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Other than a quick wipe of her eyes, she didn’t respond to him. Just continued to stare down at her bird.
“If you need me,” Luke continued softly, “I’ll be right over there.”
This didn’t get any response either, and he sensed her withdrawing inward to a place where he couldn’t reach her. Couldn’t help her. Which left him feeling more useless and frustrated than ever.
Luke strode over to one of the trees on the opposite side of the patio, Dylan, Gray, and Kory falling into step behind him. There he rounded on the last of the group. “What the hell happened?”
Kory’s eyes welled, magnifying the intense green of them.
Gray jabbed a finger at Luke, his already tense expression growing thunderous. “Donotget in my girl’s face! Andy told you we didn’t use the stove this morning.”
“Gray!” Kory palmed the breast pocket of the dude’s flannel shirt to calm him.
Luke didn’t give a shit if he was pissing her boyfriend off. He just wanted answers. Just wanted to get to the bottom of why the woman he loved was currently rocking in a basket with a dead bird in her arms. “You sure you didn’t drop something on one of the burner knobs when you two were making your coffee?” he pressed.
“We used the fucking Keurig machine,” Gray hissed. “It’s nowhere near the stove.”
“Ease down, Flannels. My boy’s just asking some questions.”
Gray’s aggravated expression shifted to Dylan. “He’s asking the wrong ones.”
“What should I be asking then?” Luke bit out, advancing a step.
Gray, to his credit, didn’t back down. Didn’t so much as flinch as Luke got in his grill. The guy was shorter than him by several inches, probably younger as well, but had the kind of muscular frame one didn’t earn in a gym and a take-no-shit attitude Luke had to respect. “What you should be asking,” he said darkly, “is who would have motive to come inside the apartment while we were gone and switch on the gas?”
Luke cocked his head. “You think someone broke in?”
“They wouldn’t have had to, would they?” Gray said pointedly. “Youleft the door unlocked.”
Fuck. He had.
Even if Andy had left the apartment after him, Luke still should have ensured her patio door was secured after coming in from his call with Mary that morning.
As much as he wanted the man in front of him to be wrong, Luke knew there was a possibility he wasn’t. Someone could have easily slipped into the apartment while they were out.
“Oh my gosh, stop it!” Kory burst out tearfully. “No one broke in. It’s probably my fault. I wiped down the stove yesterday, remember? I probably nudged one of the knobs with the sponge.”
Her boyfriend shot her an incredulous look. “Babe, that was after we made dinner. There’s no way the gas could have been left on all night without one of us smelling it.”
“But that doesn’t mean someone snuck into the apartment and turned it on,” Kory argued. “God, Gray, you’ve been so paranoid this whole week, seeing bad guys around every corner, and—” She stopped abruptly, clearly realizing she’d hit a nerve as her boyfriend stepped back and raked a hand through the dark sweep of his bangs.
“Paranoid,” Gray murmured, gaze falling to the shady patch of dirt they were all standing in before rising back up. “I think I have a right to be, don’t you?” Earthy-brown eyes locked with teary-green ones, and something passed between them. Something heavy.
“You have to let it go,” Kory said quietly. “It happened a long time ago.”
Whateveritwas, Luke had no idea, but clearly these two had gone through something traumatic.
Something that now had Kory’s boyfriend “seeing bad guys around every corner.”
Luke and Dylan exchanged a look, then Dylan tipped his chin to Gray. “Tell us about these bad guys you been seeing?”
Gray turned to them with a clipped nod. “Three times now I’ve seen the same car in or around the complex. First time — the day after I got here — it was parked across the street.” He glanced towards the tall gate beyond the trees. “Second time was a couple nights ago when Kory and I were in the jacuzzi at the pool. I spotted it through the gate as it was cruising by the clubhouse. And the third time — today — I saw it pull up to the curb across the street again. That was just as Kory and I were leaving for breakfast.”
“You think someone’s been casing the place,” Luke surmised.
“I do.”
Kory sighed. “Gray, there’s another apartment complex across the street from Sunset Vista. Whoever drives that car could know someone who lives there or here or both. They’re probably just visiting friends. There could be any number of reasons you’d see that Camaro on more than one occas—”
