Текст книги "Tethered Bond"

Автор книги: Emma Hart

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“What if whoever is doing this won’t stop at three bodies? What if they want nine?” The words tumble from me. “What if—what if this is deliberately thought through and planned? Oh my God.”

“If that’s true”—his dark eyes, like black opals, pierce mine—“then you’re gonna need to say His name a heck of a lot more.”

I slowly walk around the fair. Ever since Alex left my office this morning, I’ve been on high alert for everything. I have no idea what’s happening at the police station, and I don’t want to know.

I can’t work with their restrictive methods. I never could. My mind has always been faster than they allow—even when I was in Dallas.

The thought that another six women could die is terrifying. What I really, really need is to speak with Dina. I need to know if she thinks there could be some weight to my theory. Despite Alex’s help, I still don’t trust him—hey, the man has a crazy amount of knowledge about Satanism—so I packed up immediately after and all but ran him out of my office.

Now, I’m here. In the place where it all seems to be coming back to. Or where the information can come from, at the very least.

I peel some of the wrapper away from the side of my cupcake. Rosie just had some delivered to her stall and I just so happened to be walking past at that very moment. I don’t believe in much, but I believe in cupcake fate. That was cupcake fate.

Besides, I need some sugar. Desperately.

I sigh and look down. This case is exhausting. It feels like it’s been weeks since we found Toni’s body, but it hasn’t even been one. How are they connected? I don’t believe that the victims have been picked at random. They haven’t been opportunistic. The killers have made the opportunities. Why else would this be going on at the fair? It’s the perfect cover. If the killers are travelers, then they can disappear and that’s it. We’re left with a cold case and nowhere to go.

Ugh. Serial killings are the cul-de-sacs of the homicide world. Unless you’re picking off a cheer team or a football team or something with an obvious connection, it’s hard to get past even that, let alone find the killer. Having a reason for the connections always helps.

That said, if it helped that much, Jack the Ripper wouldn’t be known as Jack the Ripper, would he?

Ho hum. At least my brain is rationalizing things now.

I wonder if it’d be acceptable to line up every male traveler, pluck a hair from each of their heads, bag them, then write their names on it for DNA testing. I mean, you could ask them to jack off into a little cup, but that seems a little too far.

Hair pulling does hurt though. When done incorrectly. Sometimes, it’s nice.

No. Now is not the time to think about sex. If I think about sex, then I’ll think about… Never mind.

Probably shouldn’t eat the last half of this cupcake if I’m going off on tangents already. Mind you, I do think of my best ideas when on a tangent. They tend to break through rather suddenly. It’s like when you’re walking through your brother’s living room at three a.m. after babysitting and step on a Lego. Just not that painful… I have bumped my head or stubbed a toe once or twice while coming up with an idea, so there is that.

I don’t think making them all provide a DNA sample is exactly legal anyway. I’d be pretty pissed if I was asked.

My phone buzzes in my butt pocket. I reach around, pull it out, and bring the text up. It’s from Grecia.

Tracey Young made an appointment for nine a.m. on Monday morning.

Tracey Young. Tracey Young.

Ah. Wife of sleazy lawyer.

Nine a.m. on a Monday. Vile. I hope she isn’t… Ah, shit. I have to write that report. At least it’s Saturday. I’ll type it up tomorrow night or something. I don’t know.

Okay. Let’s get real and focus here, Noelle. You came to the fair for a reason, and that reason was to find Dina. So stop fucking around and go find Dina.

I throw my cupcake wrapper in the nearest trash can and walk to her stall. It’s closed down, and when I check with her neighbor, she says that she hasn’t seen her for two days.

Odd. Why would she leave it unattended? Unless there’s a problem at her store… Or maybe she’s sick.

I pull my phone out and dial her number. Thankfully, I thought ahead and pulled it from her card last night—just in case.

Hell…was that meeting really only yesterday?

I have got to get a hold on my own days if I want to get anywhere with this.

And my focus, because for what feels like the tenth time in the last couple of days, I walk right into a person.

