Tiffany Snow - Out of Turn

I lifted my chin. “It was great,” I lied.

Blane just looked at me.

I huffed in exasperation, caving. “Okay, it wasn’t great. But it doesn’t matter because after that little scene I doubt I’ll hear from him again. Are you happy now?”

His mouth tipped up at the corners, like he was thinking about smiling. “Very.”

He opened the back door for me and I climbed into the car. Blane got in the front as Kade started the engine and we pulled away from the house.

I leaned forward between the two men, bracing my arms on the tops of their seats. “So where are we going?”

“Kandi’s house,” Kade answered.

“Why?”

“Check out the crime scene.”

“I thought you’d already been there?” I asked Blane.

“It was right after she was murdered,” Blane said, glancing at me. “I was in shock. There were lots of people around. I didn’t get a good look.”

“So why all the firepower?” I asked.

“Whoever did this is still out there,” he explained. “And he’s a sick fuck. I’d rather be armed, just in case.”

“So what’s with the date?” Kade asked.

I abruptly leaned back in my seat. “Nothing. Just some guy I met.”

“And his last name was…?” Blane prompted.

I shot a glare to the back of his head. “I don’t remember.”

“Well, he looked like a barrel of laughs, so I’m sure you had a great time,” Kade teased. “And how thoughtful of him to get you home so early.”

“He had to work tomorrow,” I said, making up an excuse for my short date. I really didn’t want Blane and Kade to know how boring Luke had been.

“I see,” Kade said. “And what did he do for a living?”

Shit. “Um… something with numbers?”

Blane snorted a laugh at me.

“I wasn’t paying a whole lot of attention, okay?” I protested. “He talked a lot.”

Now Blane laughed outright, turning a bit so our gazes caught. His eyes twinkled at me.

I hid a smile and said loftily, “Okay, I’ll admit it wasn’t exactly a love connection. But hey, he bought me dinner, so it wasn’t a total loss.”

“I would’ve bought you dinner,” Blane said, his voice a low thrum of sound.

Kade made a too-sharp turn and Blane was suddenly plastered against the passenger door.

“Sorry about that,” Kade said easily.

I sighed. Maybe that maturity thing I’d been thinking they both had earlier was really just wishful thinking on my part.

Kade parked a block away, under the looming darkness of an overgrown oak tree. I followed Blane through the yards, Kade bringing up the rear. When we reached the rear of the darkened house, Blane paused, handing both me and Kade a pair of latex gloves.

“No fingerprints,” he said, pulling on a pair himself.

My heart was pounding as Blane took out a key and unlocked the back door.

The house was still and silent, making the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I followed Blane as he left the kitchen, entered the foyer, and then climbed the stairs to the second floor. The last door on the left was ajar and Blane flipped on the light in the room.

None of us spoke, and I was painfully conscious that a woman’s terrifying last moments had occurred in this very room. Flecks of dried blood stained the ivory satin sheets on the bed, which was where my eyes were inexorably drawn.

Blane paused for a moment, his gaze on the bed, too, then he seemed to shake himself. Moving to the dresser, he began opening drawers and pawing through them.

“What are we looking for?” I asked.

“Whoever did this was someone she knew,” Blane said. “There’s no sign of forced entry and no evidence of a struggle. She let him in, let him come up here. There’s got to be something around here that can help us figure out who he is.”

“Her phone records show repeated calls to an unlisted number, including one the night she was murdered,” Kade said. “I traced the number to a burner phone, so dead end there. Was she dating anyone else?” He started on the dresser drawers.

I flinched at the “anyone else” part of that question. Opening her large walk-in closet, I started looking through her things, trying not to think about how much Kandi would have hated me touching her belongings.

“She said something,” Blane answered, digging through another drawer, “about a man who, quote, ‘appreciated’ her. She was trying to make me jealous, I think. I didn’t care enough to ask who it was.”

Sometimes the coldness Blane was capable of rivaled Kade’s.

“Shouldn’t the police be looking for that guy?” I asked.

“The police have all the evidence they need,” Blane said. “I’m not sure how much longer Charlotte can hold off an arrest.”

“Shouldn’t your uncle be helping you?” I asked, trying and failing to keep the bitterness from my voice. Regardless of how much I hated Senator Keaston, he had always had Blane’s best interests at heart, no matter how misguided his actions.

“I’ve asked Robert to keep his distance,” Blane replied. “No need to take him down with me.”

I didn’t have anything to say to that, so just kept on searching. My mind worked the puzzle as I searched through Kandi’s clothes. Whoever had done this was sick and twisted. Maybe they were also the kind that liked to play rough in the bedroom? If so, he and Kandi would have needed… accessories. If they’d used any, maybe there would still be DNA. Where would she have kept stuff like that?

A woman like her would have hidden them, I decided. But where?

I looked up at the stacks and stacks of shoeboxes lining Kandi’s closet. Hmm.

Reaching up, I pulled a box carefully from the stack, but it was high and I watched in horror as the whole stack teetered. I squealed in dismay and covered my head with my arms at the shower of boxes that tumbled down on me.

“What are you doing?” Kade asked in bewilderment, suddenly appearing at my elbow.

I cautiously lowered my arms. It looked like the avalanche was over. “I’m looking for her… toys,” I explained.

“Her what?”

My face burned. “You know… her personal things. I just thought maybe if she was seeing someone else, they might have left some DNA, or something…” My voice trailed off at the look of amusement on Kade’s face. “What?”

“So you’re looking in shoeboxes?” He snorted. “Why don’t we just ask Blane where she kept them?”

