Page 35 of Fast Kill

He turned back to her. “Sorry to show up again unannounced, but I just thought you… Are you okay?”Of course she’s not okay. Look at her.

“I’m…” She let out a frustrated sigh and opened the door wider. “You want to come in for a bit?”

“Yeah, sure.” He noted how she quickly locked the door behind him. Something had her spooked, and he wanted to find out what the hell it was.

“Come on in.” She headed for the kitchen, her spine stiff beneath the cream-colored top tucked into that snug pencil skirt that hugged her hips and ass to perfection.

Stop staring at her ass. She’s upset about something.

Logan took off his boots and followed her. The first thing that hit him was how clean everything was.

No, not just clean. Immaculate. Not a single dish on the counter or in the sink. As he glanced around, he saw the rest of the place was the same. Neat and devoid of clutter to the point of painful.

Taylor grabbed a cloth from the edge of the sink and began wiping down the already gleaming countertops. “You hungry?”

“No, I’m good. Thanks.” He wasn’t sure how to ask her what was going on.

She hurriedly wiped down the last counter and set the cloth on the divider between the double sink. “Sorry. Go have a seat and rest your leg.”

He glanced over at the pristine white couches in the living room, a little hesitant because he might muss them up, but he did as she said. She followed him in, paused to straighten the already straight pile of books she had stacked on the coffee table. Sudoku books, which he guessed was an accountant’s idea of fun.

Taylor sat on the couch opposite him, curling her bare legs up under her and tucking her hands in her lap. Even the way she sat was neat and tidy.

She gave him a small frown. “So…why did you come over?”

“You seemed upset at my place, so I wanted to make sure you were okay. I didn’t call, because I figured you just wouldn’t answer.”

The hint of a smile played around the corners of her mouth. “You’re not wrong.”

“You also seemed worried when I got here. So what’s going on?”

She looked down at her lap and began picking at an invisible piece of lint on her skirt. “An old friend showed up uninvited and unannounced, and it stirred up a lot of things best left in the past.”

His hackles went up. “He was just here?”

She nodded. “Left a few minutes before you got here.”

“You were worried he’d come back.” Maybe Logan should take a look around the neighborhood, just to be sure the dude had left.

Another nod.

“Who is he?”

She pushed to her feet and began moving around the room, fiddling with a stack of books in the bookshelf, repositioning things she’d placed on the shelves. And she didn’t look at him once while she did it. “Dillon. He was my foster brother.”

Foster brother? “How long ago was this?”

“I was thirteen when he left. We’d lived together for just under three years.”

“And he just showed up tonight out of the blue?”

“No.” She stopped, seemed to struggle with herself before continuing, still avoiding looking his way. “We’ve kept in touch off and on through the years, mostly through a social worker we were both close to.”

So she’d been a foster kid too? He didn’t dare ask about it, afraid she’d stop talking.

“It’s been years since we last spoke, but apparently he called the social worker and asked for my number, because he was in town, heard I moved here, and wanted to get together. I agreed to meet him for dinner. He cancelled on me last night, which was why I went over to Jamie and Charlie’s for a while. When I got home, he was here waiting for me.”

She didn’t sound happy about it, and Logan didn’t like where this was heading. Way fucking creepy.