The Dangerous Edge of Things - By Tina Whittle Page 0,29

Then he tucked the ammo into a separate box. Locked that too. Then, and only then, did he reach around my other side, pull open the top drawer, and hand me a fountain pen. The inside of his wrist brushed my hipbone.

The pen was black. And fancy. Trey turned and headed for the kitchen, leaving me backed up against the desk, holding a pen I didn’t need but wasn’t about to turn down.

“I’m making tea,” he said. “Oolong. Would you like some?”

***

He brought it to me in a delicate ivory cup with a saucer. It smelled of herb and caramel and had not one speck of sugar in it. I drank it anyway, chased it with a piece of nicotine gum. Then I dumped my tote bag on the floor and sat cross-legged in the middle of the mess. Trey sat at his desk, a spreadsheet pulled up on his laptop. He had a ruler and a calculator out, and two mechanical pencils, one in hand, the other stuck behind his ear.

I pulled out one of the Beau Elan trifolds I’d picked up while talking to Jake Whitaker. Despite the economic downturn, even a studio seemed out of a receptionist’s price range. It boasted cutting edge security features, however—gated entrance, passcard entry, surveillance cameras—all of which must have been worth the expense to a young woman with a stalker-ish ex-boyfriend. Especially considering that Phoenix Incorporated was right next door.

“Did the Beaumonts put this complex so close to Phoenix for a reason?” I ran down the list of features, remembering the ones that Trey had pointed out. “Jeez, you’d think this was Quantico, not fancy apartments in Dunwoody.”

Trey got out a highlighter. “Managers like obvious security features. They make good sales tools.”

He had a point. Beau Elan’s prospective tenants valued themselves pretty highly, and they appreciated people who did the same. Mark Beaumont effectively translated that attitude into brick and mortar. I’d also picked up a brochure for Beaumont Waterway, their new resort at Lake Oconee and the location for the upcoming reception for Senator Adams. Slick, sleek, saturated with color, luxury practically dripped off the page.

This was starting to sound like a financial ménage à trois—the Beaumonts, Senator Adams, Phoenix. Throw my brother in the mix, and you had an orgy. I wondered how Trey fit into all of it. He didn’t seem interested in politics or social climbing. And despite his multiple quirks and weird complexities, he inspired a visceral trust that I couldn’t explain any more than I could explain why he had a tarot deck in his desk.

A small voice poked at me: if you trust him so much, why are you always going through his things?

I batted the small voice away. Trey worked diligently at his spreadsheet. Black and white choices, no emotional demands, everything compartmentalized, both literally and figuratively. But how long could a former SWAT warrior push paper before snapping and going Krav Maga on someone?

I put down my brochures. “Are you still on the clock? Being my bodyguard?”

He kept his eyes on the computer. “Personal protection. Yes, I am.”

“So you agree with Marisa, that I’m in danger?”

“I don’t know. But I think we should err on the side of caution. Considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Your connection to the crime, your current situation.” He took a sip of his tea, then lowered his cup. “Your pizza’s here.”

The doorbell rang.

I looked at the door, back at him. “All right, how did you do that?”

“I’ll get it,” he said. And he padded off to fetch my dinner, taking his oolong with him.

But it wasn’t a delivery boy who held my dinner—it was Garrity, looking tired and rumpled and very cop-like. He handed the pizza box to Trey and pointed right at me.

“You. In the kitchen. Now.”

Chapter 15

Garrity dumped a handful of grim photographs on the counter. Crime scene pictures, official ones. Lurid and vibrant, they hit me with the force of a punch in the stomach, and yet there was a detachment to them too. An unnerving composure.

“This is what murderers do,” he said. “This is what happens to people who get in their way.”

The photos were repulsively magnetic. One showed a woman’s hand, her palm sliced with a red line, a finger bent at an unnatural angle. The other showed a spreading pool of blood, black-red, clotting tendrils of blond hair.

I peered closer. Blond?

“That’s not Eliza,” I said. Then I noticed the date stamp on the photographs. “Garrity, these things are ten years old! What are you doing