The person chuckles, and I recognize it as Eddie Roy’s laugh.

“Oh my God. I am so sorry. Again,” I say, hanging up the phone call when it goes to her machine.

“Don’t worry,” he replies, still chuckling. “Important call?”

“Apparently,” I mutter, wondering why it went to her machine. Odd that she isn’t here, odder that her store is apparently empty. She must be sick and in bed. “Again, I’m sorry. I have to learn to—”

“Eddie!” A twenty-something-looking man appears behind him.

“Damien, where are your manners?” Eddie says, releasing my arms and turning. “Excuse my nephew, Noelle. Apologize, boy.”

“Sorry,” Damien says to me, glancing at me before doing a double-take.

Oh boy. Here we go.

“Damien Roy,” he says, his eyes, the same bright blue as his uncle’s, crawling over me. He shakes some blond hair from his eyes then holds his hand out.

“Noelle Bond.” I take his hand and shake.

I don’t like the way he’s looking at me. And not just because I think I was already in school before he was born.

It’s not a damn-you’re-hot kinda look. More a hey-girl-you’re-fine look, and when I say, “hey, girl,” I don’t mean in the Ryan-Gosling-Facebook-meme way. I mean in the I-haven’t-gotten-laid-for-six-months-and-I’m-sleazy kind of way. Or maybe that’s just because he needs to give his hair a good wash.

I kind of want to attack him with a can of dry shampoo at the very least. You know that feeling when you’re stuck on a bus or in the grocery line next to the guy who really, really should have considered a shower before he left? When you really want to just attack them with extract of lavender or something?

That’s how I feel right now.

“Call me forward, but are you single?”

Forward? Forward? That’s not forward. That’s a fucking foghorn.

Eddie slaps him around the back of the head. “Don’t be so rude, Damien.”

“I’m just asking,” he says, holding his hands up. He faces me and smiles slowly. “Well, are you?”

“No,” a familiar, rumbling voice says behind me. “She isn’t.”

Of course, now is when he shows up. Treats me like a rookie cop, doesn’t speak to me for twenty-four hours, but magically finds me right as I’m being hit on.

What is it with guys always doing that?

“I need to talk to you,” Drake says, touching his hand to my upper back.

“Now, you want to talk,” I mutter. I offer Eddie and Damien an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I have to go. And, Eddie? I’m really sorry for running into you. Again.”

He laughs. “Don’t worry, darlin’. I don’t complain.”

Drake tenses beside me. I hold a hand up in goodbye and let myself be dragged across the field.

“Uh, hello? I’m not a puppy. You don’t need to force me to walk,” I snap.

“Drop the attitude for five fucking minutes, Noelle.”

“I’ll drop it when you drop to your knees and kiss my ass.”

He rubs his hand down his face, still pushing me through the throngs of people. His grip is strong and determined, his whole body taut with annoyance. I watch his mouth, waiting for him to count.

Yep. There it is. Barely there movements but an obvious count to ten.

It’s fun when he gets this annoyed. And, by fun, I mean I want to shoot him because he forgets this little thing called boundaries. As in: Don’t tell me to shut up, don’t mention your ex-fiancée, don’t rib on me about my cupcake habit, and don’t do anything that will piss me off in general.

Drake drags me to his truck, where he finally releases me and runs his fingers through his unruly, dark hair. His jaw is tight, and I’m about to either hear bad news or get my ass kicked. Possibly both.

“We have reports of another missing person,” he says in a hushed tone. Angry-as-hell tone, but hushed.

Fear coils in my stomach.

“Lilly Paul. She’s an eighteen-year-old senior from Austin. According to her parents, she runs away on a regular basis, but in light of the recent…unfortunate events…they decided to contact us. She was last seen yesterday morning before school.”

Fuck my life. Seriously. Just screw it all. Just when it seemed like we could be getting somewhere…

I take a deep breath. “Okay. And you want me to do what?”

He frowns.

“What? You don’t have an order for me this time?”

