Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“We have a problem,” Gray told him.
Cass glared at the coffee pot. Was he doing this crap right? He’d poured in the water and shoved several scoops of coffee into the thing and now the light was red, and something was hissing.
“Are you listening to me?” Gray demanded.
“The phone is shoved against my ear, and I hear your voice annoying the hell out of me, so, yeah, I’m listening.” Black liquid had just begun to slowly drip out. A quick smile curled Cass’s lips. “I’ll be damned.”
“Yeah, we both know that, been aware for years and years, but focus on the current problem, could you?”
“I have lots of problems. The newest one would be that Agnes wakes up feeling ragey. Definitely not a morning person. No one warned me about that quirk. I open my eyes, and the woman beside me in bed is about to go in for the kill.”
Silence. Then, “Beside you in bed…” A rough expulsion of air. “Don’t want to know that shit. Don’t want to know because it does not help the current problem. At all.”
“You didn’t tell me you wanted the Twins taken down because of her. You never mentioned the name Agnes Quinn to me.” That pissed him off. “Not. Once.”
“Uh, and so what if I had mentioned her to you?” Gray seemed genuinely confused. “What good would that have done? You didn’t know the woman. Your paths had never crossed until you met not too long ago outside my office.”
“Her fucking fiancé was killed right in front of her. She loved him.” The coffee kept dripping and hissing.
He’d put in a few different blends because he wasn’t sure what Agnes liked.
He’d figured if he added them all, then he was bound to wind up with a taste she might enjoy.
“The prick slit her fiancé’s throat. She watched him bleed out and she wanted to die right there with him. ”
“She…wanted to die?”
He didn’t take his eyes off that stupid, dripping coffee.
How long was this gonna take? “She didn’t know we were after a serial team.
” The Twins. That was his target. Not the whole MC network.
Just the two at the top. The ones who got off on killing and their sick, sadistic game.
Two killers. Two monsters. “She works for you. She profiles with you. But you never once told her this shit? Newsflash, the woman is pissed at you.”
“I’ve been trying to protect Agnes. You do not know what’s fully involved here.”
“Uh, shocking. Because you keep secrets.”
“So the hell do you. I told you to get out long ago, but you wanted vengeance, so you burned down the world. You went after what you wanted. I’ve been trying to protect your ass, trying to keep you out of prison, and I can only control so many fires for so long—hell, especially since you keep setting them every time I turn around! ”
“What can I say? I like the way the flames dance.”
“This shit isn’t funny. I never thought you and Agnes would collide this way, all right? Never suspected you two would hook up in a one-night stand or whatever the hell you did. I’m a profiler, but I’m not psychic. I could not predict that twist.”
He thought that Gray’s profiling skills were often so scary that the guy seemed psychic. “Someone needs to take some deep breaths,” Cass advised.
“Someone needs to keep his damn jeans zipped! That’s you—but, hell, you are already in bed with her, again, aren’t you? That’s what that whole waking up beside her bit was about. Do you understand how emotionally tangled you are about to get? Do you get how fucked you truly are?”
His shoulders tensed. “Agnes tugged me down in the bed with her.” She’d been dead tired.
And he’d been too worried that some other crazy intruder might burst inside and shoot at the bed.
No way would he ever leave the woman alone in a bed again.
From here on out, they would always be sharing a bed, and he didn’t care if that made actual sense or not. He was doing it.
If I’m with her, the bullet will have to go through me before it hits her. Done.
“She tugged you, right. And you outweigh her by, like, one hundred pounds. But she tugged, and you could not resist. Got it. Thanks for explaining.”
He hadn’t wanted to resist her. “There is no emotional entanglement. Zero. I am not emotionally involved with Agnes. Not in any way, shape, or form.”
The floor squeaked behind him. Because, of course, it did. He whipped around.
Surprise, surprise, Agnes stood in the kitchen doorway. Agnes, with her hair wet around her shoulders. Wearing jeans that fit her like a second skin. A blue shirt that made her eyes burn brighter.
No shoes.
No shoes. Because if she’d worn shoes, he would have heard her coming. She had not worn shoes. Sneaky Agnes.
She had heard him say that he was not emotionally involved with her. At all.
Dammit.
“You are such a liar,” Gray snapped in his ear.
“A situation has sprung up,” Cass said. “I’m gonna need to call you back.”
“You lied about shooting the man at the Grove Motel. Agnes did that, didn’t she? When the ME performs the autopsy, the slugs that he pulls out of the vic will match her gun.”
