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I turned back to the bustle that was a crime scene. Though it wasn’t really a bustle. There were a lot of cops standing around doing not much of anything while a few people dusted and bagged things. There was no rush or urgency; she was dead, after all. There’s no need to rush for the dead.
One figure carved himself out of the scene to make it little more than background, and my eyes gave him the stark focus of a camera finding the perfect subject.
His eyes were on me. In a focused way like they’d been on me for a long while. It made every hair on my body stand up in a way that even a murder scene and brush with the responsible party could not.
I swallowed.
“Okay, thanks for the skinny part of the comment, at least,” I told Roger, my voice shaking only slightly. Heartbreak was the best diet a girl could have; I fit into all the sample sizes now.
“I’ll be there in an hour,” I said after thinking of traffic and however long it would take to escape this situation.
I wasn’t worried about the police. Roger was right; I could somewhat bullshit while fluttering my eyelashes and get out of there without too much drama. I’d had enough experience in that.
No, it was the figure with crossed arms and a stifling gaze that wouldn’t blink at my fluttering lashes. That would be near impossible to escape from. Namely because it had been almost two years, and I still hadn’t escaped from him.
A terrible voice in the back of my mind that I usually only heard in front of a blank page told me I might never escape him.
Another terrible voice taunted me with the reality that I never wanted to escape him.
“One hour. Any later and you’re not getting your byline because someone else will have sniffed out the story,” Roger grunted.
There was dead air.
He didn’t usually do goodbyes. Or basic human manners. I kind of liked it. Bullshit was pretty much the status quo in Hollywood, so it was nice to have a crude and vaguely sexist boss who didn’t stand for it.
I slipped my phone into my bag, all the while keeping eye contact with the other man who didn’t do bullshit either.
Problem was, if I was going to get out of this with my fucked-up heart intact, or as intact as it would ever be, I’d have to bullshit better than the pros in L.A.
I’d start with the police.
And hopefully the rest would follow.
“Is that it?” I asked, wanting desperately to rub my eyes but knowing the mess smudged eyeliner would create with such a gesture. “I’d like to go home and shower off the Old Spice and death that is not the eau de parfum I like,” I informed the detective. “Chanel is so much more timeless.”
I was sitting on the sofa, Max standing in front of me with the notepad he’d been scribbling my responses in. He obviously hadn’t gone paperless either. That was nice to see.
Keltan hadn’t moved from where he stood behind me, hand on the back of the sofa made more for aesthetics than comfort.
The lack of comfort and the hand were why I was leaning forward, away from the danger. And the back problems leaning back raised.
He hadn’t spoken since I got off the phone, but refused to leave while the police interviewed me. Though the leather of the seat had creaked in protest at the tightness of his grip when I recounted just how close Old Spice had been to springing me.
“Yes, that’s it for now, Ms. Walker,” the older detective replied.
“But you have our number in case anything else comes to you.” Max handed me a card. “Or if you need anything. At all. You need a ride?” His eyes twinkled, and his tone held something more than empty professionalism.
I fingered the card. Was he seriously chatting me up at a murder scene?
He was hot and all, but not hot enough for that.
The only man hot enough for that was currently standing beside me, turning rigid at the detective’s words.
“She’s not likely to need anything from you,” Keltan clipped, also catching the flirt and obviously not liking it. At all. “She doesn’t need a ride. I’ve got her.”
The meaning of those three words triggered an unexpected lance of pain that I outwardly didn’t acknowledge, my face impassive and calm as was my default.
I stood, anxious to be out of there and away from him. The dead body in the corner was even preferable to his presence.
The dead didn’t really pose too many problems for the living. Even their ghosts. Ghosts of people who were still alive were that much more dangerous.
Gray’s dead ghost had nothing on Keltan’s living one.
“No, I’ve got myself,” I told Keltan flatly, raising my perfectly groomed brow at his stoic face. “I drove here. I’m quite capable of driving back. Though there will be a stop for wine and chocolate between home and here,” I lied. I was going straight to the office to file my story. And I had about thirty minutes to navigate forty-five minutes’ worth of traffic to get to my computer in time.