“Noelle.”

“No. Don’t Noelle me. You’re only here to tell me this because you want me to do something. Otherwise, you’d have sent one of my brothers to find me.”

He shrugs and leans against his truck. “I need her information pulled. I’d have called Carlton myself, but he’s terrified of me.”

“Because you pulled your gun on him when he walked into my office!” I slap my forehead. “And I don’t care if it was your Taser. Bursting in unannounced is not an acceptable excuse!”

“I thought we were alone,” Drake bites out. “You didn’t tell me he was still there.”

“Well, excuse me. Next time, I’ll make sure to keep a fucking sign-in sheet on the door for you!”

“This conversation isn’t getting us anywhere.” He rubs his forehead. “Will you please ask Carlton to get us any information on Lilly? We’re running out of manpower, and I don’t want to bring Messina and his cronies in Austin much further into this if I don’t have to.”

“Do you really hate him that much that you’re not willing to let him help?” My eyebrows shoot up. “What did he ever do to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Did you drive here?”

“No. I flew.”

“You’re pissing me off, Noelle.”

“Then I need to up my game, because you already pissed me off.” Then, in a fabulously adult move, I poke my tongue out at him and flounce off in the direction of my car.

I expect him to curse. I expect him to yell. I expect him to yell a curse, actually. But he doesn’t.

He laughs.

One great, big, stomach-fluttering, skin-tingling, heart-thumping laugh.

“Are you laughing at me?” I stop and turn. “You are, aren’t you? You’re laughing at me.”

He keeps laughing. Keeps letting those chuckles roll until he has to press his hand flat against his stomach and force a deep breath.

I want to punch him.

“Why are you laughing at me?”

He looks up, his long, dark lashes perfectly framing his light eyes. “Did you seriously just poke your tongue out at me?”

“Um, yes.”

He fights another round of laughter. “Okay. I’m gonna bite. What did I do so badly to piss you off?”

“You are kidding, right?”

“Do I sound like it?”

He’s kidding. He has to be kidding.

“You haven’t spoken to me for twenty-four hours!” I shout.

He stills, sobering. “Seriously? That’s why your thong is so far up your ass it’s passing through your intestine?”

“My thong is not up my ass!”

His eyebrows shoot up.

Okay. That was a stupid statement.

“It’s not that far,” I argue. “It’s exactly where it’s supposed to be. Right between the cheeks but outside of my…well, asshole.”

Drake smirks, the smooth movement drawing my eyes to his mouth. He has a lovely mouth.

Oh, fuck me. This was easier when I hated him. So much easier.

“Come here,” he says, crooking his finger.

I fold my arms defiantly.

“Noelle… Please come here.”

His soft tone obviously melts a bit of my bitchiness, because I drop my arms with a dramatic sigh and walk to him. He grabs my arm and pushes me against the truck, moving to stand in front of me.

I hate it when he does this. He traps me so I can’t possibly run away from him.

“We need to talk.”

I also really hate it when he says that. But he’s right. And I am trying to work on the discussion thing.

Wouldn’t relationships be so much easier if they were just sex and snuggles? This talking thing is a pain in my ass.

“Yesterday,” I say softly, feeling the hurt creep back in. “When you spoke to me like crap. You…” I swallow. “Know what? It doesn’t matter. It’s stupid.”

He gently clasps my chin and tilts it up. “Noelle, it’s never stupid. A hell of a lot of things with you are, but I know you well enough that I’ve done something really wrong. How is it gonna be better if you don’t tell me about it?”

“Fine. You didn’t apologize.”

“I texted you earlier.”

I shake my head. “No, you didn’t.”

He frowns. “Of course. I was writing it and then Jessica came in and I never sent it.” He sighs.

I do my best to ignore the bristle of annoyance at that admission. “Jessica? Nice to know my apology was set aside for your ex.”

“Oh, stop it. She’s still trying to get dinner out of me. I told her she’ll have to wait until hell freezes over.” His lips move into a half smile, and against my desire, mine do, too. “I’m sorry. This case is real stressful. Brook Meyers was a huge pain in my ass yesterday, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

“Damn right you shouldn’t have! Next time, I will remove your balls from your body.”

