“What? It does,” he says. I catch the little smirk on his face.
“You’re a brat,” I mutter, pulling my drink back, taking another sip.
He turns towards me, his eyebrow raised in amusement. “I’mthe brat, huh?” He challenges, and all I can do is nod. The way he’s looking at me right now is doing something funny to my insides.
Why do you have to be so hot?
“My mother and father had good genetics, I suppose.”
I stare at him, horrified. I didnotmean to say that out loud. My face heats, turning as red as the burner on the stove. He laughs at my embarrassment before turning off the stove, moving the pan to the back burner, and pulling me into his chest.
“Nooo,stoppp,” I whine, trying to wiggle out of his grasp.
“No, you stop,” he says, squeezing me tighter.
“No, you,” I pout, crossing my arms over my chest before hesitantly looking up at him.
“You’re mean,” I lie, he just rolls his eyes. I scoff at him, and my mouth falls open, the action actually stunning me. He never rolls his eyes.
“Cat got your tongue, baby?” he teases, burying his face into my neck.
“You just rolled your eyes at me,” I pout. He pulls me closer to him by my hips before nipping my bottom lip playfully.“Someone woke up in a good mood,” I mumble, trying to keep up my pouty facade, but it’s hard.
“Every day I wake up with my girl is a good day,” he says, as if it’s the most obvious answer ever, and I literally melt.
“Your girl, huh?” I whisper, my pouty mood instantly replaced by a swooning one.
“Yup,” he says, gently giving my bum a squeeze. I wrap my arms around his neck. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to hearing it.
I let out a hum as he picks me up and sets me on the counter, before turning to the stove and making me a plate. I look at him with a little bit of confusion before he sets the plate down and uses the fork to feed me a scoop of eggs.
It’s my turn to roll my eyes, but I do open my mouth, and I let him feed me. I take a few chews before swallowing, opening my mouth for another bite, which he does, sticking a piece of turkey bacon into my mouth, letting me take a bite.
He feeds me my entire plate of food, letting me take my time, never rushing me. I don’t fight him on it, because sometimes it’s nice to have someone else take care of you.
33
BECKETT
It’s been eleven days since Sloane’s attack. Eleven days of digging, eleven days of connecting dots, and eleven days of drawing lines that were never clear until now.
I know that I am coming at this from an emotional point of view because of what happened to Sloane, but things that were blurry in all the other files are now becoming clear—and the kid’s social media can’t just be a coincidence.
“Are you going to be ok here by yourself?” I ask Sloane as I stand up from my desk. She came in with me today. Yesterday she stayed home by herself for the first time, and this morning she drove herself here after she woke up.
“Yeah,” she whispers, not looking up from her phone. She also turned on her ‘work’ phone for the first time yesterday, and has been catching herself up on all the stuff she’s missed.
“Ok, I’ll be back in like an hour, Jones is right outside if you need anything,” I say, and she nods. I give Mocha a few head scratches before grabbing my vest and gun, before heading out.
“You ready?” I ask Diaz, the other lead detective. He nods, closing his computer and standing up from his desk. He grabs his stuff, and we head out to our undercover car.
“Alright, so what do we know?” he asks, as we start down the road. I pull out my laptop, connect it to the dashboard, type in my password, and pull up the files that I need.
“We know that he is twenty-six, that he lives in the area, and that he has a record of being a peeping Tom when he was in high school. There is a timeline that coincidentally connects his posts, the captions, and the hashtags to the days of which each girl has been suspected to be killed. He’s been in each girl’s comment section, harassing them; some of them called him out, and others did not.”
“And Sloane?”
I grit my teeth. I’d scrolled through her account several times, and each time I found the same thing. “Yes, hers included.”
