before they go head-to-head. He does it with a shit-eating, smug look on his awful little face though, mind you. The man really needs to be told that men of his age can’t get away with a short-back-and-sides haircut without looking like a mushroom-head.
A high-pitched noise breaks through the continuous clapping—loud enough to hear it, but quiet enough that it’s indecipherable. Drake freezes next to me, his back straightening, and his hand moves to the gun at his hip with certainty. My body is reacting in the same way. I sit bolt upright, freezing mid-clap. And it’s there again, the noise. Except this time, it’s louder. Spine-chillingly intense. Even as it echoes through the closed door, it feels like pure pain. Total distress.
“Is that—” Brody starts.
“A scream?” I finish. “Yep.”
As if it’s synchronized, Drake, my brothers, and my father all stand up and turn toward the door. They storm past me, and I notice several other officers in the crowd running for the door, too. I grab Dad’s hand for his attention.
“Noelle,” he says, looking down at me. “You’re not a cop. Sit down.”
“Neither are you anymore,” I shoot back and stand, making sure to get my purse from under my chair on the way. “Do you even have your gun with you?”
“It’s in the car.”
“Yeah, well, mine is in here.” I release his hand to tap my purse. “Stay close to me, okay?”
“You are the only woman I’d ever let protect me,” he mutters, laughing to himself.
I grin.
Dad closes his hand around mine and whistles to clear a path through the people rushing toward the exit. Typical Holly Woods—everyone has to know everything. And I do… But only from a professional standpoint. Yeah, I have a gun and can protect people.
I’m basically a pretend cop. Pow pow.
I run, somewhat awkwardly in heels, with Dad to where I can see the back of Drake’s head. He’s huddled with my brothers and some other cops in a small group, and I let Dad’s hand go.
If there’s a drama this big, the sheriff will be around. And if there’s the sheriff, there’s my dad. They’re worse than me and Bek.
“What’s going on?” I ask Devin when he breaks away from the main group.
“Mayor’s daughter has lost it,” he whispers back.
I frown and jog over to where Drake is. My heels click-clack against the wooden floor, and my instinct is screaming for me to pull my gun out.
Drake turns, presumably hearing me coming, and the look he gives me is enough to make me falter. His features are smooth but hard—his jaw is clamped tight, and his eyes have that ridiculously hot don’t-fuck-with-me look in them.
“Madison McDougall,” he says to me in a tight, gravelly voice. “See if you can find out what’s wrong. She’s crying too fuckin’ hard for us to get anything outta her.”
“More like y’all men handle crying women with the finesse of a bulldozer,” I retort.
He shakes his head, his jaw loosening as the twitch of his lips agrees with me. He rests his hand on my lower back and guides me through everyone to where Madison is sitting in the corner of the room.
Madison McDougall is the girl next door everyone wants to be when they’re in high school. Waist-long, highlighted-blond hair, baby-blue eyes, sweet smile, and always the picture of composure and kindness.
Yeah, well, this version of her is not that one.
Her lips are cracked, evident through the smudges of her red lipstick, and her cheeks are stained with the black mascara she’s cried off. Random lines disappear over the edge of her jaw and chin, some of them sweeping over the red shadows of her lipstick. And Drake’s right. She’s hysterical, gasping for breath between each sob.
“She’s gonna need a paper bag. Now.” I tap Drake’s arm and approach her as he turns. “Madison,” I say quietly, kneeling in front of her. “Madison!”
She chokes on her tears as she looks up.
“That’s it, honey. I need you to calm down now.”
With her eyes wide and panicked, she shakes her head and reaches for her neck with a frantically shaking hand. She’s telling me that she can’t breathe, and I’m not surprised in the slightest.
“I don’t care if it’s a damn tampon disposable bag. I need a paper bag!”
“Here.” Drake pushes through the crowd once more and hands me one.
I help Madison hold it over her mouth and breathe my own sigh of relief when she inhales and the bag collapses in on itself. The wrinkling sound is much better than the questioning murmurs of the people behind us.
Slowly, the color from Madison’s cheeks fades from red to a much paler pink, and Drake quietly asks someone to find out if there’s anyone with medical training in the building and get the mayor and his wife.
“Okay, Madison.” I take her hand. “I need you to tell me what’s happened, sweetie.”
