“I’ll see you tonight,” I said.
“Tonight.” He nodded once and slipped his phone from his pocket when it rang. “Shit,” he said and answered the call. His molten-brown eyes stayed on me as I boarded the elevator and leaned against the back rail, soaking in every last second with him.
He nodded once and said into the phone, “Got it.”
I could’ve stared at him all day. It shouldn’t have been anything remarkable, a man on a phone call in his pajamas, but his beauty, even like this, took my breath away.
The doors started to close, stealing him from me inch by inch.
Until he shot his hand between them, stopping the elevator. He hung up his call and met my eyes.
“Cooper wants us at the station as soon as possible.”
20
In a small windowed room at the police station, David moved a stack of paperwork from a chair to a desk with an engraved placard that readDetective Cooper.
David gestured at the seat. “Sit. Coop should be here any minute.”
I sat. The chair wobbled. Without a word, David fixed it with a magazine under one leg. On the drive over, he’d also been quiet. Next, he straightened the stack of papers he’d moved and flipped open the top file folder.
“Should you be looking at that?” I asked.
“Nope,” Detective Cooper answered, entering the office and closing the door behind him. “Hands off, Fish.”
I followed the detective with my eyes as he sat at his computer. “Fish?”
“Always in the damn water,” Cooper muttered. “Swimming, surfing, sailing—”
“They’re called hobbies,” David said. “You should try getting one.”
“Do I look like a thirteen-year-old girl?” Cooper shook his computer mouse, and the screen lit up. “I got enough bullshit to deal with on an hourly basis.”
At Cooper’s bookshelf, David picked up a worn paperback with a rifle target and blood splatter on the cover. “Like read crime fiction?”
“What?” Cooper shrugged. “I enjoy them.”
“No, you don’t.” David glanced over his shoulder at the detective. “You read them so you can rip the story to shreds for its inaccuracies. Gives your black heart an excuse to get angry.”
“How do you two know each other again?” I asked.
“High school,” they answered in unison.
So theywerearound the same age. Truth be told, I was more interested in hearing what David was like as a teen than recounting the distressing events of the night before.
“Can we get started?” I asked. “I’m hosting a big event tonight, so I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Got it.” Cooper sat back in his seat and looked to David. “I’ll take Olivia’s statement first. You can go.”
David turned, his expression crestfallen. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s not up to you. It’s Olivia’s call.” Cooper opened a notepad on his desk, wet the tip of his index finger, and flipped the page. “Some of my guys are headed over to the crime scene now—”
“The crime scene?” I asked. “You mean my office?”
“Yep. They’ll brief your boss on last night’s events.”
For the first time, I wondered if Bill should be here. I needed to call and fill him in. And how would he react to hearing I’d spent the night with another man?
