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“Trash,” I answer, looking at a receipt. I’m long used to the smell now. And it’s not remotely as bad as post-mortem body scents.
Jacob isn’t. “I can see that. I guess I meant . . . why?”
I look to Blake as I try to decide how much I want to tell Jacob. Is this some top-secret mission? But I don’t keep things from Jacob. It’s one of the deals we have.
So I tell him the truth. “I had a questionable death. Jeff called the case closed, but I have questions. So I’m getting answers.” I hold my gloved hands out, indicating all the trash in front of me.
“How’d she talk you into this insanity?” Jacob asks Blake as though I can’t hear him.
“I’m sitting right here, you know.”
Jacob shoots me an empty-faced glance and then goes right back to Blake, giving him a chin lift of ‘whatcha got?’
Blake chuckles, probably used to this guy game shit. “This was actually my idea. We figured some stuff out—and when I say we, I mean her.” He tilts his head my way, and I’m reminded of the ‘we’ I used for the trash. We really have done this together . . . whatever this is. “We’re digging a little deeper, literally, to see what else turns up.”
Jacob stares at the trash for a second and then gives me a meaningful look. Throwing his bag to the couch, he sits down in the floor across from me. “All right, toss me some gloves and tell me what we’re looking for.”
And that’s how me, Jacob, and Blake spend the next hour going through Yvette Horne’s trash, piece by gross piece. Every ball of hair from a hairbrush, empty toothpaste tube, can of Slim Fast, and junk mailer.
“I found something!” Jacob and Blake say at the same time, though Jacob’s is followed with a groan of disgust.
“What?” I say, not sure which way to look and ending up trying to look both ways at once, which doesn’t work and just gives me a headache from my brain rattling back and forth.
“Smoothie mix,” Blake shouts, holding up a plastic container with every green vegetable in existence on the label. “We could have it tested?”
Jacob interrupts, “uhm . . . guys? Didn’t you say this chick’s husband has been dead for days? Weeks?”
“Yes, why?” I answer, turning my attention to him.
“Because I don’t think this is that old?” Jacob holds up a tied-off condom with liquid inside, turning away as he gags out loud. “Ew . . . ugh . . . cough-cough . . . sticky love juice load . . . ack . . .”
“Oh, my God . . . oh, my God . . . what do we do with that?” I’m scrambling, rambling, but I manage to get up from the floor, pull my gloves off, and grab a sandwich baggie. “Hang on, you can put it in here like evidence, but let me put on fresh gloves first.”
Instead, Blake takes the baggie from me with his gloved hands and holds it open for Jacob to drop the—blech—condom inside.
“Thanks, man. I don’t think I could’ve held that much longer.”
He does look a little pale. “Guess you won’t be going into the family business?” I tease.
Jacob shakes his head vehemently. “Definitely not. But pulling someone’s guts out for examination is way different from holding another man’s fresh spunk.”
Blake nods his head, agreeing sagely. “Rule. Own jizz is fine, other jizz is fucked up.”
“Whatever. Guys, do you know what this means?” I ask them both.
Jacob sits back on his ass, yanking his gloves off. “That I’m done with this?”
“No . . . that there is definitely something hinky going on with Yvette Horne.”
“Hinky?” Blake says around a smile. “Or kinky?”
“I’m embracing the Velma spirit. Stick with me, and no kinky. Poisoned smoothies—means. Another guy—motive. And they obviously lived together, so that’s opportunity.”
I’m excited. Okay, maybe a bit hysterical at having figured this out. I can see why Jeff likes his job. Well, except for the digging in trash part.
Jacob leans over and talks out of the side of his mouth to Blake. “No backsies. She’s yours now.”
I flinch, but Blake beams like he wouldn’t have it any other way. “Working on it,” he tells Jacob, but he’s staring at me like he’s never seen anything more beautiful. The best part is . . . I don’t mean my looks. I feel like Blake sees my insides—my brain and weirdness—and that’s what he thinks is stunning. After a long moment, he shows off his sexy brain power too. “The money’s another motive. A big one. But we have to prove it. And figure out who’s the guy.”
He throws a nose-wrinkling look at the baggie with the condom, on the same page as Jacob about it being the most disgusting thing we discovered in the trash.
