Page 23 of Silent Threat
“Only every couple of days. Hate feeling groggy the next day.”
Her eyes narrowed for a second, as if she might object, but instead she nodded, then walked through the supple willow branches.
He followed her, the leaves feeling like a caress on his shaved head, like a fond goodbye from the tree.
He bit back a disgusted groan at the thought.Oneecotherapy session, and he was getting as batty as she was. He needed to watch himself around Annie Murray.
He caught up with her as she left the facilities and headed to her car.
When he popped in on the passenger side, her hand hesitated on the key in the ignition.
“While I try to develop a friendship with my patients, I don’t normally take them home with me.”
“Is there a rule against it?”
“Not officially.” The dome light revealed that her eyes were red-rimmed. She’d had a rough week so far.
Cole had been part of it, no doubt. He’d given her plenty of grief yesterday. He bit back a disgusted grunt. He wasn’t fit for human company, dammit. But he wasn’t going to let her go out alone, in the middle of the night.
“I’ll be on my best behavior. I swear. Consider it therapy. Animals are supposed to help with PTSD. Right?”
She turned the key in the ignition. The dome light went out. She reached up to turn it back on. Presumably so he could see if she said something, but she drove out of the parking lot in silence.
“When can you go back home for good?” Cole asked when they were on the road.
She turned slightly, enough so he could read her lips. “I’ll find out tomorrow if the house is structurally sound. Apparently, the bathroom studs rotted away from water that’s been leaking behind the shower tiles for decades.”
Her slim fingers tightened on the wheel. “I seriously want to strangle the home inspector who missed that when I bought the place. I paid him to catch problems like this.”
Lips pressed together, she looked like she might be growling.
What would that sound like?
Cole batted the thought away. “I doubt a woman who wouldn’t break a tree branch in the woods would kill a man. I don’t think you’re the type for cold-blooded murder.”
“Nobody said anything about cold-blooded. Believe me, I feel pretty passionate about him right now.”
Her full lips forming the wordpassionatemade him focus on them more carefully than necessary. She had great lips, fuller on the bottom than on top, almost to the point of looking swollen.
Generous lips.He’d heard the expression before but hadn’t thought about what that might look like, until now. Annie Murray had generous lips. No hardship looking at them at all. And he had carte blanche for staring.
He had to force himself back to the conversation. “Still couldn’t do it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You know a lot about killers?”
“Takes one to know one,” he said noncommittally.
She paled, which was a pretty good trick since she’d been plenty pale already. Her gaze darted to his. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Don’t worry about it. I spent a decade overseas with the navy. We both know I wasn’t baking cupcakes.”
One hundred twenty-five confirmed kills.
They sat in silence as the car rolled through the night, down quaint small-town streets dotted with flower shops and bakeries. The Pennsylvania small town was a lot like Annie: too good to be true, too innocent and untouched.
Cole didn’t trust this kind of purity. It didn’t mesh up with all he’d seen and done in the service. He couldn’t picture belonging in a place like this.
She pulled over on an average-looking residential street, in front of a rancher that looked the same as all the others, except for the construction dumpster that sat by the curb. A yellowDONOTCROSStape had been wrapped around white porch columns, and it flitted in the night breeze.
