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Her blue-green eyes danced. “Unless you want her to see you buck naked.”
“Um, no.” Swinging his legs off the bed, he started for the bathroom, but paused at the door. “What is this?” He studied the contraption—a harness of some kind that was fixed over the bathroom door. He looked over his shoulder with a grin. “A sex toy?”
She laughed. “No. It’s my exercise pulley. I keep it in my bag for when I’m on duty and can’t go to the gym. I can get a limited workout with it.”
“Did you do that already?”
“Yes,” she said warily. “Why?”
“First, so that I could have watched you, but mostly because I might have worked out, too. I haven’t been exercising regularly since Patty and I opened the Choux. I walk to work, but it’s not enough.”
“I’ll show you tomorrow.”
“It’s a date,” he said before going into the bathroom and closing the door. Standing in front of the mirror, he touched the places where she’d sucked hard enough to mark him the night before. He’d never had a woman do that before and he’d liked it. A lot.
Molly Sutton didn’t do anything halfway. He grinned at his reflection. May the good Lord bless her.
I definitely look... debauched.He’d always wanted to look debauched.
Patty will know.
I don’t care. I’m happy.
He’d reached for the shower fixture when he heard a French woman’s voice singing “Le Festin” from Ratatouille—his ringtone. He was tempted to ignore it but knew he couldn’t. It might be Burke.
Shit. It might be Burke.
His happiness drained away, replaced by the dread that hadn’t been too far away. Burke wouldn’t be calling them this early if it weren’t important. Something was wrong. His brain immediately thought of Xavier and his mother and the others.
He rushed from the bathroom and headed for his pants because he’d left his phone in his pants pocket. His phone had stopped ringing, but he’d check the call log.
Molly was no longer smiling. Now she was grim. And mostly dressed again, wearing a bra, dark trousers, and... her belt holster. Complete with gun.
Yes, something was very, very wrong.
“It’s Burke,” she said, sliding her arms into a white blouse and buttoning it up. “He texted me while he was dialing you.”
“Is it bad?” he asked, fishing his now-silent phone from his pocket. He had a new voice mail from Burke.
When he straightened, she met his eyes from across the room. And nodded. “Yeah.” She patted the bed beside her and for a moment, Gabe had the childish urge to run back into the bathroom to hide.
He didn’t, of course. Instead, he drew a breath and pulled on his pants. He didn’t want to receive bad news while he was naked. “Are Xavier and the others all right?”
“Yeah. They’re okay.” Sitting on the bed, she waited until he sat beside her, then took his hand. “This is not your fault, Gabe.”
Dread had him swallowing hard. “Tell me.”
“The private pathologist you hired. Phyllis McLain. She’s dead.”
Gabe stared at Molly’s laptop screen, a news story on one of the internet sites. Pathologist murdered, lab destroyed. And below was a photo. It was her. Dr. McLain. She was dead.
He was... numb.
“Oh my God,” he whispered, then winced when Molly squeezed his hand harder.
“Not. Your. Fault,” she whispered fiercely.
But it was. It was totally his fault. He shook his head, the words refusing to come. Not that he knew what to say. He cleared his throat. Forced his mind to think, for fuck’s sake. This had happened because McLain had done his father’s autopsy. This had happened because whoever killed his father was covering their tracks. He swallowed past the thickness that nearly choked him. “How did they know about her?” he rasped.