Her blue eyes fill with tears, and she takes a deep breath in the bag again. The tension shoots up as everyone waits to hear what she has to say, and in this moment, with fear riddling her tear-filled gaze while she’s curled into herself, she looks far younger than her twenty-five years.
“I-I went-went into her-her room.” Another breath. “She-she didn’t ans-answer. And she’s-she’s dea-dead. Na-Natalie. She’s dead.”
Drake moves into action immediately, confidently stepping forward. “Which room, Madison?”
But she’s gone. Hyperventilating into the bag once more, each cry more traumatized than the last.
“Nurse,” someone says behind me.
Someone kneels next to me, and I scoot over, focused on Drake. His shoulders heave as he takes a deep breath and turns his face. When our eyes connect, there’s a hard determination glaring back at me. He holds my gaze for a second longer before turning to Trent.
“Secure the hotel. No one in, no one out, and I want every single fuckin’ security tape they have.” He flicks his eyes back to me. “You. Come with me.”
It just doesn’t sound as sexy when there’s a dead body around.
He holds his hands out, and I place mine in his. He curls his fingers around mine and tugs me up, holding me until he’s sure I’m steady.
Then he turns and stalks toward the reception. And I mean he stalks. Each stride is strong and confident, and his walk is nothing short of powerful. He screams that he’s in charge and everyone better recognize that.
“Natalie Owens,” he demands of the lady behind the counter. “I need her room number.”
“I’m sorry, sir. That’s confidential information.”
Drake pulls his badge out and shoves it toward her. “HWPD. I’ve been told her dead body is in your hotel room, and I’m in charge of homicide. I suggest you get me her goddamn room number before the media get wind of this and your hotel turns into a media circus. And by suggest, I mean give me it right now.”
Apparently, his words also scream that he’s in charge and everyone better recognize that.
And. Ho. Lee. Shit.
He’s really hot when he’s bossy.
By the time I’ve gotten to the reception desk, the receptionist is handing Drake a spare key and he’s grabbing my hand and spinning me.
“Oh!” I squeal when he doesn’t let my hand go. “Why are you dragging me around like you’re a cat and I’m the bird you just killed?”
I probably shouldn’t have finished that sentence.
“Try to replace your brain-to-mouth filter, Ms. Bond,” he drawls, pulling me into the elevator.
I don’t even know that he pushed the button. Is he some kind of elevator wizard?
“I don’t have a brain-to-mouth filter. The DNA strands responsible were drunk the day they were supposed to give me that.”
“Drunk? I think they had an accident with a firework.”
“Well, I am pretty at night.”
He cuts his eyes to me, and I’m awfully aware that he’s still holding my fucking hand. “I’m dragging you, as you put it, because you were one of the last people to see Natalie Owens alive—”
“I swear to God, if you pull me in for official questioning, I’m making it worthwhile and making good on my threat to shoot your other foot, too.”
“—so you can give her a basic identification before forensics gets here and the team assembles downstairs,” he finishes as the doors ping open. “Plus, you’d sneak your way up here anyway, and I have a feeling this is already going to give me a headache, so I’m picking my battles.”
I smirk. “You’re a smart man, Detective Nash.”
“So they tell me.” The curvature of his lips matches mine, and he lets me go to open the door. He slots the card in, pulls it, and when the light blinks green, he pulls the handle down and pushes. “Jesus.”
“Is she dead? I don’t think calling Jesus will help. He clearly isn’t her biggest fan if she is.”
“Noelle,” he growls.
“Sorry. I’m hangry still, and it makes me a total bitch. And dead people make me uncomfortable, and I ramble when I’m uncomfortable.”
He holds his hand up to silence me. “The only thing I need from you right now is: Is this Natalie Owens?”
He steps to the side, and as I move through the door, I freeze. Yep, it’s Natalie Owens, all right, but not as I know her.
She’s lying on the bed, her wrists and ankles bound by ropes to the posts at each of the four corners, and there’s bruising coming up her skin from those restraints. New bruising, because I don’t think I saw those this morning or when she came into the office. Thankfully, if anything about this situation is thankful, they resemble rope binds, exactly like the ones holding her now. Her legs are obviously wide open, her underwear nonexistent, and I swallow as I guide my gaze up from her most intimate parts and across her torso.
