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The smell of fried chicken reached her nose as soon as she opened the door to her new home, and her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t had anything since the sandwich she’d nibbled on at her desk. Dropping her purse on a chair, she worked the kinks out of her back and shoulders as she headed through into the kitchen, where she could hear Riley and Eileen talking. Hopefully, tomorrow would be a better day.
Ryan was trying to get a straight answer out of the nurses and doctors that kept bustling about his room, but no one could give him a straight answer. He was bored out of his skull when he wasn’t stressing about the situation he found himself in. The more time that went by, the less confident he became that he could beat this thing.
All the righteous indignation he’d felt before landing in the hospital had quickly waned, and for the first time since they clamped the cuffs on his hands, he was beginning to think that his innocence might not be enough to save him. His mind went to every horror story he’d ever heard about things like this and the one thing in his life that made the situation so very ironic.
He shied away from those thoughts, but there wasn’t much else for him to think about. Pete had left a while ago, and he had no interest in talking to his replacement, but if he didn’t find something to occupy his mind, he was afraid that he’d go mad on top of everything else.
It crossed his mind then that he hadn’t given his wife a second thought all day. In fact, he couldn’t say that he missed or even wanted her by his side during his time of trouble. It was a strange reaction to have when he remembered all the times he’d felt like he’d die without her. He tried making sense of that fact, but all it got him was a headache, so he turned his mind to other things. Namely, if Marissa had indeed received that message, who exactly had sent it?
CHAPTER 13
Riley rolled away from Celia for the second time that night, breathing hard and heavy while she stretched like a Cheshire kitty. “I need another shower.” She lifted her head and looked down at her wet sticky thighs.
“I don’t see why I’m only going to dirty you up again.” It was at the tip of her tongue to ask where he gets the energy, but she decided it was best to leave that one alone.
“You wanna tell me what’s been bothering you all evening?” Riley had noticed her preoccupation all throughout dinner and, since she wasn’t ready to broach the subject, had left it alone. He figured a good hard fuck would set her straight, but once he got inside her, once wasn’t enough, and he ended up going back for seconds.
Now that he’d taken the edge off and she was looking a little less stressed, he figured it was time to take care of what was bothering his woman. Celia loved using him as her sounding board, but it was like walking a minefield. Because the town was so small and everyone knew pretty much everything that was going on with everyone else, it was hard to keep the names and identities a mystery, unlike in the big city where crime ran rampant, and it was anyone’s guess which case she was discussing at any given moment.
“It’s this latest case. I’m thinking of things to look at, that’s all. I’m not really stressed.” Before Celia could finish speaking, her work phone rang, surprising the hell out of her. Sure there’ve been murders and whatever else going on since she took the job, but she could count on one hand the number of times her phone had rung after hours.
“Hello? Branson?” Beside her, Riley picked up his head with a growl, and she smilingly ran a hand over his chest. The smile dropped though at the detective’s next words. “You’d better get down here to the inn; there’s been a situation.”
“What kind of situation?”
“A murder, Bridgette, someone killed her.”
It took a moment for his words to sink in, but once they did, she went into full cop mode. Riley, who was watching her from the second he heard the distress in her voice, would say it was like someone turned a switch.
One minute she was smiling teasingly at him, and his mind was already on how hard he was going to fuck her to get the sound of that asshole’s voice out of her head. And the next, his hard-on died a quick death at the sound and tone in her voice.
“Don’t go near the scene, detective.”
“I know that, though it’s taking everything in me not to.”
“I’ll be right there.” Celia hung up the phone and jumped off the bed, rushing into the shower to get cleaned up. Riley was right on her heels as she gave him a quick rundown. “What a mess.”
