Page 48 of Cold Case Murder Mystery

And what the real consequences would be from angry men with more weapons than sense, and so much anger and bitterness it had stamped out any empathy they’d been born with.

It was never simple, and almost always involved the outsized egos of awful men.

“It won’t be the Sons,” Zeke said, trying not to be too aware of the fact he wore nothing but boxers and she was sitting on his bed in a dark room late at night. And it would only take peeling that sheet away for them to be touching.

The desperate, pounding need to touch her would have been distracting if he wasn’t such a professional. Or so he told himself.

“They don’t have that kind of reach anymore,” he continued. “But there are other groups, other ways for a man to wield control from prison. I don’t like it. Royal’s right. You’rebothin danger and targets, until we figure out exactly where this threat is coming from.”

“This isn’t what you signed up for.”

For a moment, he just stared at her shadow. Did she really not understand? “Brooke. You can’t be serious. I signed up foryou.”

She didn’t say anything, and he couldn’t see her expression in the dim room. When she didn’t attempt to speak at all, he set out to reassure her. “YouandRoyal are safe here. We’ll make sure of it.”

She took one of her long, careful inhales. Let it out slowly. It reminded him too much of a time long gone, when she was just... in his life. In his bed. He’d wake up or fall asleep to her doing her deep breathing, so sure it “centered” her.

Still, she said nothing. Still, she sat on his bed.

Zeke waited for whatever else there was, but she just... never said anything else.

“This... couldn’t have waited until morning?” He wasn’t about to lie to himself. He was prodding.

“I suppose it could have. But I can’t stop my brain from whirling in the same ridiculous circles, and I just couldn’t lay there anymore marinating in my own... unsolvable problems. So, I figured I’d tell you.”

“Ah.” He waited. She didn’t leave. Didn’t offer anything else. “Well, you’ve told me.”

“Yes,” she agreed. And didn’t so much as shift a muscle as if considering getting up.

He had a few options. The smart one would be to maintainhissilence. Wait for her to say whatever she wanted to say, do whatever she wanted to do.

Had he ever been able to maintainsmartwhen it came to her? No. Because even when he’d made what had felt like the right decision at the time to put distance between them years ago, he’d handled it badly. He’d hurt herbadly.

If he was smart, if he was strong, if he was actually any of the things he prided himself on being, he’d have the control to keep his mouth shut.

But he was nothing he thought he was or wanted to be when it came to her. “Are you trying to tell me you came down here looking for a distraction?”

She made a little noise. Not quite a laugh, but close. “Maybe.” She shifted. She touched his chest and flattened her palm over his heart. “Yes, that is what I’m saying. Going to kick me out?”

He circled his fingers around her wrist, pulled her into him. Over him. “I’d be your distraction a million times over, Brooke. No questions asked.”

And he spent the night keeping that promise.

Chapter Fifteen

Zeke woke up while it was still dark out, with an empty side of the bed. For a moment, he just stared. The room was dim, but he could make out the rumpled sheets, the indentation in the pillow on that side. A faint floral scent lingering in the air.

He hadn’t dreamed it. Probably.

But where had she gone?

He got up, pulled on some clothes, and went in search of her. Not because he needed her to have some sort of postmortem, discuss what this was, what this meant. Just because he had to know she was okay.

At least, that’s what he convinced himself of as he moved through the living room, the kitchen. He was about to get really desperate and creep upstairs to see if she’d gone to sleep in her own bed, but he noticed the front door was unlocked.

He’d checked all the locks at least three times last night before she’d come down to his room.

Surely that meant she’d left the house on her own accord. Maybe she’d gone to the barn to work in her lab. But her purse was right there and a quick look through it told him her key to the barn door was still in it.

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