Page 46 of Better Watch Out

“Gosh you’re loud,” Ramirez chuckles to the husky, holding his hands out for Sitka to sniff. “Sorry to bother you this morning, Miss Maxwell.” He smiles brightly at me but I just tilt my head, studying him.

“You woke me up,” I admit, letting go of Sitka now that she has no reason to sound the alarm. Apparently the two detectives aren’t her idea of interesting, and I hear her thump back up the stairs seconds later. “I was sort of panicking and thought my dadwas here already.” I have no reason to lie, after all. And the truth makes for a better story anyway.

Except for the part about being woken up by them, of course.

“We’re headed back to Albany,” Detective Harper tells me after a brief hesitation. She removes her glasses, revealing dark, unfriendly eyes set over her flat, unfriendly mouth. “But we thought we’d stop by. You know. Just to see if there’s anything you thought of that you wanted to tell us.”

Now I get why they think I might know something about the murders last year, and it makes irritation spike through me. Howdarethey use my own prior ignorance of the victims’ identities against me? They’d clearly read about what happened back at SIU. Theyknowwhat those three did to me.

Yet they’d elected to keep me in the dark to maintain the upper hand.

“I’m really sorry officers.” I shrug, a hapless smile curling over my lips just as Ramirez corrects me, the worddetectivesrolling off his tongue with practiced ease. “Right, gosh, I’m so sorry. It’s early as hell and I am just really out of it.”

Ramirez looks at me, studying my face like he’s looking for the right thing to say, but I just smile brightly at him and don’t give him the chance.

“I don’t have anything for you, so I just hate that you came all the way up here. I’ll be honest, the roads up here suck and I literally panic anytime I have to drive in or out of town.” Folding my arms, I lean against the doorframe, refusing to look away from them or give them any cause to think I’m hiding anything. “But I really don’t know anything. The last year or so was pretty hard for me.” My voice turns a bit cool around the edges, because I know they’re aware of this story.

Which makes this all seem a bit predatory.

“I wasn’t in any condition to come up here last winter. And I was trying to stay away from things that might umm…triggerme, you know?” It’s true enough that I can make it sound vulnerable, and I look down as if it’s too hard to really talk about. “So no, I really don’t have anything for you. I’m so sorry, though. I feel really bad that you came up here?—”

“It’s fine.” Ramirez doesn’t sound so friendly anymore. Instead he sounds frustrated and exasperated. I can’t help but wonder if I was his last lead. Hisonlylead.

And then it makes me wonder just how good my stepbrothers are at hiding their tracks.

Just how practiced.

I miss the first part of whatever Ramirez says next, but I do catch the end of it so I’m not caught off guard when he reaches out with his card pinched between two fingers. Taking it, I nod my head sympathetically.

“Yeah, absolutely,” I agree. “If I think of anything or hear anything I’ll call you, no problem. Have a safe trip back. Do you want anything? I may or may not have a lifetime supply of chocolate milk here…” My offer is declined, just like I’d expected it to be, but I stay leaning on the doorframe with my bare feet getting cold as they backtrack to their SUV, only narrowly avoid hitting Fletcher’s truck on their way down the long driveway.

Closing the door at last, I turn to face the living room, where Boone sits on the couch playing with Sitka. From the kitchen I can hear Fletcher’s voice, and it sounds like he’s on the phone.

“They’ll never know it was us. We were really good with this one.” Boone doesn’t look up when he says it, and I cross the room to sit down beside him, a bit of unease prickling up my spine. Cautiously I turn to look at him, a surge of affection and trepidation crawling along my insides.

“Did you guys really mean it?” I ask, reaching out to comb my fingers through his addictively soft hair. It prompts him to look at me, and he tilts his head, wordlessly asking me to clarify.

“Did we mean what, princess?” Fletcher sits down on my other side, leaning in close so he can throw an arm over my shoulders, his thigh a solid line against my own.

“All of it,” I reply. “That you love me in a…not so sibling-like way?”

“Yeah,” Boone promises, answering before Fletcher can. He reaches out, twining his fingers with mine. “We definitely mean that.”

“What about the other part?” I swallow my nerves, knowing Ihaveto ask. “That you can’t change. That you’ll kill again?” I want to know more. I want to know thewho, thewhy, thewhen, and thewhere.At the same time, I don’t think I do.

“Yes.” Fletcher reaches up to grip my throat, pressing me back into the back of the couch. “We are what we are. And we can’t change that.”

“Did you mean what you said about letting me leave? If I really wanted to?” I almost don’t ask, but really I have to. The words won’t stay bottled up as my heart races in my chest.

They look at each other, a silent conversation passing between them. “Do you actually want to leave?” Boone asks at last, and I squirm in my seat with both of their eyes on mine.

“No.” The word is barely audible. “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Fletcher’s fingers stroke over my throat and he studies my face while Boone leans in to rest his chin on my shoulder. They’re warm and safe, but more than that, they’redangerous.

Their warmth is both a promise and a cage, though I can’t decide if it’s one I want to get out of or close the door and throw away the key to make sure I can never leave.

“We’d…try,” Fletcher admits with a wry grin. “I’d make sure we tried.”

“But we might not succeed,” Boone growls in my ear, reaching out to wrap his fingers over my thigh. “So we’d have to keep trying, I guess. Over and over.”

“Until you never want to leave again,” Fletcher finishes.

Somehow it’s the answer I expect, and my heart speeds up a little to remind me this is a bad idea. But I take a breath, refusing to let this freak me out.

“It’s a good thing I’m willing to stay then. Totry. But…” I bite my lip and reach up to grip Fletcher’s wrist and tangle my fingers in Boone’s hair. “You’re welcome to work on convincing me to stay. You both probably need the practice, and I probably need the reassurance.” I barely get to finish my words before Fletcher’s mouth is on mine, and Boone is nipping at my throat, their hands finding every bit of skin they can and already searching for more.

Like they need to show me, again, that I’mtheirs.

Until I really do want to stay wherever they are, no matter what it is they do.

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