I nod. “But that knife’s too big for your hand. If you want to keep going with training, we need to find one in your size.”
“Or modify the grip.”
“Yeah, or modify the grip.” My hand catches hers and rubs. “You sure you want to keep going?”
“Yes, of course. How can you even ask when I did so well?”
Is she serious? If her earnest expression is anything to go by, yeah, she is.
My brows rise, and the corners of my mouth rise with them. “So well? You cried twice.”
She cocks her head in challenge, a dark curtain of hair swinging. “So?”
I shrug. “Tough to take.”
“No, it wasn’t. I’m fine.”
“I meant for me.”
After a moment of surprise, her small smile re-emerges, then she lies down on the mat next to me, curling up against my side. “Tough on you, tough guy? Really? I thought you liked hurting me? Isn’t that the point of your punishments?”
“Definitely not. Those are sex games.” My palm cups the back of her head and strokes her hair. “This, what we just did? Not a fun game. I’m sorry we had to do it.”
She kisses my jaw and then whispers, “The fact that you feel that way is why you’re my crush, and Casanova is someone I want dead.”
24
SHANE
It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I talked to Pops when he texts saying to call him.
When I stopped at his place after Saturday brunch, I showed him my neighbor’s footage of Todd Bardoratch and laid out my suspicion that Bardoratch is an arsonist and that I think I shot him while he was fleeing.
Pops promised to have a guy look into it, and apparently he’s learned something. I go out onto the screened porch where there’s no risk I’ll be overheard by Avery.
When I call Pops from my secret burn phone, he skips the greetings and simply says, “That guy you mentioned? You were right.”
“Yeah?”
“Got treated for a puncture to his arm. Said he fell on a ski pole, but an X ray showed bullet fragments.”
I knew I got him. Sitting down, I lean forward.
“He’s living dangerously,” Pops says.
I wait a beat.
“But he’s a rich boy, huh? With a powerful father? If anything other than an accident happens to him, it’ll make a lot of waves.”
A frown forms. If Pops advises me to let it go, I will not be happy. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Specialty services are expensive.”
Ah, that’s more like it. I lean back, relaxing some. It’s easy enough to read between the lines. Pops is telling me that there are plenty of men who could kill Bardoratch, but not a lot that could make it look enough like an accident to fool the cops and the coroner.
“In life, you get what you pay for,” I say, tapping my thumb on the chair’s arm rest.
“Speaking of that, payroll is costly.”
