Chapter Seven

Angel stood where he did every morning when he was home and not away on assignment. At the window of his office that overlooked the gardens.

And as usual, he was in awe of the view.

The flowers weren’t his doing but rather the landscapers that Ruby had hired when the place was built. Thankfully, those same landscapers came out on a weekly basis to tend the grounds. If not, they sure wouldn’t be worth looking at while he had his morning coffee.

This place, the view, the house were a far cry from his roots. The foster home hadn’t been a dump by any means, but this house, this life he was living, went far beyond his expectations.

And his expectations for himself had been damn high.

Now, it could be snatched away, and he had to deal with that.

With the revelation of Birdie’s blood on the knife, Angel had to take everything to the cops. Even though the statute of limitations would save him from being arrested for tampering with a crime scene, it wouldn’t set well with Ruby. She’d likely fire him. Mia was facing the same thing with her boss, who had apparently already put her on a leave of absence.

But he had far worse things to worry about than losing his job.

Mia and he would be murder suspects. Birdie, too. And depending on what else the cops found, one of them would likely be charged with killing Kenton. Angel only hoped before that could happen, he could find the person who’d actually put Kenton in that grave.

That search for the killer had kept him up a good chunk of the night. But Mia had also had a bit part in his inability to sleep. She was here, in the house with him. In fact, just up the hall in the guestroom, and his body wasn’t going to let him just forget that.

He wanted her.

Bad.

And that had to stop. Sex shouldn’t end up being a fatal mistake, and that’s what it could turn out to be if it caused him to lose focus. So, hands off. Thoughts off her, too.

That pep talk he was having with himself came to a quick end when Mia walked into his office and gave him another reminder of this heat between them. She’d obviously just showered because he took in the scent of the soap she’d used. Took in, too, that she was wearing his boxers shorts, and t-shirt.

“My clothes are in the dryer,” she said, fluttering her fingers in the direction of the laundry room. “I washed them while you were in the shower.”

That explained why he hadn’t heard the washer going. Then again, the laundry room was in the far back of the house off the kitchen, and the rooms had better than decent soundproofing.

“Presley went by your house this morning, picked up some things, and dropped them off,” he explained. “Not sure if they’re things you’ll actually wear, but he did grab another pair of shoes for you. Everything’s in a suitcase in the living room. I didn’t want to bring them to you in the guestroom because I didn’t want to wake you.”

And because Angel hadn’t wanted the temptation of being in there with her when she was in bed.

“Great. Thanks. But it’s sort of a cheap thrill wearing your things.” She glanced down at the boxers and tee. “Confession time—I stole one of your shirts shortly after we started dating.”

He frowned. “Why?” he had to ask.

She shrugged. “A comfort thing. Sort of like a teddy bear.” Mia frowned, too, and waved that off. “All right, you’re not remotely the teddy bear type. It was kind of sexual. Not so much comfort but sort of like having you in bed with me. And I’m babbling again,” she added in a mutter.

Yes, she was. But this was very enlightening.

“Is that creepy about me sleeping with your shirt?” she pressed.

Despite everything, Angel almost smiled. Almost. He didn’t come close to that particular expression very often.

“Not creepy,” he assured her.

He was about to say something that he was glad he managed to shut down before it came out of his mouth. That he wished he’d been wearing the shirt when it was in bed with her.

Yeah. That wouldn’t help this lust zinging back and forth between them.

Time to change the subject. “There’s coffee and plenty of breakfast stuff in the fridge and pantry,” he offered, ready to go to the kitchen and make her something to eat.

She shook her head and lifted the bottle of fizzy water. “My stomach’s a little unsettled so I thought this would help.”

Hell. Of course, it was unsettled. Yesterday, someone had tried to kill her, and there were no guarantees that wouldn’t happen again today.

“I’m guessing from your expression you haven’t gotten any good news this morning,” she said, walking closer to him.

He shook his head. “No sign of the shooter and the blood found by the tree wasn’t a match to anyone in the system.”

“So, the guy didn’t have a criminal record,” she muttered. “And it rules out Dwight because he does have one.”

True, but sometimes there were occasional glitches in the system, in the search itself or even the way the blood sample was collected or processed. So, Angel intended to request that it be run again.

“What about the drone feed? Any images of his face?” Mia asked.

This wasn’t going to be a positive report. “None. He kept on the ski mask the whole time. And he didn’t leave any fingerprints on the spent shell casings. There were also no trace evidence or fibers on the tree. No reports either of anyone matching his height and weight being treated for a gunshot wound.”