He turned away, but I grabbed a fistful of his shirt. “Don’t you dare ask Blane—” I hissed.

“Ask me what?”

Now Blane had ventured into the closet behind Kade.

“Where did Kandi keep her sex toys?”

Kade’s bluntness made me hurriedly turn away. I didn’t want to think about the images going through my head now of Blane and Kandi—

“How the fuck would I know?” Blane retorted with some surprise.

“Figured you were sleeping with her, you’d know,” Kade said with a shrug.

“Listen,” Blane sneered, “you may need stuff like that, but I don’t.”

“So you’re boring in bed,” Kade said with a smirk. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You can’t be good at everything.”

Good lord. I was trapped in a murdered woman’s closet with two grown men acting like fifteen-year-old boys.

“Can we just drop it?” I snapped. “Or should I get out a ruler and start measuring?”

Both men looked at me, and I knew my face was flaming, but I just cocked an eyebrow at them. Blane’s lips finally twisted in a near smile.

“It’s too cold in here for that,” Kade deadpanned.

“Well, they’re not going to be in here,” Blane said, glancing around the closet. “They’d be by the bed, right? In the nightstand?”

I shook my head. “No. Kandi probably had a cleaning lady and I bet she did the laundry. Kandi would’ve hid them from her.” I crouched down and started taking lids off shoeboxes.

The men seemed to consider this statement for a moment, then Blane reached for more boxes off the shelf, looking into them one by one. Kade did the same.

“So…,” Kade said after a few moments of blessed silence.

I braced myself. I knew that tone and whatever was coming next was probably going to be wildly inappropriate.

“I can’t help wondering,” he continued. “Where do you keep your… personal things?”

Sometimes I hated being right.

“I am so not answering that,” I shot back, digging through another stack of boxes and cursing that Kandi had so many freaking pairs of shoes.

“So is it like a collection? I mean, do you have enough to fill a shoebox? Some of these seem kind of… small… for that sort of thing.” He picked up a box, eyeing its dimensions doubtfully.

Oh my God. I was going to kill him. To my dismay, I heard Blane smother a laugh.

“I do not have a collection,” I protested.

“So you admit you do own items of a personal nature?”

“Every woman does. It’s not a big deal.” I tried to shrug it off.

At my admission, both men paused in their search, their heads turning toward me. I studiously avoided their gazes and prayed they weren’t imagining me with…

“Found it!” I crowed. And not a moment too soon, considering where the conversation had been headed.

The box contained a few things I recognized, and a few I didn’t. But what immediately caught my eye was the navy blue, patterned silk tie. I carefully drew it out of the box.

“Really hoping that’s not yours, brother,” Kade said softly.

Me, too, I thought but didn’t say.

“It’s not.”

Blane produced a plastic baggie and I slipped the tie inside. There were a couple of silk scarves, too, and I put them in another baggie.

“We’ve been here a while,” Blane said, glancing at his watch. “It’s pushing it. Let’s go.”

Kade offered me his hand and I climbed out from the mountain of shoeboxes. Blane watched, flicking off the bedroom light. I saw Blane and Kade removing their gloves as we walked down the hall and I did the same, shoving them in my pocket.

We were almost to the stairs when we heard the front door open. All of us froze.

A cold rush of adrenaline poured through my veins. Who could be here at this time of night? Was it a friend of Kandi’s? A relative? Or was it the murderer, returning to make sure he’d left no evidence behind?

Blane grabbed my arm, jerking open the nearest door and shoved me inside. Kade followed, then Blane, who eased the door shut behind him.

We were in some kind of closet, maybe a linen closet, I thought, and it wasn’t big enough for the three of us. I was sandwiched tightly between Blane and Kade and couldn’t see a thing, the blackness utterly complete.

Blane and Kade were still and silent, Kade at my back and Blane in front. I strained my ears, hearing the faint sound of footsteps on the stairs, coming closer and passing by our hiding place.

The closet was warm, too warm, it was stifling. I couldn’t move. I was trapped. How long would we have to stay in here?

“Take it easy,” Kade breathed in my ear, his voice a bare whisper of sound. His hands settled on my hips. “Breathe.”

I closed my eyes—not that it made a difference in what I could see, it was so dark—and tried to concentrate on breathing. I felt Blane’s fingers curl over mine as he took my hand. Only then did I realize that tremors shook my whole body. I was breathing too fast and too shallow. Hyperventilating.

I felt the same way I had in the ambulance. It was hard to concentrate. And when I opened my eyes, I kept seeing the faces of the men who’d taken me, felt the horror of being utterly at their mercy. In some detached way, I knew I was fighting a flashback and panic attack, but that didn’t mean I could stop it.

Kade’s arm curved around my stomach, holding me tight. “Don’t think about it,” he whispered. “Think about something else. You know how many women would sacrifice a limb to be stuffed in a closet with two hot guys like me and Blane?”

His words penetrated my haze and my lips trembled in a faint smile.

Blane had both my hands in his now, then took my arms and wrapped them around his waist, as though to ground me in the present. He rubbed my arms, gently and methodically moving up to my shoulders and back down to my elbows. I rested my forehead against his chest and closed my eyes, breathing in and out. Rinse, lather, repeat. Kade pressed his mouth to my bare shoulder, the kiss gentle and silent. His hands lay low across my abdomen as he held me.

Blane’s scent clung to his skin, leaching through the thin fabric of his T-shirt. I inhaled greedily. Breathe in. Breathe out. But it was still too fast. My head swam.