Page 13

That kills the humor. Briggs sits up a little, boots dropping to the floor. “Missing?”

“That’s what she said.”

“And you didn’t lead with that?”

“I didn’t exactly get many details, to be honest.”

His jaw tightens. “Local?”

I shrug slightly. “No idea. She said her sister’s disappeared and she was flying back for it. That’s about all I got.”

Briggs’s jaw tightens. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“What was her name?”

“Laurel.” He waits until I add, “That’s really all I got.”

“You sat next to a woman whose sister is missing, coming back here, who clearly had an effect on you, and you only got her first name?”

“I wasn’t conducting an interview. It didn’t seem important.”

“You’re talking a hell of a lot about it for someone claiming her name ‘didn’t seem important.”

I shoot him a look.

He doesn’t back down. Briggs rarely does. Not with me. “What happened?”

I lean back on the stool, pencil rolling between my fingers. “She was wound tight, sassy, two seconds from either solving a murder or committing one.”

“Definitely your type.”

“Yeah. The type I usually avoid—people complicated enough to linger in my head afterward.”

He smirks. “Damaged and pretending not to be.”

“That’s everybody.”

“Not everybody kisses strangers on planes.”

I stop moving.

Briggs’s brows lift.

Damn.

“I didn’t tell you that.”

“You have now,” he says with a knowing smirk. Then his voice drops. “Tor.”

“It was nothing.”

I get up because sitting still might as well be agreeing to an interrogation. I cross to the counter, pour coffee I don’t want into a mug, and drink it anyway. It’s burnt. Good. That makes sense.

“She was scared,” I say eventually. “Turbulence hit. She grabbed my hand.”

“And then?”