Page 9 of Into the Veins

The soup sputtered behind her, but Blair had completely forgotten about their dinner the past few minutes. She only had attention for Colson. She gripped the wooden spatula in her hand. How many other dreams had he planned on fulfilling as a kid? “Do you still have the notebook?”

“Would it be weird if I said I never go anywhere without it?” he asked.

“Not at all.” He’d held onto his childhood journal all this time. There was something kind of sweet in that. What she wouldn’t give to read the most secretive parts of this man. Shock twisted in her gut, and she dug her thumbnail into the handle of the spatula.

Learning about Colson’s childhood fantasies had nothing to do with Rachel Faulkner’s death. She had to remember that. Turning back to the pot on the stove before her hard work evaporated from over boiling, Blair gave the soup a stir before adding the egg noodles she’d measured out. She’d invited him to stay because he hadn’t been able to get to his vehicle, and the information he’d gathered on the victim would save her time. Nothing more. She cleared her throat, walling her ridiculous interest behind her carefully constructed guard. “You must already have your next adventure planned.”

Although, from the look of his financial records, it wouldn’t happen anytime soon. Not unless his client agreed to pay Colson’s investigation fee. One last case before he moved on. Fitting it’d be with her considering her resentment of his entire profession. So why then did the idea of not being able to work another case with him intensify the hollowness in her chest? They didn’t know each other—not really— and they probably never would. At least, not enough to become friends. His spontaneity, playfulness, his impatience—none of it reflected in her life. They were complete opposites in every way that mattered. His optimism to her realism. Her discipline to his uninhibited impulsiveness. It didn’t make sense. They wouldn’t make sense, as partners or anything else.

“I’m going to sail around the world.” Enthusiasm raised the tenor of his voice.

“Wow. That’s…incredible.” She didn’t know what else to say, what to think. “I didn’t see anything in your long list of careers about sailing. Another one of your boyhood dreams?”

“Yeah.” His laugh permeated through the crack in her apprehension widening from his boyish journal admission. There was a charm in his demeanor she hadn’t expected. Of all the private investigators she’d acquainted herself with over the years, none of them had broken past her armor. But Colson had slid onto her scene, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. “I have no idea what I’m doing, but that’s never stopped me before. I’ve got a boat lined up, three months’ worth of supplies, and all the time in the world once we close this case.”

Right. The case. Blair scooped a single noodle from the pot and bit off the end, satisfied the soup was finally ready. She made quick work of ladling dinner into two of her handmade ceramic bowls and slid a serving in front of him. Steam clouded his expression, providing her just enough time to remind herself why they were here—together—in the first place. He had information. She needed that information. “Were you able to do anymore digging into Rachel Faulkner’s social media accounts for the message the husband claimed she’d received?”

The roguish quirk of his mouth that’d sent her nervous system into overdrive vanished as Colson swirled his spoon through carrots, celery, chicken, and noodles. The playful dreamer had vanished. In its place, the private investigator she understood how to handle. “I’ve gone through all of Rachel’s active social media profiles, texts, deleted messages, email. Nothing in there that would’ve made her as upset as the husband claimed.”

“What about inactive profiles or accounts she hasn’t made public? It’s possible the accounts Rachel used recently might not be the same accounts as she’d started with during her career.” The victim was a social media influencer. She’d created a fake persona for the world to obsess, even if it was still under her legal name. Rachel Faulkner spent an inordinate amount of time commenting, liking, posting, sharing, and scrolling to the point her husband had filed for divorce to ask if her family meant more to her than strangers on a screen. “From what Braydon Caddel described, Rachel was an addict. She couldn’t go more than a few minutes at a time without reaching for her phone and checking her accounts. If our victim made an effort to placate her husband, it’s possible she could’ve created profiles her family didn’t know existed or started using old profiles to hide her activity.”

“Should be easy enough to prove.” Colson pushed back from the counter and crossed through her dining room out of sight, and Blair was able to take a full breath. Faster than she wanted, he returned with his phone. Pushing his soup to the side, the private investigator tapped his password. The screen brightened as Colson opened a bright orange app. “We’re in.”

