Movement from the guys draws my attention, and I see Remy elbowing Grayson and jerking his head toward me.
Grayson gives Remy a nasty glare and steps forward from the group. “Remy wants me to tell you that Julia wasn’t here for him or Felix. She was here to see me.” He seems to be having a hard time looking at me while he says this, his attention focused above my head.
“Okay,” I drawl. As much as I know the confession is going to scorch my tongue, I add, “You don’t owe me an explanation, Gray—son.” I amend my slipup of nearly using his nickname. “I understand you have lives.” I was right—saying it makes me want to hurl.
Remy shoves Grayson’s back, and he stumbles forward. “What about you? What’s your life like now?” he asks when he recovers.
“Uh…” I hesitate, because telling them all I’ve done over the past few years is study and work probably isn’t the greatest idea, even if it’s the truth. “I’ve kept myself busy.”
“Have you now?” Remy mumbles, narrowing his eyes on me.
I nod jerkily.
“Doing what?”
“Stuff.” I flip the top of my laptop open and enter the password. My screen saver has been changed from the MBI logo to a picture of the four of us out at the pond when we were kids. It was taken just a few days before I left town, and I can barely relate to the girl in the photo. She looks so happy, so sure. Remy is standing behind me with his chin on my shoulder, so his face is close to mine. Grayson is at my side with his arm around my waist, while Felix is leaning his much slimmer frame against my other side. I lift my finger to touch the image, but it shifts to another. This one is just Felix and me. It was taken without my knowledge, and I’ve never seen it before today. I’m looking up at him with what can only be described as adoration. The only reason it isn’t embarrassing is because he’s looking back at me with the same emotion all over his face. Another picture pops up, and I glance across the room to Felix. He’s the one to blame for infiltrating my computer, not that I’m mad. I’m a little sad, but not mad.
He searches my face, and I’m reminded of the way we were gazing at each other in the picture, so I look away, hitting the icon for my email instead. There’s an email from Dad and a few others, but I skip over those and open the important one.
There are download icons, so he must have taken photos of the hardcopies. “Damnit,” I curse when I realize none of it is in order and I’m going to have to sort through them all.
“What is it?” Felix rounds the desk.
“Do you have a printer I could use? These files are a mess.”
“Yeah, sure.” Without another word, he leans past me and puts his hands on my keyboard, taking over the job. After a second, he turns to look at me. Our faces are close enough that I can see my reflection in his glasses. I find myself looking down at his lips, wondering if they still feel the same or if so much has changed that his kiss won’t even be familiar anymore.
“Sorry,” he whispers softly. “I didn’t mean to take over.”
“It’s okay.” I push my feet against the floor to shove myself back in the chair to give him a little room, otherwise I might have given in to the temptation of kissing him.
The sound of a machine coming to life gives me a reason to look away from him. On one of the workbenches sits a printer, and next to it is a very large plotter that can print blueprints. Remy walks over to the machine and retrieves several sheets. He gives them a cursory glance before handing them over to me.
I start sorting all the papers on the desk, and Grayson mutters, “Whoa, that’s pretty gruesome,” from over my shoulder.
“It looks like a bomb went off in this guy’s head,” Remy adds.
I look back at them. “It’s not the worst I’ve seen, but pretty bad. Any of you guys see him around town? It’s hard to tell from this picture, but he was pretty big. Murrey thinks around six-five and nearly three hundred pounds.” I glance around, noting all their attention is on the few grim photos Dad included.
Felix is the first to answer. “I don’t go out as much as they do.” His eyes scan the picture. “What’s this?” He points to a small area that would have been hard to notice in person, because it’s more about the lack of evidence than anything else. To the left of the body is a clear outline where there seemed to have been something in the way that blocked the blood from marring the floor, leaving behind a right angle of empty space that would not happen naturally.
“Looks like there was something there that got moved after the fact.” I glance up at him and grin. He just found my first lead.
“Is this the kind of thing you see every day?” Grayson uses the tips of his fingers to cover one of the pictures of the body with another image Dad snapped of handwritten notes.
“Not every day,” I defend. I do see more than my fair share of murder scenes though. Having someone who can rule out a suspect at a glance—or a twinge of magic, really—is pretty useful to the MBI. It’s part of why I was available to come down and help my dad. I never get my own caseload because I’m too busy consulting on everyone else’s.
“I can’t believe this happened here.” Grayson looks over at me, his eyes soft. “Or that your dad called you to deal with it.”
“It’s my job to deal with it,” I remind him.
“What kind of magic caused this?” Remy asks, leaning his muscular ass against Felix’s desk. Seated as I am, it leaves his waist and what’s below it at prime eye level. I force myself to look away from his bulge after confirming he’s still a lefty.
“This isn’t officially my case, but I shouldn’t be talking to you guys about it. I could get in trouble for even allowing you to see this.”
“It’s not like we’re going to tell anyone, plus you just said you’re not officially on the case, so there’s no one to get in trouble with.” Remy waggles his eyebrows.
I heave a sigh, knowing I’m easy. I always have been, especially with these three, and I’m not just talking about getting in my pants. We never had any secrets, or I never thought we did. “Murrey suspects it wasn’t magic, or not direct magic anyway, and it’s looking that way to me too,” I share.
