Page 69 of Colton's Secret Weapon
“What about the spit on my father’s clothes? Did they get a DNA sample from him? Couldn’t they hold him until they get those results?”
Mitchell just looked at her. Deeply. And she felt the crush of a hopeful day gone bad. “The ABI forensics lab ran a fast DNA test while he was in custody. It wasn’t a match.”
Feeling sick, wishing she hadn’t eaten the tuna he’d brought her at lunch time, she said, “So he’s paying cash and using prepaid phones to hire whoever is helping him.”
“It looks that way.”
Mitchell pulled a chair in from the hall and moved hers over next to it. Sat down. Clearly intending to sit with her. Seemingly for as long as she needed.
Dove slid down to the floor, with her back to the wall, legs in the lotus position, and closed her eyes.
If ever there was a time she needed an awareness of her spirits, of her inner ability to maintain ownership of herself and give her strength, it was then.
Because all she really wanted to do was crawl onto Mitchell’s lap, feel his arms holding her close and cry.
Mitchell had Dove for another night. She’d eaten at the hospital, having ordered in, and he’d had dinner with Eli. Mostly to get his head on straight.
Older brothers had a way of homing in on any nonsense in kid brothers and knocking it right out of them.
They’d met at The Cove, mainly because Mitchell was at St. James Boats after finishing the merger paperwork with his physician clients and intended to return there after dinner as well, until Dove was ready to head home. And The Cove was close.
It was also quiet. Something he needed at the moment. The quiet. A lack of noise in his head so he could find the logic in his current situation.
That’s where he’d expected Eli to come in, but the major-case lieutenant had been oddly moot on any mention of Dove St. James other than to mention how impressive her defense against her attacker had been that morning. And to ask how she was doing.
No ribbing Mitchell. And worse, no asking him what in the hell he thought he was doing with Dove St. James. Not even a mention of how out of character it was for Mitchell to be staying so closely involved with the case.
Not that he blamed his brother. With Dawn Ellis now missing, in addition to the three unidentified female bodies on slabs, Eli would be fully engrossed in the case and beating himself up to catch the killer before anyone else got hurt.
Dove had called not long after he’d left Eli and had talked about her father all the way home. Almost as though she couldn’t allow a moment for any other conversation to happen between them. Because she was avoiding the possibility of more bad news?
Or didn’t want to talk about whether or not they’d have sex again that night?
He studied her face when he stopped at a light, trying to figure out where she was at, but read nothing at all. Her expression was blank.
So he asked questions. Found out that Whaler had woken once before dinner. Had eaten the soft foods given to him, bitching about them the entire time, and then yelled at the game show he’d watched on the television.
Sensing there was so much more, hating that the woman was so used to dealing with every part of life alone—picturing his huge family, all leaning on each other, to the point of irritation sometimes—and wanted to bring Dove in. To let her know that she didn’t have to carry the weight on her shoulders by herself.
To that end, as they neared his house, he asked, “How many times did he unload on you?”
He’d heard the abrasive greeting with which Whaler had greeted her the first time that day. Had witnessed the way she’d just taken it and then held his hand, without a single word to let him know that he’d been out of line. And had been wondering ever since if she’d grown up with that kind of verbal abuse.
If so, his respect for and good opinion of Bob St. James had just gone down the toilet.
“I didn’t count,” she told him, not even sending him a brief glance. Nor was she watching the world passing around them. Just kept staring out the front window. With the sun already set but dusk not fully settled in, there was still a lot to see out there.
Clearly her mind was focused elsewhere.
And he was guessing it wasn’t on sex again. Not that he blamed her for that. To the contrary, he was a little sickened by himself going there, under the current circumstances.
But eased his conscience a little bit with the knowledge that he wasn’t just thinking about his own pleasure, or lack thereof. He knew he could bring the woman a good deal of pleasure—with sex. And have a chance to hold her, too, without her feeling as though she was seeking comfort from anyone.
Like doing so was some kind of mortal sin.
Her comments about sex, with her including no commitment and no expectations, were starting to sound loudly in his ears. She hadn’t just been talking about sex.
Dove St. James had been talking about a way of life.
