He frowned. “Disgusting?”
“Not in a bad way.” He still looked confused. “Like in a ‘we’re so cute it’s sick’ kind of way. We’d never recover from the teasing if Shiloh saw you feeding me bites of French toast.”
“Ah-ha.” He came over to where I was standing at the sink and wrapped his arms around my waist, nuzzling his head into the crook of my neck. “Worth it.”
The burner in Brodie’s pocket vibrated and his arms left me as he tugged it loose and answered. “Yes.” I dried my hands and turned, leaning up against the sink, when he clicked it over to speaker. “Hang on there, Twig. You’re on speaker now. Repeat that, please.”
“Cotton?”
“I’m here.”
“Hey. I’m just calling to check in. I’m sorry, but I’m really not finding anything profound. Both of these men—Justin Kittredge and his father—are exceptionally clean. Too clean. They don’t even have any traffic violations, and everyone except Mother Freaking Theresa has those.”
“So in all likelihood the general has contacts that keep them clean.”
“Exactly. Add to which he’s a fucking general and we have a tremendously difficult task ahead of us. This could take a while, folks.”
Brodie winked at me and in reflex I felt my forehead relax where I’d been frowning. “We have time, if I can get Em out from under this contract.”
“Good luck with that. If it helps, I do think you’re on the right track. All of the women Justin has been linked with are clams. Nobody’s talking, which leads me to think they’re hiding something. Especially considering a girl he dated in high school wound up dead weeks prior to graduation.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I had to do some serious digging for that one, so feel free to pick up some donuts for me when you get back in town.” Coming from an affluent family as she had, Twiggy rarely requested anything other than donuts as payment. She didn’t need the money.
“Tell me everything,” I demanded, the blood pounding thick in my chest. This was it; I knew it with a certainty that wouldn’t be denied. This was what would bring him to his knees.
“Shelby Anne Teeter, age seventeen. Cute girl, sweet face. Smart—four-point-two grade point average. They dated for a few weeks until she turned up dead one morning. She was in her bedroom and her mother thought she was sleeping off a date she’d gone on the night before with Justin. She went to check on her and she wasn’t breathing. It was ruled non-suspicious, accidental suffocation.”
“What, they thought she suffocated in her pillow or something? Does that even happen?”
“I guess technically she could have been too inebriated to turn her face out of the pillow, but that calls into question how she made it home at all. There’s nothing about that on record. Maybe I’m reaching, but it doesn’t feel right.”
“Definitely. Jesus.”
We fell silent, each of us processing the information and its implications, until Twiggy cleared her throat. “I’m going to get back to it. Brodie, I took the address you gave me and issued a call for package for today. They’ll be there sometime after lunch. I’ll send you the label.”
We said our thanks and disconnected. “Is that for shipping the journal?” I asked.
“Yes, whenever you’re ready.”
“I’ll be ready. I just need to finish a letter to Shiloh.”
He nodded and pushed me gently out of the way. “Why don’t you go do that, then? I’ll finish these.” Rolling up his sleeves, he immersed his hands in the soapy water and started working on the dishes.
Deciding to take his suggestion to heart, I made the bed and then sprawled out across it on my stomach, pen in mouth as I contemplated what I needed to say.
I wrote for a while until I considered it as complete as it was ever going to get, and took the journal into the other room for Brodie to slip into an envelope he had ready.
“They can’t find us through Twiggy, can they?” The idea had been bothering me since I’d heard that she used the address to create the call for pickup.
Brodie brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. “No. Not unless her system has been compromised. She’s forever running checks, so I feel fairly certain it’s okay.”
“Great.” I leaned into him and he took the hint, tucking me into his side with an arm around my waist. “I was worried.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you.” He rubbed his thumb back and forth across the flare of my hip. “Understand?”
I nodded, thinking that yes, I might actually understand, and reached up to trace his stubble with my fingers. “What doesmacushlamean?”
