who might have hired him to investigate you. And all his things were cleaned out of the B-and-B. So it’s a very logical leap to that client. The police have to make that leap.”
“Not if it’s Wolfe. I’m his white fucking whale.”
“I hated that book. Anyway, nobody who knows Vinnie is going to see dirty cop. And as we didn’t know each other until you moved here, it can’t be proven otherwise. Add to that my sex fast, and it’s really hard to box me as a big ho. All of that just weighs on your side, Eli.”
“I’m not worried about it. Not worried,” he insisted when she just lifted those eyebrows again. “That’s not the response. I’m interested. It’s been a long time since I’ve been interested in anything outside of writing, but I’m interested in figuring this out.”
“Good. Everyone should have a hobby.”
“Is that sarcasm?”
“Not really. You’re not a cop or an investigator, but you are a legitimately interested party. And now, so am I. We have a hobby to share. Full disclosure. I saw your notes in the library.”
“Okay.”
“If you have something you don’t want me to see—such as that fabulous sketch of Mermaid Me, which I’d love if you replicated on good paper so I could have it—you need to put it away. I have a key, and I intend to keep using it. I was looking around for you.”
“Okay.” He did feel a little weird about the sketch. “Sometimes doodling helps me think.”
“That wasn’t doodling, it was drawing. Doodling’s what I do, and it looks like half-ass balloon animals. I liked Devil Vampire Wolfe, too.”
“That one had some potential.”
“I thought so, and drawing did help you think. The cast of characters, the connections between them, or among them, the timelines and factors, all there, all logical. That all seems like a good start. I think I’m going to make notes of my own.”
He considered a moment. “He’ll look at you. Wolfe will. And when he does he won’t be able to find any contact between us before I moved in here. He also won’t be able to find anything that weighs on the side of you being a lying, murdering, skanky ho.”
“How do you know?” She smiled at him. “I haven’t told you my story yet. Maybe I’m a recovering skanky ho with murderous tendencies.”
“Tell me your story and I’ll be the judge.”
“I will. Later. Now it’s time for your massage.”
He gave the table an uneasy glance.
“Your honor is safe with me,” she said as she rose. “This isn’t foreplay.”
“I keep thinking about sleeping with you.” Actually, he kept thinking about tearing her clothes off and riding her like a horny stallion, but that seemed . . . indelicate.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t, but that’s not going to happen during the next hour. Strip it off, get on the table—faceup. I’m going to go wash up.”
“You’re bossy.”
“I can be, and while that’s a flaw and I do work on it, I wouldn’t want to be perfect. I’d bore myself.” She trailed a hand over his arm as she walked out of the room.
Since it didn’t seem time to tear her clothes off, he took off his own.
It was weird, being naked under the sheet. And weirder yet when she came back, turned on her nature music, lit candles.
Then those magic fingers started on his neck, the top of his shoulders, and he had to ask himself if it was weird when sex slid to the back of his mind.
“Stop thinking so hard,” she told him. “Let it go.”
He thought about not thinking. He thought about thinking about something else. He tried using his book, but the problems of his characters oozed away along with his muscle aches.
While he tried not to think, or to think about something else or use his book as an escape, she released knots, soothed aches, melted away hot little pockets of tension.
He rolled over when she told him to, and decided she could solve all the problems of wars, economy, bitter battles, by just getting the key players on her table for an hour.
“You’ve been working out.”
Her voice stroked as expertly as her hands.
“Yeah, some.”
“I can feel it. But your back’s a maze of tension, sweetie.”
He tried to think of the last time anyone, including his mother, had called him sweetie.
“It’s been an interesting few days.”
“Mmm. I’m going to show you some stretches, some tension relievers. You can take a couple of minutes to do them whenever you get