Page 70 of The Demons We Hide

“Don’t try to butter me up, Cory,” I say. “I’m woman enough to admit when I didn’t win.”

Cory eyes me for a moment, his lips twitching with the effort it takes him to hold back his grin, and then it smooths out entirely. The hand on my shoulder squeezes gently. “You’ve changed,” he says.

I frown. “What?”

But instead of explaining his words, he merely shakes his head and releases me. “Go on now, get ya some food to replenish what ya worked off today,” he calls over his shoulder as he heads towards the front counter.

My frown doesn’t go away though as I stare after him, confusion making my insides churn.I’ve changed? What the hell?

“He’s got a point,” Gio says with a sigh. “I need another shower, but I’m fucking hungry.” He eyes me. “How ‘bout we stop for burgers on the way back to Nolan’s?”

“Sure.” My answer is quick. Iamhungry after all, but still, I eye Cory warily as he waves us goodbye and then shakes his head when I tell him I’ll return the borrowed gym clothes after I wash them. No doubt he expects me to keep them, but I’m not sure if I should.

Gio takes us through a drive-thru where he orders an obscene amount of cheeseburgers and fries. When I try to hand over some cash, he grimaces and shoves me off, paying for it with his own card. Although I bristle at the feeling of charity, he ignores my snappy attitude and shoves a burger in my face before I can go off on him, and half an hour later, I’m in a better mood with a full stomach and an extra cheeseburger and fry combo for whenever Nolan comes home when Gio drops me off and waves me into the house.

I could get used to being a Scorpion Girl, I think as I let myself into the small two-bedroom mill house with the spare key hidden under the front door mat. And that, more than anything else, scares the living fuck out of me.

* * *

NOLAN

I drop the little baggy of weed into the Prep kid’s hands and swipe the money from the hood of his expensive Range Rover before heading back to my bike. My phone buzzes in my pocket as I watch the dipshit freshman speed off, no doubt feeling like a total badass with some green in his pocket. I nearly roll my eyes.Was I ever that young?Even at his age, I’d been a killer.

I dig my phone out of my pocket and grimace at the messages from Savino. Darrio is missing. Well, not so much missing as he is out of touch, and now I’ve got his right hand up my ass, demanding I do something about Juliet working at the Dionysus Lounge. I’m back to doing my regular rounds that I’ve been exempt from since Gio got jumped, but none of that includes monitoring who Ma-Ri can or cannot hire.

My phone buzzes a second time, not with an incoming text, but a call. I answer without hesitation. “Talk to me.”

“I think I’ve got a lead on Donovan’s case,” Lex says.

“You do?” I sit back on my bike’s seat and crack my neck to the side. “Explain.”

“It’s small—barely noticeable, but there were some discrepancies in the numbers across his accounts and the ones he reported to the government at the end of last year,” he says. “Plus, I’ve been looking into Jules’ mom.”

“Denise Donovan?” I frown as I finger the handle of my Indian and contemplate what I know of Juliet’s socialite mother. “Wasn’t she just a trophy wife?”

“Yeah, I thought so too,” Lex agrees. “Sort of. She comes from money out in California, though. Went to a place called Hazelwood—it’s Eastpoint’s sister school. So, it’s not like she was a nobody when she married Donovan.”

“Okay, what does that have to do with the case now?” I ask.

“Her money is gone too.”

My hand drops away from the handlebar. “What do you mean her money is gone?”

Lex takes a breath. “Denise Donovan should have had money of her own—her family had money and she had a trust fund—but either she burned through it all, or whoever embezzled from Donovan-Calloway took that too.”

“Wouldn’t that make her husband the more likely choice?”

“Yeah, you would think.” I hear him typing in the background. “But from what I understand Calloway didn’t just offer to take in Juliet, he offered to take in her mother too. Denise Donovan is a woman used to living in luxury. It makes no sense that she’d leave town, and when I looked into where I suspected she’d be…” His voice drifts off, but he doesn’t need to finish. I’m picking up on his meaning.

“She wasn’t there,” I guess, “and her family has no clue where she is either.”

“Exactly.”

Fuck. I scrub a hand down my face. “You think she is the one who embezzled the money.”

“If she is, she’s probably on an island somewhere sipping margaritas and laughing about her husband taking the fall.”

“Why would she do that, though?” I ask. “If anything, Allen Donovan didn’t have affairs like the rest of those uptight dickwads.”

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