As Jacob so eagerly pointed out, I’m a control freak, and on his scale of one to ten I’d rank my control right now at a five. That’s what’s on my mind as I settle at the island of the kitchen with a steaming cup of chocolate-flavored coffee and power up my MacBook. I need to fix this problem. I need control. When I don’t have control, things go wrong. People die. I gulp coffee on that note like it’s tequila, because I don’t need to be numbed. I need to get my brain fired up. I need to get my shit together and I won’t even blame anyone for this but me.
This isn’t Jacob’s fault. It’s not even my father’s fault, despite his role in placing a hot, naked man in my shower. It’s all mine. I own any moment where I let the bad guys get ahead, and the note on the refrigerator, the butterfly, the focus of all of this on me screams with my own guilt. I didn’t suspect that note was a problem. Maybe it’s not, but that note didn’t even cross my mind. Not one time. I could blame my grief at the time, but I stared at the damn thing for two years, and still saw nothing but motivation.
My screen flashes with new emails as it juices up and I open the window to find the first entry is from Jacob. I open the message to read:
Detective:
As promised. An in-depth report on potential suspects. I’ve highlighted points of interest.
—Jacob, AKA Not an asshole, but in fact, a man of his word.
“But that doesn’t mean you’re not an asshole,” I murmur, though I’m pretty convinced at this point that he’s not, though it’s too soon to make any definitive judgments. But he did what he said he would. He got me this list. That matters. The list and his word are noteworthy character markers. They also tell me he isn’t intentionally trying to exclude me from this investigation. Or if he was before, he’s recognized that as an illogical idea, considering I’m a detective.
I double-click on the attachment Jacob has included and watch it download. I glance at the time while it’s working and it’s late. I need to get in the shower to get ready for court. The tiny throb in my temples says I also need Excedrin to head off one of the migraines, which I don’t admit to battling to anyone. In my world, I can’t afford to show weakness, and that’s not about being a woman. It’s about being one of the humans on this planet who knows what evil walks amongst us.
The file opens on my computer and I immediately go to the summary page with Jacob’s notes and five names of interest, all of which he’s noted to have relevant connections to me or my father. I scan those names, the first three I don’t recognize. They are, however, former classmates, all of whom went on to work in the medical profession, in operations that link in some way to my father’s company.
The last two names, Darren Michaels and Evelyn Michaels, are highlighted, and with good reason. One is my ex-fiancé, and the other is his wife, who at one point, had been my jealous friend. Jacob’s note reads: The wife works for the pharmaceutical company that is being merged with your father’s.
My brow furrows with rejection of Darren as the man behind all of this. It doesn’t fit him, and while I’m not a fan of Evelyn, the build of my watcher at the funeral was male. I’m sure of it. Not that either of them couldn’t have hired someone to follow me, or hell, even kill me, but I’m not connecting with this premise. My gut isn’t screaming in this direction.
That throb in my head is though, and I walk to the cabinet, pull out a bottle and down two Excedrin with a gulp of coffee that amounts to half a cup. I reach behind me and tug free the braids I slept in last night, certain they’re the culprit, and not sure I can dare wear my hair back today without risking a full-blown head explosion. I’ve just finished fingering my way through the waves the braid created in my otherwise straight blonde hair when Jacob exits the bedroom, now dressed in black jeans, boots and a black collared shirt. His bag is not in his hand, which tells me it’s still in my bathroom, because he’s basically living here right now.
He heads toward the living area, where he’s left his MacBook, and I cross to meet him on the opposite side of the coffee table. “I have cereal, milk, and coffee in the house,” I say as I pass him. “There might be peanut butter.”
“There was,” he says.
I settle my hands on my hips. “You ate all of my peanut butter?”
“And a box of stale pastries.”
“Those were really old.” I laugh. “Were they good?”
“No,” he says, shutting his Mac and straightening, “but I was desperate. It takes a lot of calories to be this big.”
“That was a joke,” I accuse.
“I don’t joke,” he says, all stone faced and robot like.
