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Nico put his hand over hers, then lifted it so he could nuzzle his cheek against her palm. She shivered at the feel of his rough stubble against her skin. “Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing here,” he mumbled, the vague admission taking Lexie by surprise. “Everything that’s happened since I arrived feels like some kind of bad omen, like I shouldn’t be here.”
“What are you doing here?” she asked, tilting her head with curiosity.
He took a breath, let it out. “I requested a transfer because nothing felt right in Boston anymore, especially my job. I have nightmares. Anxiety. Shit that never bothered me before, but now . . .” He swallowed thickly, as if it were his pride being forced down his throat. “I thought if I could somehow make amends for what happened, it might fix whatever it is that’s broken in me.”
Lexie tried to keep her expression free of pity as she said, “Make amends with the Rileys, you mean?”
“They blame me,” he stated, pragmatic in his tone but Lexie knew the knowledge cut him to the quick. “I suppose I feel a debt is owed. I wanted to be here for them to . . . just be here.”
“Nico.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said, reading her apprehension. “It was a bad idea. I see that now.”
“I’m sure your heart was in the right place.”
“Well, not all of it. There is one other reason I’m here. You.”
“Me?”
Bashful, he said, “Every day since you saved my life, I’ve seen your face in my mind, heard your voice begging me to stay awake, felt your touch.” Nico gazed at her like she was a wonder to behold. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Everything from my memory of that day kept drawing me in until I couldn’t stand the thought of not seeing you again. I had to come.”
Lexie liked that. She hoped her answering smile before she captured his mouth with hers said as much. “I thought about you too,” she whispered, then kissed her way down Nico’s chest, past his stomach until she reached the substantial prize waiting below. Licking her lips, she took him into her mouth and watched as his face quivered and distorted with pleasure. Over and back, her lips glided rhythmically along his hot, smooth skin.
When she tasted the slight hint of saltiness on her tongue, she began to move faster, spurred on by his hand gently cupping the back of her head until his fingers tightened in her hair. He was giving her the signal that he was close, graciously allowing her time to switch techniques if she wished. She did not. Lexie clawed one hand up his clenching stomach, the other gripped his thigh, and opened her throat with a moan. Nico’s muscles tensed, a guttural sound escaping as he came.
“Fuck,” he groaned, shuddering once, twice. After the third, his body relaxed.
Lexie wiped herself clean, grinning like the cat that ate the canary as she returned to his side.
He smiled. “Like I said, you’re going to ruin me.”
Nico’s phone began to vibrate. A quick check told them it was his alarm.
“I gotta go to work,” he said, shifting to lie on his side so they were facing each other. He tucked her hair behind her ear, stroked her cheek. Lexie reached up to lightly touch the jagged scar on his forehead, a constant reminder of how close she had come to losing him before she’d even known him. This—the simple act of lying in bed together, touching, tasting, loving one another—none of it would have happened if she hadn’t found him.
“I don’t want you to think that I’m not ready to move on,” he said, drawing her attention back to the here and now. “I am. It’s just hard to do that when the thing you’re trying so hard to let go of is happening in your backyard.”
As his words reminded Lexie of everything waiting for them in the land of reality, she felt the remainder of her orgasm-induced bliss leave her like a deflating balloon. “What is going on, Nico? Who’s doing this? Please, tell me you know something by now.”
“Nothing concrete,” he said heavily. “My gut’s telling me it’s all too coincidental for it not to be connected to Sara—or me—in some way, but without knowing which, it’s hard to make heads or tails of any of it. When Isabelle Moss turned up dead, my first thought was that Fowler was messing with me. Maybe he somehow heard about my transfer and wanted to hurt me. He’s got the motivation, but he’s also in prison, and it would take a lot of sway, and even more cash, to orchestrate something like this from inside.” Nico shook his head, pinching his lips together in thought. “I just can’t imagine him having the resources to pull it off. Throw a second victim into the mix—three, if you count Sara, which, we can’t with any certainty—and we’re officially dealing with a serial killer. But again, Sara’s murder makes it complicated. It’s possible that Fowler is innocent, and the real killer is still out there, finishing what he started, though I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s not the case. Even if it were, why leave such a big gap between the first and second murders? It’s also possible that this has nothing to do with who these women were, but where they came from. They all kept bad company. For all we know, the killer is some disgruntled local holding onto a grade school grudge. We’ve got enough probable cause to look at multiple suspects, but not a shred of hard evidence to make an arrest.” Frustrated, he rubbed a hand down his face. “There’s something I’m not seeing, I know it. Something that should be obvious, but it’s just not. It’s like—” He paused, struggling to find the right words. “It’s like when you bump into someone you’ve met before. You know their face, but you can’t remember their name. It’s right there tickling the edge of your mind, but you can’t get a good enough grip on it to bring it fully into your head.”
“I usually end up thinking of it a few days later,” Lexie said. “When it’s too late to do anything about it.”
Nico cast a grave look at her. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter twenty-five
When Nico strolled into the station a little after seven-thirty, the first thing he noticed was George Riley fast asleep in the holding cell, snoring like a band saw and using his jacket as a makeshift pillow. West’s office door was closed, and Cora hadn’t come in yet. Nobody was in the bullpen either, but there were voices coming from one of the interview rooms.
“George?” he addressed the sleeping figure. “Hey, George.”
Nothing, not even a twitch. The man was out cold.
Just then the interview room door opened and the redheaded bartender from Rusty’s stepped out, her left wrist wrapped in a bandage. She was dressed in her work uniform and looked like hell. Frank and Zoe came out behind her, seeming equally as tired.
“Vikki?” Nico walked over, took her in. “Are you alright? What happened?”
“Uh . . .” She looked lost, her face a mixture of fatigue and the unspoken words; where should I begin?
