Home > Don't Play With Odin (Trouble for Hire #2)(3)

Don't Play With Odin (Trouble for Hire #2)(3)
Author: Cynthia Eden

“What will you do?” Odin pushed.

She swallowed. Straightened. “I will find another PI. I told you that already. I won’t give up. You might think I’m being overzealous…”

A bit. Yes. Nice word to describe her. Overzealous.

“The cops might think I’m imagining things, but I know what’s happening. I won’t stop. I will keep going until I can get someone who will help me.”

Odin frowned. “There are some seriously shady PIs out there.” Understatement. One she should have already realized. “You can’t just trust anyone you meet.”

“That’s why I came here. I came to the best. At least, that’s what the reporter on the news said about Trouble for Hire.” A pause. “What if I show you the perp? Will you at least come with me and check things out to see what you think of him before you turn me down?”

He thought it was a bad idea. A waste of time. Odin wasn’t going to look at some random guy and magically change his mind. This was a BS case.

“I’ll pay you to come with me. Please. Come to my house. See the evidence I have. It’s circumstantial—thus the need for the whole concrete, irrefutable evidence hunt—but it still makes for a compelling argument. Come and just consider it, will you? After that, if you still want to tell me no, then fine, do it.”

He intended to do just that. He intended to tell her that this was not going to work. He didn’t need to go to her house. He didn’t need to see her evidence or meet the neighbor. He didn’t need to do any of that stuff. There was no way this woman’s neighbor was a serial killer. It wasn’t like serial killers were thick on the ground. One of them had just been apprehended in the area, and the chances of another being on the loose in Pensacola, Florida, at the same time? Astronomically unlikely. Things like that didn’t happen.

He should give the pretty lady back her money. Tell her a polite—but firm—no and send Maisey on her way. That was absolutely what he should do. But Odin stared into those incredible eyes of hers and heard himself say, “What the hell? Nothing else is on my schedule for the night.”

Her face lit up.

Absolutely fucking gorgeous.

Odin knew that he had probably just crossed some serious PI line. He was sure there was a rule about not taking a case just because you thought the client was mega hot. But…

It was a slow evening.

And he’d never really enjoyed following all the rules. In fact, if his buddy War wasn’t currently sunning it up on a honeymoon in the Keys, War would probably tell him…some rules were made to be broken.

***

He was perfect.

Better than any dream she’d had. As Maisey Bright stood beside her car and waited for Odin Shaw to park his black Jeep, she tried not to jump with absolute joy.

He was big, he was muscled, and he was fierce. One look into those glittering blue eyes of his, and every drop of moisture had dried from her mouth. She’d stood in the doorway of that PI office, stared at a face that was all hard lines and planes, and she’d barely been able to catch her breath.

Odin looked tough. The sexy kind of tough that said he could take care of business without breaking a sweat. He could kick ass, solve crimes, and get the bad guys tossed in a jail cell in no time. She bet fear wasn’t part of his vocabulary. She bet that he knew a dozen ways to disable an attacker. She bet that he—

“Are we just going to stand here all night?”

He was right in front of her and she’d been daydreaming again. It was just hard not to fantasize when someone like Odin appeared. She wondered how long he’d been standing there on the sidewalk. For the sake of her pride, she really hoped it hadn’t been longer than a minute…or three.

“Our suspect lives next door.” She turned and pointed to the right—

He grabbed her hand. His hold was incredibly gentle, but she could feel the calluses on his fingers. Probably from his workout regimen. “Don’t point,” he rasped as he pulled her a little closer to him. “Not like we want to give the guy a head’s up that we’re talking about him. You never know if he’s watching.”

Wait, did Odin believe her? It sounded as if he might. Joy had her nearly shaking. Finally.

She tilted her head back and peered up at him. Next to Odin, she felt small. Delicate. The man had muscles and strength pouring from him.

Try not to drool.

“Is it just the two of you on this street?” His gaze swept the area even as he kept a hold on her hand. “I thought you said you wanted to keep the neighborhood safe.”

“Yes, well, it will be a neighborhood. But for now, we’re the only two with completed houses.” Thick woods surrounded their street. Beyond the woods, a swamp waited. She’d heard the croaks from the gators out there plenty of times.

The woods and the swamp—they were perfect for anyone who wanted to hide a body.

Like my neighbor…

Maisey suspected Clay had bought his house just for the location. It was a serial killer’s dream.

“Come inside,” she told Odin quickly. “I have a murder board set up in the guest room.”

“A murder board?”

She pulled her hand from his grip and tried to ignore the way her fingers were doing a weird little tingle. “Yes, you know, a board where I put up all of my evidence so I can keep track of all the players and events.” She hurried toward her front door. “Detectives use them quite frequently in homicide investigations.”

“Do they now.”

It didn’t exactly sound like a question. She slanted him a suspicious glance over her shoulder before hurriedly unlocking her door. The alarm began to beep, so Maisey hustled forward and shut it off.

Odin closed the door behind them. “You’ve made several mistakes so far.”

She paused on her way to the hall.

“Mistake one.” His voice was grim. “Don’t invite a strange man into your home and then let him watch you type in your alarm code. If I come back when you aren’t here, I’ll know the code. I’ll have access to you.”

Her heart lurched in her chest. But she shook her head. “You aren’t a strange man. You’re—we’re working together.” They were partners. A crime-solving team. “The cops and the press both endorsed your agency. I did research on Warren—War—before I stepped foot in that office. He’s a decorated war hero.” Hardly some dangerous criminal.

“I’m not War. You don’t know me.”

Her shoulders stiffened. His voice was deep and dark. It was a voice that seemed to rumble right through her. Maisey forced herself to turn and glance back at him. “Should I be afraid of you?”

“Yes.” An immediate reply.

Her breath left her in a startled rush. “That wasn’t the answer I expected! I hired you!” Why was he now trying to scare her? Shouldn’t he be reassuring her that she’d made a great investment?

“I warned you…” He closed in with slow, deliberate steps. “You can’t trust every PI you meet. You can’t trust anyone you meet. If I’ve learned anything from my time with War, it’s that people are never who you think they are. Evil hides in plain sight.”

He was trying to scare her. Looking all big and intimidating and keeping his expression extra fierce. But the man didn’t understand who he was dealing with. “I know evil hides everywhere. How do you think I realized what my neighbor was? I’ve learned to look beneath the surface.” She’d had to look beneath the surface. Growing up as she had, there hadn’t exactly been a lot of options for her.

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