what the hell was happening. She could smell his cologne again, its grownup cedar notes now undercut by the faint yeastiness of beer.
She’d never thought of beer smelling good before, but here she was thinking it now, pulse tripping, gaze fluttering from his eyes to his mouth, parted again, that same caught-out, startled energy from the dinner table earlier.
Slowly, he turned her loose, and just as slowly she lowered her arm to her side.
He wet his lips, and her gaze followed the pink peek of his tongue. “Hey,” he started.
A tangled scuffle of footfalls coming in the mudroom had them springing apart.
She watched, pulse still high and fast, as Mercy, Tango, and Aidan guided a nearly-unconscious Reese into the kitchen. Mercy was doing most of the holding up, as Reese’s ankles turned and threatened to buckle, while Tango and Aidan steered him by the arms.
“Come on,” Mercy said, in the same gentle, fondly chiding tone he used on his kids when they were throwing tantrums. “Let’s get you somewhere flat.”
“And get you a bucket,” Aidan said.
Leah glanced toward Carter – and found he’d moved all the way across the room. He held his glass in one hand, the water rippling, betraying the way his hand trembled. His other hand was in his hair, raking through the golden thickness of it, his gaze trained on the floor.
Whatever she was feeling, whatever explanation existed for this strange new tension, he was feeling it, too.
Twenty-One
Eden had several laptops and several digital cameras, but she still liked to tackle some cases the old-fashioned way, an urge of which Fox approved. She’d printed all the relevant photos for the Allie Henderson case out on her home printer and pinned them up on the corkboard in the formal living room that she was slowly turning into an office. Rose-printed drapes still flanked the window, letting in soft, early morning light that gleamed on the sensible wooden desks and storage cabinets she’d picked up at Ikea.
She sat cross-legged and barefoot in her ergonomic chair, rim of her coffee mug pressed to her lips, steam swirling in front of her face as she studied the photo array with intense concentration, squinting faintly.
Fox stood behind her, one hand resting on the back of the chair, waiting. He knew better than to intrude upon these sorts of meditative moments.
After a while, she said, “Jimmy Connors was far too angry at the friend – Nicole, I need to talk to her today – for his attraction to Allie to have been sudden or fleeting. He’s been watching and wanting for a while, long before the party.”
“Yeah,” Fox agreed, winding a silky lock of her hair absently around his finger.
“He watched, and he wanted, maybe he’d made contact previously: just a passing remark here or there. Let her borrow a dollar for the vending machine; paid her a compliment when she got a new dress; borrowed a pencil. And all the while he’s been imagining.”
“Building up their grand romance in his mind?”
“Yes, it’s what people do. They plan the perfect relationship: holding hands, and sharing milkshakes, and all that sappy bollocks. Some even manage to convince themselves that, if only she would finally look at him, she would realize he was exactly what she’s been looking for all along.
“He made his move the night of the party. Just enough to drink to feel brave, and strip away all the inhibitions.”
“He shoots his shot,” Fox agreed.
“And she shoots him down.”
“How embarrassing.”
“Perhaps murderously so.” She sipped her coffee, and tipped her head to one side. “I don’t think he’s clever enough to have killed her and hidden her by himself, though.”
“He had that friend, the one the kids saw him with.”
“Whose identity I still need to pin down. My guess is it’s the same friend from the café.”
“A guy can have more than one friend.”
“Not this one, I don’t think,” she mused; didn’t mean it as an insult, but had gleaned something. A gut feeling. Usually, those were correct when they were Eden’s. “Any little wanker could get fixated on a girl, it’s true,” she elaborated, “but this feels different. This feels like he doesn’t have much, and like he took her refusal far, far too personally.”
“So he and Café Boy did it together.”
“And got back to the party before Mr. Henderson arrived?” He couldn’t see her face, but he could envision her arching a single brow well enough. “I don’t have that much faith in their stealth or cunning. Even if they left