it to keep it in place.
“Pastor Pete,” she said, blinking down at his arm. “You-you guys haul him away at least once a week.”
“Well, yeah. We take him to the detachment for a shower and a hot meal.”
“Oh.” Burying her face in the blanket, she snorted out a short laugh. “And see, all this time I’ve been thinking you were charging him with vagrancy or something.”
“Nice. Good to know you still have such a high opinion of us.” At least he sort of smiled at her embarrassment. “You should go get some sleep.”
“Yeah,” she drawled out. “That’s not going so well for me tonight.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Absolutely—you can haul your armed and Kevlared self upstairs to stand guard over me all night.” She swung her legs over the side of the stair, to his far side, stood up, and tried to smile. “No? Then how about getting back out there and kicking some bad-guy ass for me?”
It took him a couple of seconds, but he finally got to his feet, adjusted his belt, then shook his head slowly. “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything except how The Killing ends. I binged the first three seasons last month, but I’m pacing myself through the last season because the thought of saying goodbye to Holder…” She opened her eyes wide. “I mean…wow.”
He tried to hide it, but she caught the teasing spark of a smile in his eyes for a second; then it was gone just as fast.
“When the call came in tonight, and I heard your address…” He looked down at the floor, his jaw twisted a little to the side, before he finally blinked back up at her. “Scared the shit out of me, too.”
He pushed the door open just wide enough to squeeze out and, without looking back, threw his standard goodbye back at her:
“Lock it behind me.”
Chapter 12
“Crunch Berries make me a better crime fighter.”
—Detective Stephen Holder, The Killing
The first time Kurt called, all he managed to get out before Ellie hung up on him was that he’d heard about her flower delivery. She’d expected the calls to start, because that’s what he’d done in Toronto, but it was like watching a horror movie: you know something bad’s coming, you brace for it, but when it happens, you still jump.
Tory had already gone over this with her. If he was using a prepaid phone, which he no doubt was, the calls would be next to impossible to track, so it was best not to engage with him. As instructed, Ellie logged each call into her notebook, writing down what he said word for word, and then passed it all on to Tory.
“ ‘Your new boyfriend looks like a pussy’?” Tory sighed. “Real original. ‘Excellent choice of wine last night.’ And this one—‘See you soon’—he’s just trying to freak you out.”
Ellie refused to admit out loud that it was working. This was escalating a lot faster than it had the first time, and the restraining order wasn’t any comfort at all. Tory assured her that they had enough to bring him in for questioning, but they had to find him first, and no one had seen him since the day Tory talked to him outside Ellie’s store.
On Tuesday night, for the first time since they’d started meeting up, a couple of years back, Ellie didn’t go to Chalker’s. She left Gail locked inside the house, with the new alarm set, watching NCIS, and headed straight to Brett’s with a large meat lover’s and a six-pack.
She wasn’t even sure he’d be home, but if he was, she didn’t want to give him the chance to blow her off, so she just walked up, knocked on his door, and waited. The second he opened the door, she almost turned around and walked straight back to her…Oh, right, she didn’t have her car, and the cab was long gone.
Damn it!
“Ell.”
Standing there in nothing but a pair of shorts with a towel wrapped around his neck and sweat glistening against his biceps…against that tattoo…and down his abs…Ooooh boy. She didn’t even know where to look, so for some stupid reason she ended up staring at the middle of his chest.
Great. Good job. She’d meant to surprise him, not make it totally awkward.
“Hi. Uh, wow, um, I thought…um, well, maybe…It’s Tuesday.”
“All day, yeah. You want to come in?”
“No. I mean, yeah, in. Okay.” By some kind of miracle, she managed to make it through the door of the condo without tripping over herself and