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Sean spread his hands. “I d-didn’t send those threats.”
“No? Who did?”
“That’s what we’re g-going to ffind out.”
The comment sobered her up quickly. He couldn’t mean—“You think we should start working the case again? You and I?” She didn’t know whether she liked the idea or not. Judah still hadn’t opened up, and she’d gotten used to the idea that the case was over, even if her relationship with him wasn’t.
But she certainly didn’t want him to end up dead. He was arrogant and insensitive, but also pretty funny, and he could be thoughtful when he worked at it.
“Don’t you think it’s out of our league?” she asked.
Sean shrugged. “I don’t know how sserious any of this is,” he said. “The m-messages aren’t explicit threats. They’re k-kind of odd, and odd messages go with the territory, I think. B-but I have to admit I’m damn c-curious about the whole situation. Enough to drive to Buffalo to t-talk to the guy again.”
Katie looked at the report on her lap. “Curious” didn’t seem an adequate word to describe whatever impulse had driven Sean to poke around in Judah’s online life and hack into his personal accounts to compile all this stuff. He’d never stopped working the case. She’d never properly started, and he’d never stopped. It suggested an intensity that fit with his usual manner. “Is that a problem for you? Insatiable curiosity?”
She hadn’t meant anything sexual by the remark, but when Sean smirked and said, “Mmm-hmm,” she wasn’t altogether sure he didn’t.
A coherent response eluded her.
Sean must have taken her silence as a sign that she was reluctant to get involved with Judah again, because he said, “I just want to t-talk to him. He hasn’t c-called in the police or any other agency, so far as I can tell. I don’t think he thinks his life is on the line, but he hired us for a reason. I want to know what it is, and why he’s been hounding the office all week trying to get you to c-come back.”
“Who told you he was hounding the office?”
“Your brother.”
“Does Caleb know about this?” She lifted the report.
“No. I wanted to talk to you ffirst.”
Sean wasn’t stuttering so much anymore. Because he’d relaxed, or because talking about the job distracted him? She didn’t know, but she filed the observation away to think about later.
“It is pretty strange.” Judah kept telling her he needed her, only her, but it wasn’t as if she brought any special skills to this security guard stuff. Despite what had happened in Louisvi
lle, she’d assumed there was some kind of ongoing sexual component to his interest. “Do you suppose he’s bi?”
The report didn’t contain any hard evidence that Judah was gay. It was difficult not to draw that conclusion, though, when you read all the accounts Sean had assembled from men who’d claimed to have had sex with the singer over the years—about a dozen gritty stories of hot, fast, unexpected encounters in locked dressing rooms and dark parking lots. Desperate sex, rather than fantasy sex, and the accounts rang true in the details, especially when you read them all together like this.
“Do you suppose he’s b-bi?” Sean tossed out the question casually, but his eyes held hers. His eyes asked her something different.
He wanted to know what had happened in that room between her and Judah, and it was no idle curiosity. Sean cared what had happened in that room.
Katie didn’t pause to consider her response. “Either I’m terminally unfuckable, or that man is gay.”
This time, when the smile came, it crept up on her slowly, and it made it surprisingly difficult for her to pull enough air into her lungs. “Sweetheart,” Sean said, “you are the farthest thing from terminally unfuckable I can possibly imagine.”
That was when she knew for sure Sean wasn’t flirting with her. Sean was coming on to her.
“Let’s go to Buffalo,” he said.
“Okay.” At that moment, she would have followed him anywhere. “But don’t tell Caleb.”
“Don’t tell Caleb what?” her brother said from behind her.
Her eyes shot to Sean’s, desperate for reassurance. Tell me he wasn’t just listening in on that horrifically embarrassing conversation.
Sean shook his head a fraction. Thank God.
“Don’t tell Caleb what?”