Lash marks decorate her taut stomach. They’re red, raw, and totally fresh. Tiny spots of blood bead along some of the marks, and the ones across her breasts are even worse. Looking closer, I can see some lighter marks, too—ones that are obviously older.
But it’s her face and neck.
I cover my mouth with my hand.
Her face is purple, her eyes so bloodshot that they’rebulging and almost red. Her mouth is open, her lips swollen, as if she was crying for help in her last moments. A chill fills the air as I focus on the deep-purple tie knotted around her neck, cutting into her pale skin.
I swallow hard. Hours ago, I was talking to her in her home. Albeit a very shaken-up Natalie, but oh, hell. Shit. Fuck.
“Noelle,” Drake says softly. “Is this Natalie?”
I nod and turn, walking into the hall. I lean against the wall next to the doorway and put my hands on my knees. Was this her important appointment? In the hotel where the debate was being held? And if so, who was she meeting? Who did this? Who knew this information?
Drake stops in front of me and cups my face. The palms of his hands are hot against my cheeks, and I breathe in again as he tilts my face up. His eyes, despite their hardness for the situation, are full of concern for me.
“If you want to go, no one will hold it against you.”
“No,” I whisper. “I just need…a minute. That’s all.”
“Are you okay?”
“I will be if you do your hot-cop thing and start demanding things of the people you work with.”
His short laugh is weak. “Okay.” He presses his lips to my forehead, the warmth lingering from his gentle touch even after he’s stepped away and his phone is attached to his ear.
He does what I said so flippantly. Within five minutes, he’s ordered the floor to be evacuated and cordoned off, called in almost every officer in the HWPD to get started on questioning everyone in the building, called Tim, the town coroner, for him to come in, and confirmed that the sheriff is on his way up with a bottle of cold water for me. And my father.
Excellent.
Trent and Brody are the first to arrive, closely followed by my dad and Sheriff Bates. Sheriff Bates is the sweetest gentleman I know, and he rarely wears anything other than a button-down shirt pressed to perfection. Today is no different, and as he approaches me with his pure-white hair slicked back from his face, a water bottle in his hand, I’m thankful for his calming presence.
“Drink,” he orders. The word is soft, but the authority in it has me automatically unscrewing the cap and sipping. He’s commanding in a grandfather kind of way, something I know we’ve all welcomed in the years since Nonno passed.
That’s the thought I hold on to now as the hall is filled with security guards emptying rooms with little explanation, allowing everyone ten minutes to pack their belongings to be transferred to another The forensics team arrives, and they disappear into the room with Drake, Trent, and Brody before closing the door to preserve as much dignity as Natalie has left.
She could have exposed herself to as many people in life as she wanted to, but in death, she’ll be respected in a way she perhaps never respected herself.
I can’t wipe the images of her tied up, that tie around her neck. Was the tie deliberate? A spur-of-the-moment act? It’s clear to see that that’s the way she died. She was strangled. Her appearance could tell even a CSI-loving amateur that.
I take another sip of the water as Drake reappears, closing the door behind him.
“We found identification inside her wallet,” he tells Sheriff Bates, shoving him a white, leather wallet with his gloved hand. With his other, clad in the same type of latex glove, he removes her driver’s license and holds it up for him to see. “Confirmed as Natalie Owens.”
I knew it, but shit.
Drake puts the wallet into a sealable plastic bag and briefly opens the door to hand it to someone inside the room.
“What else is there immediately?” Sheriff Bates asks as the lock clicks.
Drake snaps his gloves off and shoves them into his pocket. “Marks on the body indicate an affinity for bondage. There are numerous burn marks across her wrists and ankles. Tim will need to spend more time with her body, but his initial thought is that it’s beyond a dom-slash-sub relationship. Perhaps a serious sadomasochistic relationship wherein the dominant acts as her rapist and she struggles as such.”
I frown. How could that be enjoyable for her at all? “Who would get pleasure from pretending to be that brutally attacked?”
“You’d be surprised,” Dad answers. “Holly Woods isn’t necessarily the town everyone thinks it is. Sure, it’s real quaint and cute, but beneath, there are some dark secrets. This is, unfortunately, one of them.”
