Her mouth rounds out in horror. “I bet you did.”
A dark laugh strums deep in my chest, but I don’t dare give it. “I sure did, Peacock Princess. And do you want to know what I said?”
Serena sucks in a breath and snatches her phone off the coffee table. Her fingers fumble with it until she sees it, and she lets out a cry that mimics the mewl of a kitten.
“You are a dark and twisted bastard, you know that?” She swats me hard on the arm, and I can’t help but laugh this time.
“What? You didn’t like my response?”
She glances down at her phone. “My dearest Harley, I am spending the night on the couch as Shep did not take to my advances and has locked himself in his bedroom to secure his safety.” She takes a moment to glare at me. “To which she kindly offered to give you—me—a ride home, and then you replied—Absolutely not. As a proficient stalker, I refuse to leave the premises. I’m off to sniff his dirty laundry and lick his toothbrush. They don’t make them like Shep anymore. When they made Shep, they broke the mold.” She swats me three times fast on my arm and I laugh, trying to deflect her halfhearted blows.
“Shep! You made me sound like a freaking lunatic! You’re darn right they broke the mold. I hear just about everything shatters from the heat in hell.” She jumps to a sitting position, her eyes blotched red like tomatoes. “Oh my head,” she moans while clutching her temples.
“Here.” I pull the tray to her lap, and she reluctantly takes a sip of the coffee.
“Oh, that’s bitter.” She offers a smirk my way. “I bet that’s what your soul tastes like.”
“It takes a bitter soul to know one. Try the O.J. I squeezed it myself this morning.”
“Really?” She cocks her head as she toasts me with it. Serena takes a careful sip as if there was the off-chance I poisoned it. “Wow, that’s really good.” She chugs half of it down in a few quick gulps. “You sure you had a hand in this?”
“Yes—fresh squeezed. It’s not often I have guests, and I happened to have an entire bag of organic oranges that my mother dropped off last week.”
A demented laugh percolates from within her. “Aww, I don’t know what I think is more adorable—the fact you think I’m an actual guest and less of a captive, or the fact you’re a mama’s boy.” She gives a hard wink.
“All right, let’s find something to put in that mouth of yours that might actually keep you from flapping those lips.” I spike her fork through the pancakes smothered in butter and syrup and feed it to her.
Serena’s head falls back in ecstasy as she lets out an exaggeratingly loud groan.
“You get any louder and my neighbors might think I’m having a good time.”
She kicks me on the leg, and I catch her foot and tickle it until she pulls it away.
“You are having a good time,” she says with half a mouthful. “I’m a ball to be around, remember?” She takes another bite and moans right through it. “I could live off these, you know. I’d eat them for every meal, but then I’d probably be absurdly squishy.”
I glance down at her pillow-like chest blooming from her T-shirt.
“My eyes are up here, honey.” She offers another kick, this time to my ribs, and I let her get away with it partly because I deserved it. “So, what exactly happened last night? The last thing I remember, you were trying to get me to dance with you and I fell onto the couch.”
A bark of a laugh comes from me. “You wish. You were trying to make—” I pause short of revealing the fact she was begging for a make-out session. “Let’s just say you were in an altered paranoid state. You accused me of trying to send you to Death Alley where Dirty Boy’s killer was waiting to hunt you down.”
She closes her eyes a moment between bites and shakes her head at the thought. “Nice. I guess I escaped one madman’s clutches only to meet up with another’s.” She blinks a smile my way. “So, what was it you were trying to tell me yesterday? What’s the big reveal? Who do you think killed Barry?”
“I don’t know for certain, but I went down to the plant where he worked and had an interesting conversation with his sister, Shelby Trainee. Guess what deep, dark secret I found out about her?”
“She prefers you with the mask on and coming at her from behind?” She blinks a wry smile.
“Very funny. She’s set to inherit one point three million dollars from her father’s estate. And now that her only living sibling is out of the way, she doesn’t have to share it with anyone.”
Her rosy lips fall open, and I catch a glimpse of that pink little tongue that teased me so well at the club. “What makes you think she didn’t want to share it?”
“Because legal documents were filed on her behalf trying to evict her brother from the will. Shelby had a lot of reasons to want her brother dead.”
“One point three million,” she marvels as she leans in. “Wow, that’s intense.” She shakes her head as if trying to get a grip on reality. “I guess that outdoes my secret. Remember that gaggle of brides that stormed the Black Bear? I ran into the head bride’s sister at Hollowed Grounds the other day. She pretended she didn’t know Barry at first, but by the time we were done with the conversation, she made it sound as if he got what he deserved.”
I inch back at the revelation before swiping my laptop off the coffee table. “What did you say her name was?” I open it up and my fingers begin flying across the keyboard.
“I didn’t say, but since you asked in a sneaky lawyer-ish way, it’s Belinda Johnson. And I already know where she works. She’s a—”
