Page 52 of Carnal Risk

“It’s Dean.”

“The district attorney?” Selby asked.

“Yeah, they’re still at your place.”

“I should go,” she said.

“No, you should eat something. You’re staying here with me.” Garrett set his cell down and reached to plate her food. He set it onto the counter next to Lars.

Selby raked her fingers through her hair and paced away from the kitchen island. He imagined she was stressing about the attack and went to her.

“I’ll go to a hotel. I need to go to my place to pick up some things. I need my clothes, shoes….shit, I need to get my car.” Selby ticked off her to do list.

“Relax.” As soon as Garrett said the word, he knew it was a mistake. Telling her, a woman, to relax was the antithesis to any goal he wished to achieve and would surely result in a negative outcome. But as he went to correct himself, she interrupted.

“Don’t tell me to relax. Someone broke into my place. I’ve got to get my things.” Selby’s voice grew louder.

“We’ll get your things.” Garrett crossed the room to meet her. “It’s going to be all right.”

“What is going on here, anyway? You think that last night is somehow related to Evan, don’t you?” Selby didn’t move to accept his comfort.

“Do I think what happened is tied to Evan’s death? I don’t know for sure but it’s likely. But I still don’t know why the hell someone would kill Evan. Do we work on some top secret things? Yes, we do. Are some of them worth killing over? Perhaps. It’s not like it’s unheard of. That’s why we have clearances and people with them can’t just travel wherever they want outside the country. You know that. But if they killed Evan and went after you, it seems like they still don’t have what they want. And here’s the thing…” Garrett hesitated in front of Lars and pointed to him. “You did not hear this.”

“Hear what?” Lars held up his hands and got up to make more coffee.

“I told you I have Evan’s laptop,” Garrett said, his eyes trained on Selby.

“Yes. And you also said you wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Selby, seriously.” He paused and took a breath. “I get that you came in here with clearances, but one of my best friends had just died. You really think I’d trust you on day one with the secrets that might be in his files? No offense, but that wasn’t happening.”

“You’re always asking me to trust you,” she challenged.

“That’s different and you know it. I was waiting to get to know you better. Get a feel for if I could trust you. I needed to get a read on you before I let you have at it.”

“Excuse me? Is that what you’ve been doing with me? Getting a feel for me? Has this all been some secret test?” Selby spat.

“What’s happening between us has nothing to do with it. Listen, would you have trusted me that day Lars marched you into my office? Don’t even bother answering because I know that you wouldn’t have. Hell, you didn’t even want to work for me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Don’t lie to me, Selby.” His tone grew serious.

“Fine, maybe. But I idolized you. Not literally of course, but you were a case study. The chance to work for you would have been amazing if Lars over there hadn’t brought you into the club.”

“I never judged you,” he insisted.

“Doesn’t matter if you did. We didn’t get off on an equal footing.”

“You broke into Evan’s office,” Garrett accused her. Selby averted her gaze, which caused Garrett concern. They both knew it was the truth, but her excuse for doing so still rubbed him the wrong way. He’d like to think that after everything that had happened over the past week, he’d learned more about her, that he could trust her with the information. He wasn’t sure what caused a flash of doubt, but he just as quickly buried the notion that she could be anything but honest with him.

“I didn’t break in. I knocked and entered.”

“Let’s not mince words. You went looking around when you couldn’t find what you wanted in the information I got you.”

“Maybe. I could have hacked into your servers, which I didn’t.”

“She could do that,” Lars called out from the other side of the room.