Page 17 of 3rd Tango
Except, this is business that includes my mother. That alone is enough to douse my lust. Throw in Mom’s obsession with her neighbor and I might as well be a nun. I can feel my eggs drying up already.
“Let’s get to work,” I say.
Work now, canoodling later.
Jerome rolls his eyes. “I take back what I said about you being fun.”
“There’s time later for that. Now, I need to help my mother.” I point at the folder I’ve just handed him. “That’s the first batch. We’ll each take half.”
“What are we doing with them?”
“Research. Whatever you can find. I’d start with determining where they are now. If they’ve been caught and are incarcerated, see where.”
He flips the folder open and peruses the first page. “What will that tell us?”
“I’m not sure yet. We’ll figure out who’s still at-large and who isn’t. Then we’ll see if any are from Virginia. We know Gayle was in Virginia on three separate weekends in 1995.”
“A lot of people visit there.”
“Within fourteen miles of a burial site? Three women, all strangled and wrapped in garbage bags?” I shake my head. “Sorry, handsome. That’s not flying.”
Jerome lets out a low whistle. “I see your point.”
“Exactly.”
He looks down at the open folder again. “So I’m looking for any Virginia connection.”
“Yes.”
I watch him for a few seconds, taking in his long eyelashes and straight nose. The way his shaggy hair curls around his cheeks.
I love him.
Probably always have.
It’s terrifying and yet it’s as if sunlight on a winter day has burst through a cloud inside me. I’ve always known I felt…something. Even admitted to myself it was love, just not the I-will-take-a-bullet kind that has eluded me for so long.
Now?
No denying it. Not to myself anyway. Whether I’m willing to let Jerome in on that secret is another matter. Our connection is deep. I’ve even used the L word with him before, but not in this context. We’ve skirted around it by saying how much we care and that we’d be miserable without the other, yada, yada.
Hell, I could say that about my sister or Matt. I love them both also.
So, Jerome? Yes, he knows. He just doesn’t understand the extent of it.
“You’re staring,” he says, his gaze still locked on his folder.
I am indeed. “Sorry.”
No, I’m not.
I give up on thoughts of love and Jerome’s eyelashes and dig into my own folder.
An hour later, we’ve barely said two words and my ambition for this project is starting to wane. Plus, I have a fatigue headache brewing behind my right eye. Soon, I’ll need a quick ten-minute mediation to give my mind and body time to recharge.
But I’m making progress. I’ve researched five of my eight fugitives. Four are locked up and one, a money launderer, is probably living on his ill-gotten gains and exploring the South Pacific in a sixty-foot sailboat.
I flip the page and say hello to one Christopher “Sven” Svenson, a thirty-two-year-old bank robber wanted in four states. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Missouri.
