CHAPTER8
MILLER
The stranger was even moredelicious up close in the golden hour than he’d looked last night. Today he wore the same suit jacket, but with tan chinos and a different white shirt. He wore no tie. No hat to replace the one he’d left behind—the one sitting on my own head. His dark hair glinted with red lights in the sunshine and his eyes were completely hidden behind the impenetrable sunglasses. He wasn’t wearing a holster under his jacket this time, which was probably for the best, given that our security guardswerearmed.
“Sir?” one guard said, exchanging confused glances with his colleague. “I’d just like to get it clear whether you know this man or—”
“Hang on,” I said. “Hard to tell if I know him or not with those sunglasses on. Can you take off the shades for a second, man?”
One of the guards let his arm go long enough for the stranger to yank off the sunglasses and glare at me. Yep. The same eyes from last night, steely now as they bored into mine. I let a slow smile spread across my face.
“Ohh, yeah, I recognize him now. He’s one of mine.” I waved a hand, and the other guard dropped his hold on the guy at once. “Guess you forgot the code for the front gate, huh?”
“Guess I did,” the stranger growled back, his voice just as low and smoky as I remembered from last night.
“Thanks,” I told the security guards, giving them a nod. “Let’s hit the party,” I suggested to the hot stranger who’d fallen into my lap—or onto my lawn, anyway. I gestured with my head for him to follow me as the security guards made themselves scarce.
“Nice hat,” he said as we walked back toward the pool.
“I was keeping it safe for you. Man, you arereallyoverdressed for a pool party.”
“Are you Miller Beaumont?”
“For my sins,” I said airily, and continued, “Yeah,” when he stayed silent. “I’m Miller Beaumont. Why?”
“Your father sent me to talk to you about your sister.”
“About mysister?”
“She’s missing. You didn’t notice?”
That stung, but I couldn’t expect the stranger to know the full situation. My father sure as shit wouldn’t have said anything about ourfalling out. Still, I decided to keep the tidbit about Annie’s just-received text message to myself for now, and answered his question with one of my own. “If Dad sent you, why the fuck didn’t you call up from the gate? Or do you justpreferscaling walls?”
He stopped me, a hand on my arm, and turned me around to look at him. We were only halfway back to the pool. “Your father gave me this address, a time, and your name. That’s all. I don’t know if he had a sense of humor about not giving out any more details—”
“Oh, no, that’s my father all over. He probably just forgot. He doesn’tconcernhimself with shit like that. Have you got a badge, any ID?” I was just messing with him a little more. It made sense my father would send someone a little morediscreetto look into Annie’s supposed disappearance than the LAPD. Apparently Annie hadn’t been in touch with Dad, only me. It surprised me, but it wasn’t unprecedented. There had been times in our lives when we’d regularly covered for each other.
“Listen, I’m not a cop,” the hot stranger was saying. “I’m not a PI. I’m not private security. I’m doing a job for my Boss, who happens to be a friend of your dad’s. But the less you know about that, the better.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Well, I can’t just call you ‘Shades’ for the rest of the night, now can I?”
There was a long pause and I couldn’t read his eyes, back behind those dark glasses. “People call me Jack,” he said after a moment.
“There you go,” I said. “Was that so hard? And is that a first name, or a last?”
“Jacopo,” he ground out after another pause. “Johnny Jacopo.”
I tipped my head to one side. “Johnny Jacopo? And people call you the unimaginative ’Jack’ when ‘JJ’ is right therebeggingto be your nickname?”
“Not sure ‘JJ’ is what you’d call imaginative,” he countered, and it was a fair point. “But like I said, people call me Jack.”
“I thinkI’llcall you JJ,” I told him, grinning.
He reached over, took the hat off my head, then settled it on his own. “Okay, Trouble. You call me whatever you like as long as you answer a few questions for me.”
We started walking again, slower, like neither of us wanted to rush over to the crowd. “You hungry?” I asked. “There’s barbecue.”
“I’m here for answers, not cooked cow.”
