“When?” Nick snapped.
Shuddering, I told him about my trip to the spa, talk with Cheryl, and finally meeting with Aiden. I left out the kiss, but I did hand over the two joints that had been in my jockybox.
“Christ.” Steam actually rose from Nick’s soaked shirt as he shoved the marijuana in his pocket. “Have you lost your mind?”
Geez. What would he think about the kiss? “Possibly, but think about it. Randy might have been selling drugs through Cheryl at the spa—drugs he had acquired from his Uncle Melvin. There’s probably a connection to the Lordes, but I don’t see it yet.”
Nick looked at me like I was crazy.
I cleared my throat. “Also, I can’t imagine Aiden dumped a body here and just headed up to my house to talk to me.” To kiss me and ask to stay the night. That would take a sociopath, who didn’t have feelings, and I knew Aiden did. Pretty deep feelings. I’d known him as a kid, and he wasn’t a monster.
“People change,” Nick said shortly, as if reading my every thought.
Heat climbed into my face.
“Hey.” Detective Pierce strode over the ground toward us, ducking beneath the yellow crime tape. “Uniforms brought in the girlfriend. I may need you there to sign off on a deal if I can get her to talk.”
“Cheryl Smythers?” I sat up.
Pierce paused in turning. “You know her?”
“We’ll meet you at the station.” Nick slammed my door before I could speak, crossing around my car to settle his bulk inside. “You okay to drive?”
Ignoring the still-staring detective outside my window, I nodded. “Yeah. Why? Where’s your car?”
“I was out running when I got the call,” Nick said.
I ignited the engine and cut him a look. “Where?”
“On the lake road,” he said, buckling his seatbelt. “Where else?”
I backed the car away from the crime scene. Yeah. Where else? Aiden wasn’t the only one who could’ve dumped a body, but…I shook my head. Now I was seeing killers in everybody. “I’m not sure I like my job,” I muttered, turning on the windshield wipers.
“Amen,” Nick said grimly, his gaze on the storm. “I hate to tell you this, but it’s going to get worse before it gets better.” He sighed, not looking my way. “It always does.”
Chapter 17
“There’s really a two-way mirror,” I murmured, sipping the worst coffee I’d ever tasted while watching Cheryl fidget through the glass, well past midnight. We stood in a small and dark room at the police station watching her, while she sat facing us in a metal chair, her hair a wild mess and her eyes bloodshot. Was she high? Her hands shook on the smooth wooden table, and she kept picking at her cuticles. “Looks scared.”
“Should be,” Nick retorted from my side, his wet jacket back in place. “I told Detective Pierce about your interaction with her at the spa while you were finding us coffee.”
I winced. “Bet he didn’t like that.”
“That’s an understatement,” Nick said, studying the blonde.
“I could’ve told him,” I said, the thought giving me a headache already. I didn’t need Nick Basanelli covering for me.
Nick shook his head, and his wet hair sprayed a little water. “You work for me, Albertini. If there’s a problem with the police, I deal with it first.”
I hated the relief that filled me at that statement. “Um, thanks.”
“Then I’ll probably fire you,” he said, not so mildly. “From now on, let the detectives investigate, or your butt will be out on the street so fast you won’t have time to call your grandmas with the news before they hear it from the grapevine. Got it?”
Why did I get the feeling that Nick had been somewhat gentle with me so far? I wanted to get irritated or protest, but I was just so tired—and wet. And kind of scared in general. “Fine.” It was a sucky answer. I was saved from having to redeem myself when Detective Pierce strode into the interrogation room and slapped a case file down on the table. I jumped as high as Cheryl did at the sound.
He didn’t go easy on her, but she held tight to a story of not knowing a thing about drugs running through the spa. Finally, when Pierce confronted her about the two joints she’d left for me in the locker, she turned and glared at the window. I barely kept from stepping back. “You bitch,” she said, looking so different from the smiling woman who’d given me a pedicure that my toes started to ache.
I sipped more of my coffee.
