“Why would I be tempted to bypass you?”
He shrugged. “Same reasons anyone under protection does. They don’t want to be restricted. They don’t think the situation is as serious as it might be. They don’t want to admit it’s really happening…. Take your pick.”
She looked at him as an odd yearning brewed within her. A desire to know what Blayze Brockton was really like. What he’d been through in life. How he was coping with his mother’s death. “I won’t hide anything from you,” she said, the words coming out in a whisper.
He gave her a satisfied nod, and for a moment Sophia was satisfied too. But then something occurred to her. Something she could hardly deem fair. He’d asked questions about her at length, made notes about her life that looked like some foreign coding. But he was under no obligation to confide in her in return. Something told her that this mysterious man who’d agreed to protect her, to put his life on the line essentially, may remain a mystery to her until their time together was through. A wave of melancholy washed over her at the idea of never really knowing the quiet warrior sitting just inches away.
“Hey, Blayze?”
He was focused on his papers again, but as he glanced up, his handsome brow furrowed.
“Thanks for agreeing to do this.”
The smallest lift pulled at one side of his lips. “You’re welcome.”
Chapter 6
“Ihave to applaud these guys for taking action,” Roman said to Blayze. The retired detective had parked his cherry Corvette in Sophia’s driveway, and was carting his bags to the Rover. “Too often people fail to take threats seriously. By the time things escalate, they’ve missed out on a lot of valuable clues.”
Blayze squinted against the bright morning sun. “I can imagine.” His mind drifted back to the conversation he’d had with the District Attorney. Mr. Vasco had said Blayze could use the private investigators Roman worked with for help with the case. He figured he’d do so with the smaller, more simple tasks, and reach out to Sutton’s team with the more in-depth stuff.
“Hey, I wonder if you could do me a favor—something to do with that first package Sophia received.”
Roman’s chest puffed. “Sure, what is it?”
“I’d like a list of the guests who’ve stayed at the Maraddo Motel in the last two-and-a-half years.”
Roman pointed at him and clapped his hands together. “That’s not a bad idea. I already had them pull a more recent list, the entire month of September, which is when she received it. But it wouldn’t hurt to go back further.”
“Right,” Blayze said, glancing at the house. Sophia stood on the covered porch, hovering a water can over one of the many potted plants while her orange cat weaved back and forth between her legs. Why anyone had the desire to plantmorestuff— amidst green grass, palm trees, and flowers lining the walkway—he’d never know. He guessed it was the instinct women had to beautify everything around them. “I think that since the accident happened over two years ago,” Blayze said, “maybe the motel card represents something that happened back then too.”
“Good thinking,vato,” Roman said with a nod.
Blayze had heard the termold soulused for people with more of a serious mind; but he sensed Roman was a young soul. Dressed in black, tattered jeans and a designer button up shirt, which displayed a skull with crossbones across the back. “How about we take it a little further? Say… six monthsbeforethe accident?”
“Not a bad idea, man,” Blayze said, partly because itwasa good idea and partly because he wanted a good rapport with the man. They’d be working together after all.
Roman held up a hand. “Put it here.”
When Blayze obliged, smacking his palm to Roman’s, the guy clasped his fingers around it and bumped elbows with him, reminding Blayze of his school days.
“Okay,” Sophia hollered from the porch. “Plants are watered. I’m grabbing my stuff now and we’ll be good to go.”
The porch door creaked shut behind her as the cat narrowly escaped a tail amputation. The animal seemed to make a pest of itself if you asked Blayze.
Last night, just after he’d got settled into the spare bedroom, the curious cat ventured right into the room and jumped on his bed, waving its puffy tail high in the air like a victory flag. Seemed just when the thing sensed it wasn’t welcome, courtesy of a few nudges through the covers with Blayze’s foot, he curled up into a ball and made himself at home. He figured he’d be stuck with the thing at his feet all night until Sophia scurried in to retrieve it.
The light had been low, bluish shadows really, but as Sophia leaned down to hoist the purring animal off the bed, a splash of moonlight spilled in. Her hair was pulled back, shoulders bare save the tiny straps of her night dress—a glowing white against her olive skin. Blayze had thought sharing his space with the cat was bad—lending his mind to the idea of spending weeks alone with Ms. Vasco was no easy thing to recover from either. He’d have been better off had she just left the cat in there.
“You know,” Roman said, leaning his back against the Rover and folding his arms. “Ms. Vasco is strong. She is. Not many days you’ll see her get ruffled. But that last package that came, with the car…” He did a quick check over his shoulder. “She freaked.”
“She was scared, you mean?”
Roman shook his head. “Angry.”
Blayze lifted his brows in surprise before checking over his shoulder. Any moment, Sophia should march back out with her arms full of items she wouldn’t want him to help her carry. He looked back at Roman. “Angry?”
He tore the sunglasses off his face and leveled a look at him. “Livid.”
