Rules In Defiance. Nichole Severn
he’d found her in the bathroom this morning? Alexis wanted to meet because she’d found something within the study they’d been conducting at the lab. But with all of Waylynn’s research destroyed, he doubted the assistant’s discovery hadn’t been destroyed with it. He scanned through Alexis’s social media pages. Three different sites. Hundreds of pictures. But this one… Elliot stopped scrolling and straightened. The redheaded beauty with freckles had taken a photo of herself a few days before her death, showing off what looked like a new tattoo of a Q with a heart on her wrist. The Queen of Hearts. But it was what was behind her that urged him to lean closer to the screen. A black external hard drive sticking out of the victim’s purse.
“Bingo.” Waylynn had said Genism didn’t allow employees to back up their files on foreign devices, but what if Alexis hadn’t followed company rules? He needed to get that hard drive.
The bathroom door clicked open and in his next breath, Waylynn rounded into the kitchen. Damn, he hadn’t even heard her shut off the water. Hair still wet, she notched her chin level with the floor and curled her fingers into tight fists at her sides. Defiant. Strong. Sexy as hell.
“Well, don’t you look nice when you’re not covered in blood.” Nervous energy exploded across his back as he closed the laptop, sliding it against the granite. She didn’t need to see photos of the woman she’d found in her bathtub. Didn’t need to know he’d looked into her trial. He drew his eyebrows together when she didn’t respond. “You okay?”
“I want to know who’s trying to destroy my life.” Determination had cooled the day’s confusion in her expression. The tears had dried, her jaw set, and she focused 100 percent on him. “You’re a private investigator. I’m hiring you and your firm. Find out who did this to me.”
“WE NEED TO get to my lab.” There were plenty of monsters who knew how to play at being human. Which one of them had ruined her life? The possibilities were endless. Someone from her own lab. A rival geneticist. One of the volunteers from her studies. Her research into the warrior gene fulfilled her in a way nothing else had managed to for her entire life. She wasn’t going to let that go. Not for anything. The person responsible wasn’t going to get away with it. Waylynn settled back against the granite countertop, crossing her arms across her midsection. Then again, not all monsters did monstrous things. “Alexis said she wanted to meet with me about one of the studies. We record all of those sessions with our volunteers. So if something strange happened with one of them, it’d be on the security footage.”
The weight of Elliot’s gaze warmed her neck and face. Her pulse quickened. Her body surged to attention when he looked at her like that—like she was the only woman in the entire world—and her brain checked out temporarily. This place, the location, it suited him. If anything, he seemed more relaxed here than he had in the year she’d known him as her next-door neighbor. Fewer tension lines bracketed the edges of those gray eyes. If she was being honest with herself, in his tiny cabin, out in the middle of the woods trying to keep her safe, he’d never been more attractive.
“You want to be caught at yet another crime scene tied to this case? That’s a terrible, horrible, incredibly foolish idea.” He stood, clapping his hands together. “Let’s do it and see what happens.”
Reality snapped her back into the moment and she pushed thoughts of him into a dark little corner of her brain where she prayed it’d never see the light of day again. “What?”
“First things first.” Elliot pointed toward her and closed the space between them faster than she thought possible. His body heat tunneled through her borrowed sweats as he slid one arm around her. Her breath caught in her lungs, surprise paralyzing her in place. In the next moment, he’d retreated, handing her a package of peanut butter Oreos. “You need to eat, then sleep. In that order.”
She blinked, staring at the unopened blue plastic package in her hand. Tiny cabin. Limited space. He hadn’t been stepping in for an intimate moment or to help tame the chaos eating her up from the inside. Waylynn released the breath she’d been holding. Had she wanted him to? “You know my favorite flavor of Oreos?”
“Investigating 101.” He leaned back against the opposite counter. “Everything you need to know about a person is in their daily routine, and you, my friend, bring home a lot of peanut butter Oreo packages.”
A burst of laughter escaped from between her lips, because if she didn’t have this small release, she feared she might fall apart. “You just happened to have a supply here?”
“I may have wanted to see what all the fuss was about.” He crossed his arms, emphasizing the muscles across his chest, and his boots at the ankles.
She played with the back of her earring, scraping her thumbnail along the edge of her earlobe. “And?”
“And they’re addictive.” A bright widening of his lips played across his mouth as he blinked at her, and every cell in her body shot to attention. How was it, after everything that’d happened this morning, he could affect her like this?
“That’s what I thought.” Waylynn peeled back the sticky plastic in an empty attempt to calm the uncertainty ripping through her, took a cookie, then offered him the package. Nope. Not even the combination of chocolate and peanut butter frosting could erase the last twelve hours. Alexis was still dead and her career had gone up in flames. Another flash of her writing that note skittered across her memory. She fought to steady her racing pulse and forced herself to study Elliot as he bit into an Oreo instead.
The rest of the world fell away. The charges against her, the accusing tone in Officer Ramsey’s voice, the fact police would probably want to speak to her about the fire, too. In this moment, all she saw was him. Elliot. Her next-door neighbor, her closest friend who she’d spent countless hours quizzing on horrible ’90s country music lyrics by text message throughout the day. Which he knew by heart. The only man who’d been able to change her breathing patterns with a single look in her direction.
Elliot laughed, pulling her back into the moment. “I promise I’m not that interesting, Doc.”
Oh, no. No, no, no. She wasn’t going to go down that road.
“Excuse me. I need some air.” Waylynn discarded the remainder of her cookie into the sink and put one foot in front of the other until she reached the front door. She had to get out of here. Away from him. If only for a few minutes to clear her head. The wood walls blurred in her vision as she escaped out the front. The rush of a cold Alaskan breeze beat against her as she closed the door behind her. Her heartbeat pounded loud behind her ears, the pressure behind her sternum more manageable the longer she kept the door between them. She ran a hand through her damp hair easily. No longer crusted with blood.
The sudden surge of desire she’d felt for him in those heated moments drained. She’d kept her and Elliot’s friendship casual for over a year, but now… Now she’d started imagining that smile in the morning after they woke up in the same bed. How his hair would stick out in every direction as he prepared her breakfast. How they’d have the rest of their lives to test each other’s knowledge of bad country music. She shook her head in an attempt to dislodge the fantasy. They were friends. Nothing more.
A ring of trees surrounded the tiny cabin, weeds cleared approximately fifteen feet in each direction. Nothing but wilderness and blue skies as far as she could see, and a sense of peace settled over her. Elliot had certainly picked the perfect spot to get away from reality. When was the last time she’d gotten out of town, away from work, took a break for herself? Waylynn took in a lungful of crisp, clean mountain air.
Short answer? Never.
After the trial, after her mother’s death, she’d thrown herself into investigating what had gone wrong. Why her father’s behavior had changed so drastically in such a short amount of time with no sign of disease, no evidence of cancer, tumors, mental disabilities, no added stresses at work. Why he’d suddenly turned against her and her mother. The yelling, the fights, the physical altercations.