His words were innocent enough, but the purr wasn’t. I knew enough not to fuel him. Men like him were egged on with a challenge. I wasn’t going to give him a reason to come harder at me. Even these simple attempts were a fight against my will. If I ignored him, my hope was, he’d ignore me. As I glanced away from him, his grin said he wasn’t about to grant that request.
Now, I couldn’t remember what the hell the names were. “First name,” I snapped out.
“Shawn Edwards.”
I ignored the closeness of Kipp which caused goose-bumps to form on the side of my neck, the feel of his gaze as it lingered over my body, the ache that formed between my thighs. Yes, all of this, I flatly ignored as I search the files.
Finally, after many minutes, I pulled a file from the cabinet. “Ah ha...got one.” I glanced back at Kipp. “Next name?” He was too close to me. Thankfully he was taller or we would’ve be nose to nose, lips to lips. I stepped away from him. “I asked you to stop it, it makes me uncomfortable.”
A slow grin rose to his face. “You mentioned that.”
I huffed, glanced up into his determined eyes, and didn’t hold back my ticked off tone. “Name now?”
“Todd Evans.”
Within a few minutes, I had pulled the last file we needed, and was just about to ask Zach for another name when the door handled jiggled. I jumped, startled.
Kipp attempted to grab my arm, but his hand went straight through me. I shivered from the cold embrace and glanced up at him. He had his finger raised to his mouth to indicate I needed to keep quiet.
The door jiggled again, I held my breath.
Zach moved faster, skimming through the cabinet while he had a bundle of files under his arm. “I’ve only got two to go.”
A loud bang on the door came with a loud shout, “Who’s in there?”
Zach ignored him.
I did the same, gripping the files in my hands as if they were my lifeline, my gaze glued on the banging door in front of me.
The voice came again as the loud thumps on the door echoed through the room, “Open this door, right now!”
Zach was right in front me, handing me the files. “Hide them.”
I snatched up the files and hid them behind my back as Zach ran around the room attempting to get all the file cabinets shut. I clutched my hands around the files behind me as I hopped from foot to foot unable to stand still, perspiring as my heart pounded in my ears.
Kipp stood calmly, his arms crossed against his chest as he watched Zach work. But of course, why would he be scared? He couldn’t be caught because he was already dead. I was alive and wanted to stay that way.
The doorknob began to jiggle again and I heard keys rattling. “Holy shit, he’s coming in,” I said urgently to Zach.
I glanced back to the door, which was opening, and as I did, I was slammed up against the wall. My only response was to gasp as Zach’s mouth met mine in a kiss that was quite passionate despite the fact his focus had been elsewhere only moments ago.
He smashed against me and I moaned, not in pleasure, but more in pain. His body was so tight against mine, breathing was near impossible.
“Oh,” a surprised voice said. “Shit man, I’m sorry.”
Zach backed away and my breath came out in a loud huff as I stumbled a moment. Finally, I could breathe again. I regained myself and glanced up to find a man who wasn’t hard on the eyes―most of the cops around here weren’t. Handsome might have been putting it lightly with ashy brown hair, stunning blue eyes which were as happy as the smile on my face, nice body―toned and defined in all the right places.
“No, I’m sorry,” Zach answered, sounding breathless. “Were you knocking, Brody?”
Brody laughed. “Was, but if I’d known what was in here, I wouldn’t have.”
“Nah, it’s cool.” Zach waved it away. “Probably best you interrupted us.”
Brody gave me a once over then chuckled. “Yeah right.”
Relieved that we hadn’t been caught looking for files, I glanced away from Brody to Kipp, and was momentarily stunned. He stood, fists clenched, his eyes burning hot with fury. I took a step forward. “Are you okay?”
Zach grabbed my arm and laughed. “I’ll be okay once I get you home.” Then, placing me in front of him to keep the files hidden, he pushed me out of the room. When the door closed, he let out a long, shaky breath. “Damn that was exhilarating.”
