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Ronan stepped inside, then hit the button to hold it for her. She paused for a moment—once more weighing her chances of escape on foot—then stepped in after him.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” she asked when the door closed.
He didn’t have to ask who. “One good turn deserves another.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Goddamn it, no.”
His eyebrows hit his hairline.
This wasn’t the right way to go about it, but pent-up adrenaline was racing through her body like lightning. And she had to know why—this didn’t make sense.
But her behavior didn’t make sense either. She’d all but convinced herself to run the second she had her money and had found herself at the police station anyway.
“It wasn’t illegal for you to be in that club,” she said to him now. “There are no city mandates that say cops have special rules—I looked it up. You didn’t do anything wrong. But what I just did, lying to the medical examiner to get into the morgue… it’s egregious. Lying for me could upend your career. You stayed outside my motel room last night when I’m quite sure your skeptical partner would not approve. And you’ve been coming into that club for so long, always watching me?—”
“Why am I stalking you? Is that your question?”
Juliette frowned. Why did he sound ashamed? She was the one who’d stripped down and finger fucked herself to orgasm while he watched. At the thought of that, blood pulsed low in her belly, her nerve endings sparking.
“I never thought you were stalking me,” she said, voice hushed, though they were the only ones here. Yeah, she’d assumed him a voyeur, and once she realized he was a cop, she’d thought him dangerous in a more general sense. But she had never felt any threat directed at her.
The elevator binged open.
The garage was dim compared to the brilliant white lights of the morgue. Juliette squinted, trying to force her eyes to adjust.
“Is your car?—”
He gestured. “It’s in the front.”
She’d been right—he’d taken her out the back way to keep her from the prying eyes of the other officers. He wanted to… protect her.
Or keep me for himself—all to himself.
Her mouth went dry. But she followed him from the parking lot and into the jaundiced afternoon.
“Pretty car,” she said when he popped the locks on a navy-blue Volvo—shiny. The smell of leather was strong inside. “I didn’t… notice so much last night.”
“It’s functional,” he said, climbing into the driver’s seat. The engine purred to life.
“Cars usually are, I guess…” But she stiffened when her eyes locked on a stooped gray-haired figure pushing his way through the front doors.
“We had to let him go,” Ronan said when he clocked where she was looking. “We don’t have anything on him.”
As if realizing he was being watched, Waylon’s head snapped their way. His angry eyes lit on hers. They narrowed. But Ronan maneuvered the car through the lot, past her furious boss, and out onto the main road.
“Do you know who… hurt that man?” she forced out.
Without the phone to verify that Jason hadn’t been talking to Daniel, she could only hope that they had another suspect, someone with a reason to kill him.
Please let this be about something else—anything but me.
“I should probably ask you the same thing.”
She swallowed hard. “I… no. I wish I did.”
“His cell phone was at the library earlier today,” he said calmly. “And a few hours later, you were in my morgue. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
The silence stretched, her fists clenched so hard that her fingernails dug divots into her palms—she had no idea what to say, what might help her dig herself out of this hole.