Page 22 of Lone Star Secrets

Her smile stayed in place a moment longer, but it and the heat in her eyes tamped back down. “I’m going to apologize. I consider that a sort of air clearing. I was thinking about doing it, and I figured if I didn’t, then I’d just keep thinking about it, and this need for you would continue to build and—”

He stopped her with a kiss. And, yes, it was a mistake. Even though he thought it was a mistake worth making.

Angel kissed her the way she’d kissed him, and he let the pleasure fill him. Let it tease his senses. Let him forget for just a second or two that all was not right with their world. It was that reminder of the not right that had him moving back and meeting her gaze.

“Tit for tat?” she questioned. “Or is the tit for later?”

Shit. He laughed. The sound burst out of him before he could stop it, and then he remembered something that he’d stomped down all these years. Mia had been one of the few people who’d ever made him laugh.

“We need to be serious,” he said, mainly to himself, and he got a little help with the mood shift because his monitor dinged.

“Incoming report,” Danno announced.

And just like that, the lighthearted moment was lost, and their moods shifted back to the business at hand.

The report appeared on the wall monitor, joining the other half dozen reports he’d gotten in the past couple of hours. This one was on Kenton’s mother, Aileen. Unlike some of the others, this one wasn’t long. Probably because the woman had died when she’d been just thirty.

“Kenton was two when she died,” Mia muttered as she read through the details. “Complications from an ectopic pregnancy. No criminal record. She was a preschool teacher.” She paused, looked at him. “So, why would she marry a sleazeball like Dwight? Because, unlike Birdie’s husband, Dwight didn’t have money, not then and not now.”

Angel knew sometimes there was no logic. Sometimes, there was no common ground. No external motivation.

Only the heat of attraction.

He knew that firsthand with Mia.

But the difference was he wasn’t an asshole like Dwight. So, Angel kept looking, and he saw something that might make sense of things.

“Aileen and Dwight had a baby who died of SIDS.” He pointed to that part of the report. “When she was barely nineteen,” he tacked onto that, and he searched for another date. “A baby that was born five months after they married. So, I’m guessing she got pregnant and decided to try to make a go of it with her baby’s father.”

“Yes,” Mia murmured. “That’s probably it. So, did Kenton keep staying with Dwight right after his mom died?”

“No.” Angel shifted to one of the other reports. One that he’d run around midnight on the full bio of both Kenton and Dwight. “His mom’s sister took care of Kenton for about a year. When she had a child of her own, she passed him along to another relative. An elderly cousin. That cycle continued with two more relatives until Kenton was nine, and he was placed in foster care because, at the time, CPS couldn’t locate Dwight.”

The moment Angel finished telling Mia that, his phone rang, and when he saw it was from Presley, he answered it right away.

“Blunt force trauma,” Presley immediately said. “A blow to the head. That’s what the ME believes was the cause of Kenton’s death.”

“Not stabbing,” Angel murmured.

“Doesn’t look that way, but, of course, the forensic anthropologists will have the final say on that. Still, I’ve gotten a look at the pictures of the injury, and the back of his head was caved in.”

That damage could have happened postmortem, but there must have been enough compelling evidence for the ME to suggest it as the cause of death.

“How’d you get to see the pictures?” Angel asked. “Aren’t the cops freezing you out?”

“Some are, but Ruby managed to pull some strings. I’m at headquarters right now with her.”

Hell. Did that mean Ruby knew everything? Angel didn’t get a chance to speculate about that.

“I know Presley and you aren’t killers,” Ruby said, her voice coming through loud and clear. “And, no, Presley didn’t spill anything, but I can often add two and two and come up with the correct answer of four.”

And apparently that’s what she had done. Angel just stayed quiet and let her continue.

“My techs also told me about the knife. The one with your foster sister’s blood on it,” Ruby went on. “That’s connected to all of this, I’m sure, and I’m equally sure you’ll explain the connection to me. First though, I need you to tell me something. Do you know who killed Kenton Barker?”

“I don’t,” Angel said, “and neither does Mia or Presley.”

“Finally, we’re getting somewhere,” Ruby muttered. “So, either someone in the house or someone with access to it killed Kenton and buried him. Since it was Birdie’s blood on the knife, is she your main suspect?”

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