He’s a terrible liar. “Did you know her?” Something’s got him riled up.
“No.”
“Then what is it?”
“There was no blood.”
Okay? “Chances are he drowned her in the bath, like the first victim.” Until we see the pictures of the body, it’s hard to speculate on cause of death, or the specifics on howit was done. “No blood doesn’t mean she didn’t struggle.” It just means she didn’t have a chance at fighting back, whether because he was smart enough to catch her by surprise—based on the location of the bath and the door, she would have had to have her eyes closed for him to do that—or he was simply bigger and stronger than her. Of course, the killer could be female. More useless speculation without facts.
“Or she knew him,” Kendrick points out. “The water over the edge of the bath could mean a struggle, or it could mean they were having sex.”
“I guess.” Where is he going with this? “Why do you think they could have been having sex?”
“Like I said, having sex in a bath causes water to go over the edge.”
He says it in such a matter-of-fact way that my hackles rise. “You know that from experience?”
Kendrick glances at me. “When you move in water, you displace it. Both a struggleandsex will cause that. I don’t need experience to make that deduction.”
That doesn’t give me an answer, though. Not really. Knowing andknowingare two entirely different things. I hate the idea that anyone ever thought they had a right to touch him, even before I met him. They should have known that he’s off limits. That he’s belonged to me his entire life. That if I find out who they are, their life is forfeit.
“And which of those two scenarios bothers you more?” I ask, instead of what I really want to. It itches at me, like bugs under my skin. Has he had sex in a bath? I have to know.
“She could have trusted him. Could have opened her door with arms wide open. And he killed her for it.”
Ah. Trust. A word Kendrick rarely uses, one I’m proud to be the owner of. It bothers him that someone she trusted could have done that to her. It isn’t the first time we’ve dealt with a case like this, and it won’t be the last. “We’ll find him,” I promise. For Kendrick if nothing else.
We always find them. The monsters can’t hide from us.
We’re monsters too.
Chapter three
Kendrick
I park in thespot next to where my own car sits, in the designated car park for my apartment building. Spencer’s staying for the rest of the morning; I’m not giving him a choice. We have maybe an hour or two, possibly three if we push it, before we’ll head into HQ for the day. Time for a power nap, a shower, and some food. In that order.
He doesn’t argue with me, just gets out of the car and follows me to the elevator without a word. He crowds me in the small space, his hand slipping into my pocket.
“How many people do you think have had sex in here?” he wonders aloud.
I hadn’t thought about it before, but now I am. I take a subtle step away from the rail on the side of the wall. How often would they clean it? Not often enough. “Too many, probably.”
“Mmm.”
Anger swirls in my gut, one with sharp edges and spikes. Is he thinking about having sex in here? With some nameless, faceless woman? “Is that what you want to do?” I ask stiffly, the words out of my mouth before I can call them back. He has no right to think about anyone else when we’re together. If he wants to jerk it to some random fantasy with a woman I want to murder just thinking about it, then he can do it when I’m not here. “Got a target in mind already?”
He studies my face, not answering.
Payback about the bath sex comment, I’m sure. I haven’t had sex in a bath. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I had sex, period. It’s been years. No point thinking about it; I’ll never have sex again, not as long as Spencer wants me. I don’t regret that, even knowing how pathetic it is.
“We left the food and coffees in the car,” he says eventually, just as the elevator doors open onto my floor.
Shit. “I’m not going back down to get them. Whatever I make after we nap will be a thousand times better than whatever you got.” We can throw it all out when we go back down in a few hours.
“I like it when you talk dirty to me.”
If only that were true.
