Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 66839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66839 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Even though she was doing the same exact thing behind Lionel’s back.
“Did you get a name?” Jason asked. “Any idea who this guy could be?”
“Nothing. I’ve got nothin—no, actually, I did hear something. They were talking about hanging out somewhere in the Blades.”
It wasn’t a case-cracking lead, but it was certainly important information. Jason reached his hand out for a shake. Marco took it, smiling with apparent relief at getting us out of his house. There were a couple of things that made me want to look into Marco a little more closely, but nothing told me for certain that he was our guy or even a top suspect. Yes, he clearly had no love lost with Lionel’s death, but he was just one of the Pegasus’s victims. What had happened that placed Lionel in the cross-hairs of a serial killer? Pissing off a clearly jealous Marco didn’t feel like a solid explanation.
Still, crazier things happened.
We walked down the cobblestone path, cutting through a lawn that desperately needed some TLC. Neither of us spoke until we were out of range of any doorbell cameras.
“He’s a little suspicious, isn’t he?” Jason looked to me, the last rays of evening sun playing with the flecks of emerald green in his eyes. “Something about him isn’t landing right.”
“I agree, but that nugget he gave us before leaving is interesting, too. If we can figure out where in the Blades they would go, then maybe we’ll be one step closer to figuring out who the Pegasus is.”
“Maybe,” Jason said. His gaze shifted down to my lips, settling for a moment before jumping back up. His own lips twitched into a subtle smile. As if he were fondly remembering something.
“Where you headed to now?” he asked, his car beeping and lights flashing as he unlocked it.
“Home, I think.”
This felt like a daydream. As if everything around us was meant to have a glossy blur and overly bright colors, with a saturated Caribbean sea–blue sky hanging above us as we floated upward. Standing across from Jason, getting to work with him again—having kissed him again—it reignited long-dormant emotions, emotions I had genuinely given up on feeling ever again. There wasn’t a bone in my body that doubted my feelings for Jason. I would have given up everything and more to stay by his side. Would have traded the sun and the moon and the stars if it meant keeping his brightness near me, next to me.
“Get in. I’ll drive you.”
I didn’t think twice. I sat down and tried not to think about how easy it would be for me to reach over and rest my hand on Jason’s thigh. Moving it higher and higher.
“Where are you staying?”
I tapped my address into his GPS. “That’s the mayor’s old house,” Jason noted. “I didn’t realize she was running an Airbnb.”
“She’s not. Apparently, my CO is good friends with her from college. They got in touch, and she offered her house. It’s a nice place.”
“It is. There were a couple of great Halloween events thrown there. She has that big forest behind her house that she turned into a haunted maze. Creepy as shit but fun, too.” Jason pulled out of the parking spot and drove down the peaceful street lined with white birch trees, leaves having changed into a fiery orange and burning red. I lowered the window and let the fresh breeze in, carrying with it the smoky scent of someone’s delicious barbecued dinner.
“And what do you think about Sammy getting with Colton?” I asked. “He’s our suspect number one.”
“That surprised me. It sounds like they’ve cut things off, but still, the link is definitely something we can’t ignore.”
“I agree. Has anyone talked to him at all?”
Jason shook his head. He turned down another street that perfectly framed the mountains in the distance with a row of juniper trees, spiraling up in vibrant green. “He keeps ignoring anything sent his way. And we don’t have a good enough reason to show up at his door and demand he talk to us.”
“We need to find that reason, then.”
“We do.”
“I’ll tail him. He’s got to have a weakness we can push on. It’s just a matter of figuring out what.”
I looked over, taking a quick moment to admire Jason while his eyes were on the road. It threw me right back to the beginning days of my infatuation with him, when I wasn’t sure if he felt the same so I’d only indulge myself if I was sure he was looking away. I didn’t want to brag or anything, but I only got caught checking out his ass two out of the three thousand other times I visually ate him up, which really isn’t a bad average at all.
And there was so much to admire, too. I could never get tired of looking at him, always able to find something else I liked about him. Right now, it had to be in the way his lips slightly slanted up, his legs open and relaxed as he drove, his biceps twitching as he turned the wheel.