“What are you doing here?” she gasped.
“I came to see Zane. I knocked but no one answered.” He lifted his other hand. “I have a key.”
He’d knocked. And she’d slept through it. “He had to run into work.”
Ethan released her arm. “I think Zane might kill me for scaring you. And for seeing you dressed in that.”
She glanced down. And yep, her braless nipples were pushing through the thin material of Zane’s sweatshirt.
She crossed her arms, as if that would do anything. “I, um, should get changed.”
“Good idea.”
Suddenly, there was a knock at the front door.
Shit.
“Expecting company?” Ethan asked, glancing over his shoulder.
“My brother. Maybe my cousin too.”
He looked back at her, completely unfazed. “Shower. Change. I’ll let them in.”
“I don’t know if you want to do that. They’re kind of intense.”
“I can handle them.” He winked at her before heading down the hall.
Dammit.
She slammed the door a bit too hard and ran into the connecting bathroom, where she had the quickest shower of her life before pulling on her clothes. Thank God Zane had left her something to wear.
When she stepped into the living room, she didn’t see Ethan. Noah, Jesse, and a female deputy were there instead, her brother and cousin looking big and intense and angry.
Noah rose from the couch. “Are you okay?” He stepped right up to her and gripped her arms.
“Yeah. Last night was…a shock.” Understatement of the century. “But I’m feeling better this morning.”
Noah’s frown deepened, then he tugged her into his chest. And God, a hug from him felt good. The last bit of tension eased from her body as she leaned into her brother.
When they separated, she looked over at Jesse and the deputy before searching the room again. “Where’s—”
“Ethan left,” Jesse said. “We’d really like to hear what happened last night from your perspective.”
Her gaze caught on the to-go cup from The Tea House.
“Dirty chai with almond milk,” Noah said, pushing it in front of a seat at Zane’s small dining table.
“Thank God.” She dropped into the seat.
Jesse nodded to the other woman. “Bonnie, this is Deputy Claudia Russell. She’ll take notes. Can you start at the beginning?”
Bonnie wrapped her fingers around the to-go cup, the warmth slipping up her arms to her shoulders. “There’s not much to tell. I ordered a pizza from Burt. Half an hour later, there was a knock on the door. I opened it and the pizza was sitting in the hall. I realized after I picked it up that there was blood on my hand. When I opened it, I saw…the dead, headless mouse.”
Suddenly, the cup wasn’t warm enough. Her fingers, her skin…everything was cold.
“There was no message left with it?” Jesse asked.
“No. But…” She swallowed. “The night Dean White died, he and I had a fight. We were standing outside the party, and he called me a mouse. I’m guessing that’s why the decapitated mouse was left on my doorstep.”
