“I’ll take whatever help you can give me,” Kellen said, ignoring Nick’s scowl. “The longer this case goes without a lead, the colder the trail gets. I need to give this family some answers.”
“Answer’s no,” Nick announced. “Not happening. Take your muffin and go.”
3
2:27 p.m., Wednesday, August 12
The temporary offices of Santiago Investigations were crammed into the music room on the first floor of the crumbling Bogdanovich mansion on Front Street.
Sure. There was a kick-ass view of the Susquehanna River through the front windows. And yeah, Nick was saving a shitload on rent. Plus, it kept his commute to the two minutes he’d been accustomed to when he’d lived in the apartment above his previous office. Before the whole arson thing. It wasn’t good manners to look a gift office in the mouth. But the place had its “quirks” too.
For one, the music room smelled like mothballs and old cardboard. It was stuffed to the ceiling with dusty flea market artifacts and heavy pieces of ugly furniture. It looked as if no one had stepped foot across the threshold in two decades. Given the fact that the Bogdanovich twins were in their eighties, there was a good chance they’d forgotten the room existed.
Lily Bogdanovich had spent the first few days of office setup opening old boxes and drawers then exclaiming over random finds.
“I haven’t seen this meat cleaver in years.”
“So that’s where my erotic fire poker set got to.”
The bigger issue—besides dusty penis-shaped fire pokers—was the fact that the space wasn’t handicap accessible yet. Which meant his cousin Brian couldn’t get his wheelchair inside. This led to its own set of problems. When Nick offered to foot the bill for a ramp, landlord Fred Bogdanovich and another tenant, Mr. Willicott, had volunteered to build it themselves.
Since Brian was more than happy working from home, and since toupeed Fred and the elderly Denzel Washington doppelgänger Willicott were only charging him for materials, Nick stupidly agreed.
They’d been hammering away for a week and a half, pausing only to yell incoherent questions and answers at each other.
As far as he could tell, neither man had ever successfully constructed anything more complicated than a sandwich. Each afternoon they submitted their receipts to him for items including hammers, nails, wood, meatball subs, and matching stools on which they ate their meatball subs. Every day after they called it quits, Nick went outside to inspect their work and found the same thing: a disaster that resembled nothing close to a ramp.
But all of that paled in comparison to the biggest issue with his temporary digs.
He could no longer hide behind closed doors when he was pissed off at an employee or vice versa. Which meant he was getting the full force of his new office manager’s displeasure. Riley was doing her best to ignore him since the completely legitimate concerns he’d raised that morning.
He didn’t like being ignored. He’d prefer it if she just stood up and called him a stupid asshole. Santiagos understood yelling. But this simmering silence gave him entirely too much time to begin doubting his stance.
He scooted the ancient brocade armchair away from the marble-top parlor table he used as a desk and stared at her. She’d commandeered a scarred library table near the fireplace and had set up a tidy little workstation with a scanner, laptop, and printer. Her office supplies were organized in matching desktop accessories. Neat rows of paperwork were labeled with sticky notes.
Update.
Scan.
Shred.
File.
She frowned at the computer screen, glanced at the documents in her hand, then efficiently stuffed them into the shredder at her feet.
It was exactly what she’d done to his heart when he’d found her submerged in that fucking fountain. The fountain he hadn’t been able to drive by since.
When he’d met Thorn a few months prior, he’d absolutely taken note of those big brown eyes, those full lips, and the temptation of curves. But it had been the whole package that had him falling face-first in lo—ike.Like.Her snarky wit. Her self-deprecating humor. The vulnerability that made him want to stand up and promise to keep her safe for the rest of her life. Though he’d very nearly let her down in that area. It still gave him nightmares.
She was calm in situations that called for hysteria. For instance, getting shot and nearly strangled and drowned by a deranged asshole. She hid junk food from her mother. Played reluctant tech support and chauffeur to her elderly neighbors. She had a habit of leaving her vehicle at crime scenes. And she stole a dog while accidentally breaking up a dog-fighting ring.
The caveman bachelor in him hadn’t stood a chance.
And the stubborn, independent, delusional, I-can-take-care-of-myself woman in her didn’t either.
She needed him to look out for her. And he was going to take care of her whether she wanted him to or not.
“I can feel you staring at me,” she said without looking up from her screen where she was probably organizing his life into spreadsheets.
