CHAPTER 15 #3
Simple, in theory. In practice, every surface was contaminated, so I had to weigh what I wanted to touch. I scanned the room and landed on a decorative end table shoved against the wall that was ornate, unnecessary, and, notably, coated in a visible layer of dust.
Paulie clearly hadn’t sullied that one lately.
I exhaled, braced myself, and yanked the drawer open. It was just as bad. Inside were more wrappers, a bottle of pills that definitely wasn’t prescribed to him, and a gun I knew for a fact wasn’t registered.
“Well,” I said, “that’s convenient.”
“Everything you need?” Cruz asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “This man is a stack of charges waiting to happen.”
I slipped the documents into a file folder already in the drawer, rearranged the contents just enough to look natural, and shut it quickly before I caught something.
As I straightened, my earpiece crackled. “You done yet?” Cruz asked.
I walked toward the door and paused, taking one last look at the crime scene masquerading as an office. “I just need to wipe my memory now,” I muttered.
Cruz snorted in my ear. “You say that like this is worse than you murdering someone less than twenty-four hours ago. You’re really selling your performance.”
I softly pulled the door shut behind me and started down the hall. “Please. That was the easy part. This,” I added, thinking of sticky floors and lube brands, “is psychological warfare.”
He laughed again. “You know,” he said as his voice turned pointed, “the breakfast this morning? The groceries? You tucking her into a chair like she might tip over if you didn’t supervise her protein intake? It was very . . . cute.”
“What breakfast?” I said flatly, already shaking my head because this man was such a fucking stalker.
Cruz chuckled. “Oh, don’t do that. You brought her breakfast. In her shitty apartment. It was so domestic of you.”
I scoffed dramatically. “I thought you were managing fallout on three fronts? How did you have time to spy on me?”
“You’re one of the three fronts, obviously,” he said. “One of us has to make sure you don’t get arrested.”
“You know that almost would have been sweet enough to make it into the official friendship record,” I muttered, starting down the hall again, “if you didn’t usually track me like a misbehaving Roomba.”
“I’m just saying,” Cruz continued, unfazed, “murder and breakfast potatoes don’t usually go well together.”
“People need food when they’re in shock,” I said unrepentantly.
“Right,” he replied. “So when are you moving her in? Is that before or after you turn into a domestic version of Mary Poppins?”
“Obviously after,” I told him. “You know, I’m proud that you know me so well. You can put that in the friendship record.”
He was silent for a minute as I slowed at the bottom of the stairs, one hand pushing open the exit door.
“I was actually joking,” Cruz finally said in an amusedly high-pitched voice for a mafia boss.
I took a deep breath of the fresh air, trying to rid my lungs of the toxic mold I’d most likely been inhaling the entire time I was in there.
“Why is that a joke?” I asked, taking off my gloves and sliding them into my pocket.
“Are you thinking there’s a socially acceptable timeline for seducing a widow, or do you think I can just feel it out? ”
He hummed. “Ordinarily, I’d say there are rules.”
“‘Ordinarily,’” I echoed.
“But,” Cruz continued, sounding more amused and less shocked now, “since there was murder involved, I’m pretty sure the rules don’t actually apply here.”
I considered that as I nodded at where Zachary was waiting at the curb with a car. “I think that’s a good point,” I said. “We’ve already strayed off-menu.”
I yanked open the passenger door of the SUV and slid in. “Her place,” I said tiredly. “Now, please.” Adrenaline was buzzing under my skin like bad whiskey. I needed her.
Zachary didn’t blink or ask any questions. I guess he was probably relieved I wasn’t having him run anyone over tonight. The engine growled to life, and we melted into the neon-streaked veins of the Strip.
“You’re going over there right now? It’s three a.m.,” Cruz commented, and I jumped. He’d been quiet for so long I’d forgotten he was there.
“Of course I’m going over there,” I said.
“Is Eden going to be okay with that?” he asked. “Isn’t she asleep?”
I grinned to myself. “She’s not going to know.”
There was a pause. Then—
“Wow . . .”
“What?” I asked innocently.
“The fact that you think Jace and I are over-the-top stalkers is kind of funny right now.”
“Jace inserted a tracker in his girlfriend while she was sleeping,” I shot back. “You once hacked into a woman’s phone because she didn’t text you back fast enough.”
“She was being weird.”
“She was at work.”
There was a pause, then Cruz said thoughtfully, “Okay, when you say it out loud like that, it sounds less healthy.”
“Shocking revelation,” I muttered as we stopped about a block from Eden’s apartment. “We should probably all unpack that in therapy. Together. In a group.”
“Just try not to traumatize the girl,” Cruz said as I thanked Zachary and got out.
“That’s the plan,” I answered before I pulled out the earpiece and threw it in the car.
That was the plan.