He smiles wider and leans in. “I wouldn’t expect anything less, sweetheart. If I buy you cupcakes every day for a week, can we be friends again?”

“Just friends? Buy me that many and I’ll climb you like a tree.”

He pauses, pulls back, then laughs again. I’m just about to ask him why that was so funny when he silences his own amusement with a touch of his lips to mine.

I sigh into the kiss.

I didn’t realize I needed it.

When he pulls back, I tug my lower lip into my mouth and sigh as it hits me. If Lilly Paul’s disappearance isn’t her running away again, my theory from earlier today could be very right.

“I need to tell you something.”

It didn’t go down well.

In fact, that’s an understatement. It went down like an uncontrolled demolition. I seem to be the only one working this case who’s thought about the real parts of research and gone actively looking for information.

It’s ridiculous. Clearly, belief is at the center of this case, so why aren’t they looking into it? Because they’re fussing over DNA and an eighteen-year-old kid who had sex with someone under the age of consent. The chances of them even getting a conviction for Brook Meyers is minimal and they know it.

But no. They can focus on that, and then the great Holly Woods Police Department is surprised when I throw a curveball like the fact that we could end up with nine victims.

After spending two hours recounting everything Alex told me and finally writing it all down—after, of course, being amazed at how much I could remember—I was allowed to leave.

Thankfully, Bek made it to the store for me, correctly assuming that I wouldn’t have anything and wouldn’t get to go there.

Also: I don’t like to shop on Saturdays. Unless it’s online.

“Another?” Bek asks, holding her phone up and waving it.

Amelia nods through giggles.

“Okay. Hang on.” She swipes the screen, pausing to sip her wine, and almost chokes. “This one: ‘Are you Irish? ’Cause my penis is Dublin.’”

I bite down on my finger, fighting the inevitable eruption of laughter. “Seriously?”

She nods. “Another: ‘Are your legs made of Nutella? I’d love to spread them.’ My legs aren’t even in the profile picture!”

Alison shakes her head. “Why do you stay on Tinder? You know they’re all guys with egos bigger than their equipment.”

“Because I’m deluded? Bored? Lonely?”

“Orgasm deprived,” I offer helpfully, finishing the last of my drink and reaching for the jug. “If you can wait until your birthday next month, I’ll clear that up for you.”

Bek slowly turns to me, intrigue written all over her face. “You will, huh? Have I ever told you I don’t swing that way?”

I put the margarita jug down and throw a chip at her. “I’ll swing you into a wall.”

“Oooh, feisty.”

I roll my eyes. “What other lines are there? You have to have more.”

“They’re all so baaad,” she moans.

Amelia reaches over and snatches her phone, grinning, then scrolls. “Ha!” she shrieks, clapping her hand over her mouth. “‘Girl, are you a witch? ’Cause you’ve got me spellbound.’” She looks up from the phone, her eyes coasting over us all with a smile teasing her lips. “The best part is the response.”

“Oh no,” Bek whispers.

“‘AbracaNO,’ followed up by a ‘Bibbidy bobbity bullshit.’”

Bek groans and covers her face with her hands.

Alison fights a laugh. “Hey—you gotta fight cheese with cheese.”

“Bibbidy bobbity bullshit.” I bite the inside of my lip. It doesn’t work for holding in my laughter, and within seconds, it’s spilling out of me.

My laughter triggers Alison’s, then Amelia’s, and finally, Bek herself is laughing.

Bibbidy bobbity bullshit.

Just when I thought I’d heard it all, I heard that.

Fucking awesome.

Another day, another dead-bodiless morning.

In fact, there’s even a bird chirping outside my office window.

I slam the pane down to shut the fucker up, and he falls off the ledge before recovering and flying off in the direction of the park.

I don’t make it a habit to come to the office on a Sun—oh, who the hell am I trying to kid? I’m always in my office, even if I do have one stinkin’ hell of a hangover.

