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“Um.”
She took that as a yes. Even though it came out as an “um” from him. “So that means you’ve saved me three times?”
A smile stretched his lips. A secretive one. As if he knew something she did not.
The last bit of her patience snapped. “Beau.”
“Yes?” He stared expectantly at her.
“How many times have you saved me?”
“You just said three,” he reminded her.
But she had the feeling there were more instances. Impossible. Right?
“Perhaps you should just be grateful I decided to play the role of gentleman and go for a stroll tonight. If I hadn’t gone out, if I hadn’t stopped in just the right spot, if I hadn’t looked up and seen the shadows in the turret window, our story could have ended differently.”
“I had a taser. I used it.” She hadn’t been helpless.
“Yes, I do remember his shudders. Excellent job, by the way. Most impressive.”
His shudders. The dead man’s shudders. Her goose bumps got worse. “I…was going to run outside. Go to a neighbor’s house and get help.”
“It’s possible that when you ran out, the second attacker would have been waiting for you. Maybe that was the plan.”
“No, he said I was going to burn.”
His eyes seemed to go even darker. But Beau knew this already. He’d been at her side as she repeated the story to the cops.
“He told me I’d be alive when I burned.” Like that wouldn’t give her new nightmares. “And then my house got set on fire.”
“I heard the firefighters saying they think an accelerant was tossed around your den. The second attacker started the flames and that was the whoosh of sound we heard.”
“You think the—the second attacker was the man who drove the black car.” The killer.
“Don’t you?”
Yes. “The cops didn’t seem so sure.”
“Those were the uniforms. Not the lead detectives. You got a break-in, an arson, a hit-and-run…and murder. The big guns will be taking over the investigation. Honestly, I’m surprised the uniforms didn’t hold us at the scene longer. But I’m sure we’ll be called to the station in the morning.”
She was sure of that, too. “I have friends at the police station. And at the DA’s office.” People who could help them.
“How lovely for you. My friends tend to run in different circles.”
Avalon shook her head.
“Hardly surprising that you’re friends with the cops,” Beau added. “I’d expect nothing less from you.”
Avalon rocked forward onto the balls of her feet. “I keep getting the feeling that you know way more about me than I know about you.”
“Because you haven’t dug into my life yet. You will. You and that trusty laptop of yours.”
Yes, she would dig. With her trusty laptop.
His expression hardened. “Your friends at the police station are going to tell you to stay away from me.”
He was so close that she could reach out and touch him. She wanted to touch him. In order to stop what she was sure had to be a bad impulse, Avalon fisted her hands at her sides. Her nails dug into her palms. “Why would they say that?”
