“You need to be careful,” Slater said. Something in his voice told me it wasn’t a casual warning.
“I’m always careful.”
“Dom threatened you tonight.”
I shrugged and sat back against the couch. “Maybe I’m just too confident, but his little ‘I’ll kill you’ threat tonight didn’t seem all that serious.”
Slater’s eyes met mine. His gaze was steady and clear. “In the past year, I’ve never heard him actually threaten someone like he did tonight. Dom doesn’t like to get his hands too dirty. He usually has his thugs take care of his business.”
“See? No worries,” I replied.
“You don’t get it. He doesn’t make idle threats. According to the gossip, the last person Dom ever verbally threatened was Milo.”
And now Milo was suspected as being dead.
I nodded slowly. Being precautious wouldn’t hurt. In fact, it would be smart.
“You get under his skin, Gray,” Slater said, using my undercover name.
I wondered if he even knew my real name. Hell, I didn’t know his.
“He’s going to be watching you. He’s going to look for a reason to take you down,” he said, then studied me for a moment. “You might be just what this case needs.”
“Why’s that?”
“I have a feeling your presence in the crew is going to stir things up. It’s going to push Dom’s buttons. Push them enough that something slips.”
I felt my lips curve. “Pushing buttons is what I do best.”
Slater nodded. “Just be careful how far you push. You don’t want to end up like Milo.”
A little sliver of fear moved down my spine. I pushed it away. I didn’t have time for fear. I needed to focus because the cut-and-dry drug case I thought I was working just turned a little more complicated.
Complicated as in murder.
13
Julie
The next two weeks were like a piece of chewed meat that lay inside someone’s gut for days. It slowly rotted away, weighing me down and giving me a bad case of acid reflux.
(Now you see why I don’t eat meat.)
I felt Blue’s absence like a rash that wouldn’t go away. It made me grouchy (can’t you tell with all the rotting meat and rash talk?). But what made it worse was that I couldn’t understand how I could feel the absence of someone who had never been present in the first place. Yeah, we had one date. It was months ago.
It wasn’t even the date I thought of. Not anymore.
It was his kiss. It was the feel of his body against mine. It was that damn lip piercing that I practically yearned to pull through my teeth.
Even though he told me I wouldn’t see him around, I still looked for him. Every car that passed by me on the street, I searched the driver’s seat. Every man that walked into the salon, my heart would skip and I would seek out his face. When the phone rang, I secretly hoped it was him.
Disappointment was a sour taste in my mouth every single time it wasn’t him.
I knew I wouldn’t see him. It only made me want to see him more.
I stayed late to restock the display and update my running list for the inventory so I would know what to order next week when I made my call to the suppliers. I took my time. I wasn’t really in a hurry to get home anyway. I’d just end up thinking about things—about a certain person—I didn’t want to think about.
When all the stylists were gone for the day, a still silence blanketed the salon. It was quite the change from the normally bustling atmosphere. Knowing that I’d stalled enough, I made my last notation on my paperwork and then put it away for later. After slinging my bag over my shoulder and grabbing my empty water bottle off the counter, I shut off the lights in the back room and pulled the door around on my way out.
All the stylist chairs were empty and lined up perfectly facing the mirrors. The floors were swept free of hair. A few lights still shone overhead, illuminating the space enough so it wasn’t dark.
As I walked from the back of the salon toward the front, I noticed Susan was still in her office. The door was partially ajar and a sliver of light stretched out across the tile floor.
But even if I hadn’t noticed the light, I would have known she was still here because her muffled voice caught my attention. Even though I couldn’t make out what she was saying, I could hear the tone behind her words… the frustration.
Curious, I crept closer.
(What? You would eavesdrop too and you know it.)
“I told you not to call me here,” she ground out, her voice low.
There was a pause as she listened to whoever was on the other end of the line, and then she made a strangled sound. “I told you I would take care of it.”