Shadow of Doubt - Hailey Edwards Page 0,68
end of the case doesn’t have to be the end of…us.”
A twisty feeling in my gut made it hard to decide if that was a good thing or a bad one. I liked Ford. I felt like we could genuinely be friends, despite the fact I was pretty sure his alpha had him spying on me. Considering all my friends were spying on me, and for good reason, I couldn’t find it in me to hold that against him. I also felt like he wanted more, and I didn’t know if I had it in me to offer. There was no spark. Not like with…
Don’t think it, don’t think it, don’t think it.
Not like it should be when you’re considering an entanglement. That initial zing is what kicks off a relationship and makes you ponder if you should, if you want to, if you dare. You don’t fade into the mostly comfortable friendship Ford and I enjoyed until after the whirlwind romance part, right?
“I’m onto you.” I scoffed, turning his offer into a joke to avoid it getting serious. “You just like me for my swords.”
“I do like women with claws.”
“Have you considered dating a cat shifter?” I managed to keep a straight face. “I hear they’re quite…”
“Feral is the word you’re looking for.” He blasted air out his nose. “I dated one when I was in high school. We thought we’d do the whole Romeo/Juliet thing. Us against the world. By the end of senior year, I was ready to fake my death.”
“That was Juliet, not Romeo.”
“I never said which of us was which.” He grinned. “I’m not the die-for-love type.”
“Who is?” I drew in a deep breath perfumed with mouthwatering food. “Fried potatoes, on the other hand, those are worth a fight to the death.”
“You can have them.” He rested a protective hand over his mountain of takeout boxes. “Now ribs…”
We debated life versus food on the way back to the Faraday and all the way up to my apartment.
I left him parked on the couch with the holy grail of remotes while I showered and changed.
When I got out, a quick ten minutes later, he was dictating an email to his mom, directions on how to use the new pressure cooker he bought her for her birthday, and I forced my heart not to melt.
“I’m starving.” I headed to the kitchen. “Let’s eat.”
The space, small as it was, felt empty without Bonnie. Maybe Ford was right. Maybe I was lonely. Or maybe it was the slight strangeness of the new items, similar to my old ones but not quite, that made the place feel less like home as I set the sewing machine on the kitchen counter to clear up the dining table.
“Are we discussing the case over lunch?” Ford made himself at home, bringing plates and glasses out of the cupboards. With so few cabinets, it didn’t take much to figure out where I kept what. “Or are you squeamish?”
“We can talk shop.” I took ice and bottled water from the fridge. “I’m good.”
After we sat down and divvied up the food, we got down to the business of eating.
“Bishop is searching through records to determine if our killer has moved into the area near Perkerson.” As I licked sauce off my fingers from the ribs, I decided I needed the name of his BBQ joint. “Bonnie was able to narrow the window of time she spent in the city before Midas found her. That helps with searching for records. Her son followed her from Mississippi, but she’s lived all over the country.”
“Still a needle in a haystack.” He slurped up a noodle. “Have you considered the time-honored tradition of using bait?”
I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it. “Do you think Midas would sign off on that?”
“On using a submissive woman, suffering obvious trauma, to lure out her abuser?”
“You could have just said no.”
“Ask him.” He put it mildly. “You might persuade him where others would fail.”
“You want me to present your idea to him so he growls at me and not you. That’s what I’m hearing.”
“Then you listen very well.”
“We have to do something.” I stabbed a hunk of pulled pork that melted in my mouth. “We can’t sit on our hands and wait for the next call.”
A hard knock on the door twisted my gut until I regretted stuffing my face with so much enthusiasm.
“Come in,” I yelled. “Door’s unlocked.”
Maybe it was rude, but wise people didn’t leave a gwyllgi