To Die For (Page 29)

Well, blow me down. For a minute there I’d expected to be strong-armed onto a plane; I’d told him so many fibs these past few days, why should he believe the truth? But he evidently had a Blair Truth Detector like the one Mom had, and realized that if anything, I was understating a little how much it bothered me to fly. Just a little, because I truly don’t panic or anything.

So I followed him to the airport, where he turned in his rental, and then waited behind the wheel while he stored his gear beside mine in the bed of the truck. He surprised me yet again by getting in on the passenger side and buckling himself in without even asking to drive. Only a man secure in his own masculinity will let a woman do the driving in a pickup truck… either that or he was very sneakily buttering me up. Whatever. It worked. I was feeling much more mellow with him during the long drive back home.

It was late afternoon when we got to our small regional airport, where he’d left his car. I turned in the rental truck and we transferred everything to his Crown Vic; then he drove me to Great Bods to get my car.

To my dismay, the yellow crime-scene tape was still strung around most of my property. About half of the front parking lot was taped off, and all of the building and the back parking lot. He pulled into the section of parking lot that was open. "When will I be able to reopen?" I asked as I handed over my car keys to him.

"I’ll try to get the scene closed tomorrow. If I do, you’ll be able to open on Tuesday-but I’m not making any promises."

I stood beside his car while he walked around back, and a moment later he reappeared driving my Mercedes. He pulled in on the other side of the Crown Vic, closest to the street, and stopped beside his car. Leaving the Mercedes running, he got out and transferred my duffel to my small backseat, then stepped back only a little, so that he was standing very close beside me when I started to get into the car. He caught my arm, his big hand warm on my skin.

"I have to work tonight, shuffle some papers around. Will you be at your parents’ house?"

Thoughts of him had so completely consumed me for two days that my nervousness about being named as the witness to Nicole’s murder had almost completely calmed down. "I don’t want to do anything stupid, but is there really much of a chance this guy will try to eliminate the witness, namely me?"

"I can’t discount the possibility," he said, looking grim. "It isn’t likely, but it isn’t impossible. I’d feel better if you were either at your parents’ or if you came home with me."

"I’ll go to their house," I decided, because if he thought I should be worried, then I was worried. "But I need to go home and get more clothes, pay bills, that sort of thing."

"I’ll go with you. Get what you need, and do your paperwork when you get to your parents’. Better yet, tell me what you need; I’ll get it and bring it to you."

Right, like I was going to let him go through my underwear drawer?

No sooner did I have that thought than I mentally shrugged. Not only had he seen my underwear-some of it, anyway-he’d taken it off me. Besides, I like pretty underwear, so it wasn’t as if there was anything there I’d be embarrassed for him to see.

"Give me your little notepad and a pen," I said, and when he produced them from his pocket, I wrote down detailed descriptions of exactly what clothes I wanted him to get for me, and where my unpaid bills were filed. Since I already had my makeup and hair products with me, he was getting off easy.

When I gave him my house key, he looked down at it with a strange expression on his face.

"What?" I asked. "Is something wrong with the key?"

"No, everything’s fine," he said, and bent his head. The kiss was warm and lingering, and before I knew it, I was on tiptoe with my arms laced around his neck, kissing him back with enthusiasm, plus interest.

When he lifted his head, he slowly licked his lips, tasting me. My toes curled and I almost told him to take me home with him, but common sense resurfaced at the last moment. He stepped back to give me room to get into the car.

"Oh, I need to give you directions to Mom and Dad’s house," I said, remembering at the last moment.

"I know where they live."

"How do- Oh, yeah, I forgot. You’re a cop. You checked."

"When I couldn’t find you on Friday, yeah."

I gave him the old Beady Eye, which is what Siana called it when Mom knew we had been up to something and would try to stare a confession out of us. "I think you have an unfair advantage, and you throw your cop weight around. That has to stop."

"Not likely. That’s what we do," he said, smiling as he turned to go to his car.

"Wait! Are you going to my house now and bringing my things, or are you going to work and bringing them later?"

"I’ll bring them now. I don’t know how long I’ll have to work."

"Okay. See you there." I tossed my bag into the passenger seat, but the toss fell short and the bag hit the console, falling back into the driver’s seat. I leaned down to pick up the bag and give it another toss, and a sharp crack reverberated on the street. Startled, I jumped sideways, and a sharp knife of pain sliced through my left arm.

Then a ton of concrete hit me and knocked me to the pavement.

Chapter Ten

The concrete was hard and warm, and was swearing a blue streak. And as I said, he also weighed a ton. "Son of a fucking bitch!" he said between clenched teeth, spitting out each word like a bullet. "Blair, are you all right?"

Well, I didn’t know. I’d hit the pavement pretty hard and banged my head, and I was kind of breathless from being squashed beneath him, plus my arm hurt like a mother. I felt sort of boneless from shock, because I’d heard that same crack before and I pretty much knew what was wrong with my arm. "I guess," I said without much conviction.