Page 39 of Fluffed and Folded

This time when she woke, it was with a sharp breath and another, “Asher.”

“No, Eli. The potato, remember?”

The reminder did nothing to make her smile or even relax. Instead she reached for his hand, gripping it surprisingly tightly. “Asher.”

“No, it’s Eli.”

“Asher,” she repeated again, looking even more urgent. With her free hand, she beckoned Eli closer. He leaned in, straining to reach her over the awkwardness off the bed between them.

“Darby, it’s okay,” he tried, but she must be caught in a moment of delirium because there was no recognition in her eyes, not of him or her surroundings.

“Don’t let him hurt me,” she begged.

“You’re safe,” he tried, but it did nothing to soothe her. She whimpered, leaning farther into the bed, her next words a broken whisper.

“Don’t let him kill me.”

CHAPTER 22

“So, Elyse can be all the way in Maine and send you this information?” Josie confirmed. She sat on Tristan’s lap as he surveyed the files on his computer, cutting bubble wrap into precise squares. “Sensory counting activity,” she informed his inquisitive expression.

“Yup,” he answered her earlier question. “Basically she can work from anywhere.”

“Huh. Why didn’t you go into that line of work?”

“Because I have an equal chance of hacking computers and joining the Russian ballet. Also, I don’t want to be anywhere else.” He gave her a little squeeze.

She paused cutting to stare at his profile. “Swooney swoon,” she muttered, and he had to press back a laugh. “For the record, you could totally hack computers. I believe in you.”

That earned a look. “But not the ballet?”

“Probably yes, but I don’t want other women staring at you in tights.”

“I’ll take it,” he said, giving her another squeeze as he returned his attention to the screen. Elyse had managed to tap all the cameras in the area. Washington DC was the fourth highest surveilled city in the nation, a fact most people failedto realize. Like it or not, the city’s inhabitants were almost always on camera. There was no direct line onto the apartment complex, but a program Elyse wrote combined all the cameras in the area and filtered everything down to likely or suspicious candidates for him to review, funneling what would have been days of work into a few minutes of clicking. The human element—Tristan—used his cop instinct to distill it further, writing down a few license plates to research, memorizing a few faces to track. There was one car, a blue sedan, parked too close to the complex for too long, but it was after Asher’s murder. Suspicious, but not relevant. Tomorrow he would begin to hunt them down and either rule them out or add them to his suspect list. For now…

“How would you feel about mingling with the neighbors?”

He barely got the words out before Josie tossed aside her work and reached for her shoes. “Bam, I’m ready.”

“You are so not,” he said, kneeling to fix her shoes, which she’d shoved on the wrong feet. It was perpetually awe-inspiring to him that the things that made them so different failed to annoy him. Rather, he was thankful that Josie was so wholeheartedly ready to leave the apartment and embrace humanity, while he preferred to stay inside and shun it.

They went back to the courtyard and sat by the pool again. As before, it didn’t take long for one of the other residents to find them. This time two of them arrived, Anthony and Dex. Despite the cool temperature, Anthony wore only a speedo. As someone who ran hot, Tristan could have believed Anthony didn’t mind the cold, except the fact that he couldn’t stop shivering. And since his physique was comparatively lacking, the attire didn’t seem to be for the sake of showing his muscles, presenting Tristan with a mystery. Was he self-deluded enough to believe the speedo made him seem macho? Did he not realize the tiny garment instead made him look like a chihuahua on ice?

“’Sup,” Anthony said, giving them a nod that lingered a bit too long and with too much interest on Josie. Tristan shifted. If his biceps rippled menacingly, it was an unconscious gesture. Mostly. In any case it worked to rip Anthony’s attention off Josie and onto him.

“The new guy,” Dex said, adding his own nod. The two men sat in the adjoining lounges. “And his sister?”

“Girlfriend,” Josie corrected, easing slightly closer to Tristan’s hovering presence. There was something a little uncomfortable about one or both of the men. Tristan couldn’t pinpoint what it was, nor which of them gave it off.

“You took Asher’s place,” Anthony said. “Dude.”

“We heard he died,” Tristan said, deciding to skip the small talk and get right to it.

“Not died. Murdered,” Dex said.

Tristan dipped his head in acknowledgement, while Josie shivered. Though whether that was in response to Dex’s pronouncement or the chill in the air, he couldn’t say. Maybe both things. Whatever the reason, it prompted him to give up the pretense of space between them. He shifted Josie easily onto his chair and anchored his arm around her. She nestled gratefully in response, giving one last tiny shiver.

“What do you guys think happened?” Josie said. “Nobody we’ve talked to so far has any insight.” The way she tipped her head artlessly made it appear that these two yokels might have deep insight, despite the fact that one of them wore a tiny neon diaper.

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