“BDSM? Why would it be?”
“Because Holly Woods prides itself on being a ‘clean’ town. Meaning we have little crime, no controversy, and the bar that’s exclusive, invite-only for the rich living within a fifty-mile radius.”
“Are you telling me that D.O.M. is a sex club and not a…? Wait.” I pause, rolling the water bottle across my lips. “Of course. The name itself…”
“Is obvious without being brash,” Drake answers. “Put it this way: If you need to know about it, you do. The police department know because they need our services. I can count on one hand the amount of calls we’ve had to there in the last two years, but I’d bet anything that Natalie was a member, at least once upon a time.”
“Would they condone that kind of thing though? The…pretend rape.”
“Absolutely not,” Sheriff Bates says sharply. “The rules are very clear. Even if it’s consensual and both parties have signed the necessary contracts the club demands. There’s no way for them to know if the participants are genuinely wanting it or being forced into it.”
“Will they release any information about Natalie though? Surely a club like that would be reluctant.”
Drake shakes his head. “I already have Brody preparing for a warrant for it, just in case, but here’s the thing: BDSM is about safety, first and foremost. That’s the whole reason for the contracts. You can’t walk into D.O.M. and pick up some random person the way you can in a bar. You have to have met them before and whittled out every detail of your relationship. We’ve seen their contracts. They’re tighter than anything I’ve ever read before.”
“You think they’ll hand the info over?” Dad asks him.
He shrugs. “Who knows? If she is, or was, a member, it won’t look good when it’s revealed that she was murdered in a sexual situation. Plus, if there’s the risk of a murderer on their client list, they’ll hand everything over to us. Thankfully, they stick to a select clientele of no more than fifty or sixty people, so it should be relatively easy to contact everyone.”
Only fifty or sixty. Oh, yeah—that can be done by lunchtime. If you get up at four a.m. What the hell?
“So, what killed her?” Sheriff Bates asks. “I’m going to have to personally deliver a report to Mayor McDougall before sunset.”
“Asphyxiation,” Drake answers. “Given her…situation…Tim thinks it was erotic asphyxiation, but he’ll know more when he’s had a chance to carry out her autopsy in two to three days.”
Erotic asphyxiation. The art of restricting oxygen flow to the brain during sex to heighten pleasure.
Risky.
Obviously.
“But that’s consensual, isn’t it?” I ask, looking between the three men. “He wouldn’t have been able to do that to her without her agreement.”
“She was bound to the bed and unable to move,” Drake points out.
“But there had to be respect there. If she said no and he valued it, he wouldn’t have done it, surely.”
“Unless he didn’t respect her at all.”
“Then this…” I swallow and glance at this door.
“Then this isn’t a sex game gone wrong.” His eyes bore into mine. “This is murder.”
Eight p.m.
I finally sit in my car after hours of being inside that hotel, waiting to be officially released by the HWPD. I’ve seen several breakdowns, a few anxiety attacks, more ambulances than I ever thought I’d see in one day, and more than one or two women preparing to sue the hotel for the disruption of their stay.
Yeah, because that’s the real issue here—that people can’t get their chosen rooms. And many have been upgraded free of charge.
People logic. Sucks.
All I really want right now is a big, fat pizza, a bottle of wine, and a hug.
Given the fact that my phone is ringing, yet again, that seems like a real long shot.
“Hello?” I answer the unknown number warily.
“Ms. Bond?” an unfamiliar female voice says.
“Speaking.”
“My name is Ellis Law. I’m Mayor McDougall’s personal assistant.”
Oh, awesome. “What can I do for you, Miss Law?”
“Ellis, please.”
“Then it’s Noelle, please.”
“Very well. Mayor McDougall would like you to come into his office immediately to discuss a pressing matter.”
Even better. “Can it not wait until tomorrow morning? I’ve barely eaten today and I’m exhausted. I’d hate to give the mayor anything less than my full attention.” Actually, I’d hate to give him any of my attention, but hey.
“My apologies, but it’s incredibly important you come and see him tonight. I can arrange to have a meal of your choice either waiting for you or to-go when you leave. Mayor McDougall understands you’ve been at the hotel for several hours now and is more than happy to ensure you’re made comfortable.”
Free dinner?
