Page 27 of The Negotiator

Her brain had been wrapped in a haze that afternoon. She’d texted Garrett, which secretly thrilled her, but the shock of Carl’s sudden disappearance hadn’t worn off. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember each step she’d taken when she walked out of the house that day.

Garrett froze. “What?”

“I don’t always turn it on.”

“Why have the damn thing?” All emotion left Garrett’s face, but he could yell. Boy, could he yell.

“I was with you and...” Well, crap. When both men continued to look at her as if she needed a reality check, she finished the thought. “I felt safe.”

Garrett shook his head. “You’re killing me here.”

She didn’t think he meant it in the sexy way. She got the distinct impression he was struggling to hold on to his temper.

Matthias shot Garrett a quick glance before looking at her again. “At least we have a possible way for someone to get in that doesn’t incriminate you.”

The room started to spin. The dizziness hit her out of nowhere and she grabbed for the chair to keep from falling over. “Is that an issue?”

“Your house. Your dead husband.”

Matthias did like to boil things down to their essence. Right now she would have preferred a little tact. “When you put it that way...”

“It kind of reinforces the need to use that alarm, doesn’t it?” Garrett added a sigh at the end, as if she needed further confirmation that he was ticked off.

Message received.The painful gut-kicking part of this was she didn’t know why Carl had snuck back to her house or who had followed him. But if she’d turned on the alarm, it was possible neither of them could have gotten in. Carl might still be alive.

That truth brought a whole new wave of guilt crashing into her. “It does now.”

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