Page 31 of The Woman in the Warehouse

“Do you want to drive or take the ferry?” he asked, waiting for me to slide out of my seat and move in front of him before following me to the door.

Fine.

I kind of thought his good manners were hot.

But probably only because they were so uncommon.

It was like finding a foreign accent attractive.

It was nothing personal.

Or, at least, that was what I told myself as his arm extended over my head to open the door for me. Then as he moved behind me to walk on the street side.

“I’ve never taken the ferry,” I admitted.

“Then let’s do that. It’s half the time,” he told me. “You can get back to your poor, unnamed dog sooner.”

I was actually starting to feel really bad about the no name thing. I’d tried out a few names before walking her that morning. But nothing felt quite right.

As much as I hated to admit it, it seemed like Keith was right about needing to know her before picking a name for her.

“Oh, wait,” I said, turning back and nearly bumping into him.

“What’s up?”

“Does the ferry have a metal detector?” I asked. Because, well, that was a deal-breaker for me. As much as I was starting to trust Anthony, I didn’t know these Morelli guys, and I wasn’t going to be caught around a bunch of mobsters without at least one weapon on me.

“No,” he said, the tug of his lips telling me he knew exactly what I was thinking. “You might occasionally see a bomb-sniffing dog, but that’s about it.”

“Okay. Good. We can do that then. Well, I guess we can go our separate ways from here,” I said, ignoring the way disappointment surged through me even as I said it.

Clearly, I needed to go home, stick some new batteries in my vibrator, and go a few rounds before I was alone with this guy again.

“Yeah, we can… shit,” he said, going to pat his chest like he was looking for something, but there was no pocket there. “My jacket,” he said.

“What jacket?”

“I had one on when I came to the gym,” he said. “Your mom took it, and I forgot to get it back. I’d leave it, but my apartment key is in the breast pocket.”

“Oh,” I said, reaching for my phone to check the time.

“Is it closed?” he asked.

“Yeah. She closes early on Mondays. But I have a key,” I told him. “Come on,” I said, turning and starting to walk back to the subway.

The gym was open seven days a week, but my mom closed early two nights a week, so she could have something resembling down time.

“Do you work out after hours?” Anthony said as I unlocked the security gate, then hit the button to lift it.

“No. I still have a key mostly because I used to work here for years,” I told him.

“Really? So arms dealing wasn’t always your career path?”

“No,” I said, the word a little more clipped than I’d intended for it to be. But I knew that if I didn’t put an end to the topic, he would keep asking things. And I was worried that he might be the one person I would actually tell all about how I ended up in this profession.

I couldn’t let that happen.

“Try not to break a kneecap running into any of the equipment,” I teased as we walked into the darkened gym.

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