“In a house. Why is that so strange?” She stared at me.
“It’s literally falling apart.” I tapped one of the broken floorboards with my heel. “This must violate all sorts of codes.”
She stood up a little straighter. “I’ve been fixing it up. I’m not breaking any codes.” But she didn’t sound very sure of herself.
If this was fixed up I didn’t want to think about what it had looked like before she got her hands on it. Or maybe she was just the worst house flipper on the planet.
“Is there something I can help you with, Detective Reed?” She put her hand on the doorknob. “If you don’t mind, it’s getting rather late and I…”
It was pretty clear she was trying to get rid of me. “I have a few questions for you.”
“For me?” She didn’t look surprised. She looked like she was expecting it. Only a guilty person expected questioning.
I cleared my throat as I pulled the paper out of my pocket. “Do you know this man?” I unfolded it and held it up for her.
She leaned forward slightly to get a better look. “No, I’ve never seen him.”
“Are you sure?” She didn’t look back at the page. Instead, her gaze met mine.
“Positive. I’ve never seen him in my life.”
“Maybe you know him as Ben Jones?”
“I don’t know him at all.”
“What about the name Adeline Bell?”
“Doesn’t ring any bells.” She laughed awkwardly at her own joke for just a second and then pressed her lips back together. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
I folded the paper back up and slipped it into my pocket. Either she wasn’t sorry at all about his death or she really didn’t know him. But I couldn’t read her at all. And usually I could read strangers like the back of my hand. “Have you seen any suspicious activity outside tonight?”
“There was an explosion in the neighborhood down the hill. Windy Park. You should look into that instead of tramping around my property.”
“That is what I’m looking into.”
She stared at me. “And you’re here because…”
“A trail from the house on fire led me right to you.”
“Do you go following every path you see? There's a sidewalk out front of that house that blew up. Why not follow that around the neighborhood?”
“So you didn’t see anyone outside your house? A blonde woman perhaps?”
“Nope.”
It was a lie. There was only one reason to lie. She was somehow involved in all this. I looked back up at her wet hair. Was it wet with water, or wet with dye? It was the only thing that didn’t fit Sally’s description.
“You’re sure?” I asked. “No one? Nothing unusual at all?”
“Nope. Absolutely nothing.”
Absolutely a lie. “Would you mind letting me take a look around…”
Her hand shot to the doorjamb, blocking any view I had inside of her home. “Yes, I mind. This is private property.”
Damn. I really wished cop shows didn't make it so clear that people can refuse to let law enforcement in. “Fair enough,” I said. For just a moment my eyes traveled down her body again. I silently cursed. Maybe Damien was right. I needed to get laid so that I’d stop ogling murder suspects.
She cleared her throat.
I snapped my attention back to her face. “You really shouldn’t live out here all alone.” I couldn’t help it. No one that looked the way she did should be alone period. And now a murder suspect was loose in these words. Or maybe she was the suspect.
“I never said that I was alone,” she said. It should have sounded harsh, but her voice was timid again. Like there was something more hidden in her words.
But it didn’t matter what she meant. It was clear she wasn't going to give me any more information. “I’m sorry to have bothered you. If you hear or see anything, though, let me know.” I handed her one of my business cards.
She took it from me, grabbing it with the tip of her index finger and thumb like she was worried our hands might touch.
“And be careful out here, Mrs…” I waited for her to give me her last name but she didn’t. Instead she slammed the door in my face.
Chapter 3
Violet
I locked the door and then just stared at it. God, I just lied to a detective. Why the hell did I just lie to a detective? It had felt right in the moment. But as soon as the words left my mouth I regretted them. I could have told him about the woman running through the woods. I could have pointed him in the direction that she had fled. I could have given him every detail he wanted and gotten him out of my hair.
But instead I lied. I shook my head. He hadn’t left me with much of a choice. I couldn’t have the cops poking around in the woods. I couldn’t have them running all around my property with police dogs and metal detectors and whatever else cops used in the search for a criminal. What if they found something? I couldn’t risk it.
I bit the inside of my cheek. Had the detective known I was lying? It looked like he did. Like he could easily see right through me. Shit shit shit.
“It wasn’t a big lie,” I said into the empty room. “It was a little white lie. A nothing lie. There are no consequences for a nothing lie.” Right?
I should have run back upstairs to finish what I had started just in case he came back, but instead I found myself pushing my ear against the door. There was no squeak of floorboards or crunch of leaves. I closed my eyes and tried to listen. The silence was incredibly loud as I pressed the side of my face harder against the wooden door.
Detective Reed’s gaze had been so intense. It felt like he had locked me in place when he was staring at me. Like I could barely even breathe. Does he feel as frozen as me right now?
I moved away from the door. Of course he didn’t. There was no way that he was as affected by our meeting as I was. It was his job to make me feel frozen. For his eyes to bore into my soul, see my darkest sins, and to travel down my body…I shook my head. No. That was most certainly not his job. But he had done that, right? I hadn’t imagined it?
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. All my nerves were on hyperdrive. The only man I had interacted with recently was mailman Joe. And he was like seventy. This was a normal response to a man my own age. Especially one who looked like Detective Reed. I glanced down at the business card in my hand. Detective Tucker Reed.
I tiptoed to the window in the living room and peered through a gap in the curtains. I expected to see him retreating through the woods, but he was just standing there. Staring at the door. Frozen. I could feel my pulse beating in my head. I hadn’t imagined it. He had been looking at me. Really looking. And it didn’t seem like it was purely for detective reasons.
I let myself stare unabashedly at him from behind the safety of the curtain. He didn’t look how I expected a detective to look. Beer bellies and mustaches were the dominant features of the detectives in my mind. But he was most certainly not like the detectives I pictured in my head. He was wearing a formfitting wool jacket that was undoubtedly not hiding a huge stomach. If anything it was probably covering perfect six pack abs. I glanced down at his left hand. There was no ring on his finger. Hot and single. I was good at smelling trouble a mile away. And Detective Reed was most certainly trouble. After all, he was clearly the reason I had lied. I couldn’t think straight when a man with a chiseled jaw, five-o’clock shadow, piercing brown eyes, and a deep sexy voice was staring right at me.