Living Fast: Steele Ridge Series

by Adrienne Giordano

  She waved her hands. “Your face. You're all twisty.”

  “I'm thinking.”

  “Do you know him?”

  “He mentioned the name. I think it's someone from work. Sort of a friend. An acquaintance, I guess. Let's put that one aside and check a few more. Try this next number. It's a local one.”

  Brynne read off the number and the tippety-tap of Evie's fingers flying over the keyboard filled the quiet air. “There's nothing in the DMV on that one. Let me try one of those mobile trackers. I might get a hit.”

  More tippety-tapping before Evie's fingers went still.

  “Got it,” she said.

  “What the hell are you two doing?”

  Uh-oh.

  Evie threw her hands up. “Whoopsie.”

  Brynne swiveled, found Reid standing in the doorway, arms folded and muscles bunching hard enough to crack concrete.

  Whoopsie indeed. She set her hand on Evie's shoulder and squeezed. The I've-got-this signal. “You're back,” Brynne said, her voice a little too high-pitched.

  Evie faced her brother and held her still raised hands in front of her. “Don't freak.”

  “Don't freak? Really?”

  He entered the room, his booted feet moving slowly. Stalking. Brynne wanted to spoon up all that prowling, contained energy dripping from him like gooey, luscious chocolate. God, the man knew how to make an impact.

  Even mad.

  He shifted his gaze to the monitor, then to Evie, and finally to Brynne and wowie, wow, wow the hardness in those eyes. Completely steamed. But, crazy as it was, so incredibly hot.

  Obviously, it had been way too long since she'd been with a man.

  “What are you two doing?”

  Evie grunted, but Brynne held her hand out. When it came to her brothers, Evie tended to automatically go on the defensive and with Reid about to explode, Brynne wasn't chancing an argument. “We're checking the rest of the numbers from Nelson's phone.”

  He broke eye contact with Brynne, checked the monitor, then focused on Evie. “You're hacking again?”

  “It's…”

  “Hey.”

  Terrific. Now Jonah joined the party. He stood in the doorway, his lean frame casually propped against the wall.

  “Well,” Evie said, “the gang's all here.”

  Reid poked his finger at the monitor. “They're hacking again. You happy now?”

  “Depends,” Jonah said. “If she didn't get caught and didn't blow up any of my files, I'm happy.”

  “Unfuckingbelievable. You know our baby sister can go to jail, right? Just reminding you of that fact. Again.”

  “She's fine. She's smart and knows how not to get caught.”

  “Thank you, Jonah,” Evie said.

  “You're welcome. But seriously, you can't be on my laptop without me. I gave you the password, but ask me next time.”

  “Sorry,” Brynne said. “We should have thought it through.”

  “Ya think?”

  This from Reid, who still stared at them like they'd bombed city hall.

  Evie rolled her eyes, spun back to the monitor. “Oh, relax. We're only on the third name. The first two were a bust. I'd just pulled this one up when you walked in. Ed Wayne. Brynne, do you know him?”

  Didn't sound familiar. “I don't think so.”

  “Hey,” Evie said, “he lives in Steele Ridge.”

  Before Reid even said a word, the energy in the room somehow shifted again and Brynne whipped around to where Reid stood, hands on his hips, fingers tapping, and the urgency firing off of him became a crackling buzz.

  “Shit,” he said. “Evie, get out of there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Ed Wayne was just murdered.”

  10

  Reid didn't need to be a genius to figure out this wasn't some kind of fucked-up coincidence.

  Ed Wayne.

  Before Grif had called to tell them about the second shooting in Steele Ridge, Reid had never heard of freaking Ed Wayne. Now his number popped up in another guy's phone.

  Right after they'd both been murdered.

  He shook his head, squeezed his eyes closed, visualized the pieces coming together.

  Mags. He needed to get this info to her.

  “Evie, print me a screenshot of that report.”

  Brynne looked up at him, all big brown eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “We're taking this to Mags. We have to.”

  “Dude,” Jonah said, “be careful here.”

