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Suspect list.
Background checks.
I knew this was coming, but still, I wanted to avoid it like I wanted to avoid walking the plank.
I went to my room first and took a quick shower, rinsing off a day of dance classes and tension. Then I changed into some yoga pants and a loose Spartans jersey I’d stolen from my brother before coming back out to face the music.
I found Justin sitting on the couch, bent over the coffee table, flipping through the folder he’d brought the first day we met at the diner. He glanced up when he heard me enter and his eyes slid over me from my bare feet up to the wet hair hanging over my shoulder, before coming to rest on my clean face.
The way he studied me made me suddenly feel naked. I moved into the room, breaking our eye contact so he wouldn’t see the blush rising from my neck to my cheeks. Needing something to do with my hands and wanting desperately to break the silence, I made my way to the stereo and fired up the CD that was already in the player.
Slowly, I turned around to find he had leaned back, his inscrutable gaze on me. He lifted a brow as the first hard hitting guitar riffs hit the air.
“Not an opera or concerto?”
I bit back a smile at the fact I’d surprised him. “Do I look like an opera or concerto girl to you?”
“Actually, yes.”
I lifted a brow back. “Really?”
“Well... maybe not now, but...” He tilted his head toward the photos from my last professional performance of Swan Lake.
Cute. “I dance to those, but at home, I prefer something a bit different.” I sat in the chair across from him as the singer began to wail about his pain over toxic love and its bloody claws in his heart. I knew the feeling.
“What band is this?”
“Zero-energy.” At his blank stare, I clarified, “My cousin, Cohen, is a musician. It’s his band. He’s the lead guitarist.”
He listened a bit longer, then nodded. “They’re really good.”
“Thanks. I think so. After busting their asses on the bar scene for years, they just signed their first record deal. I think he said they’ll also be going on tour in a few months.”
“That’s cool.”
I nodded as the heavy beat pulsed around us. In the light of my living room lamp, his dark hair took on almost purple tones and his eyes sparked a deeper shade of blue, like the ocean under moonlight. The stubble had grown out on his face since that morning, and when he turned his head, I caught a glimpse of a small white scar at the edge of his chin.
He held perfectly still as we listened to the song, his potent energy contained, yet I could feel his raw power. It was easy to imagine him in the military, sneaking up on some unsuspecting enemy and ruthlessly eliminating them. It was also easy to imagine the way his calloused fingers would feel on my...
No.
Nope.
Not again.
I would not be that stupid again. Not even in a fantasy.
I rolled my shoulders and squared my gaze on his, deciding it was best to bite the bullet and get this over with. “You said something about suspects?”
“I did.”
When he didn’t say anything for several long moments, I raised a brow in question.
“Relax, Olivia,” he said, reclining farther back with his ankle crossed over his knee, his body language deceptively calm. “We’re on the same team, remember?”
I took a breath. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Okay.” He leaned forward and flipped a tab in his folder. “I think it’s safe to say we can rule out random weirdos. All of this is too personal.” His gaze lifted to mine. “Can you think of anyone who has a grudge against you? For any reason?”