Page 27 of Skeletons in the Closet

Of course, that assumed Tallus was interested in a repeat. Which he wasn’t. I’d put a month’s rent on it.

I needed to focus. April and February. Did those dates matter?

I checked my work planner. “Faye said Olivia first came to her house at the end of February. I don’t know if it’s significant.”

“Hang on.” Tallus retrieved his phone and opened the gallery, pulling up the photos he’d taken. He enlarged one of the ones with a link to the newspaper, zeroing in on the top corner. He flipped to the other. “These two emails were both sent to Olivia in early May. When did Noah die?”

“Early May.”

Tallus flipped to the other emails, checking the dates. He paused on the one from the unknown party.

“Who do you think Elusive Bastard is?”

“No clue.”

Tallus read the email out loud. “‘They don’t know. Tell Noah to calm the fuck down. I’m handling it.’ Who’s ‘they?’”

“No clue.”

“And what is he handling?”

“No clue.”

Tallus chuckled. “What do you have a clue about, D?”

I shook my head.

“You’re an odd duck.”

“I know.”

And I needed to work.

Alone.

It took a song and dance, but I finally got Tallus out of the office with promises I would update him if I learned anything. I would do nothing of the sort. When the case was finished, I would pay him for his services as promised. I didn’t need a partner. I didn’t need complications.

But I did miss his energy the second he was gone.

And his mischievous, flirty smile.

And the banter.

And his intoxicating scent.

And those hazel fucking eyes behind those sexy-as-sin glasses.

What I needed was a Tallus substitute who didn’t know my name and would vanish before morning, but no one on Spark came close to filling the bill.

Fuck my life.

This feeling would pass. I knew it would, but it was taking its sweet-ass time.

8

Tallus

“Ten letters. The second and sixth letters areN. Artistic gymnastics event.” Kitty Lavender, my eighty-something-year-old coworker, hovered a sharpened pencil over the newest crossword puzzle we’d been working on. We went through a book a month. It was a great way to pass the time during lulls, and the records department wasn’t exactly a happening place most days.

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