patience. She was strong. Made of iron. She would be a silent, unflappable epitome of cool until this man was honest with her.
“I, uh…I need a place to crash.”
Her resolve crumbled in the face of his honesty. And he was being honest—her Spidey senses never lied. “Why didn’t you say so right away? Of course you can crash here.”
His eyes narrowed on her like she’d just started speaking in a foreign tongue. “Are you serious? You don’t even know why. Or for how long.” He sounded so exasperated, it was almost funny.
“Margaret has two guest bedrooms in addition to her room. You can have the smaller one.” She started leading the way but stopped when she realized he wasn’t following.
“Don’t you want to know why I need a place to stay?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Do you want to tell me?”
His scowl intensified and she pressed her lips together to keep from smiling. That, she supposed, was her answer. “I’m assuming you’re in some kind of trouble….”
His silence was a yes.
“With the law?”
“Something like that.”
That voice. If he wasn’t such a talented tattoo artist she’d try to convince him to become a voice actor or something. She’d pay to listen to him read the phone book. But to have that voice read one of her favorite romance novels? Yes, please.
Once she got over the sound of his voice, the words registered. Something like that. What did that mean? She opened her mouth to ask and then thought better of it. If this guy wanted to tell her, he would. She’d worked with enough troubled teens to know that silence was usually a better way to get people to open up than pestering them with questions.
As someone who’d grown up in the foster care system, she’d tried her best to give back to kids who were in her situation so she volunteered at a local group home. She’d been trying to get Spencer, her former foster brother and best friend, to go with her but he refused. He was a borderline recluse and didn’t leave his apartment unless it was absolutely necessary and volunteer work did not qualify.
But thoughts of Spencer brought her back to the topic at hand in a roundabout way. He worked with the police as a tech consultant. One thing she knew from talking about his work…there were some things she didn’t want to know. Knowing meant having a dilemma over whether to report someone.
So it was decided. She wouldn’t push it. Her gut said he was a decent guy and that was what mattered. The rest was just backstory. She turned back to the hallway that led to the guest bedroom. “Like I said, you can have the smaller room.”
It was official—the angel of Brooklyn was certifiable. Insanity was the only explanation. No one was that naive, that trusting, that…nice. He’d all but admitted to being a criminal, yet here he was, nice and snug in the spare bedroom. The “small” bedroom, which was roughly the same size as his studio apartment.
He heard her bedroom door close and waited nearly an hour before making his move. He found the camera quickly enough—it was exactly where she’d left it earlier in the night. Now he just needed the cable and a laptop so he could send it to Eddie.
For a large man, he prided himself on being stealthy. But either he wasn’t stealthy enough or Andie was the lightest sleeper on the planet. He heard her bedroom door open and close and seconds later she walked into the kitchen and flipped on the light.
She spotted him instantly. He’d had enough time to slip the camera behind his back but he was still standing in the middle of her living room in the dark.
Yeah, that wasn’t odd.
She blinked a few times at the jarring bright light, her face screwed up adorably in sleep-addled confusion. “Dagger? What are you doing?”
The sound of his fake name had guilt rippling through him. He had the sudden and intense desire to hear that sweet, sleepy voice say his real name. If he was being honest with himself, he’d been just a little disappointed that she hadn’t interrogated him on why he was here and who he really was. A little part of him wanted her to know.
But knowing anything about him was dangerous and she was in enough danger thanks to that lucky picture.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Well, that was a partial truth, at least. He nodded toward her laptop which