style="font-size:15px;"> “To keep me under their thumb. Maybe. I’m not a company man and Crowe is a control freak. On the other hand, could be wishful thinking on my part.”
“What if it’s not? What if there’s some elaborate plan and you’re the pawn?”
“Nicole—”
“Grow some balls, Slick. Buck the system. Investigate. Fight back.”
He’d been bucking the system for years. Bucking the system is what had brought him to this point. “I need to sleep on this,” he said honestly. “Only I can’t. My mind won’t shut down. It’s not just this. It’s…a lot of things.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Okay.” She pulled a remote out of a mosaic box and turned on a thirty-two-inch plasma television. Nice. “Sports, news, sitcom or a movie?” she asked as she surfed channels.
“Anything but the news.”
She messed with her TiVo and settled on The History Channel. He didn’t know Nic well, but he knew she favored documentaries over sitcoms. “Ever watch this series?” she asked. “Decoding the Past?”
“Nope.”
“This episode is of particular interest to me,” she said. “Past U.S. Presidents who consulted psychics. Abe Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Goes to show anyone can fall for that mystical bullshit, right?”
He cut her a glance, wondering at the hostility in her tone. Namely because it wasn’t directed at him. “Right.”
“Make yourself comfortable, Beckett. If you can’t sleep, you can at least rest.”
He didn’t argue. The vodka was already taking effect. Smoothing the edges, slowing his thoughts. He’d been awake now—he glanced at his watch—thirty-seven hours.
“Think you should call someone and let them know you’re okay?” Nic asked as she twisted her long hair into a loose braid.
He tried not to admire her stunning bone structure. Tried and failed. “Probably.” Especially since he had numerous voice messages from Arch, Pops, and Woody. Arch was probably with Evie and that was a road he didn’t want to travel just now. The less he thought about those two together, the better. He called Pops.
“Tell me you’re not in jail, son.”
Milo frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“We heard about Turner.”
“How?”
“CNN.”
“Killing the guy wasn’t part of the plan, Pops.”
“Course not.”
“Tell the team…” He rubbed his eyes, blew out a breath. “Tell them I need some time alone. Tell them to meet me tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock. You know the place.”
“You comin’ home tonight?”
Milo glanced at Nic who’d drawn shut the curtains of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Depends.”
“Take care, Jazzman.”
“Always.” He thumbed the cell to vibrate then slipped it in his jacket pocket. If it went off, he wouldn’t feel it. A few more shots of vodka, and he wouldn’t feel anything.
“Thought it might help you relax if it was darker in here,” Nic said as she settled back on the couch.
“Why are you being nice to me?”
“You’ve been accused of murder, Slick. I’m thinking you could use some consideration.”
His mind focused on the last time they’d sat like this, watching TV, drinking. He’d woken up the next morning with her head in his lap. Nothing had happened sexually, but she’d given him the cold shoulder for the rest of the day and she’d cut her trip short. He wanted to ask why, but didn’t. Instead, he commented on her eye roll when the program’s narrator mentioned Roosevelt consulted a psychic about post-WWII world relations. “I take it you don’t believe in the supernatural.”
She topped off her drink. “Do you?”
“I’m in the business of exposing fraud, sweetheart. Do you know how many people a year are suckered by fortune-tellers, hotline psychics, and astrologers?”
“I know of at least one.”
Again with the hostile tone. “Let’s hear it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Shoot.”
She slammed back her drink and lowered the TV volume. “It’s about my free-spirited friend Jayne and a whack-job psychic.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
CONTRARY TO MY PREDICTION, I did not die.
Thanks to prescription-grade antihistamines and a topical cream, I would indeed live to see another day. Although, I sort of dreaded it. My current track record promised some sort of calamity. A screwball moment that would end in mortification. Hadn’t I endured my share of embarrassing moments this past month?
Apparently not, because they just kept coming.
Gina had been dead-on in her diagnosis. A severe allergic reaction. A hypersensitivity response to an outside influence, according to the emergency room doctor. Said influence being a combination of heat, cleaning chemicals, and emotional stress.
If I would’ve showered when Arch urged me to, I could’ve avoided the hives. He’d had the decency not to say I told you so. Just as he’d been kind enough not to rib me about the time my jaw locked open or the time I got stuck in a tree. Although he’d been pissed about the latter since he’d thought I’d unnecessarily risked my neck to spy on my mom. Don’t ask.
Just now I was trying to think of a way to get rid of him without hurting his feelings.
I didn’t want him to see me like this. The gorilla suit had been sexier.
“Dinnae make me pick this lock, Sunshine.”
Cocooned in my purple robe, I braced my weight against my bathroom door. “I told you I’m fine, just…ugly.”
“What?”
“Did you ever see That Touch of Mink?”
“Doris Day and Cary Grant?”
“Bingo.”
“Not one of their better films, yeah?”
“What are you talking about?” I glared through the door. “It’s a classic!”
“He
