AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Nine hours. It’s going to take longer because of the melting.”
Tripp smirked.Damnhim.
“What is the melting? Is that even a thing? How do you know he’s not taking you far out of your way to some remote area—”
“I just know. Look, if you have something helpful to tell me, say it now. I need to concentrate on driving.”
At that second, Tripp’s voice overlaid hers with a deep timbre. “Asshole.”
Their gazes collided again.
Alexia forced all her attention away from the hot special operator sitting next to her.
ChapterFive
“Who were you calling an asshole?” Alexia asked the minute she ended her call.
“My CO.”
“And he didn’t get pissed at you?” Her question distracted him momentarily from the fact that she stuffed her phone between her thighs.
“No. It’s kind of a thing between us.”
“Explain.”
“Well, aren’t you demanding?”
“Sorry. I’ve been out in the field for months now, hopping from case to case, so my people skills are a little rusty.”
Tripp tore his gaze aware from that phone nestled between her thighs. “Shouldn’t that be the opposite? Wouldn’t being in the field, questioning people to gather more information about the cases you’re handling, give youbetterpeople skills?”
“I deal with a lot of assholes, so no.”
That accounted for her general attitude toward him. Only she’d all but admitted that he was a suspect on his niece’s case. The person behind Kelsey’s boyfriend Caden’s disappearance.
Tripp had a few theories about Caden. One was that after murdering his girlfriend, he’d changed his identity and taken off.
Another theory was that Caden didn’t have anything to do with the crime against Kelsey at all. They just hadn’t found out the truth yet.
The third—and most probable—involved a third party. The theory that Tripp had spent literal weeks researching in that mountain cabin in hopes of finding an answer that would help him lay his niece’s memory to rest.
He wasn’t sharing any of that with Alexia.
Feeling the need to keep the subject far away from the real reason he and Alexia were thrown together in the first place, he said, “Calling each other asshole is a thing on my team. None of us mean it. Except I didn’t like this one asshole. Richmond. He came in as a replacement after one of our originals broke his leg.”
“Why didn’t you like him?” Alexia wiggled in her seat and the phone slipped lower between her thighs.
Tripp drew a deep breath, hoping sending more oxygen to his brain made him think clearer. He didnotwant this woman.
Except he did.
Something about her was getting under his skin, a place he couldn’t want her further away from.
“The guy was a drunk.”
If that revelation surprised her, she didn’t show it. She only bobbed her head. “I’ve seen similar things in my time. Guys who go home and get plastered every single night to the point where they pass out. Then come to the work in the morning still drunk.”
“We were all glad to see the guy go.”