  Now he wanted to wax on about being careful? About not hacking into government databases? Seriously, he should kick his ass.

  “Now you want me to think about it? You don't want me telling our police chief cousin you taught our baby sister how to hack into the DMV?”

  “Oh, fuck you.”

  “Whatever, Jonah. You know it's fucked up. I can't believe you did it in the first place.”

  “Okay!” Evie held up the screenshot. “No fighting. Here it is.”

  Reid ripped the report from her hand, held his other hand out to Brynne. “Let's hit it, sweet cheeks.”

  He hustled her to the truck, opened the door, and she hopped in. The lack of sky-high heels and skintight skirt helped. Life at the Hill must agree with her because the minute they'd gotten there, she'd changed into jeans—nicely snug-in-the-ass jeans—and sneakers. The red V-neck T-shirt wasn't doing much for keeping his mind out of the gutter because Brynne had one hell of a rack on her. Something he'd known since he'd first spotted her at Mom's birthday party months earlier, but he'd never seen her dressed down like this. And T-shirts were her friend.

  Her very good friend.

  Depending on how a guy looked at it, that T-shirt might be his friend, too.

  As pissed as he was that she and Evie had gone rogue on them, by the time he got to the driver's side, he needed to get his hands on her.

  He slammed the door, looked over at her, still with the big, questioning eyes, and he was gone.

  Gone, gone, gone.

  I'm screwed.

  He kissed her. A full-on assault that pulled a squeak from her throat. The squeak must have been a good sign, rather than fear or hesitation, because she wasted no time slapping her hand over the back of his head and angling her body into him as they damned near swallowed each other whole.

  Oh, baby. For a girl trying to be celibate for the next five years, Brynne Whitfield sure knew how to kiss. She moved closer, pressing that amazing rack against him and he fought to keep his hands from wandering.

  Groping her in front of his mother's house wouldn't win him any gentleman of the year awards.

  They had to stop. Before he exploded. Except, he gave as good as he got, deepening the kiss, letting her know whenever she gave him the go sign, he'd find them a nice spot to lose their clothes.

  And then she was gone. Pulling away and taking all that hotness and lush skin with her. Still, he couldn't take his eyes off of her. Off of her face and her lips that had just been on him and he wanted…more.

  A lot more.

  She licked her bottom lip and Reid groaned. Damn. He glanced down at his crotch, where his jeans had gotten seriously uncomfortable.

  He pointed to his engorged crotch. “That swearing-off-men thing? How's that working?”

  “If we weren't sitting in your mother's driveway, I might do you in this truck.”

  Well, hello. Sweet little Brynne with the gutter mouth. He loved it.

  “Look at you talking all trashy.” He waggled his eyebrows. “I like it. But be careful, sweetheart, I might take you up on that.”

  He fired the truck and the headlights illuminated the darkening driveway. Losing daylight. Was it still the same damned day?

  In the army, days like this, when bombs weren't going off and rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire didn't litter the air, were a vacation. Barely eight months out and he couldn't deal with minor stress?

  Assuming a couple of murders was minor stress. He didn't know these guys
, right? It's not about them, idiot.

  Nope. This was about Brynne and keeping her safe and figuring out what her involvement in this whole thing might be.

  Once in town, Reid snagged a spot in front of the Triple B, midway between Brynne's shop and Maggie's office. After their visit to Mags, Brynne intended to pull any cash from the register at La Belle Style.

  Smart move considering she'd already been robbed once.

  Before hopping out of the truck, Reid grabbed his .45 and holstered it at his waist.

  Maggie might not appreciate him walking into her office armed, but Steele Ridge didn't have an ordinance against open carry so hopefully she'd let it slide.

  He opened Brynne's door, waved her out, and set his hand on her lower back, sliding his fingers just above the rise of her waistband, under her shirt to warm, soft skin and once again his mind drifted.

  To Brynne.

  Naked.

  On the hood of his truck.

  What the hell was that now? Twisted truck fantasies in the midst of all this bullshit. Excellent.

