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He stayed as he was, just looking at her where she stood poised on the threshold between the two rooms, hair a mass of dark swirls backlit by the bathroom vanity lights. Those damn gray eyes, lined with the blackest of black eyelashes, now wet and spiky from recent tears, were regarding him with concern.
He said, “Come here.”
Her footsteps were hesitant, but she came to stand directly in front of him. He placed his hands on the sides of her waist, pulled her between his legs, and pressed his face into the hollow where her ribs separated.
She settled her hands on his head, so tentatively that at first he thought he’d imagined it. “Rye? What are we doing?”
Running his hands up and down the backs of her thighs, he nuzzled her middle, then tilted his head back and looked into her face. “Nothing.” He reached for his jacket again and spread it open across his thighs. “It’s a shame you don’t like her.”
Brynn looked down at the painting and gave a faint smile. “She’s growing on me.”
“Yeah? That’s good. Because she definitely has her uses.”
Brynn looked again at the pinup girl, then regarded him warily. “I’m not sure I want to hear what they are.”
He grinned. “I’d enjoy detailing some of them, but I can’t make you late.”
“Late?”
He worked his fingers into a small tear in the seam where the silk
lining was stitched to the leather, then reached for Brynn’s hand and turned it palm up.
“Before Lambert and the Hunts get to you, you’ve got to get this to Violet.”
In her palm lay the bubble-wrapped vial of GX-42.
Chapter 19
6:41 p.m.
Deputies Wilson and Rawlins watched Nate Lambert back his Jag from his reserved parking space and drive out of the garage.
Replacing the formed foam inside the box hadn’t been as easy as removing it. Once that was done, apologizing for their mistrust and for wasting more than half an hour of the doctor’s valuable time, they had insisted on seeing him out of the deserted office building and safely on his way.
Rawlins waited until Lambert’s taillights were no longer in sight, then remarked to his partner, “This may go down as being the worst Thanksgiving ever.”
“You’d rather be at home with a wife on the warpath and puking kids?”
“Maybe. Because this sucks.”
Wilson snorted a mirthless laugh. “Not often do I have this much egg on my face. I would have sworn we’d find some kind of contraband.”
“Me, too. And you know what? I think our friend Dr. Lambert thought we would, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It looked to me like he was as shocked as we were to come up empty.”
“I know he wasn’t glad to see us on his doorstep,” Wilson said. “But was he afraid of being caught red-handed at something illicit? Or was he just being an asshole?”
“He’s definitely an asshole. But when I produced that search warrant, he looked exactly like my nephew did right before yakking the crab dip.”
Wilson thought on it. “It was the same expression Brynn O’Neal had when we made her unlock the box.”
“That’s another thing. What’s up with her? Why did she lie to Lambert about her car?”
“To make a clean getaway.”
