Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 515(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Sylvie Calloway and I followed Alice down the hall, walking side by side. I snuck a glance at her. Cinnamon-colored hair—not quite brown, not red—was pulled in a messy knot at the back of her head. I guessed when it was down, it would be past her shoulders and wavy. She had a smattering of freckles across her nose and a rosebud of a mouth that almost—
I tore my eyes away and glued them to the back of Alice’s head. Rosebud? What the fuck? Her lips were pink. Plenty of women had pink lips. She wasn’t short. She wasn’t tall. Her head reached just above my shoulder. I couldn’t tell what her body looked like, dressed as she was in loose jeans and a fleece. And now I was thinking about her body.
“Sleep in an alley last night?” I asked, one eyebrow raised, aware I was being kind of a dick and not really caring. Alice turned and shot me a sharp glance over her shoulder. I ignored it. I didn’t like the effect Sylvie was having on me, and I wanted to be back in that conference room, figuring out how to find Silas, unable to shake the nagging worry that he needed his team and we weren’t there. I did not want to be doing a client intake for some woman with a podcast who thought she knew how to investigate a crime because she had a laptop and a microphone and had spent a week camping and got scared by the woods. Or whatever she’d been doing.
My only real objection to coming to Sinclair Security, other than the lack of detail in Silas’s bullshit story about why we were here, was this: interfacing with clients. At Creed Global, it was generally Silas and Miranda, and sometimes Ryder, who dealt with clients. The rest of us did the actual work. At Sinclair, it wasn’t so clean-cut. Everyone was expected to be able to deal with the client. That required a level of polish I was capable of, but I didn’t like it.
“Can I get you anything?” Alice’s eyes lingered on me for barely a heartbeat before she turned the focus of her attention on Sylvie. “Something to eat, maybe? Did you get a chance to have breakfast?” Alice’s eyes dropped to the watch on her wrist. “It’s still early enough. I can send out—”
Almost reluctantly, Sylvie let out a breath and said, “I haven’t, and if it’s not too much trouble—”
“No trouble at all. How does a breakfast sandwich sound? Biscuit? Croissant?”
“A breakfast sandwich on a biscuit would be heaven,” Sylvie said. “And coffee. Please.”
“Coffee, we have. I’ll take care of it, no worries. Eli, anything for you?”
“Just the coffee, Alice, thanks,” I said, my gut sinking at the thought that this client intake was going to last long enough for Alice to order breakfast delivered. Fuck me.
“Take a seat,” I said to Sylvie, not liking the twinge of worry in my chest as she pulled out a black leather desk chair a little gingerly and sat slowly. I recognized someone in pain from an injury when I saw it. I’d been there myself often enough.
Her hazel eyes fixed on me. “I have a few questions,” she said. “Alice has it wrong. I’m not here as a client. I’m here following a lead.”
Pushing my concern aside and pleased I was right—that this was going to be bullshit—I sat back, propped my ankle on my knee, crossed my arms over my chest, and thought I might actually enjoy this. I was curious what this woman thought she was going to get out of anyone at Sinclair. Confidentiality was at the heart of what we did. We absolutely didn’t spill details to journalists.
Picking up the backpack she’d set at her feet, Sylvie unzipped the top and pulled out a leather-bound notebook and a pen. Clicking out the gel tip, she looked up at me and said, “I’m investigating a case. A cold case, technically, though it’s too new to have been shelved so fast.”
That was a little interesting. I was tempted to lean forward, but I didn’t want Sylvie to know she’d piqued my curiosity.
I decided to play, just a little bit. “For a client? Do you have a personal interest in the victim?”
“Neither. Not really.” She sat back and tapped the side of her pen on her notebook. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”
“Should I?” I asked.
She shrugged and flashed a quick grin that lit her hazel eyes, turning them gold for a second. With that cinnamon hair and those freckles, that rosy mouth—everything about her glowed, even though as I studied her, she definitely looked like she had spent the night in an alley. I guessed that Sylvie Calloway might not be a fashionista, but she didn’t usually walk around smeared with mud, her hair falling out of its messy bun, not a speck of makeup on her face.