Page 102 of Chameleon Killer

“What happened with the gate?”

He shrugged “It dropped while I was beneath it.”

“Those have sensors.”

“Apparently this one didn’t.” He shook his head. “OSHA violation.”

“Or someone disabled them.”

He paused with the coffee cup halfway to his mouth then shrugged. “That occurred to me.”

“And you didn’t think that was worth leading with?”

“No,” he said almost too easily. “It wasn’t relevant to the discussion.”

My anger sharpened. “It wasn’t—Flint, someone could have been watching you.”

“Yes.”

“Someone may have known why you were there.”

“Yes.”

“You could have been hurt.” Worse. He could have been hurt worse. I didn’t like that he’d been hurt at all.

“Yes.”

Every calm answer raised my temperature another degree.

“You’re standing here lecturing me about risk after walking into a location chosen by a serial killer.”

“I drove into a parking garage.”

“And got hit by a gate that may have been deliberately disabled.”

“It clipped me.”

“You have a bruise.”

“Don’t worry.” A roguish smile creased his mouth. “I bruise attractively.”

The remark escaped so dryly that I almost laughed. Instead, I stepped closer and touched the edge of the discoloration beneath his eye.

Flint went still.

So did I.

His skin was warm beneath my fingers. The bruise followed the upper ridge of his cheekbone, too narrow to have come from a fist. A gate was plausible.

That did not make me feel better.

He watched me without moving.

“You could have told me,” I said.

“You would have wanted to go with me.”

My hand dropped. The loss of contact left an ache behind. Flint’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t step back.