Chapter 10 #2
“Sure, but…uh…are you going to be around tonight?” she asks softly, peeking over her shoulder as if to check no one could overhear.
“Yeah, I’ve got no plans.”
She nods. “Okay, I just have something I want to run by you, but I don’t want to do it now.”
She nudges her head to the stairs.
“Gotcha,” I confirm. “Pop in anytime.”
Watching her go up the stairs, I notice her hair has partly come undone again. Part of me hopes it’ll still be like that when she comes by later. I wouldn’t mind undoing that braid and tangling my fingers in all that hair.
I finish sweeping up the dirt, metal shavings, and rust flakes, and dump it all in the big garbage bin against the wall, resting the broom and dust pan beside it. I’m about to go up after Tessa when she and Remi are already on their way down the stairs.
The kid looks sullen as she hustles him out the door, but the creases on his face suggest she probably had to wake him up.
My, “See you tomorrow, kid,” receives a distracted wave of his hand.
With the Mariners’ game on TV, I’m just kicking back on the couch with a beer, when my phone pings with an incoming text.
Where the hell is your doorbell?
I chuckle and set my beer on the table, shove my feet in my slip-on loafers—I tried the barefoot thing on the garage floor once and ended up with a piece of metal in my heel—and rush down the stairs to open the door.
“Sorry,” I offer as I step aside to let Tessa in. “I don’t get many visitors after hours.” Make that no visitors, but she doesn’t need to know that. “Come on upstairs. I was just sitting down with a beer. Can I get you one?” I ask, leading the way up the stairs.
“Okay, sure, but I probably shouldn’t stay too long.”
I grab another beer from the fridge and join her in the living room, where I hand her the bottle and reach for the remote to turn off the TV.
“Don’t turn it off on my account,” she stops me. “The boys and I are all big Mariners fans.”
She sips her beer and turns her attention to the game.
After a few minutes I break the silence.
“You mentioned you wanted to talk about something?”
Instead of looking at me, she focuses on her fingers, which are busy peeling the label off the bottle.
“I know. There’s something eating at me but I’m almost afraid to put it out there. I may be way off base.”
“Spit it out, honey. It’ll just keep eating at you otherwise.”
She flashes me a little smile before taking a fortifying sip of her beer. Then she sets the bottle on the coffee table and twists her body to face me, tucking one leg under her.
“I’m working on this murder case. Ryan Wells, a teenager not much older than Remi was found on Black Mountain, his dead body tossed down a cliff.
His murder is connected to a group who is responsible for a large number of car thefts in some affluent sections of Spokane.
His blood was all over a Mustang he stole, which was ditched on the side of a logging road here in Edwards County.
” She blows out a breath through pursed lips.
“The boy’s phone was missing. So was Remi’s,” she adds.
I’m starting to see where she’s going with this.
“Let’s see,” I continue. “And you figure since Remi was caught stealing parts off vehicles, and was later violently attacked, the two might be connected.”
She winces. “I may be paranoid because he’s my son.”
“Not paranoid, concerned.”
“Am I way off base?”
I shrug. “Not necessarily. The theft of catalytic converters is often organized. If you want to sell those, you’d have to have connections.
It isn’t something I would expect a fifteen-year-old, who isn’t affiliated with some gang or coerced in some way, to venture into by himself.
If it’s about money, there are easier things to steal and sell. ”
She leans forward and nods. “Exactly.”
“But you need to get your son to talk.”
“Yes, and that’s my dilemma. He doesn’t know I know about the theft, and I want to tell him about what happened to Ryan Wells. Show him a picture to see if he recognizes the kid. But if I do that, I’m pretty sure he’ll guess you told me about what he did.”
“Probably,” I agree. “He’s a smart kid.”
She grabs her beer and slumps in her corner of the couch, downing half the bottle before she turns her eyes to me.
“He’d be so pissed at you.”
I wince. “Probably. Unless,” I continue, “I talk to him. I could bring up you mentioned this case you’re working on, tell him it got me thinking about his situation, and that I’m worried the two could be connected.
Maybe learning the other kid was killed is prompt enough on its own, but if he still clams up, I’ll tell him he has to come clean with you or I will. At least then he knows it’s coming.”
She nods. “That could work.”
“I’ll see if I have a chance tomorrow.”
Tessa gets to her feet and hands me her half-empty bottle.
“I should go. Linc is home with Remi, but I don’t want to take any chances, especially considering what we just talked about.”
Understandable, but that doesn’t mean I want her to go. Still, I follow her back downstairs to the door, where she turns around to face me.
“It seems I’m always thanking you for doing me favors. It would make me feel a whole lot better if you’d give me a chance to return those at some point.”
That sounds like an opportunity I’d be stupid to pass on, and it just so happens we’re without witnesses tonight.
I find that stubborn strand of hair again, hanging down her face, and tuck it behind her ear. Then I trail the pad of my thumb along her jawline, stopping right below the curve of her full bottom lip.
“I have one,” I confess, my voice slightly hoarse. “I’d like to kiss you.”
She grabs hold of the front of my flannel shirt, pulls me closer, and lifts her face, those brown eyes shining with anticipation.
“I’d like to let you—”
My mouth swallows her answer as my tongue invades her mouth, eager to explore. She responds in kind, our tongues at times dueling. She tastes like hops and something slightly spicy.
Tessa’s body presses against me from her generous chest right down to her soft thighs. There is no way for me to hide my body’s response to her, but she doesn’t seem to mind.
When we finally break apart, both slightly out of breath, my fingers have worked loose her braid and are tangled in her beautiful hair, and her hands are on my ass.
I’d love to hoist her up on the workbench along the wall and get up between her legs with my hands on those tits, but I let my hands slide down her back instead.
“You’ve gotta go see to your boys,” I fill in when she opens her mouth to speak.
“Yeah,” she confirms. “I wish…”
I lean in and brush those amazing lips with mine.
“It’ll keep for later,” I assure her.
She looks like a fucking angel with all that wavy hair hanging down her shoulders, and that pretty smile on her lips.
“Later,” she mouths as she turns and opens the door.