Page 28 of Killer Kiss

I suspected he was suddenly offering up information to distract me from the overshare of information about his own life, but I would take it.

“Okay. Well, at least I know where to start from. Thanks. We’ll take it from here.”

His eyebrows furrowed together. “You’ll take it from here? What does that mean?”

I scraped at a dried bit of blood on my neck. “It means you tried your best with what you had. I appreciate that.”

He raised one eyebrow. “But what? You have money so you can do better?”

“I never said that.”

“You implied it.” He shifted. “I’ve been out there scouring the streets for her, every damn day, for weeks.”

Irritation prickled at me. “And where did that get you? I’m not trying to be an asshole, but—”

“But what I’m doing isn’t good enough?”

I let out a breath. “Honestly? No. It’s not.”

He shook his head, his gaze sliding to the gun in my job bag.

I quickly covered it up.

He raised his eyes to meet mine. “You look so much like her. But you’re nothing alike.”

The words stung because the implication was clear. Fawn was good and sweet and kind. She was the sort of woman who had friends who loved her so much they put their entire lives on hold to search for her.

And I was the opposite. Apart from Jez, I didn’t even have any true friends. Not ones who honestly knew me.

But that was the way it had to be. Whenever anyone got too close to me, I had to push them away. What else was I supposed to do? Just tell them that every time my mother sent me a ‘care package’ it was actually a request to put a bullet through some random person’s brain? Or worse, that I actually liked it?

It was almost funny, thinking about the way my roommate in Spain would have run screaming from our apartment if she knew she’d slept under the same roof as a murderer every night.

I didn’t want to sit here in this car with a man who found me disappointing in comparison to my sister. I already knew it. I didn’t need the reminder. “Thanks for the stitches, but get out of my car, Augie.”

His beautiful lips pulled into a tight scowl as he got out of the car and slammed the door. He leaned down and pinned me with a final glare through the open window. “I’m not going to stop searching for her.”

But for all he portrayed the bad boy, Augie was as innocent as Fawn was. I didn’t want him digging any deeper. “You don’t have any idea what you’re getting yourself into. Just let it go.”

The words came out dark. A warning.

It was all I could do for my sister’s friend. Try to keep him safe because I knew she would want me to.

Once I started poking into the past and the people in it, blood would be shed.

I didn’t want Augie’s to be among it.

8

OPHELIA

Riddick steered his truck along the beach road that ran the length of the coast connecting Saint View and Providence. The sun had only just popped up above the horizon, and the orange and gold rays it cast over the ocean should have been beautiful.

Except the man sitting next to me made everything feel dark and dangerous.

Riddick glanced over at me with a deep frown. “You aren’t drinking your coffee.”

“Because I told you I didn’t want any,” I said through gritted teeth.

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