That’s the last time the quiet-and-reserved Amelia mixes the margaritas.

My greatest feat today—and it’s only ten a.m., thank you—is that I haven’t had to answer Nonna’s barrage of questions about the wedding being called off. Mostly because I set her personal ringtone to silence and turned off notifications for text messages.

Now, I understand that the last one could bite me in the ass, but texting isn’t the only way to get ahold of me. Besides, getting me to actually reply to ninety percent of my texts is a miracle. I have to be in the right mood. Like teasing Drake or something.

Still, I have work to do, and that’s the end of that.

Obviously, that’s why I have Victoria’s Secret pulled up in my web browser. Because I don’t have enough underwear.

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that I am a very skilled procrastinator.

Reluctantly, as the thought crosses my mind, I click the X in the corner, and the window shuts down. Unless I’m looking up Satan or my e-mail, I don’t really need the browser open. The Internet is full of distractions. Like Facebook. And BuzzFeed.

Oh, sweet, sweet BuzzFeed.

Dammit, Noelle. Focus your ass.

Okay.

This isn’t going to happen. Maybe I should take a nap instead. I’m still pretty tired, and everyone knows that sleep cures all.

“Oh good. You’re here!” Carlton steps into my office with a bright-red, plastic folder. “I finally pulled everything you asked for. It took a while to actually track down most of the satanic sects because, although they’re registered, a lot use false addresses for fear of getting their asses kicked.”

“Asses kicked by what? Christian and Catholic Texans wielding holy water, a Bible, and a few scriptures? Terrifying,” I reply dryly. “What about the victims? Brook Meyers?”

“Everything down to the fact that Brook Meyers was”—he coughs—“circumcised.”

“Next time, leave that detail out.” I shudder. Way too much information, thank you, Carlton. “Good work though. Did you read anything?”

Guiltily, he glances down. Then he runs his hand through his hair and looks at me with a sheepish smile. “Some. Mostly to pass the time.”

“Notice a connection with any of the girls?”

“Other than that they all went to high schools in the Holly Woods or Austin area? One thing. Their religion. They’re all…” He hesitates.

“Catholic,” I state. “Don’t worry. I don’t think anyone will try to get my grandmother any time soon.”

I wink, and he shudders. Oh yeah. Nonna has terrified the poor guy too. Asked him if he was Catholic and explained several sins when he confirmed that he isn’t. The number-one sin? Not being Catholic.

I’m going to look into care for the elderly once this case is finished. Preferably one that provides extensive psychiatric care, because who knows how long this case will take to solve? Right now, we have a big, fat nothing for evidence.

And without evidence…

I shake off that thought and turn back to Carlton. “Do you think it could be that simple? The connection between the girls is their religion?”

He shrugs, color heating his cheeks. “I don’t know. Maybe. That’s the most obvious reason. There may be something else I couldn’t find out. Even hackers have their limits.”

“Borrowers.” I point a pen at him. “You are a borrower.”

“Fine. Even borrowers have their limits.”

I grin. “Thank you for this. If this could be it, I’ll see if anyone can go down to the church and keep an eye out for suspicious behavior. Stands to reason that, on a Sunday, at least one murderer would be scoping out possible targets in a Catholic church.”

Carlton grimaces. “And to think—I could have taken a job at Subway.”

“You can always make me a sandwich if you want.”

“Uh…I think I’ll pass. Do you need anything else?”

“Not right now. I’ll call if I think of anything. I’m going to run these files down to the station.”

The station is eerily quiet when I open the main door. There’s no bustle of people meandering through tables, no ringing phones, no yells to another person.

I don’t like it.

Charlotte is sitting behind her desk, filing her nails, her stockinged feet resting on the surface in front of her. She jolts when she sees me, smiles sheepishly, then points toward Drake’s office.

“He isn’t alone,” she adds, wincing as she does so.

And it just gets better, doesn’t it?