I fluttered my lashes at him. “Men who kiss me always say that.”
“That’s not...” Zach started.
My glare came quick as I pointed a finger at him. “You’re not about to insult me, are you?”
Zach shook his head, laughing. “Nope.” He took the files from me, placed them in the bag he brought and began to head off, but turned around. “You do know that was only for...”
I raised my hand, not even needing him to go there.
He grinned as he glanced behind him and spoke to where he thought Kipp would be. “Gotta admit I was pretty impressive in there, wasn’t I?”
Just to confirm what I already suspected, I took another look down the hall. Nothing had changed. “He’s not there.”
Zach’s brows furrowed when I met his gaze again. “Where is he?”
I shrugged. “How should I know?”
“I’m here,” Kipp’s voice was suddenly loud.
Looking back, I saw Kipp taking lengthy strides toward me. Nothing had changed. He was peeved. But at what? “Is everything okay?”
He stopped in front of me and glared. I never noticed how tall he was, but with such intensity oozing from him now, he was a little intimidating. He had a least four feet on me, and his size made me feel like a little mouse hunted by a lion. “No.”
Zach sighed from beside me, as if he knew what was going on here. “Personal shit aside, Kipp. We’ve got a case to solve, including yours.” Then he walked away.
My gaze stayed glued on Kipp’s. I was never one to keep my mouth shut and didn’t like it when someone was upset. “What’s wrong with you?”
His breath was deep as he answered through clenched teeth, “It’s nothing.”
“Oh, really? You just happened to all of a sudden scowl and sound like a rabid dog for no apparent reason whatsoever.”
“I’m not scowling and I don’t sound like a dog.”
I’d argue that point, he was practically wagging his tail. I pointed to his grumpy face. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”
He arched his eyebrow, mildly flipping me off. “My face.”
“Yeah, no shit, it didn’t look like that before. What’s up?”
His eyes went dark with coldness. “You said you wanted me to keep my comments to myself, so I am.”
“You’re mad at me?” What the hell had I done? He wasn’t pissed when I made the comment and furthermore, he was twisting my words. “I never meant it like you’re taking it, you know that.”
He examined me a moment, his eyes sweeping over my face, then asked, “Why do you care?”
“I...I don’t care.”
His expression turned challenging, arrogance stealing his warm features. “Then why does it matter?”
My cheeks burned. Why was he putting me on the spot and acting like this? I didn’t deserve his cruelty. “Listen, you.” I wanted nothing more than to poke his chest. “I am here to help you, remember? But if you think for one second that I’m going to stick around when you are being a complete dick to me for no reason whatsoever, think again.”
“So now you want me to talk to you?” he growled.
Fury raged through me. I stepped in closer, angled my head up and stepped on my tippy-toes to get as close to him as I could. “You are not going to put this on me. Whatever is wrong with you, deal with it. But don’t even try to suggest the reason you are acting like this is because I asked you to stop trying to seduce me.”
He glared down at me, his challenging look only deepened. “Well if I am not able to do that, what is my reason to talk to you?”
I suck
ed in a deep breath. My vision blurred as my eyes closed into slits, my voice all but a whisper. “So that is the way it’s going to be then?”
He nodded. His gaze was steady and strong. “That’s the way it is.”
***
Chapter Thirteen
Two nights later, we were down to the last suspect on the list, Cole Moody. Since the others turned out to be straight-up cops with no hint of trouble within their marriage, Zach and Kipp concluded they weren’t viable suspects.
“He’s married, two kids―one and five,” I said, reading Cole’s file as I sat in the front seat of Zach’s navy blue Dodge Ram.
“Any reprimands?” Zach asked.
I glanced away from the file and met his gaze. “Like to tell me where I can find that information?” He kept assuming I knew what I was doing. Sure, I’d gotten a little quicker at finding the basics within the papers in the files, but still, they were thirty pages deep with eons of information on them.
Zach laughed. “Flip the page―halfway down.”
