by J. H. Croix
“It’s the best,” I informed him. “Please don’t tell me you’re one of those who thinks fruit doesn’t belong on a pizza.”
“It doesn’t,” he replied immediately. “Especially not if it’s warm. Fruit should only be warm when it’s in an apple pie.”
To the waitress, he handed his menu and placed his order. “Meat Lover’s Supreme for me.”
“Of course.” I smiled, rolling my eyes. “Everything has to be loaded up with meat.”
“But of course.” His eyes sparkled in the dim lighting of the pizzeria. “Meat belongs on pizza. Fruit, not so much.”
I enjoyed the friendly banter, and if it were with someone who didn’t keep me in a constant state of hot and bothered, I would’ve launched into the well-formulated argument I had on this point. Unfortunately, this was Sonny, and I couldn’t even look at him without heat sliding through my veins and flutters spinning in my belly. Playful banter was simply impossible.
The conversation died down again after that, only starting up intermittently as we waited for our pizzas. To his credit, Sonny tried everything to get me to talk. I just couldn’t seem to keep the ball rolling.
“So, you went to school here in Cypress, right?” he asked, aiming for the easy common ground of having attended the same high school.
“I did.”
I bombed his follow up questions as spectacularly. The heat in his gaze only flustered me further. I was certain I had to be imagining the look in his eyes, but it made it hard for me to focus.
For the first time in my life, I wouldn’t have minded if a man wanted me. In fact, I wanted him and, in turn, wanted him to return the feeling. For all of Karen’s attempts to get me to date, I’d yet to meet a man who motivated me. Sonny practically set me on fire—inside and out. More than anything, I wanted to feel what his lips would feel like pressed against mine.
This isn’t going there. As much as I enjoyed being around Sonny, I very much doubted we were on the brink of embarking on any kind of relationship that would involve his lips touching mine.
I wasn’t thinking about a relationship with anyone, and I doubted he was either.
I was too far to the quiet side, and it probably just wasn’t going to happen for me. Sonny, on the other hand, was dealing with all these family issues.
As much as I wanted him physically and as nice as he was, this wasn’t going there. It wasn’t going anywhere. Or so I reminded myself repeatedly throughout dinner.
We ate quickly, our gazes lingering on each other. Both of us occasionally caught the other looking somewhere we shouldn’t have been.
Lips, hands. In my case, his arms. In his, my chest.
By the time we got back to his house, I was more turned on than I could ever remember being.
Get over yourself. Squeezing my thighs together to ease the ache there, I forced myself to focus on why I was spending time with him. I dug through the bag I fetched from my car when we got back and pulled out the summary I’d printed out of what I’d found.
Sonny fetched the beers and waters we’d left in his kitchen. We both took a seat on his couch. He scooted up close beside me to see the papers I was spreading out. “What did you find?”
He squinted as I started moving my finger down the printed lines, explaining as I went. “Your father took money from a bunch of different people, but there’s one I can’t find any information about. It’s that one person that makes it suspicious.”
“Who is it?”
“A small company,” I told him, pointing at a line I highlighted. “But it was also where most of the money was taken from.”
“Wow.” He dragged his hands through his hair, his eyes wide. “That’s actually a really big break, way more than I had to go on before. How did you find this stuff?”
I shrugged, a flash of pride spiking inside. “Libraries have access to all kinds of databases. I went searching in the legal files for your father’s case. There are the official records in the government databases, but for legal cases, there are other systems that upload data for research and whatnot. That’s where I found the original files when everything I found from the official sources was redacted.”
His gaze held mine for several beats, sending my pulse lunging. “Thank you,” he finally said.
“It was my pleasure. I’m only happy if I was able to help.”
“If? You helped a lot. More than anyone else. I owe you a real dinner next time.” He smiled, his eyes brightening.
For a second, I thought he was going to hug me. Right or wrong, I jumped up and reached for my purse even though my beer and water were both still full. “Sure, we can do that, but I need to get going for tonight.”
“Right. Of course,” he said, pushing to his feet and looking more than a little confused. “I’ll walk you out.”
Why did I have to be so damn spastic around men?
“Thanks,” was all I could manage.
An awkward handshake later, I was in my car on my way home. I still had no real idea why I’d suddenly wanted to leave so fast.
Chapter Eleven
Sonny
Turning my squad car onto a narrow, bumpy road outside of town, my mind drifted to last night. I was on patrol and decided to take a drive to the address listed for the small company Niki found.
It was a slow day on patrol, and I hadn’t been called out anywhere else, so I figured now was as good a time as ever to follow the trail. Clouds drifted lazily overhead, and outside the car, everything was serene and calm.
Inside the car, in my heart and brain, things were anything but calm. My pulse was racing, a natural reaction to the adrenaline when chasing down any lead. The feeling was magnified and intensified because this time, the lead I was chasing was deeply personal.
My thoughts were split between wondering what the hell I was going to find and my night with the girl who’d provided it.
