Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102754 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 514(@200wpm)___ 411(@250wpm)___ 343(@300wpm)
Kapono gave a slow nod, already thinking ahead. “All right. I’ll find a way to bring in Eckhart that’s clean and above board. Maybe we’ll get a traffic stop and bring him in for questioning—whatever holds. I’ll get his prints the right way, then I’ll check them against the tire.”
I met his eyes. “If he touched that knife, I want to know yesterday.”
“You’ll have it,” Kapono promised. “One way or another.”
He peeled off, leaving Judd and me in the quiet tension of the hallway. Neither of us said it, but it was clear—Eckhart wasn’t just a ghost anymore. He had a face, a name, and soon, maybe a fingerprint.
And once we had that, we’d have enough to burn his whole world down.
We all stood there for a beat, no one saying what we were all thinking: that things were slipping fast, and we were getting closer to the edge of something we couldn’t walk back from.
But we’d already picked our side.
And Topper had no idea how close we were to blowing it all open.
Chapter 17
Sayla
When I finally closed up at Delicious Divas, I felt like I was walking on bones instead of feet. My back ached, my fingers still smelled faintly of lavender shampoo and acetone, and I’d reached that level of tiredness where everything started to feel a little floaty. The kind of tired where you don't think, you just moved on autopilot.
All I wanted was to get home—my home.
The place was finally ready after everything with the contractors and the pipe disaster. It was clean, dry, freshly patched, and waiting for me like it had missed me. Well, if a house could miss its owner, that was, which was unlikely. I was starting to think this house hated me.
Roque showed up at the salon around closing. He’d said he missed me and just wanted to se me, and sure, part of me believed that—hoped for it even—but the rest of me, the part that paid attention to things others, didn’t. That was the part of me that’d clocked the tension in his jaw. The way his eyes kept scanning the street behind me, the corners of the salon, and the parking lot through the blinds like he was expecting something to crawl out of the shadows.
When he asked me to pull my car into the garage that night, the words came out soft, almost casual, but the undercurrent was anything but.
Something was happening, and he wasn’t ready to tell me what.
After he left, I was still sweeping up loose hairs when Evie came out from the back, already tugging her jacket on.
“He’s probably still out of whack,” she explained, tying her scarf. “Kemble’s death… it wrecked him. You know that.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“It wasn’t just friendship with them. It was deeper, like they were two sides of something. Losing someone like that”—she shook her head— “that doesn’t go away fast.”
I thought about the funeral. I’d mainly gone for the kids to help where I could and ensure they weren’t overwhelmed. I remembered Roque standing there with them, stoic on the surface, but I’d seen it—the devastation underneath buried deep.
He hadn’t cried, he’d just kept them close and held it together, putting their comfort and grief above his own.
He was still breaking. Quietly. In the kind of way that could go unnoticed for far too long.
I locked the door behind Evie and stood momentarily staring out into the dim street. Something wasn’t right, and Roque was trying to carry it all alone. He might not be ready to tell me what it was, but I’d be ready when he did.
The sky was that hazy, steel-blue color that made it feel later than it was as I pulled out of the lot. I was halfway home when I remembered I had nothing in the fridge.
After the bath-through-the-ceiling disaster, everything perishable had either gone bad or gotten tossed. And whatever I’d taken over to Roque’s during the snowstorm had probably been long devoured by now. I’d meant to restock days ago, but life—loud, chaotic, and full of unexpected visits from tired, beautiful men who couldn’t hide their worry—had gotten in the way.
So, I pulled into the grocery store, grabbing a cart with a busted wheel and a mind of its own. I picked up the milk first, then some eggs, bread, and frozen meals for the days I knew I’d be too tired to cook. Looping back, I picked up a few fruits and vegetables to make myself feel like I was trying.
By the time I reached the end of the aisles, the cart had become a confession of a woman trying to remember how to live alone again.
I stood in front of the wine shelf for a minute too long, debating between red or white before finally grabbing a bottle of rosé with a vaguely artistic label. I didn’t need it, but I’d earned it.