Karissa almost choked on her drink when Hale gave her a grin. The man was too damn sexy for his own good.
“I see you’re still talking out loud to yourself all the time,” he said with a soft chuckle before glancing down at the photos of Patterson. “So this is your billionaire client?”
“Yeah, that’s him.” She moved closer to study the pictures with him. “And that’s his son, Glenn, the one I’d initially pegged as a possible suspect for hiring the hit man.”
“Initially?” Hale repeated, glancing over at her curiously as he took another long sip of his drink. “You don’t think so now?”
“He certainly has the motive.” She shrugged. “If his father dies, Glenn gets total control of the company, which is worth billions upon billions. But I get the sensation he genuinely cares about his father. I mean, if it weren’t for Glenn, I would never havebeen hired. He’s also the one who makes sure I get access to his father when the man is doing his best to keep me pushed to the outside of everything.”
“Maybe he’s simply a good actor,” Hale murmured, looking through the other photos in the folder, including Jerome Guerrero and the other key players in Patterson’s organization. The rest of the pics were of the security guards who’d been killed.
“Damn,” Hale said, turning the photos to get a better look at them, taking in the guards’ broken and torn bodies. “Whoever did this must be incredibly strong. Vicious, too.”
“You could definitely say that,” Karissa agreed, remembering the fight she’d barely survived.
She took another sip of her drink so she wouldn’t have to look at the pictures anymore. She didn’t want to imagine herself—or Deven—ending up like that.
Hale glanced at her, his eyes dipping down toward her midriff for a quick second. “You fought with the hit man recently, didn’t you?”
Again, the instinct to lie and keep everything secret from the man who’d hurt her so badly all those years ago was difficult to resist. But this was why she’d gone looking for Hale in the first place. She needed to tell him everything if she expected his help.
“A few hours ago,” she admitted. “Patterson wasattending a private gala across town. The top five floors of the hotel had been completely locked down, with guards, cameras, sensors, and alarms everywhere. There should have been no way for the hit man to get anywhere even close to him.”
“But he did.”
Karissa nodded. “I was doing a security check of the service floor one level down from the ballroom. I didn’t honestly expect to find anything, but then he just appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of the concourse that runs along the front of the meeting rooms.”
Hale set his Powerade down on the desk beside the file folder, his expression curious. “Appeared out of nowhere? What do you mean by that?”
“Just that. He simply appeared. Out of nowhere.”
Karissa walked over to the couch and sat down. The move made the wound on her stomach twinge a little, but she did a decent job hiding it. At least, she thought she had until she looked up and saw him gazing at her midriff again. Like he somehow knew exactly where it hurt.
“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” Hale said, coming over to sit in an armchair. “Tell me exactly what happened tonight.”
And just that easily, she did. Starting from the moment she’d walked out of the kitchen area, Karissa told him everything in detail, focusing on the hit man’s appearance and the sense of dreadthat filled her in his presence. Hale remained quiet for the most part, occasionally stopping her to ask a question here and there. Pointed, insightful questions, she had to admit.
“So this guy can appear in a swirl of dark smoke?” he asked, looking more alarmed than suspicious. “And then disappear just as easily?”
She considered that. “I’m not sure I’d call it smoke. There’s no smell and it doesn’t billow and roll the way you think of smoke from a fire doing. This is more like he’s somehow captured pure darkness and wraps it around himself. Like a shroud.”
“That’s not creepy at all,” Hale said, making a face. Karissa silently agreed. “Are the swords he uses like yours? Can he can make them appear and disappear like you do?”
“They’re single-edged blades instead of double, but they’re definitely Greek in design. And yeah, he can pull them out of thin air like I do.”
Hale seemed to think about that for a moment. “Have you ever considered this guy might be the same as you? Whatever kind of…person…you are, I mean.”
“Well, I suppose I deserved that,” she murmured, more to herself than him. “But at least you didn’t call me athing.”
Her oldest brother, Lorenzo, had done that once and she still hadn’t forgiven him.
“I’d never do that,” Hale said softly, and Karissacouldn’t help but wonder if he was talking to her or himself.
“The gifts I have are only given to one person at a time, so there’s no way the hit man can be like me,” she finally managed to say. “Still, it’s terrifying that he possesses some of the same abilities I have, which is why I’m hoping that maybe you—or this STAT organization I overheard you talking about—might be able to help me figure out what this guy is and how to stop him.”
“So you reallywereup on the roof at the police station?” Hale said, making Karissa realize what she’d let slip. “You heard us talking about that supernatural crew and that STAT is working on identifying them, and you thought they could help you ID this man you’re up against. That’s the only reason you invited me into your hotel room, isn’t it?”
Karissa didn’t miss the hurt in his voice, even though she had no idea where it came from. Why would he care if she only wanted to use him to get information? A part of her wanted to tell him that she’d followed him to that police station because she was worried about him, but she simply couldn’t force the words out. She had too much pride to ever admit to that in front of him.