Mia stayed quiet a moment, obviously processing all of that. “Maybe he’s dead?” she speculated.

“Not enough blood. The CSIs followed a short trail of blood drops to a trail where it appeared there had recently been a motorcycle. That’s probably what he used to escape.”

She sighed. “Both the CSIs and you have obviously worked most of the night… wow,” she muttered when she made it to the window. “Wow on steroids. What an awesome view.”

“I find it soothing,” he settled for saying. “A far cry from the traffic noises in the city.”

She made a sound of agreement and stood there several long moments before she turned to him. “I hacked into some files,” Mia said, definitely causing that soothing moment to vanish.

“What files?” he was quick to ask.

“The latest police report on Kenton.”

Angel groaned. “There was no need for you to do that. Presley got an update by talking to a few of his cop friends.”

“Yes. I saw a note about that, and I also saw that the officers weren’t going to keep Presley or you in the info loop until they were sure you were ruled out as suspects.”

“Shit,” he snarled.

“That was my reaction, too, so I kept digging. FYI, cops suck at protecting their files. I mean, really, someone needs to talk to them about that.” She stopped, waved the rest of that off and continued. “What they didn’t tell Presley was that the CSIs managed to find traces of blood in Kenton’s old room when they went through it last night.”

Angel wasn’t the least bit surprised about that. Traces of blood spatter could stay around for a long time, and while DNA couldn’t usually be extracted from samples that old, the odds were that the blood belonged to Kenton.

And Birdie.

Since he couldn’t undo the hacking, Angel decided to go ahead and hear if she’d learned anything else from those reports. “Did the cops get into any suspicions they have about Birdie?”

She shook her head. “Like us, she got a mention as someone to be interviewed because she was living in the house with Kenton when the crime would have occurred.” Mia paused. “We’re going to have to tell the cops about the knife and the blood on it, aren’t we?”

“We are,” Angel confirmed. “I want to hold off that until we’re all called in for questioning. And I’ll take full blame for removing it. I don’t want you caught up on that. There’s no need—”

She stopped him with a kiss.

A full-blown, hot, hard, right on the mouth kiss.

The kind that twenty years ago would have been that final foreplay kiss before he sank deep into her.

Damn it all to hell and back. The taste of her slammed right into him and took him to another place, another time. But still the same Mia. The one who could fire up every inch of him. Of course, this kiss could have fired up an igloo.

Only after she’d left him breathless did she finally pull back.

She smiled. Shrugged. “That wasn’t a mistake,” she insisted.

“It felt like one,” he lied. It hadn’t felt like a mistake at all but rather a much wanted distraction. One that’d given him an instant hard-on.

Her smile stayed in place a moment longer, but it and the heat in her eyes tamped back down. “I’m going to apologize. I consider that a sort of air clearing. I was thinking about doing it, and I figured if I didn’t, then I’d just keep thinking about it, and this need for you would continue to build and—”

He stopped her with a kiss. And, yes, it was a mistake. Even though he thought it was a mistake worth making.

Angel kissed her the way she’d kissed him, and he let the pleasure fill him. Let it tease his senses. Let him forget for just a second or two that all was not right with their world. It was that reminder of the not right that had him moving back and meeting her gaze.

“Tit for tat?” she questioned. “Or is the tit for later?”

Shit. He laughed. The sound burst out of him before he could stop it, and then he remembered something that he’d stomped down all these years. Mia had been one of the few people who’d ever made him laugh.

“We need to be serious,” he said, mainly to himself, and he got a little help with the mood shift because his monitor dinged.

“Incoming report,” Danno announced.

And just like that, the lighthearted moment was lost, and their moods shifted back to the business at hand.

The report appeared on the wall monitor, joining the other half dozen reports he’d gotten in the past couple of hours. This one was on Kenton’s mother, Aileen. Unlike some of the others, this one wasn’t long. Probably because the woman had died when she’d been just thirty.

“Kenton was two when she died,” Mia muttered as she read through the details. “Complications from an ectopic pregnancy. No criminal record. She was a preschool teacher.” She paused, looked at him. “So, why would she marry a sleazeball like Dwight? Because, unlike Birdie’s husband, Dwight didn’t have money, not then and not now.”

Angel knew sometimes there was no logic. Sometimes, there was no common ground. No external motivation.

Only the heat of attraction.

He knew that firsthand with Mia.

But the difference was he wasn’t an asshole like Dwight. So, Angel kept looking, and he saw something that might make sense of things.