“Remind her where the door is before I get a chance to,” I mutter, clutching the files close to my chest. I walk over to his office and rap my knuckles against the door, not caring that I’m interrupting.

The door swings open. Jessica is the woman filling the space, and Drake is sitting at this desk, his fingers pressing into his temples. Oh yay! He’s pissed as well.

Sunday, you’re a bitch.

“Oh, Noelle!” Jessica’s voice is sickly sweet. “So nice of you to stop by.”

“For Drake, perhaps, but not for you.” I respond, matching my tone to hers. I even add a smile for good measure.

Drake drops his head back and rubs his hand down his face.

“What are you doing here?” Jessica asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Last time I checked, I have more of a right to be here than you.”

“I was just—”

“Leaving,” Drake interrupts her, pushing back. His arms strain against his shirt, and I swallow. “You were just leaving, Jessica. Your so-called evidence isn’t evidence at all. Unless you have something that will actually help…”

Jessica purses her lips and looks between us. “I’ll call you.”

“Don’t bother. He won’t answer.” I shrug. “Last time you called, I tried to answer, and his phone had a near brush with the toilet bowl. Next time, I won’t miss.”

With the phone or her head. I’m not afraid to shove her face into a toilet.

Jessica sighs dramatically and hooks her purse over her shoulder. She flicks her hair back and looks down at me. Without my heels, she has an inch on me in height, and the evil glint in her eye says she loves that.

“You’re kind of short, aren’t you?”

“I don’t need to be tall to shoot you and hit you. You wanna see?” I reach beneath the skirt of my dress.

Her bravado falters as my words register.

Charlotte hollers with laughter across the floor.

Jessica doesn’t bother to reply as she barges past me, deliberately smacking me in the arm with her purse. Oh fuck no. The bitch does not get to do that and get away with it.

“Hold my shit.” I turn in the direction she’s stalking off in and shove my things at Drake.

Unfortunately, he intercepts me before I can take a single step forward. “In there. Now.” He manhandles me into his office and kicks the door shut. “And don’t even think about going out there.”

“She hit me!”

“With her purse.”

“Deliberately!”

“Noelle…”

“Are you taking her side?”

“Jesus Christ. This isn’t middle school. I simply don’t want to be filing an assault report against you,” he sighs, loosening his tie. “Thank you for coming when you did.” He swiftly changes the subject when I narrow my eyes. “I thought I was going to be the next murderer in town. She’s like a rash, isn’t she?”

“She’s the black plague,” I scoff. I drop my own purse on one of his chairs, and I’m about to hand him the file when I pause.

There are dark shadows beneath his eyes, the bags so heavy that, if they were real, they’d be the one trip a man makes from the car to the kitchen after a weekly grocery shop. He looks drawn, his beard untrimmed, and even his hair looks like it’s been taken off Big Foot and glued to the top of his head.

I take the few steps across the office to him and lift my hand to his face. I curl my fingers beneath his jaw and rub my thumb across the bottom of his cheek. “You aren’t sleeping, are you?”

He shrugs, making my hand drop. “The case… We have to solve it.”

“You can’t solve it if you’re running on empty. How long have you been here?”

Another shrug. He looks toward the clock on the wall. “Since six? I was hopin’ for some quiet, but then Jessica turned up.”

“You could have sent me a Mayday. I would have rescued you before now.”

“No offense, but from what I hear, you’re the only one up and alive after your night last night.” He smirks, tugging on a lock of my hair. “Amelia passed out on the sofa until Dev carried her up to bed, and I believe Alison passed out in the car. The kids are with your parents.”

“Bek’s still in bed,” I agree. “I tried to call her before I went to the office but got a resounding, ‘Fuck off, you bitch,’ and then she hung up.”

“How are you awake?”

“I’m superhuman. And also very hungover.”

“Did you drive here?”

“Um…”

“Noelle,” he growls.

“I’m not that hungover! Honestly. I happen to be smarter than my friends and had, like, two bottles of water before bed.”

“How far did you drive?”

