Bad Boy Ink (Get Ink'd #5) - Ali Lyda Page 0,24
to discover the links between the murder victim and several suspects. Our job was to go through each suspect's files and try to eliminate suspects and find the connections. Honestly, it felt a lot like the game of Clue, only instead of the butler in the library with the candlestick, it was more like the professor in the apartment with a motive born from blackmail.
“I know we've only been looking at this for a little while, but I feel pretty confident I know who it is,” I said, checking out Aiden to measure his response.
His eyebrow lifted. “Oh?” His teasing smile was softer than his usual hard-edged smirk, and it was as beautiful as it was startling. My stomach twisted and I wanted to make him smile more. Much more. Which...was coming from nowhere. “Tell me your theory then, Agent Easy Flirt.”
Something in my chest hooked, snaring my lungs so that I inhaled sharply. Was he...was he flirting with me? I paused, waiting for the plague of locusts or the sea of blood or some other sign of the apocalypse because it was easier to believe in that than to believe that Aiden Porter was flirting.
“Okay…” I might have made that one word like...five different syllables. “It was the wife. For one, it is almost always the spouse. I think this is a trick case, where we’re given a bunch of red herrings to make us believe there’s more to it than jealous rage or some shit. She did it because she wanted his money, especially after she discovered his offshore accounts.”
Her dossier had included a debrief on the contents of her computer and web history, and the highlight was the rabbit hole the wife had fallen into as she traced the husband’s laundered money and discovered millions in various offshore accounts...that she hadn’t known about.
Aiden’s smile grew. “No way. Too easy. Besides, the murder victim was found on the other side of town from the wife’s hair appointment. She has an alibi. I think it was mob ties. You see those two names there?” He pointed to our list of subjects. “Remember how they’re members of a ‘club’? I think the club is something closer to the mafia, and the victim was skimming money from dangerous employers.”
I laughed, my shoulders dropping despite the spike in my heart rate. I loved debating and talking about crime, and hell, that might be the most Aiden had ever said to me. There was a rush that came from it, a feeling of success. He was relaxed in his chair, he was actually working with me, and now he was participating without looking like he swallowed a bug. It was thrilling, and I wanted to keep it going.
“Yeah, sure, but there’s no official data that supports that claim. The trail from the wife shows something premeditated and with a firm motivation. Just because she had an appointment doesn’t mean she was there. We don’t have a confirmation of her alibi!”
Okay, I could admit that I was getting a bit loud in my excitement. It was a small restaurant with exposed brick walls, which were not great at muffling acoustics. Aiden’s eyes were bright, and I couldn’t help but stare into them. I was seeing a side of him he’d never shown before. It was electric and interesting, sending my body into a kind of fuzzy high gear. A magnetic buzz that had me leaning in toward Aiden.
It seemed like Aiden was feeling the same way, too. He was using his hands when he spoke, animated and fervent in his arguments. We were so focused on the case, on each other, that the rest of the restaurant disappeared from our periphery, and it was just the two of us, words and worlds spinning together.
That is, until the restaurant decided to make itself known again. Or, more precisely, when an older gentleman approached our table and knocked on it firmly, shaking us from the hold the conversation had on us.
“It’s rude to be so loud,” he said, tone sharp. “Some of us come here for a quiet, respectable lunch. You’d think your parents raised you with some modicum of decorum.”
I was going to say something glib when I noticed that the man and Aiden were in a staredown. Aiden’s mouth was a pale, angry line, and the man’s gaze was iced-over steel. That was when I took in the fact that they shared the same honey brown hair. The same jawline and pointed chin.
My connection