Dinner with Niki was awkward. Sometimes conversation came easily and flowed naturally, other times it was like she remembered she didn’t know me and she’d withdrawn. I didn’t blame her. We didn’t know each other more than a passing acquaintance. She was doing me a huge favor, and I felt obligated to at least feed her, but we weren’t on a date. Maybe I should’ve just ordered takeout.
I’d grown up in a boisterous household. Our home had never been quiet. With five boys running around, you would have been hard-pressed to find solitude.
Niki was different. She was used to quiet, I could tell. She also had some serious barriers up. I wondered why, but it wasn’t any of my business. I was beyond grateful for her help, yet I also couldn’t talk down my body’s reaction to her. Being near her was electric. She was so damn hot, and she had no clue.
I shook my mind off that track. I had my first real lead because of her. When she started showing me everything she found, I could hardly believe it. She’d been efficient and thorough in her search. Without her, chances were good I still would’ve been staring at blacked-out pages wondering how to obtain the official, clear records.
I would have to find a way to thank her—without making her uncomfortable again.
She’d agreed to another dinner with me, but I was starting to think the gesture would mean more if I paid for her to have dinner with a friend. Or a boyfriend. She could have one of those. I probably should’ve asked. It shouldn’t matter since I wasn’t pursuing her romantically. The moment that thought passed through my mind, I shifted my shoulders. Niki elicited an intense protectiveness in me. Mingling that with the white-hot desire I felt for her had my mind spinning in strange directions. It was none of my damn business if she had a boyfriend, but I found I didn’t like the idea.
Times like these made me glad Jeremy had settled down. Marie had fit right in with our family, and I wouldn’t mind her opinion. When I was done chasing down this lead, I was going to call Marie. A female’s perspective on how to thank Niki would be helpful.
“Your destination in on the right,” the GPS on my phone announced, pulli
ng me from my thoughts. My eyes arced to the right, to a familiar archway with the words ‘Cypress Creek Cemetery’ written on it.
“What the fuck?” I muttered, my eyes narrowing as I double-checked the address and the location on my phone. But it all checked out. It wasn’t a mistake. I’d been so zoned out while I was driving, I hadn’t absorbed where I was.
A chill ran down my spine. My skin pebbled with the hairs on my forearms and at the back of my neck rising.
My mother’s final resting place was the same address listed for the company that had been the source for most of the money my father allegedly took. This was an eerie coincidence—at best. Not to mention, it didn’t make a lick of sense.
Gravel crunched under my tires as I slowly veered off the road and rolled into the parking lot. Taking a deep breath, I pushed my apprehension aside and got out of the car.
Silence stretched out for miles in every direction, the wind barely even rustling the trees. A couple of birds flew over my head, the sound of their wings beating against the air puncturing the quiet.
Cemeteries didn’t usually creep me out, but I was making an exception for today. The circumstances that brought me here were just too odd.
Pausing beneath the arch to loosen the unlocked metal chain securing the gates, I winced at the scrape of metal against metal and pushed my way into the cemetery grounds. My brothers and I came here at least once a year, but I hadn’t been by alone in a long time.
“Mr. Lovett?” a quiet, wispy voice questioned. A second later, a man appeared around the side of the tall headstone immediately to my left—Yates, the groundskeeper for the cemetery.
“Shit, Yates.” My heart thundered in my chest. “You scared me.”
The older man was uncomfortable for any of us to be around. One night after coming here, my brothers and I ended up having one too many beers at Tyson’s house. He claimed never to have said it, but that night even Jeremy—who was a former high school football star and an easy six-foot-four—admitted he would run from Yates if he ever encountered him in the dark.
Yates was unkempt and tended toward frightening. He talked about death all the time, and honestly, my brothers and I were all convinced he wasn’t quite right in the head.
With Yates tall, thin as a rail, and with a kink in his back that bent him over slightly, Beau said Yates reminded him of the grim reaper. I agreed.
He ignored my comment. Eyes, so milky and pale I could only just make out they used to be blue, squinted at me. “You don’t usually come visit your mother this time of year.”
“I’m not here to visit her.” I shifted on my feet, crushing a ball of grass beneath my boot. The man gave me the creeps. My skin crawled, and I shook out my hands by my sides, hoping to ease my discomfort.
I was here to do a job, and I would get it done. “I had some questions about a company that listed this as their address. Maybe you can help me.”
Yates was notoriously difficult to talk to. An eerie sense of death followed him around as surely as it was his favorite topic to talk about. Unless he was making odd comments about the cemetery and the people buried here, he tended to be quiet.
The perfect cover man for a business you didn’t want people digging into, now that I thought about it. Yates hunched over, reaching for a pitchfork he had leaning against the headstone he’d been behind when I walked in. “I don’t like visitors.”
He started to turn around, dragging the pitchfork through grass and dirt without picking it up. I wasn’t giving up that easy. “I’m sorry to bother you. I know you’re busy, but do you mind talking to me for a minute?”
“The grass needs mowing.” He swept his eyes over the grounds, seeming to be mumbling to himself more than he was talking to me. “Lots of work. Lots of work.”
“Yes. I understand Yates, but do you know anything about a company operating from here?” A question I never imagined having to ask the groundskeeper at the cemetery, but life took strange turns sometimes.
