the tip of something.”
“Why isn’t my father looking closer?” This was so obvious to him from day one, why not to his father?
“How do you know he isn’t? He could have placed the taps.”
AJ didn’t see it.
“You have to consider every possibility. Everyone is a suspect.”
“My father didn’t kill my sister.”
Sasha hesitated.
AJ’s heart dropped hard.
“You both have trust funds, right? You and your sister? Grandmother’s money, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Did your sister have a will?”
He blinked.
“I’m guessing since she wasn’t married and didn’t have children, the answer to that is no. Which means the money reverted back to her parents. Your parents. Uncontested, your sister’s accounts will be pushed through in six to eight months. The first place the authorities look when a murder has taken place is who has a motive. Money is a great motivator.”
“It’s not that much,” AJ said.
“Four million dollars isn’t chump change, AJ.”
“How do you know how much we were given?”
“I know the name of the arresting officer when you were caught stealing a car.”
He paused.
“Most people can live their entire lives without working a day on that kind of money. Amelia had a good paying job, invested her money. Her accounts had grown. Now all of that is in someone else’s pocket.”
“My parents didn’t kill my sister for her money.” His back stiffened.
“I didn’t say they did. I’m saying you need to be open to all possibilities in order to see the evidence as it unfolds. If your sister had left the money to you, you’d be a suspect.”
AJ felt instantly thankful Amelia hadn’t felt the need to write up a will. He shook his head, leaned back against the headboard. “What an exhausting way to live.”
“Thinking everyone is after you? Everyone has a motive to do harm? Yeah . . . it is.”
He rolled his head to the side, took in Sasha’s profile. In that moment he saw a sadness he hadn’t seen in her before. “Tell me something about you that no one else knows.”
Confusion marked her brow. “What?”
“Anything.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know you better.”
She cocked her head to the side as if contemplating whether or not to answer him.
Silence stretched out between them.
“It’s okay, I’m being pushy—”
“Thunderstorms,” she rushed out. “I love thunderstorms. I’ve walked into the middle of a field, or the courtyard at Richter, in the middle of a thunderstorm just to be a part of it.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Part of the appeal. I’ve never feared lightning or the sounds of gunshots or the screech of tires on pavement.”
AJ reached for her, tugged a little when it became apparent she wasn’t used to being held. “This won’t hurt.”
She shifted into his shoulder without relaxing.
“I love the smell of snow,” he told her.
“You live in Florida.”
“Yeah. Much harder to get laid living in the mountains alone than in a condo on the beach.”
She chuckled, tucked in a little closer. “When was the last time you managed that?”
“Getting laid?”
“Yeah.”
“Last night,” he teased.
The comment was met with her elbow in his ribs. “Fine . . .” He thought back, answered honestly. “Three months ago. She was with her girlfriends for a beach vacation. What about you?”
Sasha ran her bare foot down his leg. “Rome, right before I went back to Germany.”
He shouldn’t feel jealous.
“Do you plan on seeing him again?” He regretted the question the moment it left his lips.
“That would require me knowing his name,” she told him.
He wanted to ask if she was kidding but knew she wasn’t.
“Does that bother you?” she asked.
“Should it?”
She unfolded from his embrace and swung a leg over his hips to straddle him. Looking down, it became apparent exactly where her thoughts were headed.
He lifted his hands, circled her waist.
His cock stirred.
“I know your name.”
AJ dug his fingers into her hips, pulled her close. “And I know yours.”
The Hofmann home sat in a Virginia suburb filled with pristine roads and manicured lawns. The houses were a mix of Georgian and Victorian, colonial, and somewhere in between. Sprawling landscapes with small clusters of dense trees framed the edges of properties.
The large brick home AJ pulled into wasn’t modest by any means, but it didn’t quite fit the description of a mansion or an estate like that of Trina and Wade.
Still, it wasn’t without its charm. “Impressive,” Sasha said, peering out the window.
“A regurgitated replication of every home my parents have ever lived in.”
“You never lived here?”
AJ turned off the engine. “No. They bought this after returning from Germany. Dad wanted to be close enough to DC so