it got under her skin.
Just as he did.
She supposed she was being unfair—but that still didn’t change her reaction.
“It’s the name on the card,” she told him. They stopped at the crime scene one last time. The crime scene investigators were apparently wrapping things up, she thought. That was their cue to leave. “I didn’t want to confuse him. So far, this actor’s our most lucid witness.”
“Or at least he’s playing the part of one,” Abilene commented as they walked over to the centrally located elevator. His comment had her looking at him quizzically and he shrugged. “Hey, he’s an out-of-work actor—they need audiences like most people need air.”
“Speaking from experience?” she asked.
“In a way,” Abilene admitted. “I dated an actress once.” And then he laughed. He’d dated several of them, actually. At different times. Beautiful women with beautiful faces, all clamoring to be used—finding a personal hell on the other side. “Hard not to in this state.”
“Dated an actress,” Kendra repeated. Probably a whole bunch of them, possibly at the same time. He had the charm to pull it off, she decided. If you liked that sort of thing, she couldn’t help adding. “How nice for her,” she commented dryly.
“Nice for both of us,” he said, then added with a smile, “Short and sweet.”
Something in his voice caught Kendra’s attention— and, though she wouldn’t have admitted it in so many words, it also aroused her curiosity, among other things she chose not to explore.
“Is that a requirement with you? ‘Short and sweet’?” she repeated when he just looked at her.
His mouth curved devilishly. “As a matter of fact, yes, it is.”
She’d been right about him, she thought as she got in behind the wheel of the Crown Victoria. Abilene was a player, trading on his exceedingly good looks and satisfying his appetite whenever the spirit moved him. She bet it moved him a lot.
“Where to now?” he asked as he buckled his seat belt.
“Back to the precinct to see what kind of information we can find about the late Summer Miller.” She turned on the ignition. “By the way, what was that back there? With the actor,” she specified.
“It’s called being a detective and gathering information. Also questioning a witness. Why?” he asked her. “Wasn’t I supposed to do any talking? Am I just supposed to be your strong, silent backup?”
She sincerely doubted the man knew the meaning of the word silent. For now, until she got used to him, she just wanted him to stay out of the way, not suddenly step up and take the lead. She had no problem sharing that position if the person she was sharing it with had respect for her. But Abilene wasn’t giving off any of those vibrations. At least none on a frequency she was receiving.
“I only thought, this being your first case, you’d just observe,” she told him.
“This is my first homicide, not my first case,” he corrected. He wasn’t some wet-behind-the-ears rookie to stand in awe of her. If that was what she wanted, she should have gone with one of the department’s newly minted detectives, not him. “The actor just brought up some questions for me. Sorry, was I supposed to clear them with you first before asking him?”
It wasn’t exactly a belligerent question, at least not in tone. But she could feel him challenging her nonetheless. Rules and boundaries needed to be established, here and now. Or maybe she was just reading too much into it. These days, she wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Maybe she just needed to unwind. Find a way to relax a little. She wondered what her sisters were doing after work tonight. Bridget was usually all caught up in her fiancé these days, but that still left Kari.
Maybe she’d give Kari a call—after she called Thomas to ask him to look into her new partner’s background. She’d feel a lot better if she knew the kind of person she would be working with. Hotshots and redhot investigators tended to come across the same way sometimes. It would be good to have a second opinion on what, exactly, she had on her hands here.
“Well, was I?” Abilene pressed.
Kendra blinked, then realized that she’d lost the thread of the conversation. She needed to ask for clarification—and that annoyed her.
“Were you what?” she asked, sparing him a quick glance as she eased the car to a stop at a red light.
Abilene suppressed an impatient sigh. “Was I supposed to clear it with you first before I asked the actor any questions?” This time, there was an edge to his tone.
That would be nice.
She knew the detective was being sarcastic. She supposed, in his place, she would have felt the same way.
Okay, so she was being testy. But that was because she didn’t like change and she didn’t like the fact that he had a way of looking at her that made her stomach muscles cramp up.
Kendra did her best to temper her own voice. “Of course not. I was just surprised to hear you asking questions, that’s all.”
Matt decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Shrugging, he stood down and relaxed again. Maybe the woman wasn’t a class-A pain in the butt. She just came across like one. But maybe she had a reason to—one that he intended to find out, provided there was a reason.
“Look,” he said amicably, “there’s going to be a period of adjustment. I get that. If we’re going to make this work, then we need to get things out in the open.”
She was on her guard again. “What things?” she asked.
“Things that bother us about the other person.”
She could feel his eyes on her. It made her feel like squirming. So much for a truce. She would still hang on to the hope that this collaboration of theirs was only temporary.
Kendra made a right turn at the next corner. “I’ve got a better idea.”
“Okay, I’m game.”
Pushing down on the gas, she flew through the next light just as it was turning red. She wanted to spend as little time in close quarters with this man as possible. For some reason, he seemed to deplete her oxygen supply. “Why don’t we just see if we can find out who killed Summer Miller and just where Ryan Burnett ultimately ran off to.”
He laughed shortly. Yeah, that was definitely another option. “You mean just work the case.”
Kendra continued to look straight ahead as she drove. “I mean just work the case.”
Abilene tempered the sarcastic retort that rose to his lips. “It might surprise you to know, but that was what I was doing when you asked me what I was doing,” he told her.
Kendra blew out a breath. Maybe the key to surviving this union was to exchange as few words as possible—and to keep to well-ventilated areas. “Point taken. Okay, Abilene, as you were.”
He
