Page 12 of Kiss Me Honey Hone

Jack didn’t respond. He just looked at Kenny, who was stifling a laugh behind a balled fist. Aaron left them both to it with a smidgen of gratification lifting the corners of his mouth.

Chapter four

Toxic

“You’re still teaching him, then?” Jack said after the lecture theatre door swung shut behind Aaron’s exit.

Kenny perched on the edge of his desk, arms folded. “That’s what you start with?”

Jack turned to face him. “Hmm?”

“You come to my place of work, my lecture, and you question who my students are?”

Jack gave him a look. “He’s not any student. You know it.”

“But he’s certainly none of your business.” Kenny narrowed his eyes in afterthought. “Unless you’re here to tell me otherwise.”

Jack held up his hands in surrender. “No. My bad. Sorry.” He then sighed.

Kenny recognised Jack’s stance. He knew the look, too. A fresh case was troubling him, and Jack was here because he couldn’t shake a feeling. It was as if the events of last year had set them both back on the path of being reliant on one another for support. They’d become sort of friends again. Not friends who confide in one another about certain secret lives, but surface level enough for Kenny to feel guilty about that.

“How was Greece?” Jack asked, obviously trying to return to safer ground.

“Crete’s a nice place. Recommend Mount Ida. But maybe don’t tackle it when it’s forty degrees.”

Jack chuckled. “Will keep that in mind. Fraser’s a red-haired Scotsman, he’d burn alive.”

“Still no ideas about the honeymoon?”

Jack was now a married man. His wedding to Fraser had been an intimate ceremony in August, held at a cozy hotel and spa in a village just outside Ryston, attended only by close family and friends. Kenny, a last-minute addition to the guest list as his and Jack’s friendship was still rekindling, had brought Heather. Not as a date, more because they had a friendship. And Kenny’s guilt over what had happened last year with her daughter keeping her in his life. She and Jack had hit it off immediately, though. So much so they now messaged each other on WhatsApp. Kenny suspected it wasn’t only because of her curiosity about Jack as his ex-boyfriend and coming to terms with his bisexuality, but Heather still carried the scars of what had happened to her daughter, Alice. Knowing the detective who’d overseen that case, now as a friend, seemed to give her some sense of security.

It gave Kenny a sense of discomfort.

“Not yet. We’ll make a firm decision over the weekend.” Jack stepped in closer. “Which reminds me, Heather invited us to hers on Friday. She said she would invite you and that old school friend of hers you know. Has she?”

Kenny’s phone pinged on his desk, and he slanted over to check the display.Heather. “She has now.”

“I’ve said yes. Fraser’s looking forward to it. Will make the dessert. Might be nice to get together? I like her.”

“Maybe.” Whilst that might be true, he also knew Heather was probably hoping Kenny might want to date her again,having broken things off last year, pleading he hadn’t been ready for commitment. “But I take it you’re not here to match make?”

“Ah. No.” Jack ensured no one else was lingering nearby before tugging out a slim folder from his satchel bag. “I’m actually here for your consultancy.”

“Seriously?”

“Afraid so.” Jack handed over the file. “Connie Bishop.”

Kenny inhaled sharply. “I thought that was a random death from natural causes? At least that’s what the Vice Chancellor’s office filtered down to SLT. Hence no announcement to the students to be vigilant. Are you telling me otherwise?”

“Afraid so. I imagine your VC doesn’t want another PR nightmare. Especially with the state of higher education at the moment.”

“You believe the media too much. We’re fine.”

“If you say so.”

Kenny took the file with apprehension sparking in his gut and he opened it carefully, the first sheet revealing the basic information:Connie Bishop, 20 years old, Ryston University student, found deceased.No obvious trauma, no external injuries, nothing hinting at why a young woman would collapse without warning.

“Preliminary reports show no signs of struggle, no recent injuries.” Jack’s tone remained factual but laced with a gravity Kenny hadn’t heard in a while. “Scene was clean. If you can call it that. Found slumped in the bar clutching a single red rose.”

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