Page 76

No one.
No one believed a liar.
Henry rose from the cushy, dog bed.His ears tilted back.
“Naomi.”Eb was right in front of her.“Baby, look at me.”
She turned her head.Stared into his eyes.The topaz swirled.Burned.
“Talk to me,” he urged her.
But she couldn’t.He wanted to lock her up.To shove her into a cell.He’d fucked her as a means to get close.He didn’t really care about her.
“I believe Hudson knew what his father had done.”Not her words.Memphis.Still talking.Still shattering her life one word at a time.“He was in town when his father was stabbed and killed in the course of that mugging.A mugging with no witnesses.With a knife that plunged straight into the victim’s heart.Such a fast, brutal kill.Almost like a professional hit, wouldn’t you say?”
Eb wasn’t saying anything.
Neither was Hunter.
And Naomi didn’t dare speak.
“Eb…I’ve got to ask, just what sort of hits did your friend perform while he was in the CIA?”A pause from Memphis.“What kind of hits didyouperform?”
Assassin.No, no, not possible.Eb?—
I played the hero.
A dull ringing filled her ears.
Henry padded closer toward her.
Eb grabbed her hands.“Naomi?”
She wanted to snatch them away from his grip.His touch sent that treacherous charge flooding through her veins.“I’m not having a seizure.”But she sure felt as if she was breaking apart on the inside.“Don’t worry about me.”
“You’ve lost every bit of color in your face.Your body is trembling.Your breathing is too shallow.I damn wellamworried.I’m worried you’re about to faint on me.”
She tried to pull in a deep breath.“I’m not fainting.”She wouldn’t.Would not.
“Uh, so…” Hunter heaved to his feet.“We just discovered that—let me make sure I’m following along here okay—Naomi’s husband killed his own father because the dude was a serial killer.His dad had killed both Hudson’s mom and Hudson’s girlfriend?”A loud whistle.
Henry’s head jerked toward him, but Henry didn’t leave Naomi’s side.
Hunter nodded.“Yep, if you find out that your old man killed both your mom and your girlfriend, that would piss you off.Make you all kinds of homicidal.Add to that, Memphis pretty much suspects that it’s a whole like-father-like-son situation, so Hudson probably killed a number of people over the years.Vics we can’t tie to him because he was one of the CIA’s assassins and they are covering their sins and burying them all deep in the ground.Sure, why not?Check, check, insanity check.”
“My friend Sloane thinks that some killers deliberately try to make their children become like them.”Memphis tilted his head to the side as he studied Naomi.“They’ll do whatever it takes to grow the darkness inside their own family members.Maybe that’s why his father attacked Mary all those years ago.To turn on that darkness in his son.Or, hell, maybe he just coveted what his son possessed.Some people get like that, you know.They want what someone else possesses, and they will do whatever it takes to acquire that possession.”
“Fuck.”Eb’s seething voice.“Fuck me.”
She already had.She’d planned to do so again.Then she found out that he was hell-bent on destroying her.No more fucks, thanks.
You are such a liar.You want him right now.His touch is sending electricity pulsing through your veins.His touch was also—oddly enough—steadying her.Naomi no longer felt as if she would shatter apart at any moment.
“Your friend Sloane seems interesting,” Hunter allowed.
“Um.”Memphis sauntered closer.He’d shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans.“My wife was targeted by a serial killer.”Casual news.Like he was saying it was sunny outside.
He’d basically delivered everything in a casual tone.