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“Harmless? Yeah? And the mysterious visitor to your mother’s house this morning? Does that strike you as harmless?”
Cindy’s insides froze solid. “No way,” she whispered. “That can’t possibly have anything to do with—”
“Beck had access to your mother’s address through the school records. What did you tell him? How did you present yourself?”
“I—I just said, um, that I wanted to write a book about Kev,” she faltered. “I said that I’d found one of his old notebooks.”
“Notebook?” Connor clapped his scarred hand over his face. “She told him she had hisnotebook.No shit they came after her. Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Um…evidently not,” she squeaked.
He dropped his hand. His glare made her cower back in her chair. “You’ve put yourself on a hit list. You just made our lives that much more complicated. What’s this all about, Cindy? Do you need more attention? Did you think we needed more of a challenge?”
She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry.”
Connor slammed his scarred hand down onto the table, making the dishes rattle and bump. “Sure. Aren’t you always?”
“Connor? Cool it,” Erin said. “Back off.”
“Don’t even try to defend—”
“I’m not defending anyone.” Erin’s voice was sharp. “But I will not tolerate one of your temper tantrums, either.”
“You call this a temper tantrum?” he roared.
She glared at him, her soft lips primly compressed, arms folded over her protruding belly. “Yes,” she said, in her snippiest voice.
Con limped to the door and stared out onto the back lawn, his back to them. His long, lean frame was tense, vibrating. Radiating fury.
Erin cleared her throat. “OK. Well, Cin, since the damage is done, you might as well tell us what the man said.”
“Yeah, Cin. Tell us.” Miles’s voice came from the doorway, icy and sarcastic. “I’m twitching with curiosity as to what your tits can do.”
“Oh, but I think you already know, Miles,” Cindy retorted.
Miles’s face reddened, but at least that shut him up. Cindy wound her fingers together and squeezed until her knuckles went white. “Well, um, he didn’t tell me much. He said he didn’t know Kevin well. That the Midnight Project had to do with neurological research that folded due to lack of funding. That he didn’t know who funded it. That’s all. It’s just…” She hesitated, unsure if her feelings were worth sharing.
Erin made an exasperated sound. “What, Cin?”
“It was the vibes I got from him, more than anything he said,” she offered hesitantly. “When he first saw me, he came on real strong—”
“Fuck, Cin,” Miles burst out. “Are you insane?”
“No, just a slut,” Cindy said sweetly.
“Don’t get sidetracked,” Con snarled. “Keep your mouth shut, Miles. So? Go on. He was sliming you, and then?”
“And then I said the name Kevin McCloud,” she faltered. “And it switched off. Like, I mean, gone. I swear, the room got instantly colder. He stopped playing kneesies, stopped staring at my chest, stopped giving me compliments. It just…stopped. Boom, like that.”
Connor kept staring out the screen door, shaking his head.
Cindy pushed doggedly on. “So, I got to wondering what would make a really turned on guy suddenly switch off?”
“Fear,” Erin said quietly. “Guilt.”
Connor nodded. “We’ll be paying another visit to Beck. Real soon.”
His tone made her shiver. Sometimes her brother-in-law scared her.