I did and read for a moment. “No, nothing at all.” Then, I sighed, glanced up at the two-story yellow brick home with a tulip garden lining the pathway to the front door. “Is Kipp ever going to come out of there?”
It’d been eight hours since we’d begun surveillance on Cole Moody. Kipp had gone into the home the moment we’d arrived and still hadn’t come out.
I wasn’t opposed to Kipp’s leaving, it was the good part in all of this.
The days had been a strain. Not only was I confused about my feelings for him, but he continued to give me the silent treatment and only answered Zach’s questions. He made very little eye contact with me. I wasn’t sure what hurt me more, his lack of interest or my own interest in him. The one ghost I didn’t want to ignore me―was. The weight of everything had begun to take its toll on me. Physically, emotionally tired, I was undeniably exhausted.
Zach gave me a look which said he knew my tiredness and frustration wasn’t in regards to the surveillance. “You need to give him a break.”
I glowered, narrowed my gaze at him. “If you try and defend him for one second, I will castrate you.”
“That’s not what I am saying.” Zach grinned. “It’s just, try and understand what he has been through. I take it from the way you’ve been acting the past couple days that he’s being a little harsh with you?”
“Harsh?” Too mild a statement. “He’s barely said a word to me in days and I have no idea what I’ve done.”
Zach sighed and glanced at the house before he met my gaze again. “It’s not like Kipp to be flippant. If he is behaving this way something is really bothering him.” His expression softened even more. “He’s been through a lot, try and remember that.”
Why did Zach have to be a voice of reason? Kipp had been killed, had earned the right to lash out because of it and be rip-roaring mad that he was gone. And so lay the problem here, I kept forgetting he was a ghost. Something I needed to remind myself more and more as the hours trickled by.
I’d seen it before. Ghosts who became angry about what happened to them, but this felt more, it felt personal. His anger seemed directed at me, and when I confronted him, he didn’t deny it. Which only reassured me that I shouldn’t care he was mad―it shouldn’t have mattered to me since this was for the best anyway. This was the distance I wanted―right?
I sighed. “Fine, I’ll take his grumpiness, but if he says one nasty word to me, I’m outta here.”
Zach nodded in understanding.
I focused back on the file, forced myself away from any thoughts that revolved around this utterly irritating―simply delectable―ghost.
Another hour passed before Kipp appeared, melting through the chocolate brown front door of the house and glided toward the truck.
I looked at the glove compartment. “He’s coming.”
“About time,” Zach grumbled.
Kipp swept through the door, settling into the backseat. “Watched a wicked fight.”
I repeated the line, not even wanting to acknowledge his presence since this had been our current practice lately. My beating heart and sweaty palms were enough to tell me it was an impossible task. He seemed to cause this reaction in me just by his mere presence.
“You’ve been in there for eight hours,” Zack said. “What else did you do?”
“Cole slept, played with the kids, worked out, jerked off and made plans.”
“He did guy stuff,” I responded, still very focused on the scenery in front of me. I was desperate to look back and make eye contact with Kipp, to see if that hostility still lay in his eyes. But I didn’t want to. His softer tone with Zach told me he was in the mood he’d been in all week―nice to everyone else but me. And I knew if I looked back, I’d see the same pissed off eyes staring back at me.
I hadn’t the faintest idea what I’d done to cause this. This whole I’m not talking to you because you asked was a piece of garbage. There was something more going on here, it ate at me, and took up too much of my mind.
Unaware of the awkwardness in the air, or flatly ignoring it, Zach asked Kipp, “Anything stick out?”
“Nothing,” Kipp responded, raising his feet to sit on the console next to me. “Seems like a straight up guy.”
I scowled at his feet and if I could’ve pushed them off, I would have. What was he doing, trying to ensure I knew he was there? Like I could forget. Not responding to whatever he was trying to do, I said to Zach, “He’s a good guy.”
Zach gave his head a slow shake, buckled his seatbelt, then started the truck. “Always the worst type of killers.” Then, he looked at the backseat. “Back home then?”