“Aileen and Dwight had a baby who died of SIDS.” He pointed to that part of the report. “When she was barely nineteen,” he tacked onto that, and he searched for another date. “A baby that was born five months after they married. So, I’m guessing she got pregnant and decided to try to make a go of it with her baby’s father.”

“Yes,” Mia murmured. “That’s probably it. So, did Kenton keep staying with Dwight right after his mom died?”

“No.” Angel shifted to one of the other reports. One that he’d run around midnight on the full bio of both Kenton and Dwight. “His mom’s sister took care of Kenton for about a year. When she had a child of her own, she passed him along to another relative. An elderly cousin. That cycle continued with two more relatives until Kenton was nine, and he was placed in foster care because, at the time, CPS couldn’t locate Dwight.”

The moment Angel finished telling Mia that, his phone rang, and when he saw it was from Presley, he answered it right away.

“Blunt force trauma,” Presley immediately said. “A blow to the head. That’s what the ME believes was the cause of Kenton’s death.”

“Not stabbing,” Angel murmured.

“Doesn’t look that way, but, of course, the forensic anthropologists will have the final say on that. Still, I’ve gotten a look at the pictures of the injury, and the back of his head was caved in.”

That damage could have happened postmortem, but there must have been enough compelling evidence for the ME to suggest it as the cause of death.

“How’d you get to see the pictures?” Angel asked. “Aren’t the cops freezing you out?”

“Some are, but Ruby managed to pull some strings. I’m at headquarters right now with her.”

Hell. Did that mean Ruby knew everything? Angel didn’t get a chance to speculate about that.

“I know Presley and you aren’t killers,” Ruby said, her voice coming through loud and clear. “And, no, Presley didn’t spill anything, but I can often add two and two and come up with the correct answer of four.”

And apparently that’s what she had done. Angel just stayed quiet and let her continue.

“My techs also told me about the knife. The one with your foster sister’s blood on it,” Ruby went on. “That’s connected to all of this, I’m sure, and I’m equally sure you’ll explain the connection to me. First though, I need you to tell me something. Do you know who killed Kenton Barker?”

“I don’t,” Angel said, “and neither does Mia or Presley.”

“Finally, we’re getting somewhere,” Ruby muttered. “So, either someone in the house or someone with access to it killed Kenton and buried him. Since it was Birdie’s blood on the knife, is she your main suspect?”

“One of them,” Angel answered. “So is Kenton’s father.”

“Yes, a piece of work,” Ruby grumbled. “But the cops will also question your foster parents, Mia, and anyone else who lived in the house at the time.”

“They will,” Angel and Presley verified together. “And they’ll want DNA samples from all of us for elimination purposes in case they do manage to get some DNA from the blood they found.”

“Absolutely. Presley’s and yours are already in the system since you’re former cops,” Ruby stated. “Birdie’s and Dwight’s as well because of their criminal records. The CSIs got them from Melanie and RJ when they were at the house. That leaves Mia, and from what I understand, Sentron has a DNA and fingerprint database on all their employees.”

“Yes,” Mia verified. “I can give them permission to release that to the cops.”

“Good,” Ruby concluded. “That can save some time.”

“Do I need to turn in my resignation?” Angel came out and asked when Ruby paused.

The woman took her time answering. So much time that Angel could feel his future crashing and burning. “No,” she finally said. “And if you try to turn in your resignation, I won’t accept it.” She huffed. “Am I happy with the way you’ve handled this? No,” Ruby answered for him. “But if I had been in your situation when I was sixteen, I likely would have done the same thing. I don’t want to lose a damn fine operative because of mistakes made as a kid.”

Angel felt some of the muscles in his chest and stomach unclench. He had very much wanted to keep his job, but more than that, he had needed for Ruby to be on their side. She could be crucial in Mia and him clearing their names.

“So, now let’s move on,” Ruby continued a moment later. “I have a suggestion for the next steps. Let’s do something to maybe jog your memories of what went on when Kenton was killed. The CSIs have finished processing the foster house, and I want Mia and you to meet Presley and me there. Your foster parents will be there. And Birdie.”

Angel didn’t ask how she’d managed to put together that gathering with Birdie. Ruby had a broad skillset that included, well, pretty much everything.

“Meet us there in one hour,” Ruby spelled out. “We’re going to do a reconstruction of the crime scene, and with some luck, we’ll be able to figure out the identity of the killer. After that, we turn everything over to the police. Everything,” she emphasized.

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