“Lost souls keep me company,” he stated, his gaze fixing on a point behind me.
It took everything I had not to turn around to make sure there wasn’t anyone there. “Not to keep you company, Yates. A business, a small company, registered this address as their place of business. Have you seen anyone around here who wasn’t visiting someone?”
Visiting someone—Yates talked about coming to the cemetery like other people talked about having tea with their families. Staring at me without blinking, he jabbed the pitchfork into the ground. “You aren’t here to see your mother.”
“No.” My patience with his avoiding my questions was wearing thin. “I’m not, but has there been anyone else around who’s not here to see someone?”
“No one comes to see me.”
Was the guy going to answer any of my questions directly? “I’m sorry about that. Does that mean no one else has been around here though?”
“Plenty of people come. Their loved ones are here.”
My teeth ground together, frustration coiling inside. “Okay, but does anyone conduct business from here?”
His eyes cut from the distance to mine, fleetingly. Then they were gone again. “My business is my business.”
Ears perking, I took a step closer to him. “What business is that?”
“I keep everything the way it should be,” he said ominously, digging the pitchfork out of the ground and picking it up this time. “It’s not the way it should be now.”
“Yeah?” I asked, trying to sound casual. “Why’s that?”
“Only the dead surrounded me.”
“Surrounded. As in, past tense? Anyone else surround you now?” My pulse increased. Finally, it looked like I was starting to get somewhere.
Yates didn’t answer immediately. No surprise there.
He moved a little further away from me, his hands running along the tops of the headstones as he walked. “It was so quiet. I like the quiet.”
“What do you me was quiet? Why isn’t it quiet anymore?”
He paused, turning around to look me square in the eyes. “You should be careful.”
“What?” My head snapped back as surprise set in. The last thing I expected was a warning from the groundskeeper.
“This is no place for you. Come back to visit your mother. Do not come to see me.”
“This is a public place, Yates. You can’t keep me out.” As much as it sucked to be here by myself, I would come back as many times as it took to get the information I needed. My father’s freedom could be riding on this information. No way was I letting a creepy, evasive grounds man derail my mission.
If there were any answers here, I would find them. Even if it meant coming back every day.
Yates hung his head before shaking it back and forth, over and over again. “You should go now, Sonny Lovett. I will take care of your mother until you come again.”
“Why did you tell me to be careful? What should I be careful of?” I pressed, very aware that Yates and his pitchfork were slowly starting to move toward me.
I stood my ground, my hand reaching for my hip subconsciously until it rested on the hard, cold metal of my service pistol and the plastic handle of the taser on the other side. I wouldn’t shoot Yates, I wasn’t crazy. But it was comforting to know that if he snapped and came at me with the pitchfork, I could taze him. I had some pepper spray too.
And frankly, even with the pitchfork, I was pretty sure I could take the old man with my bare hands. A gentle breeze could probably knock him on his ass as long as I could get the pitchfork away from him in time.
He came to a stop a few feet away from me. “You and your girlfriend both need to be careful.”
“My girlfriend?” What the fuck was Yates talking about my girlfriend? Niki?
Nodding, he walked around me to pull one of the gates open and lifted the pitchfork to point it at my car. “You should go now.”
“I’m going, but I’ll be back,” I told him, mind racing as I walked to my car. How the he
ll did he know about Niki? And was he even talking about her?
It made no sense, but something was going on with him. There was no way he should’ve known about her or anything else about my life.
I drove back to town in a daze. Almost without the need for conscious thought, I went straight to the library. I’d dragged Niki into this. I had to make sure she was safe.
Jogging up the wide front steps, I breathed a massive sigh of relief when I saw her inside the building. A blonde woman with wild curls was talking animatedly to her. Niki threw her head back and laughed. She’s okay. She’s safe.
Seeing she was fine brought my questions into sharper focus. Whatever was going on, I needed to figure it out. And soon.
How did Yates know about Niki? And if he knew about her, what else did he know?
Chapter Twelve
Niki
“When do you work?” I exclaimed, surprised when I lifted my eyes from my computer screen at work to find Karen peering down at me.
She flipped a curl from her shoulder and shrugged. “During my working hours. I’m not on the after-school shift this week.”
“Right. I forgot.” I saved the spreadsheet I was busy making on the latest publications the library needed to update and wheeled the extra chair I kept by my desk out. “Wanna have a seat?”
“I’d rather have the gossip.” She sank into the chair I offered anyway and rolled it forward so she was sitting next to me at the desk. “You have to tell me how your night with the infamous Mr. Lovett went.”
“Infamous? Give me a break.”
Karen flashed me a smile and winked. “Hey, the Lovett family is infamous around here. Spill the beans, how was it?”
“It was fine.” I twisted my fingers together, eventually settling on clasping them together in my lap. I’d been thinking about my night with Sonny all day, knowing she was going to demand every detail, and I still didn’t really know what to tell her. “He was nice.”
“Nice?” Karen scoffed, green eyes disbelieving. “Please tell me he was more than nice.”