“I’m sorry I missed him. Tell him to call me when he comes back in.”
“I will, but you know how he hates talking on the phone. Maybe I can get him to text you.”
Val grinned. Pops was determined to move into the twenty-first century. She liked that he wasn’t giving in to old age without a fight.
“There’s something else, Mom.” She went on to tell her mother about the murder in Texas, making it clear the victim wasn’t one of the models. She left out the part about the note since her parents didn’t watch a lot of TV news and so far the information hadn’t been released. “Love you,” Val said and ended the call.
“You always smile when you’re talking to your parents,” Meg said as the bus rolled through the heavy Dallas traffic. “They must be really great.”
“They’re the best. I don’t know what would have happened to me if they hadn’t taken me in.”
Meg knew about her childhood, her rebellion, her escape from her cousins, and the foster-care system she had barely survived.
“My folks are great, too. We’re both really blessed.”
“Yes, we are,” Val agreed. But she knew from experience, the kind of unfeeling people she had lived with as a teen were more the rule.
“Have you talked to Ethan anymore about the murder?” Meg asked.
“I haven’t seen him since breakfast. I know he was going out to look at the crime scene with a friend of his in the police department.”
Meg shook her head. “That poor girl. What a terrible way for her life to end.”
“I guess she tried to fight him. I like her for that.”
Meg’s chin firmed. “Me too. I’d fight. I wouldn’t just let him kill me.”
Val blew out a breath, rested her head against the back of the seat. “I acted like an idiot when Ethan told me. Two women murdered. It really scared me. I’m usually not such a wimp. The second murder freaked me out even more than the first, and that . . . umm . . . kind of freaked Ethan out.”
“I was pretty freaked myself when I heard about it.”
“I’m not supposed to say anything, but Ethan told Matt Carlyle that from now on he’d be staying in my suite.”
“Yeah? I’m not really surprised. Dirk went ballistic after Ethan called him. He told me in no uncertain terms that he’ll be staying in my room from now on.”
“Matt agreed to that?”
“Dirk is a little different from Ethan. He didn’t ask permission. He’s just planning to show up.”
“What about the security guard? Ethan says there’s one on each floor.”
“I get the impression getting past the guard won’t be a problem for Dirk.”
Val thought of Ethan. The look he’d cast her way had warned he would be staying with her, no matter what it took. “I guess you’re right. So how do you feel about Dirk staying in the room with you?”
Meg toyed with a thread on the dark blue skinny jeans she was wearing with a sexy little tank and a pair of heeled sandals. “I’m really attracted to him. I’ve been thinking . . . maybe if I just, you know, slept with him, I could get him out of my system. Then we could both go back to normal.”
After this morning, Val had been considering something along those same lines. “You think it would work?”
“I don’t know. You’ve got a thing for Ethan. What do you think?”
“God, I don’t know either. I can’t figure out what it is about him that attracts me so strongly.”
Meg laughed. “Besides the fact he’s smart, gorgeous, has the ultimate male body, and the superhero protective gene?”
Val managed to smile. “Yeah, besides that. Maybe they attract us just because we’re so dependent on them. I mean, two women are dead. We could be next. Without Ethan and Dirk, we’d be a lot more vulnerable.”
“Yeah, if it weren’t for Ethan and Dirk, we’d have to pander to Beau Desmond’s ego or screw Bick Gallagher.” She grinned, tipped her head toward the back of the bus where Bick was sitting, and did a fake shiver, making Val smile.
