Page 14

The original footage was already with the Maverick Ops’ techs who were analyzing it. They might be able to get something that law enforcement and Angel could use.
And that brought him back to yet another miracle he needed.
He would have to tell Ruby everything, and when he did, Angel only hoped she didn’t yank him off the investigation and force him to do a tell-all with the cops. That would include both the sheriff here and SAPD since the body had been found in their jurisdiction.
“Are you okay?” Mia asked.
Angel eased back enough to see her face and stared down at her. For some stupid reason that made him want to smile. That she would ask how he was doing when she was the one who was clearly shaken the most.
“I’ve been better,” he said. “And you?”
She attempted a smile, too. “Been better,” she echoed.
What she didn’t do was move out of his arms. Angel stayed put, too. And they continued with the full-on eye contact. Gazes locked. Bodies pressed against each other. And despite the crap going on, Angel got a flash of memories that didn’t have anything to do with murder or gunshots.
The memories were of Mia and him naked.
Definitely something he shouldn’t be thinking about right now. Still, the memories came along with that punch of heat he always got whenever he was around her. He suddenly wanted his mouth on hers. He wanted to let the kiss melt away some of the bad.
But the sound of more footsteps nipped that thought in the bud.
Mia and he stepped away from each other, both of them automatically turning toward the doorway. Angel figured it was one of the deputies or the sheriff. But he was wrong.
It was Presley.
A welcome sight, especially since he’d already filled Presley in on the whole truth. He’d done that in a phone conversation during the drive to the sheriff’s office.
Presley had arrived on scene at Mia’s shortly after the deputy, and while he hadn’t actually witnessed any gunfire, he’d had to give a statement, too. He’d done his first and then had left the building to go out to his SUV, where he’d no doubt made some calls and gotten started on digging out any helpful info.
“That hug looked like old times between the two of you,” Presley said, winking at Mia.
Presley kissed her. Not the kind of kiss Angel had been considering but rather a friendly peck on the cheek. Presley followed it up with a glance around the breakroom.
“This doesn’t feel like old times,” he added. “I just talked to the sheriff, and he’s going to cut us all loose once the statements are typed up and signed. Shouldn’t be much longer.”
Good. Angel wanted to get the heck out of there and get started on his own phone calls, his own digging.
“What else did you find out?” Angel asked.
“SAPD is trying to verify if it is Kenton’s body. They’re using dental records.”
That was standard procedure in a situation like that. Dental records could give an immediate ID, whereas DNA took a little longer, especially since the DNA would have to be extracted from the bones and then processed.
“Is it possible it isn’t Kenton?” Mia asked. It was a question that Angel had already been mulling over.
“It’s possible,” Presley verified. “The pendant isn’t common, but it isn’t unique either. In fact, they’re sold in plenty of souvenir shops. And there’s the part that we don’t actually know if Kenton is dead.”
Yeah, that had occurred to Angel as well. Apparently not to Mia though because she made a soft gasp, and Angel could practically see the wheels turning in her head. Taking her to one very nasty conclusion.
“Kenton could be alive,” she murmured. “He could have faked his own death.”
Angel waited for her to grasp one more key point. And he didn’t have to wait long.
“He could have been the one to shoot at us,” she blurted. “Kenton could want revenge.”
Bingo.
And wouldn’t that tie up everything into a neat little bow? Well, neat-ish anyway. There’d still be the question of why Kenton had waited all this time to get back at Mia for defending herself against him.