style="font-size:15px;"> “Hmmm...” She sighed. “This is good.”
Jack lifted his own cup and took a sip. It was piping hot and sweet, but other than that, tasteless to his palate. He took another sip, then let his gaze move around the apartment.
“Tell me more about your family,” Jack said, pulling his attention back to the woman across from him. “Tanya...she’s your cousin, you said?”
“Yes, my father’s sister’s daughter,” Liv replied. “We grew up together, Tanya and I. We’ve always been close.”
“How did she feel about your divorce?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. She was shocked—just like everyone else. They didn’t see it coming. Evan and I put up a really good united front, so when I said we were splitting up... Well, you can imagine.”
“So she was against it?” Jack probed. “On his side? On yours?”
“On mine, of course,” she said.
“Where are your parents? I didn’t see them—”
“In California.” She smiled faintly. “They’re retired, living in their RV.”
“Hmm.” He nodded slowly.
“So my turn, then,” Liv said, leaning forward. “Tell me about your brothers. Brotherly dynamics are always interesting.”
He sighed. It wasn’t wise to share too much personal information, but every case was a unique job, and Liv was making this one harder than it had to be. “Do we really have to do this?”
“Yes.” She took another sip of tea, but her gaze didn’t leave him.
“Fine. One’s an accountant and the other is a plumber.”
She nodded. “Are you close?”
“Yeah, we’re close. I was closer to my cousin when I was a kid, though. My brothers are both younger than me, so I hung out with my cousin.”
“Like me and Tanya,” she said.
“Yeah, I guess.” He could understand her close relationship to her cousin. Kids were lucky to have family to grow up with.
“So your cousin—what’s his name?” she asked.
“Berto. He’s, uh—” Jack gave her a pained smile. “We aren’t in contact anymore.”
“Why not?” Sympathy swam in those green eyes, and she leaned toward him so that her soft perfume tickled his nose.
“He associates with known criminals, so as a cop I have to keep my distance,” Jack replied gruffly. Would that be enough to make her back off? Berto had a criminal record of his own, so it went deeper than he was about to admit. But keeping his distance didn’t mean that Jack wasn’t hell-bent on setting a few wrongs right.
“You must miss him,” she said quietly.
“Yeah, I do.”
“How did you turn out so differently?” she asked. “You’re obviously in a better place.”
“We both grew up poor in the projects in Denver,” he said. “Berto got caught up with the wrong people, I guess. I can’t say I was making better choices than he was. Maybe I was just lucky.”
“You chose to join the force,” she countered. “That’s a positive step.”
“Berto might have, too, given the chance,” he replied bitterly. “He was arrested the first time when he was barely fourteen. Drug possession. But I’m telling you, Berto never touched heroin in his life. Back then, Berto and I said we wanted to be rich when we grew up. But rich meant something different to us than it meant to anyone else. Our biggest dreams were to move out of those crumbling old apartment buildings, get away from the drug dealers, and get houses with real yards and driveways. We wanted to take care of our parents and siblings. We wanted our mothers to quit those low-paying jobs that ground them down.”
“You were sweet kids,” she said softly.
“We were poor kids. We had no power, and neither did our parents. Berto ended up like too many of our friends.”
“How is your mother now?” Liv asked.
“I take care of her and Dad,” he replied. “No worries there.”
Jack was stupid to be giving her any information about his family at all. What was it about her? Just talking with this woman made him want to open up. It felt good to let it out, and she listened so easily without judgment. But the more she knew—the more she could pass along to whoever else was working this ring—the more vulnerable he became. She made him feel out of his depth in a whole new way, which meant it was time to shut up.
“Enough about me now. Let’s move on to you,” he said with a small smile. “Are there any boyfriends, exes, casual love interests that I should be aware of?”
She shook her head. “I’m still licking my wounds.”
“Fair enough. How about your store?” He crossed his arms over his chest. “How is it financed, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“With a loan, like everyone else.” She put her cup down onto the saucer with a soft clink. “I’m hoping to be able to make enough profit to pay it off one day. Bookstores have such big competition with online sellers, but there is just something about being able to flip through a book, hold it, look at the other options on the same shelf... I’m hoping to capitalize on the tourist traffic.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I get it.”
“Anyway, I’ve dreamed of owning a bookstore for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I used to make books of my own with paper folded in half and a stapler. Then I’d set them up for my own bookstore.”
“So why do it now?”
“Because I needed something for me,” she said. “I’ve been cut loose, and I need something that reminds me of...me.”
Her connection to the place did seem genuine. Jack’s gaze moved to the kitchen windowsill, where a collection of books sat between two bookends. They didn’t look like cookbooks, either.
Liv followed his gaze.
“Just some kitchen reading,” she said.
“Kitchen reading.” He chuckled. “Like what?”
“A few classics—some Charles Dickens, some Shakespeare, a book on chess strategy.”
“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows.
“I’ve always liked Dickens. While I wait for pots to boil, I reread some of my favorite parts.”
“I was more interested in the chess strategy,” he replied.
“Oh, that.” She rose and went to the windowsill,
