“No. Whoever called you, didn’t just upset you, they scared you.”
“Not true.”
“Yeah? Maybe we should add ‘do not lie’ to your list of goals. Your cagey eyes and trembling hands after you hung up told a different story. Not to mention the blush on your cheeks. Your neck was as red as the bottom of your heels. Whatever was said on that phone call scared you and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you go into that house alone.”
“This isn’t any of your business.”
“I just made it my business. Together, or not at all. Isn’t that right?”
I threw my hands up and pushed past him. “You’re impossible.”
“This coming from my therapist,” he muttered as we turned toward the door. I rang the doorbell, waited a few beats, then rang it again. My gaze shifted to the front window, looking for movement, or anything to indicate Andrew was still home.
I bypassed the doorbell and knocked.
“He was expecting you, right?”
“Yes. He might’ve left already, but…” I glanced back at the car where I’d left my phone. “Surely he would have called or texted me first.”
Phoenix nudged me out of the way and grabbed the knob.
“Wait. What are you doing?”
The door slowly opened, a pitchedcreakechoing through the air.
“Stay behind me,” Phoenix said in a tone that sent me on alert.
I watched his hand slide to the gun I didn’t realize he carried on his belt—regardless that his concealed carry license had been pulled. I wasn’t surprised. If I knew anything about Phoenix Steele already it was that he didn’t do what he was told. Funny; a car, he didn’t need. A gun, he couldn’t live without it. It was interesting insight into the man, and made me wonder how much of his life was shaped by his time in the military.
The house smelled of cheap air fresheners, tacos, and the lingering scent of something herbal that suggested Andrew had his own license of sorts—a medical license.
The first thing I noticed was that it was dead silent. NoTV noise, hum of a heater, whine of a dishwasher, no video game on loop, nothing.
The house was small with a living room beyond the entryway, bedrooms to the side, and kitchen at the end of the house. The living room had the bare essentials, a massive flat screen TV streaming a baseball game on mute, a pair of mismatched, hand-me-down love seats, and in the corner, a lazy-boy complete with cup holders and an adjustable leg rest. On the coffee table, a half-eaten plate of tacos and a longneck.
“Andrew?” I called out and stepped beside Phoenix.
“I said stay behind me.”
Nerves tickled my stomach.
Phoenix kept his hand on his holster as we stepped down the hallway. The room to the left appeared to be an office of sorts—vacant, and lights off—and next to that, a spare room, which was also vacant.
Tap, tap, tap…
I frowned.
Tap, tap, tap…
“You hear that?” I whispered.
Phoenix’s eyes were laser-focused on the entryway to the kitchen, where the tapping noise appeared to be coming from. A blast of cool air had the hair on the back of my neck prickling. Phoenix drew his gun in such a smooth, routine manner I might not have noticed if I wasn’t looking for it. My heart began to pound as we stepped into the kitchen.
And that’s when I saw it. My second dead body of the day.
I gasped. My body froze mid-stride as I stared at the motionless pair of legs outside, just beyond the screen door that was flapping against the wind. The rest of the body was out of view.
Andrew?