Oy. I roll my eyes. “To the office and then here.”

That placates him. Just.

“Why did you come here?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because I want to talk about the case?” I also want to slap him around the back of the head with the files I brought.

Drake sighs heavily, his icy, blue eyes tired and lifeless. “There’s no point right now. I don’t know many fuckin’ times we’ve trawled the reports and the autopsies and the photos… We even have the semen DNA samples being run through the systems in the surrounding states, but no hits. The hair we pulled from the trunk of Annabelle’s car is hers, and the partial boot print found is just that—partial. And fingerprints? None. Whoever dumped the car wasn’t stupid enough to do so without wiping it clean. Can’t get a damn thing from it. It’s just dead end after dead end after dead fuckin’ end.” He pushes away from me and goes to the window. “It’s like the others but worse. Knowing that we have two people at least killing random girls is, appropriately, fucking hell.”

“I might be able to help you with the randomness.” I grab the files and hold it out. “Here.”

He slowly turns back, his eyes landing on the bright-red folder. “What is that?”

“All the information Carlton could borrow”—I smile, and his lips twitch—“on our three victims and Brook Meyers. He found something that could be either coincidence or the connection we need.”

“What is it?” He takes the folder from me and opens it, pulling out the stapled-together sheets of paper from the clear pockets inside.

“All three victims are Catholic.”

He stills. No—it’s more than a stilling. Or a freezing. It’s as though paralysis takes his body over.

“Say that again.”

I get the feeling I should run. Fast. And far. “All three victims are Catholic,” I repeat again, this time much more gently.

He picks his phone up without looking at me and dials a number. “Noelle, what time are the services today?”

“Uhh, ten thirty and five thirty, I think.”

Drake glances at the clock again. “Nash here, sir. The connection seems to be religion. All victims were Catholic… That was my plan. Who? ... Got it.” His whole body heaves as he sets the phone back in the cradle and turns to look at me. He no longer looks tired. He looks pissed and determined.

And I still think I should run.

“You’re coming with me.”

“Oh, no. I am not going to church!” I protest, stepping away from him. “Nonna will be there. I’ve been avoiding her successfully.”

“I don’t care.”

“She’ll think you secretly proposed and we’re scoping it out for a wedding venue!”

His step falters, indecision flitting across his face before the resolution sets back in. “Nice try. Get your purse. We’re going.” He shoves my purse at me, and I look at my outfit.

“Am I…er…allowed to take a gun into church?”

Drake yanks the door open. “This is Texas. Find someone who won’t have a gun on them in church.”

“Nonna won’t. She’d rather take a wooden spoon as a weapon. She’s deadly enough with that fucker.”

“Noelle? Be quiet.”

“It’s just not as scary when you say it like that,” I sigh, heading for my car.

Drake stops at his truck and hits the unlock button on the key fob. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

“Uh, to my car? To drive to the church?” I point at my little Audi.

He shakes his head slowly, every twist of his neck deliberate. “No.” He points at me then his truck. “Your ass. In there. Now.”

Oh, God. This is exactly why I should have listened to my flight instinct, because now, it’s gonna be a fight.

“I can drive myself to church, Drake. My foot isn’t hurting.”

“I don’t give a shit about your damn foot!” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “I care that we’re going somewhere where there is potentially a brutal serial killer picking out his next victim. I care that they’ve already carjacked one of their victims before dumping it and her. I care enough not to let you go alone. So either get yourself in my truck or I’m going to get you in it, and it’ll be a hell of a lot rougher if I do it.”

Don’t you just hate it when men make a reasonable argument? Mostly because it doesn’t happen that often—because hello, women, always right—so when they do, it knocks the wind right out of your sails.

This is me right now. Windless. Limp sails. Knocked on my backside.

Because, hell. I can’t argue with that. The man has a real point.

I hate it when he does that. He does it a lot, have a point. We’re gonna need to have a word about that if this relationship is gonna carry on. He can’t keep having all the points.

Drake slaps the hood of his car, and the noise jolts me out of my mind.