“You can’t drive. The doctor hasn’t cleared you yet.”
“He thinks I’m on muscle relaxers. I’m not.”
“You’re down to one hand. Can you really drive with one—”
“Yes.”
Dear God, he was stubborn. She heard the rasp of a zipper and revolved slowly on the spot. His jeans were on, thank goodness. The panels of his red-and-blue-plaid shirt hung parted over his torso. When he began to rush past her, she stepped into his path.
He drew a sharp breath, fighting exasperation. “I’m going, Sassy. Someone needs to check it out. It’s either going to be me or I call the cops again. Take your pick.”
Silently, she tugged the two halves of his shirt together. Leaving the top button undone, she threaded the others through their corresponding holes, trying not to notice how warm the line of his torso was or the fact that he was breathing heavily…just as he had moments ago in her dream…
Banishing visions of skin, she finished buttoning him and stepped back. “You can’t go out in the cold like that,” she told him.
His shoulders lowered. “Thank you,” he said softly.
“We’ll both go,” she decided.
He hesitated for a moment before glancing down at Riot. “He can watch the house.”
“I have one condition.”
“What’s that?” he asked as he pocketed his wallet.
She raised a stern brow. “I’mdriving.”
Chapter 11
Nick found Sassy in the office upstairs above the gallery, her eyes glued to the open screen of her laptop on the desk. She looked harried, her hair a haphazard bun on top of her head. He hated how pale she looked. He recognized weariness in the slump of her shoulders and nerves in the way she pulled at her lower lip, just as she’d done when they were teens facing finals at the end of the school year.
He knocked on the doorjamb to alert her to his presence. When her head snatched in his direction, he said, “I swept the lower floor.”
“Did you see anything out of place?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Everything, down to the storeroom, was neat as a pin.”
“Soledad’s a wonder,” she murmured with a faint smile.
He stepped into the room. “What are you looking at?”
She hesitated for a moment before turning the screen to face him.
The security feed from the back door. She’d frozen it on an image. He looked at the time stamp. “This is from half an hour ago.”
“This is what woke me up,” she admitted. She hit the space bar on the keyboard, and the image started moving in real time. “I’ve frozen it several times. Whatever it is moves so fast, I can’t get a screen grab.”
“Do you mind if I try?” he asked.
She hit the back button until the feed milled backward to a minute before the disturbance took place.
Nick leaned over her until the stray hairs of her topknot brushed against his cheek and tapped the space bar with his thumb.
They waited. One minute and fourteen seconds crept by before the white figure darted across the feed again, making Sassy jump.
Nick quickly hit the space bar, trying to freeze the frame with the shape somewhere in the middle. She was right. It was too fast.
He laid his hand on her shoulder to steady her nerves and his own. He didn’t like this. The truck. The house. The gallery. What next?
