Page 24 of The Fixer

“Oh!” She pulled back, but that chocolate gaze never wavered as she stared, unabashedly, as I finished buttoning my pants and then my shirt. I didn’t bother hurrying, just as she didn’t mind the show. Her creamy cheeks turned the darkest peach and it was hard resisting taking a taste.

“You ready?” I asked, moving toward her with a caution that took everything in me to maintain.

She nodded, her throat bobbing as she swallowed. “I’m ready.”

Those indecent thoughts tortured me as I followed her out of her apartment and into the elevator. The skirt she was wearing was anything but obscene. It skimmed her knees as it danced around her thighs. Her blouse was loose and billowed in the light morning breeze. Her skin was covered, but like the first time I laid my eyes on her, I wanted to unwrap her and taste what secrets she held within.

By the time we were seated at the corner table in the same coffee shop I’d sent her into yesterday, I was throbbing, the strain in my pants almost too much to hide. I thanked God it wasn’t busy, that the baristas had our order ready within minutes of me paying. We relaxed in our chairs, legs bumping beneath the table, as we ate our sandwiches and enjoyed our coffees.

“How can you drink so much caffeine?” Eliza asked me, motioning to the cup holding twenty ounces of steamed milk with five shots of espresso.

She grimaced at my pained smile. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“I’m sorry.” Her hand left her coffee cup and she reached across the table, though she paused before she touched my hand.

I covered hers with my own, giving her a gentle squeeze. “I’m used to it,” I told her. “In my past life, I ran on very little sleep.”

“In your past life.” A smile turned up the corners of her lips. “Do you believe in reincarnation or are you talking figuratively?"

My teeth clamped down on my tongue until I was sure I tasted blood. It wasn’t like me to share, not unless it netted me some gain. And no matter how much I wanted to, I didn’t know Eliza. Not really. Not beyond the information I’d gleaned from vague memories and the internet last night.

Only daughter of Charlie and Caroline Westbrook. Mother murdered by her grandfather, who then died unexpectedly in prison. Father deceased after his heart attack caused a major car crash. Former fiancé of Nathan Devereux, the newly married heir to the Devereux Manufacturing Company that had recently come under heavy scrutiny of the EPA.

Eliza tugged her hand out from under mine, but I caught it, curled my fingers around hers, begging her to let me in. “It’s figurative.” I swallowed hard, glancing at her hand as she relaxed it in my grip. “I’ve lived a life full of secrets. I want to be honest with you, but it’s difficult for me to share.”

She extended her other hand, covering our clasped hands on the table. “We all have secrets, Jet. It’s never easy letting them go.”

Mine are the kind that will put you in an early grave.

I didn’t tell her that. Didn’t want to frighten her away, not before I’d done what I could to—

“Are you okay?” Eliza ducked her head, her eyes catching mine. “You disappeared for a second.”

Lifting my cup to my lips, I took a long sip. “Just tired,” I offered, giving her my weakest lie.

“What were you up doing last night?” Eliza asked after she’d released my hand and gone back to her breakfast.

A bite of food stuck in my throat, and I took a drink to swallow it down. “Research.” When she raised her brow expectantly, I continued, “I looked into whether there were any other cases of poisoned animals or people in the city in the past six months.”

Eliza picked at a cuticle, and I covered her hands with one of mine. “Were there many?” she asked the table.

“Not quite like this.”

There was only one, in fact, that potentially came close. But that was one secret I couldn’t spill until I learned more.

“What are we going to do now?”

“We’re going to your father’s office.”

“Again? But his desk was locked and his…” She paused. Drew her eyes to the smile on my lips. “Oh.”

“Oh,” I echoed. “Come on, let’s get going.”

6

Eliza

I should have figured, when I crashed into Jet at the funeral home and he somehow swept me off my feet before I hit the floor, that there was more to him than the handsome man in the perfectly fitted suit and shiny black shoes. I should have known he belonged in a different world. One where cleaning up poisoned cats and their waste or picking locks was as easy as making my lonely heart race.