Anita smiled, settled back into the tub, and pressed the speakerphone button.
“Hey.” His voice sounded rushed.
“This had better be important.” She rolled her ankles under the warm peppermint- and lavender-scented water. She would love just to doze in here, the warm bath surrounding her, buoying her aching back and legs, relieving some of the tension. Not all the tension.
Damn Patrick.
“Have you heard from John today?”
“No. I haven’t heard anything.” She closed her eyes and focused on the gentle motion of the water around her body.
Patrick exhaled, and she could picture him running his hands through his hair. Classic Patrick. “Okay, well, look, he called me a few minutes ago. You know that I sent him that spreadsheet I’ve been working on?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he looked through it too, and thinks he has narrowed it to two suspects.” Patrick paused, and she sat up straight in the tub, causing the water to slosh. “Wait a minute, are you in the bathtub?”
“I’ve had a long day,” she grumbled over the speakerphone as she reached for a towel. Thank God they weren’t video chatting. “I needed to soak my muscles.”
“Right,” he replied quickly. Anita wrapped the towel around herself and tied it in front. Was it her imagination, or was his voice a little strained? “Anyway, he gave me some other things to look into. I was wondering if I could pick your brain tomorrow morning? Either before or after practice, whatever works best for your schedule.”
Anita sighed. She cradled the phone against her ear and pulled the drain in the tub.Goodbye, relaxation.“Before, probably. I have to leave tomorrow afternoon for Harrisburg.”
“Great. I’ll be there at seven. Don’t worry. I’ll bring the coffee.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Anita rolled her shoulders and did some relevés against the barre set along the wall of the studio. She stretched her leg long into the air and then rested it against the wood. Her hamstring stretched and pulled, the fire in it warm and inviting.
“How do you always beat me?” she heard Patrick ask.
She did not look up from her exercises. He did not need to know that she had woken up at two in the morning, dreaming of bathtubs and him.
“I avoid the internet before bed so I can get a good night’s sleep.” She raised her other leg to rest on the barre and stretched out the other hamstring.
“Well, it is my job,” he grumbled. “Besides, you live just upstairs.”
Anita snuck a peek at him. He had taken off his jacket. It had been raining that morning, and his hair was slick with raindrops. Even slightly mussed and grumpy, Patrick was impossibly handsome.
He was certainly handsome enough in her dreams.
Keep it together.“So what did you find out?”
His normally sardonic face had tightened into seriousness. “I looked into Melanie. She seemed the obvious choice.”
“No argument.” Anita sipped at the cup of green tea he had offered. Since she had gotten sick, she had lost a little of her coffee fervor.
Patrick had a look of boyish pride on his face, like a kid showing his school project to his parents for the first time. Her heart tugged in her chest, reaching for him, but she mentally slapped its greedy little hands. “She has kind of a normal online print. She’s tagged in a lot of the burner account photos, but it doesn’t seem like the accounts belong to her. Though some of the messages I was able to geotag to this location.”
“We knew whoever it was had to come here to the studio. I mean, they saw us the night of the dance.” Whoops. She should not have brought up what the stalker saw, what almost happened.
He frowned. “But the weird thing is that I don’t see any mention of her husband.”
“He does seem on permanent trips abroad. I realize how stupid I sound, but I never really bothered to understand what he does.”
“I looked into it. He’s an executive at a pharmaceutical company. He also has social media accounts, but he hasn’t posted anything in three weeks.”
Sounded like a vacation. “Is that unusual?”
