Lee didn’t say word one until we were in his condo. He dragged me by the arm into the bedroom, pulled out a drawer and threw me a t-shirt.
“Get ready for bed,” he said to me.
I immediately saw red.
It was not surprising. I wasn’t one of his boys, I wasn’t one of the troops, I wasn’t a child, he couldn’t tell me what to do. I’d had a tough night, I’d seen a dead body, for goodness sake!
I was willing to give him some leeway with his being pushy when I was in the vicinity of said dead body but this was too much.
“No!” I snapped. “Stop telling me what to do. I want to go home. I want to sleep in my own bed. I want –”
I didn’t say any more because Lee came at me, I backed up and slammed against the wall. Lee’s body came up against mine and he bent his face so he was nose-to-nose with me.
“You want your Dad to see crime scene photos of you, dead, sitting on that sweet ass of yours with your brains splattered against the wall?”
Yikes.
My stomach lurched and my legs went weak.
“No.”
“Then this ends tonight.”
I stared at him.
“Indy, by God, if you don’t promise me –”
“Of course it ends tonight! I just saw a dead body! You can’t think I’m that stupid.”
His face said he thought I was that stupid.
“Lee! Rosie’s my friend. He’s out there, somewhere. And they’re not only looking for him, they’re looking for Duke. And now they’re killing people.”
“I’ll find him and I’ll find Duke.”
We looked at each other for what seemed like days. His brown eyes were hard and angry. I tried to tell myself that all his anger wasn’t directed at me but I was having trouble believing it.
My gaze slid away. “I couldn’t have known I was going to find that tonight,” I whispered.
“I told you these were bad guys.”
My gaze slid back.
“What kind of job do you do that you know about this shit?”
He shook his head. He’d moved back an inch so we weren’t nose-to-nose anymore but he was still close.
“Un-unh, you aren’t gonna make this about me.”
I moved out from between him and the wall and I stomped to the bathroom on my favorite parting line.
“Whatever.”
I brushed my teeth with what now seemed like my toothbrush which was cozily resting next to Lee’s.
I tried not to think of my day’s plan of not ending up in Lee’s car, company, condo or bed, all of which I’d failed to do. I tried not to think of Tim Shubert, dead and smelly and left to rot in his house while his neighbors worried about him. I tried not to think of Rosie or Duke in a similar position either now or later. I tried not to think of Tod and Stevie’s car, which I had left outside a crime scene. I tried not to think of what a f**k up I was or how Lee could move around in these situations so casually, without blinking an eye.
I got undressed and put his t-shirt on. It was huge on me and had a Night Stalkers insignia emblazoned across the chest. Too big, I was going to get tangled up in it the way I slept but I wasn’t going to tell Lee that.