  At this hour, the receptionist's desk was cleared, the chair empty, the lamp off. The rest of the place was lit up, though. The four bullpen desks were unoccupied, two of the chairs were tucked in and the other two pushed back as if the deputies had left in a hurry.

  “Mags?”

  “Back here,” she called from her office.

  He motioned Brynne ahead of him. “Let's see what's what.”

  They entered the office and Mags swiveled from her laptop. The collar button of her uniform was undone and her tie loosened. Call him a caveman, but Reid never could get used to seeing a woman in a necktie. But the uniform was the uniform and Mags having her tie loose indicated his cousin was running on fumes. She tended to keep everything tucked and buttoned.

  She slid a questioning gaze to Brynne, then to Reid. “What's up, guys?”

  On the corner of the desk sat a clear plastic evidence bag with what looked like Nelson's phone.

  Maggie brought both hands up, ran them over her pinned back hair. The puffy, dark skin around her eyes screamed of a lack of sleep. Had she even had a catnap since yesterday?

  He waited for Brynne to sit and took the chair beside her. “We, uh, have more information for you.”

  “About Nelson?”

  Brynne's eyes got wide again and Reid nearly laughed. For a girl so easily convinced to hack a government database, she didn't look so cocky now.

  “Yeah.”

  Mags picked up her pen—the cheap ones she used because she didn't want to spend taxpayer money on her favorite gel ones—and set her legal pad in front of her.

  “I'm listening.”

  Reid grabbed the folded report from his back pocket, flattened it on the desk.

  “We did research.”

  For a second, Mags didn't move. She just held his gaze, her eyes halfway to Panicville. “Reid, are you going to piss me off?”

  “Probably.”

  “And here I thought we'd come to an understanding.”

  They had. As in Reid and Mags. No one counted on Brynne and Evie becoming cybercriminals.

  Reid, the unsigher, let out the mother of all sighs. “We figured we'd help so we checked the Internet for the numbers in Nelson's phone.”

  “But you gave me the phone.” She gestured to the evidence bag with the phone in it.

  “Affirmative. We wrote the numbers down.”

  “I see.”

  Cuz, you're going to see a lot more in the next few minutes.

  This thing could go one of two ways. Mags would either be thankful for the help or she'd tear into him for nosing around her investigation. And since she'd already told him to stay out of it, he wasn't feeling confident about her gratitude.

  He sat a little taller, readying himself for his cousin's derision. “Turns out one of the numbers in the phone belongs to Ed Wayne.”

  Maggie flinched. A slight movement of her head, but he'd surprised her enough that she opened a desk drawer for a pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. She dug the phone out of the bag and fired it up.

  Brynne leaned forward. “It's the one that says EW. I got it from the log.”

  A whistle sounded and Mags set the phone down to let it finish powering up. When the screen flashed, she tapped it a couple of times. “I see that. And how do you know this is Ed Wayne's number?”

  Reid pointed to the report he'd set in front of her. “It's from one of those reverse lookups. You might also want to check out a Reginald Proman.”

  Maggie skimmed the screenshot. “You got this on the Internet?”

  Reid nodded. Mags didn't need any further information. Being family, she'd figure out how they obtained it.

  “Do I want to ask if Jonah was involved?”

  This one? Piece of cake. And when the hell had he ever uttered that obnoxious phrase? “Honest to God, he was not.”

  Not directly, since Evie was the one who'd discovered who the number belonged to.

  “All right.” Mags scooped up the report. “I'll take it from here. Thank you.”

  Wait. What? “Thank you?”

  “Yes, Reid. Thank you.”

  “Mags, come on. Ed Wayne is dead. Nelson is dead. This is a connection.”

  She cocked her head, stared at him with that bland look she sometimes wore when trying to slow her mind down. “I'm aware of that. And as soon as you two leave, I will jump on it.”

  “Did you know Nelson knew him?”

  “I can't comment on that.”

  Brynne stood. “Maggie is right. Let's leave her to get her work done.”

  “Reid.” Mags folded her hands on top of the desk. “You know I can't comment on an active investigation. A possible double murder no less.”

