No Rep (Madd CrossFit #1) - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,40

gave me her full attention.

My gaze went to her outfit.

She was wearing one of my t-shirts that’d seen better days.

There were holes all over it.

One such hole right over the chest area.

I couldn’t make out a nipple, but I knew that it wasn’t far off.

It made me sigh because what I was about to tell her would upset her. And my mind wandering to sex wasn’t a good thing at this moment.

I cleared my throat and rubbed the back of my neck.

“The woman that died today. It was someone that you might have known. She was your neighbor. The house to the left of yours,” I explained.

Her mouth fell open. “What?”

I nodded. “It’s the house that the couple rents out for vacation renters. The woman had rented this particular one out for a longer amount of time, and yesterday the chick was supposed to be gone. The cleaning people found her.”

Her shoulders drooped, and she went back to the food she was cooking on the stove.

It was only eggs, but it made my stomach rumble anyway.

I’d eaten a lot today. So much, in fact, I shouldn’t be hungry. Especially after what I’d just left at that crime scene.

But police officers were a different breed. We could compartmentalize things better than most, meaning that I could eat, still think about the case, and not feel guilty about it.

She flipped my egg over, pulled a plate down after opening at least three other cabinets, and then used the spatula to spoon the egg onto the plate.

She broke the yolk as she did, sighing in frustration.

“There’s something you should know about me,” she said as she walked to the toaster and pulled two pieces of toast out of it. Slathering on butter, she turned with the plate in hand and held it out to me. “I don’t know how to fry an egg without breaking the yolk. No matter how careful I am, I just never seem to be able to accomplish it.”

I grinned as I took the plate from her.

“Oh, and you need bacon or something. Because you have, like, zero meat in your house. Other than ground bison that was frozen,” she mused as she pulled a plate out of the microwave that looked like it’d been done a while. “So just eggs and toast.”

I walked up behind her and pulled her into my arms, pressing my mouth to the back of her neck and causing her to shiver.

“Bacon is nice, but eggs and toast work just as well. And, just sayin’, but I don’t care if the yolks are busted. I’m going to bust them anyway when I eat them,” I teased.

She snickered and moved until she could press her lips to the only part of my body she could reach—the top of my head.

“I’ll remember that,” she whispered.

I allowed her to eat before I started questioning some more. And, like I assumed, she didn’t know much. She hadn’t seen much, either.

Which, in turn, left me frustrated.

This guy that was doing these killings was good.

Even worse, he’d never screwed up.

Even worse than that, not only could I not find anything, neither could the FBI, who had been sent the files we had on the killings.

Something I found out about ten minutes later when there was a knock on my door.

I eyed the clock on the stove.

It was well past when it was acceptable to arrive unannounced at someone’s place, but I had a feeling I knew who it was.

I found out a few moments later when I answered my door to find Schultz, an FBI agent with his fancy little badge attached to his hip, and my chief.

I sighed. “I just got home.”

The chief and Schultz grinned.

The FBI agent, not so much.

Schultz’s eyes went behind me, and I stiffened.

Fran was behind me, in only my shirt, and I winced.

“Give me a minute?” I asked.

The three men nodded, and I shut the door in their faces, causing them to chuckle.

Even the FBI agent.

“Sorry, sorry,” Fran cried from my bedroom. “I’m going to go.”

I didn’t want her to go.

But I had a feeling I would be having a long ass night, and I didn’t want her to have to hear all the gruesome details of this particular case.

But I also didn’t want her to go home.

“Can you stay with your sister tonight?” I asked as I followed her to my room.

She was sliding a pair of my sweatpants up her legs.

Her bare legs.

God.

She’d been naked underneath my t-shirt and I hadn’t even