“No.” Her eyes were on the house that waited behind the iron gate. An open iron gate. “It isn’t.”
“Do you know the man, Chloe?” He knew of the guy. The man owned a chain of casinos in New Orleans, but Joel had never personally met Glenn Towers. Chloe had a way of knowing folks, though. Her friend—or maybe acquaintance list—was surprisingly large.
“We’ve never met.” She was still looking out the window. “A Porsche is in the driveway, so it looks like someone is home.” Her hand reached for the door.
He leaned across the seat and touched her cheek.
Her head whipped toward him.
Finally. He could see her actually focusing on him. When he’d been at the crime scene, Joel could have sworn that Chloe had gone a million miles away from him. Cedric had noticed her distance, too. “It’s okay to talk about it.”
“It?” Her delicate eyebrows rose.
“Yeah, you know, ‘it’—the fact that you just left a dance studio that was soaked in blood and a poor twenty-two-year-old victim had her throat sliced wide open. It’s okay to talk about it. To be upset about what happened.” He knew Chloe didn’t like the bloody scenes. They reminded her too much of her own past.
“I’m not upset.”
Baby, maybe you should be.
“I really need to get inside that house, Joel.”
“Fine. Just—shit, Chloe, his stepdaughter is dead. Let’s try to use a light hand with the man, all right?” Cedric hadn’t been wrong when he said that Chloe wasn’t exactly the best with families.
Her eyes—the most incredible blue he’d ever seen—widened. “What are you talking about?”
“You have a tendency to…” He was stroking her cheek. A cheek that felt like absolute silk beneath his hand. “To be a little cold.”
She stiffened. “You think I’m cold?”
Oh, fuck. Hello, disaster. “No! Hell, no.” He pressed a quick, hard kiss to her slick, red lips. “Baby, you are hell hot in my hands.” The woman could wreck a bed and leave him begging for more. “You think about death differently from other people, that’s all.” He was so screwing this up. “When you’re dealing with families, you have to remember that they are grieving.”
“Grieving.” Her tongue swiped over her lower lip. “I’m not so sure that’s what he’s doing.” She shoved open the door.
“Wait, dammit, Chloe—”
She was already out of the vehicle and leaving his ass. He double-timed it to catch up to her. Dammit to hell and back. Joel knew he’d hurt her feelings. He hadn’t meant to say she was cold. Chloe was as far from cold as it was possible to be. She just…she didn’t show her emotions. Other people didn’t understand her like he did. When they’d first met, he hadn’t even understood her.
They walked right through the open gate. Up the steps. He saw that the stepfather had one of those video doorbells installed. Chloe leaned forward to push the button in the middle of the doorbell, then she hesitated.
Joel realized he needed to ask her an important question. “If he’s not grieving, just what is the man doing?”
“The door is open,” Chloe whispered instead of answering him. “We need to go in.” She pushed her hand against the door, and yes, it was open. Beneath her touch, it slid in a few more inches.
He grabbed her wrist. “What in the hell are you doing?” His voice was low, just for her ears. He knew she’d seen the video doorbell. The video option meant…Smile, baby. We are on camera. He brought his mouth close to her ear and said, voice barely above a breath of sound, “You can’t just waltz into his house. You don’t have an invitation.” Or a warrant—because they were not cops!
“I don’t think he’s going to give me one.”
That still didn’t mean that she got to just—
Her head turned toward him. “Don’t you smell the blood, Joel?”
Smell the—His eyes widened. No, he damn well didn’t smell blood. Was this something she was just doing for the camera? Because he didn’t think she smelled blood, either. The woman was incredible, but she didn’t have freaking super senses.
“We have to get inside,” Chloe added as her tone turned urgent. “Now.”
Breaking and entering. Sure. That was his life now. Life with Chloe. Though the door was unlocked, so technically, he figured they were not breaking anything. Just doing the entering part of the equation.
Chloe shot through the door before he could try to convince her that this wasn’t the best idea ever. Swearing, Joel surged after her. “Chloe!” She wasn’t supposed to race into danger—or whatever she was racing into. They’d talked about this. He’d been hired originally as a bodyguard/partner, so she should freaking let him guard that gorgeous body of hers.
The house was eerily quiet. Still. And Chloe was hurrying down a narrow hallway like she knew exactly where she was going. As if she’d been in the house dozens of times and—
Joel stiffened. Fuck me. Now he smelled the blood, too. Maybe Chloe hadn’t been lying about that. He grabbed her shoulder and hauled Chloe to a halt just before she’d been about to shove open yet another door. “Stop,” he rasped. He pulled Chloe back against him.
“You smell it, too.”
Yes, he did. Not like you could mistake that scent.
“He may need our help.” She jerked against Joel’s hold. “We can’t just stand out here.”
No, they couldn’t. But it didn’t mean she had to run into danger. “Stay here.”
“What?”
Instead of replying, he pushed her behind him, and then Joel opened the door. A study. Home office. Whatever. There was a big, massive desk. Bookshelves that lined the walls. And a dead man on the floor. Blood covered him, probably because he’d been stabbed over and over again.
Fucking hell. One look, and Joel recognized Glenn Towers. He looked just like the photos that were often in the news. Except he was covered in blood and stiff as a board on the floor of his study.
Joel couldn’t even count the number of stab wounds on the victim. There were deep punctures on this chest and stomach. Small, shallow wounds on his neck, his arms, even his face. There was one slice that went right across the man’s lip…
Joel flinched. Just like me…
“Move back, Joel.” Chloe’s voice. Soft. Firm. Her hand curled around his arm.
He couldn’t look away. He stared at the body. At the wounds. So many. Wounds that reminded him of his own attack. Only this poor bastard hadn’t survived.
I did.
And in the middle of the blood that soaked the expensive rug beneath the victim, Joel saw a pair of ballerina slippers. Half-white, half-blood-stained red with long ties that dangled in the congealed pool of blood. There were streaks of red nearby on the floor, as if the bloody shoes had been dragged around the area. “Chloe,” Joel breathed. “What the hell is going on?”
“He’s been dead a while,” she said. Her hand tugged on Joel. “Based on the lividity, I’d say he died before Lucia did.”
His head turned toward her as a chill covered his skin. If Glenn Towers had been dead that long… “Then how the fuck did he request that you work on the case?”