4. Mandy
MANDY
The smell of bleach clears my head. I continue until Pemberton's kitchen is clean—well, except for the area around his corpse.
I'm wiping down the sink's drain when my phone plays "Vigilante Shit" by Taylor Swift. I step over the body to pick up my phone. I wish Gabriel could hear it. Anything Taylor Swift drives him batshit. It's funny.
"It's like you have radar," I say the second I answer. "I was going to call you."
"Miss me?" he says in his molten chocolate voice.
Gabriel Reyes is renowned for his looks and charm. His mom was Irish and his dad was Colombian, so he has the Latin heat with killer blue eyes. One smile and women melt.
That shit doesn't work on me, and he knows it. "Who are you again?" I joke.
"You better remember who I am, because I'm calling to help you out."
"You always help me out." I'm still not sure why that is, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. "I'm kind of busy right now, so unless you’re heading over with some Mr. Clean and a mop, I’ve got to go."
"You're not too busy for this." He pauses. Gabriel is so dramatic. "Word on the street is someone's looking for you."
I roll my eyes. Given the sort of men I take out, this isn't news. "Who it is today?"
"Don't know."
Water runs over my gloved hands, and I shut off the faucet. "So why are you calling?”
"I've got a feeling."
Now I pause. I don't discredit Gabriel's feelings. "You think this is different than the other times?"
"Maybe. I think you should lie low for a while. Let me do some digging."
Glancing at the notebook on the counter, I take the gloves off and drop them in the bag with the rest of the evidence I'll burn later. "I can't lie low. I've got things to do."
"More important than your life?" he shoots back.
Potentially saving some young woman's life? "Yeah, I'd say so."
He sighs. "Is it something I can help with?"
I move around the counter, checking the kitchen one last time. Everything's clean. Everything's perfect. "If you needed to figure out who someone in a photograph is, how would you go about it?"
"I'd call Hendricks."
I still, my skin prickling at the mention of his name. Damn it—I’d only just managed to exorcise him from my thoughts, and just like that I’m back with his naked body pinned against mine.
"The man is good," Gabriel continues, unaware that my libido has declared mutiny. "I've used him a couple times in the past few weeks and I'm impressed."
That isn't small praise coming from Gabriel. But to contact Hendricks of my own volition feels like opening a box of dynamite in front of a lit fireplace.
"Maybe he can help you figure out who's gunning for you too. If you aren't going to lie low, stop being stubborn and call him," Gabriel says, and then he hangs up.
I stand there in a dead man's kitchen with my phone in my hand. Gabriel is right. Hendricks is very good at what he does—I can admit that much. The one time I worked with him, five weeks ago on the Turner raid, he’d been impressive.
Not that I’d tell him that.
He was there as intelligence support, coordinating with my sister Lily's boyfriend and his crew. We were supposed to stay in our lanes, share information, stay professional.
Instead, he looked at me like I was a problem he wanted to solve, like I was a lock he wanted to pick. And when he touched my wrist to pull me back from a bad angle during the breach, I felt it everywhere—I felt the control in his grip and the danger in the way he held on just a second too long.
I've been avoiding him ever since. Men like Hendricks don't just get under your skin. They get into your head—into your bones. And once they're there, you can't get them out.
I will never be under a man's control ever again—especially one like Hendricks. He may be the best at what he does, but I know better than to voluntarily contact him. The price will be too high.
I grab my bag and head for the door. Pemberton's house is in the hills outside Billings, isolated and expensive. No neighbors. No witnesses. Just the way I like it.
But as I walk to my car, I'm not thinking about Pemberton or Turner's notebook.
I'm thinking about Hendricks, about the way he moved during that raid—efficient, brutal, no wasted motion.
About the way my body responded when he got too close, even though my brain was screaming at me to keep my distance.
I don't want to see him again.
I don't want to be in the same room with him, let alone ask him for help.
Only it's not my life on the line. For five weeks I’ve been searching for this woman’s identity and I’m no closer to any answers. Time is ticking and I don't have the luxury of waiting to see if I can figure out this puzzle on my own.
I can't help but wonder if I'm using this as an excuse to see him.
"Fucking Hendricks," I mumble as I toss my bag in the back of my truck and hop in.
And I still don't know his first name. At this point, I'm choosing to believe it's Keith. A small-dicked man with lame oral skills named Keith isn’t attractive.
I picture Hendricks in his gunmetal suit, his shirt, unbuttoned at the top, and I sigh as I turn the key in the ignition.