“It was a joke,” I say, liking the way he’s starting to let me see the real him. “But more importantly,” I add, eager for more of him, “let’s talk about your use of the word ‘desperate’. It’s so very human of you.”
“I am,” he says, “in fact, human.”
“Hmm, well. The jury is out on that one, but I don’t want to starve you. Then you might not be able to boss me around and generally be obnoxious.”
“So, you do like me.”
“I’m obnoxiously in like with you, so have some cereal on me. I have Rice Krispies in the cabinet.”
“There’s no milk.”
“Orange juice is underrated on cereal. Try it.” I tilt my head and give his clean-shaven, handsome face a once over. He arches a brow and I head toward the bedroom before calling out, “I liked the whiskers. They helped make you more human.” I enter the bedroom and shut the door, leaning against it with a pulse of pain in the front of my forehead that does nothing to diminish my growing interest in the man beneath the robot. No one is as cold and hard as he is without a reason. And the truth is, I know the reason: death. Death has made him that way. I get it a little too well.
Pushing off the door, I head into the bathroom and since I shut the bedroom door, I don’t shut this one. I’m about to strip for a shower, when I spy Jacob’s razor and a few toiletries on the counter. I’m not even sure how to react. I’ve actually never had a man leave items at my place but right now, there is this funny feeling in my belly, I reject and reject quickly. My gaze lifts to the mirror, and I grimace with the realization that I still have on yesterday’s make up, and it’s all in the wrong places on my face now. My freshly freed hair is no different as it now points in about five random directions. I could write a book on destroying relationships before they ever start.
“I like your hair loose like this.”
At the sound of Jacob’s voice, and the low, gravely quality of his normally monotone voice, I slowly rotate to face him, my right hand settling on the counter. “Shut doors don’t mean anything to you, do they?” I say, rejecting that funny feeling in my belly all over again.
“I forgot my watch,” he says walking toward me, the bathroom suddenly small, when compared to most New York City apartments, it’s quite large. He stops two small steps from our collision, and opens a drawer to remove his watch; an elegant silver number with a black band, and an inscription on the back. “Someone special gave it to you,” I suggest, wondering if it was the special woman he claims he’s never had.
He freezes with the clasp at his fingers, glancing up at me for two unreadable beats before finishing his task and then says, “Yes. Someone special gave it to me.”
“Who?”
“You’re nosy, aren’t you?”
“Says the man who stalked me.”
“To protect you.”
“Then you’ll appreciate that I can’t protect myself without knowing the stranger in my house.” I counter.
“My sister.”
My brow furrows. “What?”
“My sister gave me the watch.”
“You have a sister?”
“Had,” he says, his hands settling at his hips, as he firmly jumps past the sister topic. “What was the Excedrin for?”
“Fighting with you gives me a headache,” I say, deflecting as he just deflected.
“Don’t fight with me,” he suggests. “Headaches solved.”
“Don’t give me a reason to fight with you. Work with me, not above me.”
“I am working with you, detective. In fact, I’m going to take over your computer while you’re in the shower, and get it coded to match our data systems.”
“How? Is Asher coming here?”
“He can do it remotely.”
“I won’t ask how. But fine. Do it. And don’t nose around my documents.”
“I’d tell you not to nose around, but since you’re a saint, I’m sure you don’t do that, either.”
His eyes glint surprisingly hard. “Don’t start thinking I’m anything close to a saint,” he says. “We’ll both end up disappointed.” And with that, he turns and disappears through the archway, his footsteps heavy before the bedroom door opens and shuts.
I could blow off that comment about him not being anything close to a saint or I could let it lead me to naughty places that it’s hard not to go to with a man like Jacob King. Just as it’s hard for someone like me, who knows death, not to see the pain in his deflection over his sister. But most unpleasantly, with his anti-saint comment, my mind goes elsewhere: to the alleyway behind the restaurant, and to him burning Jesse Marks’s file—a man who killed his family. A man Jacob doesn’t want me to hunt down, and yet he has to know, I can’t turn away. Not from the Jesse Marks mystery and not, it seems, anything to do with Jacob King. A man who is a puzzle I want to solve, and perhaps, that’s why he interests me more than any other man in a very long time.