“What do you mean ‘we’re in?’” She stretched over the peninsula as a black background with a white capitol “E” in the background. Rachel Faulkner’s logo. “That’s the same background the victim had on her phone at the scene. Why would you…” Confusion dissipated. “You cloned her phone?”

“Only after CCS was finished with it and determined there wasn’t anything useful.” He raised two fingers toward the sky, palm forward. “Scout’s honor.”

“I highly doubt you were ever a Boy Scout. How did you get past her password?” It would’ve taken her weeks, if not months, to convince one of her contacts in the bureau to decrypt the victim’s passcode.

“Most people who don’t work in law enforcement use the same digits in every area of their lives. Debit card pins, safes, phones, email passwords, tablets—easier to remember, but it’s also easier for someone like me to break into. Rachel’s passcode is the same as her garage door pin.” Colson swiped through the phone, the screen highlighting his features. If he didn’t belong to a group of investigators who were more interested in profit than helping clients, she might’ve considered him attractive. Handsome. He raised his attention to her, that crooked smile back in place. “I take your silence to mean you’re reminding yourself to change all of your passwords as soon as I leave.”

“Not all of them.” She diverted her gaze into her untouched soup and forced her expression to hide the lie. She hastily spooned soup into her mouth to distract herself from the eyes that could see right through her, burning the top of her mouth in the process. Pain erupted down the back of her throat, and Blair spit her mouthful back into her bowl. She tossed the spoon to the counter, the combination of steel and granite loud in her ears, and lunged for the kitchen sink. She twisted on the cold water and dunked her mouth beneath the stream. Her pulse pounded behind her ears as she surfaced. Turning off the water, she stepped back into a wall of muscle. Her heart shot into her throat. Instinct had her reaching for the weapon she normally kept on her hip as a glass slipped from Colson’s hand and shattered at her feet. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” That earthy scent she’d come to rely on tickled the back of her nose. “Milk helps with burns better than water.”

“I think that’s for spicy food. Not hot soup, but I appreciate the effort.” Blair sagged back against the nearest counter, out of breath. Adrenaline drained. She hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen. What was wrong with her?

“Well, here, I can clean this up. Don’t move. You don’t want one of these shards in your foot.” He tugged a kitchen towel from the handle on her oven and got down on all fours. After scooping the glass into a pile, Colson set his hand around her ankle to clean the milk from the top of her foot, and a spike of heat raced up her leg.

Blair forced her gaze to the still lit screen of the phone on the counter. “Did you get anything from Rachel’s phone?”

“I did. Right before you shoved a mouthful of boiling broth into your mouth.” His laugh raised goose pimples along her arms as he set himself back on his heels. “You were right. There’s a ghost account under a different handle in her saved passwords. Looks brand-new. No followers. No friends or profile photo, but there was a private conversation stored in the deleted folder. Looks like our victim received several threatening messages, the last one being two days before she left her estate and got into the mystery SUV outside of her house.”

“That fits the timeline the husband gave us.” Her instincts prickled in excitement and rammed her self-consciousness from Colson’s touch so deep she’d never think of it again. A new lead. “Who sent the threats?”

“The witness who discovered the body,” he said. “Evyn Garder.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Frigid temperatures formed steam clouds in front of their mouths as Colson and Blair treaded up the short sidewalk leading to the suspect’s house.

White trim around the windows and doors stood stark against dark gray siding and brought the two-story home on the outskirts of Kent into the twenty-first century. Dead silence descended as they approached the black front door, and Colson shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.

March in Washington played mind games. Not quite winter, not quite spring, but a combination of the two designed to unhinge and destroy a person who dreamt of sun and sea. Frost clung to the tips of the brown front yard and leafless shrubs perfectly positioned around the wrap-around porch, and a chill slithered through him. At least he hadn’t been relegated to sleeping in his car last night. Colson hunkered deeper into his jacket. “What I wouldn’t give for your chicken noodle soup right now.”

“If this is your attempt to ask me if you can stay another night, I have bad news. I ate all the leftovers after you went to bed.” Blair jogged up the short flight of stairs and compressed the doorbell, followed directly with three quick knocks. A shrill tune echoed from the other side of the door, one of those doorbells that serenaded visitors rather than grated on their nerves.

“The entire pot?” he asked.

---