Page 94 of Chasing After You
“Will do. Love you too.”
“Wait, Henry?” he asks, catching me just before I hang up.
“Yeah?”
Dad hesitates for a moment, and it makes me a little nervous. “You’re doing a great job with the team. Last night’s game was tough, but you played well. I’m so proud of you.”
My breath hitches as pride swells through me. “Thank you,” I say, and he hangs up.
Did that just happen?I drag my hands over my face, rubbing my tired eyes. I should have slept on the plane instead of listening to my audiobook, but once Mirabelle said she was going to listen to it too, I knew I couldn’t put it down.
“So, who do you think the serial killer is?” I ask Mirabelle, needing to talk about anything but my dad right now.
Mirabelle smiles, shaking her head. “Obviously it’s the boyfriend.”
“You think?” I ask, standing up.
“Obviously it’s not the dad because he’s in prison for the murders twenty years before. It makes sense if the boyfriend is the copycat because I think he started dating her to try to get a better insight into the dad’s mind from the original killings,” she explains, and I had the same theory.
“I thought so too,” I say, walking toward my walk-in closet and bathroom on the other end of the room. “I’m going to hop in the shower quick, then I’m going back to get Andrew. Want to come with?”
“I would, but Stacey is going to call me soon to go over something she asked me to look into earlier. I’ll be here when you get back, though. Unless Stacey asks me to do something else, I should be good to log off after our call.”
“Okay,” I say, grabbing clothes to change into.
I’m halfway through showering when I realize I never asked about the locked door. “Hey, Mira?” I call out, lathering my arms with soap. The lower half of the shower wall is tiled, extending up to my upper stomach before changing to glass paneling.
“What?” she calls back.
“Can you come here?”
“While you’re in the shower?” she asks, her voice climbing in pitch like it does when she’s flustered. I think it’s cute because she already saw me naked last night, and Mirabelle didn’t seem flustered when she wanted to watch me lose control.
Fuck, I can’t think about last night right now.
Mirabelle walks in with her hands covering her eyes, and I can’t help but smile. “Mira, you can’t see anything unless you’re wearing X-ray glasses,” I tease and she pulls her hands down to glare at me.
“Yeah, well the parts of you that I can see are pretty damn distracting. Can’t you put on like a shirt or something to cover up?” Mirabelle asks, her cheeks flaming as she waves her hand at my chest. “I mean, come on, Henry. It’s unfair you’re built like a Greek god. I feel like I need to write whoever your trainer is a thank you note.”
“You want me to wear a shirt in the shower?” I ask, biting my lip to keep from grinning as Mirabelle covers her face again, groaning loudly. I think that’s the best damn compliment I’ve ever received.
“Henry, just ask me whatever it is you want to ask me,” she says, narrowing her eyes.
I choke back a laugh, stepping under the shower head to rinse off the soap. “Are you mad at me?” I ask, unsure of the best way to go about asking this. I probably should have thought more about that before asking her to come in here.
Mirabelle tilts her head in confusion. “No? Why do you think I’m mad at you?”
“You locked the handle and the deadbolt was flipped. Those are never normally locked, so I thought maybe you did it to passive aggressively let me know you were mad,” I explain, wiping the water off my face before reaching for my conditioner.
And then her face pales, Mirabelle looking away quickly as if I can’t already see it all over her face that something’s wrong.
“Mirabelle, what happened?” I ask, trying not to let my brain run rampant, but the longer she stays silent, the more tense I become.
She hesitates, twisting her hands anxiously. “It’s nothing, Henry. I thought there might have been someone in the backyard last night, but I’m pretty sure I imagined it. It just made me feel better to have everything locked up until you and Wilson were back. You know me, I have an overactive imagination,” she jokes, trying to play it off as if this doesn’t mean anything.
What the fuck?
“What?” I ask, the blood in my veins turning to ice. Mirabelle thought there was someone in the backyard while she was here by herself, and she said nothing about it? She’s pretty sure she imagined it, but what if she didn’t, and they broke in to hurt her? “Are you okay?”
