After I’d told her about my childhood, I expected her to pull away. To see that, despite our chemistry, I’m not relationship material, but that hasn’t happened.
Instead of her pulling away, she’s everywhere I look.
She’s in my house.
At my job.
In my head.
Rushing through my blood.
I take a huge gulp of the cold coffee on my desk and hope the caffeine jolts my brain into working.
Sadie’s studying the pictures of a vase of colorful wildflowers from Hazel Myers’s room. “Bringing a bouquet coated with peanut butter in the hope of triggering anaphylactic shock isn’t exactly the brightest move, but her allergy was well-known, so it didn’t help narrow down the field of suspects.”
Ryder flips the page of our investigation notes. “Only thing we know for sure is that the suspect is a white male, approximately five eight, with a stocky build and a beer belly. So he’s stupid enough to trigger the reaction in a hospital full of meds but smart enough to use a baseball hat and the bouquet to hide his face from all the cameras. The car he drove to the hospital was stolen, but we cross-referenced the plates with the plates from the accident and found no connection.”
I scrub a hand over my jaw, contemplating. “So we have a messy accident, a stolen car, and a sloppy murder attempt, yet the suspect covered their tracks so well we can’t find a connection between the accident, Crenshaw’s death, the mistress, or the river project. Do I have that right?”
Ryder shakes his head, sighing. “That appears to be the case. “
“All right. All we can do is stick with it and keep working through the list.” I look up from my desk and spot Jessica through the glass. She smiles and waves at me.
Today, she’s wearing a pair of black pants and a matching thin, V-necked top. Just looking at her makes my heart beat faster, which is something I never thought possible. I’m not even sure I can define how I feel about her. I don’t have the vocabulary.
Word travels fast and everyone knows we’re together, so since this meeting is effectively over, I wave her in.
She opens the door. “Am I interrupting?”
“No, we were finishing up,” I say.
Ryder shifts in his chair, craning to look up at his sister. “Hey, Jess.”
“What’s up, girl?” Sadie beams at her.
Jessica gives her a huge smile in return. “We’re still on for lunch, right?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Sadie says.
“I’m making a delivery.” Jessica walks into the office and puts a glass jar with a bamboo lid and an attached wooden spoon on my desk in front of me. She pats me on the shoulder. “This is for you.”
I stare down at it. “What is it?”
“Breakfast. You didn’t eat,” she says.
Dumbly, I say, “It’s eleven.”
“Twelve is the cutoff.” She reaches over, takes the spoon off its little holder, and hands it to me. “It’s strawberry cheesecake overnight oats. It’s good for you.”
I blink, confused. “What is happening right now?”
Ryder laughs. “She made you breakfast, dumbass.”
“Oh.” I continue to stare at Jessica, unable to process my surprise.
She leans a hip on my desk. “You were running late, and I couldn’t help feeling like it was my fault. You need your energy, and since I didn’t trust you not to eat doughnuts like the cop you are, I brought you this. It has everything you need to keep your blood sugar stable with protein, whole grains, and fiber.”
She’s…taking care of me.
