Page 30 of Long Way Down

She earned a chorus of “okay”s and realized, as she offered a tight smile and wave, that she had a massive headache forming behind her eyes. She must have made a face, because Contreras touched her shoulder to get her attention.

“I’m gonna call Jeff and see if he’s got anything new. You want a coffee?”

Ordinarily, she would have insisted on going with him and paying for her own, but in the moment, she said, “God, yes. Venti Americano, please.”

“You got it.”

She slumped down and rested her elbows on the table when he was gone; dropped her head forward to massage at her temples and eyebrows. It had been a long day on her feet and in uncomfortable chairs and car seats, with no sleep the night before. She needed a nap, but would settle for a massive slug of caffeine.

“I have aspirin,” a low, velvet-edged voice said nearby, and she startled upright.

Somehow, in the shuffle of the students leaving, she hadn’t noticed that Tobias had stayed behind. Had Contreras? How had either of them missed him there in the corner, in the fall of smeared window light, lovely as a Roman painting draped in a modern aesthetic?

God, that waswaytoo fanciful.

He smiled. “Sorry. I thought you knew I was still here.”

“I did,” she lied. “Don’t you have class?”

“Not for another hour. My first class of the day got cancelled. Prof’s sick.”

“Ah,” she said, tonelessly, and remembered to blink, finally.

His bag lay on the table, and he fished out a small, white bottle that rattled when he shook it. “I have aspirin,” he repeated. “If you’ve got a headache.”

“No, thanks.” Fanciful thoughts aside, she wasn’t so enamored that she’d take already-open medication from an interviewee.

Hell: potential suspect. No one had been ruled out yet, and Tobias had admitted to working with paint.

An image of the Post-It filled her mind, orange and creased, its slanted all-caps message pressed hard into the paper with a ballpoint pen. Could the man sitting across from her have written that? Folded it up, carried it in his pocket, and left it tucked inside Lana’s panties after he brutally violated her?

She couldn’t see it. Maybe because she thought he was pretty.

Maybe because her instincts were right, here.

She had to be so, so careful. Was hyper aware of her own flaws in a way that she normally was able to shove aside on the job.

When she continued to stare at him, he frowned, slightly, though it didn’t lessen the warmth in his gaze. “You sure you don’t want some?” He gave the aspirin bottle another rattle.

She nodded. “I didn’t know Lana was an artist. I saw the artwork in her apartment. Is it hers?”

“Some of it. She’s got some pieces from friends, and some she bought online, but a lot of it’s hers, from what I could see when I was over there.”

“I won’t pretend I know anything about art,” she said, and for some reason that made him smile, a slow, easy spread of lips over straight, white teeth. “But it seemed like she’s pretty good. Her work was – colorful,” she decided on, recalling bursts of yellow, red, and ocean blue, incongruous with the evidence of violence sprawled across the floor.

He visibly brightened. “Yeah, she’s into pop art. Lots of bright colors. She’s played around with some comic panels – online fandom commissions, she said – and she’s definitely talented. One of her profs is urging her to go into animation.”

“Wow.” Melissa felt her brows go up. “Then what’s she – what are any of you – doing in an econ class?”

He pushed his hair back, which was – distracting. Between the light glinting in his hair, and the flexing of his arm inside his sleeve, she said a silent, stern admonishment to her libido. What was the problem? She needed to get laid, apparently.

Pongo’s earlier text flashed in her mind.Hang out. Yeah, something was gonna be out, alright.

“Well, as much as we love art, it doesn’t really pay the bills,” he said, growing a little sheepish. It was cute on his sun-lined, masculine face. “I think everybody in any of the arts dreams about making their own schedule, and staying true to their craft. Sleeping in and late nights drinking champagne with fabulous people. But the reality is a lot bleaker. We all have to either learn how to make the most of the business opportunities art offers – Angie and Maren wanna open their own studio and teach art to bored, rich housewives – or get a real job and practice art on the weekends.” He shrugged. “Guess I’m open to either. Paintings sure aren’t selling.”

She wanted to ask him a personal question. Or two, or three. Older than his classmates, college and painting hadn’t been his focus in his late teens/early twenties, obviously. Had he started in the corporate world and gotten burned out? Found his passion for art later than the others? Served in the military? He had the arms for it…

She asked none of it, but her gaze betrayed her – stayed fixed to him too long, tracing the lines of throat, and collarbones, and arms.Looking, and not in a professional way.

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