  “So you patronize me? Knowing I've had some involvement in this, you could have called me. Maybe let me know something was up with Ed Wayne and Nelson.”

  “Well, I guess I didn't feel I needed to say that since I've told you at least thirty times that you should butt out of my active investigation.”

  Which, somehow, made it worse. Hell on earth, he didn't know what he wanted, or expected, from his cousin. He knew the rules. Absolutely. Eight months ago, he'd have turned the phone over and moved on. Bigger fish to fry, nations to save, and all that.

  Now? He had nothing. All of that hero crap gone. And he was trying to nose his way into a murder to make himself feel better.

  Grif would call him the mother of all nonimpact players trying to be an impact player.

  This is my life.

  He pushed out of his chair. “Gotta go.”

  Maggie shook her head. “Oh, come on, Reid. Now you're going to walk out?”

  Yep. Sure am. He kept moving. Didn't bother to look back.

  “Perfect!” Mags said. “You always do this! You don't like something so you walk out. You know how this works!”

  He stormed through the reception area, his feet pounding the tile hard enough to send smacks of pressure shooting up his ankles. Goddammit, this town. This was why he stayed away. When he came home, he felt…what? Useless? Trapped?

  Ordinary. Decidedly not Special Forces material. Shit.

  He pushed through the door, hung on with his fingertips for Brynne to follow him out.

  They hit the street with his blood pressure on a steady climb and the heat under his skin burning him up.

  He wanted his goddamn life back. Bum fucking knee. Who the hell loses a career by jumping off a truck bed?

  Goddamned idiot.

  Beside him, Brynne struggled to keep up, her much shorter legs double-timing. “Are you okay?”

  “Ha!”

  “All right. I suppose that means you are not okay.”

  Still, he kept walking, trying like hell to get rid of the harnessed rage tearing him up. “I'm good. Frustrated. I need a minute.”

  No talking. No goddamn talking.

  “She's doing her job. That's all.”

  So much for no tal
king. Women. Always chattering.

  “I got that. Loud and clear.”

  “So why are you mad?”

  He stopped, set his hands on his hips and dug his fingers in until pain exploded. “I asked you to give me a minute. One minute of no talking. If I say please will that end this? Please?”

  “I'm trying to understand.”

  She was trying? Really? How the hell could she understand when he didn't? “You're not the only one.”

  “What does that mean?”

  The unsigher once again sighed. What the hell was happening to him?

  “Great. Now you're sighing. I swear, men should be put in front of a firing squad with that sigh.”

  Him? All he'd asked for was a few measly seconds of silence. That's all. As if that were too much to ask. Done. Game over. He stopped, whipped toward her. “I told you I needed a goddamn second! I told you that. Why are you pressuring me?”

  She stepped back. One giant move like he'd struck her and on top of all that boiling anger shredding him, shame piled on.

  But Brynne rallied, pushed her shoulders back and poked him in the chest. “Because, you jerk, I want to help you!”

  Fine. She wanted to do this on the street. Right in front of the goddamned Triple B where the busybodies were probably taking video. Fine. He'd go there.

  No.

  Fucking.

  Problem.

  But he'd lower his voice. Sure would. “I don't need help. I need my life back. I need this fucking bum knee to not hurt every morning. I need to be on a mountain somewhere other than North Carolina, staring up at a starlit sky with my unit. I need to not be in this fucking town, with the fucking small problems and the gossips and the ducks crossing the fucking street because I can't stand the idea of that being my life. That's what I need!”

  She flinched again. A full-on lurch of her body. “Wow,” she said. “That was…”

  “I didn't mean—”

  But, too late. He could see it on her. The cold look, the collapsing shoulders. All that closed-off body language a big neon sign assuring him he'd fucked up.

  She looked up at him, those devastating brown eyes boring into him. “I think you made it clear what you meant. You've said you always wanted more than this. You told me that just a few hours ago. And now, here you are. Stuck. With all us small-town people who obviously aren't good enough for the big, bad Reid Steele. Well, you know what, Reid? Screw you!”