“No. Tess is going to seduce him.”
I snapped my head around to face Kipp, uncertain if I had just heard him right. “I’m what?”
“What’s wrong?” Zach exclaimed.
“I’m not seducing anyone,” I nearly yelled. As much as Kipp’s tone had softened, as I suspected, the hardness in his eyes remained. It was cold as a winter’s morning and it sent a shiver of unhappiness straight through me.
“You will,” Kipp responded.
“Seducing someone?” Zach repeated in blatant confusion as he shifted in his seat to look at me better.
“Cole has made plans with a couple buddies to go to a club. We need you to try and attempt to pick him up. If he goes to clubs, he may be the type who strays.”
I couldn’t believe he was suggesting I do this. He had to be out of his mind. “You want me to flirt with a killer?”
“Will someone tell me what is going on?” Zach drawled, clearly frustrated.
Ignoring him, Kipp’s gaze stayed on mine as he shook his head. “I doubt he’s the killer.”
Sure, his face was confident, but it did nothing to reassure me. “And how can you be so sure he’s not the killer?”
“I’m a detective. Intuition tells me this isn’t our guy, but since it’s apparent he and his wife aren’t sexual enough that he needs to do it himself, we have to test him, see how loyal he is to his family.”
Maybe his wife was just tired. Having two small children tended to do that. Knowing men, a daily sex life with her was probably out of the question. Instead of sharing my thoughts, I kept to the fact of how insane this all was. “So what, you want me to go to a club, flirt with him and try to pick him up?”
“Ahh...” Zach exhaled in understanding. “Now I see.”
Kipp arched an eyebrow in the most arrogant of ways. “That’s the idea.”
“Might just work,” Zach agreed.
They weren’t thinking this through. Of course, this was normal for them, but I wasn’t a cop. I wasn’t brave, and definitely wanted no part of this. “But...but what if he gets me alone then guts me.”
Kipp’s eyes wavered in their harshness. Amusement swam through them as the side of his mouth curved slightly. “I’ll be with you.”
“Kipp will go with you,” Zach said, in the exact moment.
My
eyes narrowed. Their determined expressions said my choices were limited here. Being backed in corner was not where I liked to be. My aggravation over the past week had reached its limit. “And just tell me, why should I do this for you?”
Kipp shrugged. “You did sign on to help.”
“I never signed on to get involved and put myself in danger. Besides, you have been nothing but a total ass to me for days and I still have no idea what I’ve done.”
Zach opened the door in a jiffy. “Oh, look an elderly woman needs help crossing the road. Best I go help her.” Then he was out with the door closed behind him.
I didn’t have to look to see there was no woman there. He just didn’t want to face the impending conversation―the one that had been hanging over us since the day at the police station.
“About that―I’m guessing I should apologize.”
“Apologize,” I shouted. “You’re kidding, right? You think that if you just say sorry it is going to make up for it all. Oh buddy, you don’t know me very well, but you’ll need to do better than that.”
“I’m not sure there is anything I can say that will explain the way I’ve been,” he paused, “acting. The only thing I can tell you is I realize it was wrong of me to take out my frustrations on you. I apologize if I’ve caused you any trouble.”
I took a deep breath through my nose. “Not good enough, pal. What the hell has been wrong with you?”
Now, his eyes narrowed. “If you missed what I just told you.” His tone grew deeper and a little bit snappy. “I guess I need to spell it out for you. I don’t want to tell you what was wrong with me.”
Oh, he did not just say that! Was this guy born stupid? He did not just insult me again!
“In fact I didn’t miss it, I heard you clearly. That doesn’t mean I’m going to let it go. I deserve to know what I’ve done that upset you so much. What I did to deserve being treated as I have all week. You have barely said one word to me. And I’m the living person in this equation. I should be ignoring you, not the other way around. So, you have to own up to it and tell me what the hell has been going on?”
He shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
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