“Not a vic, a perp. You need to understand that important distinction. What you have is a dead perp in a morgue. He broke into our motel room. He fired first. She even ordered him to stop, but he was gonna fire again.”
“She shot—”
“Doesn’t matter if it was her gun. My hand was around it.
” It had been. True story. Because Gray was often too good at spotting little tells that gave away lies.
My hand curled around hers, and we held that gun together.
“Agnes isn’t guilty of anything. Make sure that’s how the record shows things. ”
“You are such an asshole.” A ragged sigh from Gray. “Listen to me, listen…”
Agnes began to tap one foot. Her hands were on her hips. Red fired in her cheeks. Hmmm. Had it been the “not in any way, shape, or form” part of the conversation that infuriated her the most? Quite possibly. “Got to go,” Cass rumbled. “Fun talk. As always.”
“It was not fun, and we need to talk more! Dammit, before you left town, I didn’t get to tell Agnes that you were also hunting for the Twins because I was too busy trying to get all the players in place for the scene at The Bottomless Pit.
I didn’t have time to break down an investigation that has been years in the making. ”
“Yep. Understood. But I sure am thinking you should have made time for that chit-chat. Or maybe just told her about the investigation long ago. The woman does not appreciate being kept in the dark.”
“I promised them I would keep her safe. That meant keeping her out of the investigation. Things are screwed now.”
Agnes took two steps forward. Her hands remained on her hips.
“Promised who?” Cass zeroed in on that point. Because that part seemed important. Gray didn’t just go around making promises to just anyone.
“You’re gonna find out.” A desolate sigh. “She’s there, isn’t she? Because your tone changed. Dude, have you lied to everyone else for so long that you’re now lying to yourself, too? No emotional involvement, my ass.” Another ragged exhale. “By the way, Judas Long is dead. He was hung in his cell.”
“How about that.” His gaze remained on Agnes. No one walks up to her with a knife and plans to take her from this world. Not on his watch.
“Fuck. Did you order the hit?”
Did Gray seriously think he was just gonna confess? In what universe would he be that dumb? “You are right.”
“Cass?”
He added, “Agnes is here.” Did you think the prick who tried to stab me in the back and who then went off to kill her would get to keep living? Nah. He’d been a dead man walking. Though he’d died faster than Cass anticipated. “Her coffee is ready.”
“Her coffee—”
“Talk soon.” He hung up the phone and tossed it on the counter near the coffee pot.
Her gaze went to the phone. Then to the coffee pot. Then to him. “Guessing that phone is untraceable?”
He rolled one shoulder. There were technically ways to trace just about every device, but as far as safe calls went, yeah, his phone was pretty good.
“That was Gray,” she added into the silence.
No point in denying what she obviously knew.
“I will be having a talk with him.” A firm nod. “After coffee.”
He motioned toward the pot.
She grabbed a mug after opening three cabinet doors, and then she reached for the pot. “No emotional involvement, huh?”
She’d definitely heard that part.
“It’s not like I was expecting you to fall in love with me.” She poured the coffee in the mug. Her fingers were shaking, though, and she poured too much. The hot liquid splashed on her hand, right in the curve between her index finger and her thumb.
Even as Agnes hissed out a breath, he was pulling the coffee—the pot and the cup—from her fingers and then hauling her toward the sink.
He yanked on the cold water and slid her much smaller hand beneath that spray, holding her in place as he glared at the faint, red marks that he could already see on her skin.
“What in the world are you doing?” Agnes asked.
“Cooling the burn.” Uh, obviously.
She tugged her hand. “Stop!”
He did not stop. He also did not let go. “You’re supposed to immediately put the burn beneath cool water. Don’t even think of moving for ten minutes.” His grip tightened on her. He hated that she’d been burned.
“Ten minutes? Where are you getting this number?” She tugged again.
Again, he did not let go.
“Cass…let me go.”
Fucking never. His head turned. He looked down at her. Their faces were inches apart. “No.” Not ever, sweetness.
“It’s…” She sucked in a breath. “It’s not even a real burn. I barely feel anything at all.”
“You were upset.”
“I was moving too quickly. Should have slowed down. Again, not a big deal. I’ve had way worse.”
Yes, he knew she had. Far worse than a few, faint red marks on her skin. And that far worse pissed him off. Cass did not like the idea of anything or anyone hurting her. He was also afraid that he’d hurt her. Even though he’d said that he wouldn’t…