Page 94 of Perfect Pitch

That’s when Charlie comes back. Hearing Austyn, he winks. “Unless it’s business, you’ll note the family is not Greenwich people.”

“So I see.” She’s about to say more when Phil—the only male in the room dancing on the furniture—calls out her name.

“You can stick to whichever side of his you want later. C’mere!”

Phil’s words cause Colby and Charlie to lift their hands to their brows simultaneously. I remark, “He’s starting early.”

“That’s because Corinna made lethal margaritas,” Colby declares. He lifts the glass I didn’t see in his hand before tipping it back as he rakes his gaze quickly over Austyn. “So, you’re the musical wonder child everyone keeps going on about?”

Back on comfortable ground, Austyn juts out her hip cockily. “That’s me.”

Phil’s wail of “Austyn!” from the opposite side of the room gets the attention of his sisters. Their heads all snap in our direction. One by one, they demand, “Let her go!” “It’s dance time.” To, “Interrogations later, boys.”

I can tell Austyn’s dying to join them by the way her hips sway back and forth to the music. I lean down and whisper, “Nothing holding you back but yourself, Beats.”

She flings me a wicked grin I know will get me in trouble before sauntering straight into the chaos. Scant seconds later, her voice harmonizes with the song playing. Every movement slows down as Austyn gives an impromptu performance I’m not entirely certain she realizes she’s delivering. She might not be dancing on the tables, but this wisp of a girl has the entire room in the palm of her hand.

All except the two men around me. Charlie is thoughtful, considering—the expression he gets when trying to figure out a puzzle. And Colby is outright frowning. It’s the last that causes me to ask, “Where are the others today?”

Colby’s cool eyes meet mine. “They were called in for an emergency meeting with Carys Burke-Lennan.”

Shit. I shift my eyes to the side.

Colby hasn’t done what he’s done for the last thirty years between his military service and his time at Hudson for nothing. “And why don’t you seem shocked by it?”

It’s at that moment I know I’m in deep with Austyn because I realize protecting her is more important than my job—and when did my career become just a job? I outright lie to the man who holds my future in his hands when I meet his gaze head on and say, “Not sure. Maybe because everything Carys does seems to be an emergency these days?”

His eyes glint. “Nice save. We’ll talk later.” Then his expression morphs into one of horror. “Christ, they pulled out the karaoke machine.”

“Shit,” Charlie mutters.

“I thought you destroyed it the last time,” Colby demands of Charlie. But before he can answer, Cassidy says, “Isn’t it beautiful? Brand new! It just came in last week.”

We cringe when Emily—the design brainchild behind Amaryllis Designs—steps up to the mic. Her husband shakes his head, love and suffering on his face. I point at him. “One would think he’d stop it, considering he writes music for Brendan Blake.”

Colby answers sagely before slugging back a large drink, “Happy wife, happy life.”

“So the rest of us have to suffer Em bleating like a... thank you, Jesus. You do exist,” Charlie grumbles reverently.

Because Em’s tapping of the mic was just to ensure it worked. She hands it off to Austyn before resuming her spot on the end table opposite Phil—who high-fives her as she passes. The music is jacked up. Austyn turns a cheap karaoke machine and a gorgeous vaulted-ceiling living space into an exclusive nightclub.

As she harmonizes to KALEO, I’m easily swept up in the emotion caused by her perfect pitch.

That’s when her eyes meet mine and I realize it’s so much more than that.

It’s her.

It’s just her.

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

I'd have been a superior investigator if I didn’t do what I do.

—StellaNova

The day after I took Austyn to Collyer, I receive a summons from Colby Hunt to report to the Hudson Investigation offices. Not Kane, just me.

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