Hello, Ellis. I’m on my way.
“Make it a Chinese chicken chow mein with egg fried rice and spring rolls to-go and I’ll be there in five.”
If smiles were audible, hers would be whooping in delight. “I’ll let him know. See you soon, Noelle.”
The line cuts out. My stomach rumbles, and I knock my fist into it.
“Hey, greedy bitch, dinner is free tonight. Pipe down.” I put the car into drive and take the turn out of the parking lot. The one that leads to a late business meeting and a free dinner.
The Oleander is in the center of town, and Town Hall and the mayor’s office can be seen from some of the rooms, so it only takes me two or three minutes to drive the few blocks distance and pull up in the almost-empty parking lot. Of course there would be a grand total of four cars here. Why would council officials be working the evening of the day when their head honcho’s bitch fest was interrupted by a possible murder?
How unreasonable of me to expect that.
I sigh and get out of my car, slinging my purse over my shoulder. Damn me for getting tempted by free food. I want my bed. Still, I walk into the building and take the elevator to the fourth floor, where the mayor’s office is.
Ellis Law is sitting behind a desk in the middle of the room, her pixie cut spiked and her sweeping bangs pinned out of the way as she types. She glances up when the elevator doors shut, her eyes tired, and smiles.
“Noelle?”
“Yes,” I reply quietly. “Is Mayor McDougall ready to see me?”
“Absolutely.” She gets up, readjusts the waistband of her pinstriped pants, and goes to the large closed door behind her desk. “Sir? Noelle Bond is here for you.”
“Send her in,” he barks.
Well, excellent. Everyone loves a mayor in a bad mood.
Ellis sweeps her hand toward the door with an apologetic smile. Looks like my dislike of the mayor has found a friend—for today, at least.
Mayor McDougall, a tall, brash man who’s spent the last twenty years combing his hair over to convince us that the bald spot on the crown of his head is a figment of our imagination, is scribbling furiously on a notepad. He looks up with amber-colored eyes and points his pen at the chair.
“Sit.”
I bite my tongue before a snarky comment comes out and do as he said. I set my purse down next to me on the floor and tuck my ankles beneath the chair, my hands resting in my lap.
The mayor keeps me waiting.
I clear my throat, and when he looks up, I quirk an eyebrow. “Surely you didn’t invite me here to see you writing, sir. With all due respect, if this is going to take much longer, I’d rather come back tomorrow before the little remaining patience I have for today runs out.”
His lips twitch up, and he sets the pen down. Slowly, he rests his elbows on the desk and touches his fingertips together. “Calling you in was the right decision, it seems. I was wondering if you were as sassy as your grandmother.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that. She prides herself on being the passionate one.”
“I can’t imagine why.” He drops his hands and dips his head to remove his glasses. Clasping the arm between his finger and thumb, he looks at me intensely, sending chills down my spine. “I want to hire you.”
“Excuse me?”
“More specifically, I want to hire you to work alongside the police.” He gets up, leaving his glasses on top of the notebook, and walks to the window with his hands clasped at the base of his back. “You and I both know that many of the so-called detectives are incompetent fools, especially in homicide. Detective Nash and your brothers are some of the few I trust, and naturally, they are working on Natalie’s untimely demise.”
Untimely demise, indeed.
“An office space will be prepared for you in the department should you require it.”
“I have a business to run first and foremost. I won’t leave my staff to their own devices, not to mention other cases I’m working on currently.” Like finding out if the guy who works in the hardware store is gay so my friend Alonso can ask him out. “And working alongside the police is a very vague statement. I need more than that before I can even consider it.”
Mayor McDougall turns, loosening his tie. “I want you to find out who killed Natalie, Ms. Bond. This case must be resolved as quickly as possible to avoid the ramifications for all involved. My campaign is too high profile and at risk of a loss for the first time in over thirty years. I simply cannot have it overshadowed by the death of Natalie, no matter how sad it is. It behooves everyone for her murderer to be charged with as little investigation as possible.”
Good Lord, this man is a crusty, selfish penis-head, isn’t he?
My eyebrows shoot up. “With as little investigation? Unless forensics gives Detective Nash a thorough DNA rundown and it’s matched with someone in the system, there’ll be more than a little investigation.”
