Page 27 of Take a Hike
That was weirdly vague and didn’t seem very motive-y to Charlie. “Talking?”
“Loudly.”
Ah.“Arguing then. When?”
He scratched the line of his jaw, the rasp of stubble loud in the tiny office. “Right before he disappeared.”
“So you fought, in public, the last time he was seen in a not-murdered state?” Charlie gave him a flat look. “Yeah, I’m surethe reason you’re a suspect is because you’reunpopular.”
The faintest touch of red colored his cheekbones. “Well?” he demanded as she tried to not find his pouty look unbearably attractive. She was discovering all sorts of things about herself on this trip to Simpson. Who knew her type was moody, caffeine-deprived firefighters who might’ve murdered the local militia leader? Even as she thought it, she mentally shook her head—not at the thought that she found the crabby man attractive, because she definitely did, but at the idea that Kieran was a killer.Mood-killer, maybe, but unless he glared Cobra to death with his eyeball lasers, Charlie’s instincts were telling her that Kieran wasn’t the murderer.
It took a moment to get her brain back on track enough to answer him. “Well, what?”
“Who do you think killed him?”
“It’s really too bad Clint has an alibi,” Charlie said with a sigh. “He’s the perfect suspect.”
“A good alibi too.” Fifi sounded a bit sour, which was understandable. Clint had tried to kidnap her, after all. “Hard to argue with ‘he was in jail.’”
“Yeah.” Charlie was quiet for a moment, mourning the loss of their perfect suspect. “Who else besides you hated Cobra?”
“I didn’t hate him,” Kieran grumbled.
“Then why’d you scream at him in the middle of Main Street?” Charlie asked.
Looking slightly offended, he corrected her assumption. “It wasn’t in the middle of Main Street.” When Charlie raised her eyebrows and just waited him out, he finally admitted, “It wasin the grocery store.”
“That’s so much better.” Her tone was dry enough to draw a snort of amusement from Fifi. “What was your fight about?”
“It wasn’t a…” He must’ve noticed that Charlie was about three seconds away from leaping out of her chair and choking a straight answer out of him, because he cleared his throat and started again. “He was saying rude things to his wife. I told him to knock it off. He didn’t appreciate it much.”
“Gabrielle Jones?” Charlie asked, and Kieran lifted his chin in a tight nod.Hmm…interesting.“If he was abusive to her, that opens up the suspect pool—Gabrielle, her family, friends, any boyfriends or wannabe boyfriends…” She trailed off as an unwelcome thought occurred to her. “Were you one?”
“One what?”
“One of the hypothetical boyfriends?” When he frowned even harder in confusion, she clarified, “Were you involved with Gabrielle? As a friend, or…romantically?” The thought made her stomach feel squirmy for some reason, but she told herself it was just because Kieran was making himself look more and more like a viable suspect.
“No.” His flat answer rang with honesty, and Charlie’s shoulders dropped a few inches. “Barely know her. Don’t have to be screwing her to step in when her husband’s being an ass.”
Charlie blinked as she absorbed his statement that was strangely honorable in a rough, angry way. “So, Cobra was being nasty to his wife at the grocery store, you stepped in, the two of you argued, and then…?” She rolled her hand in a please-continue gesture.
He shrugged. “Then nothing. They left. I shopped. Everyone else stared like brainless idiots.”
“Not a big fan of humanity in general?” Charlie asked.
“No.”
“Understandable.” Except for her sisters—and recently, their respective men—Charlie wasn’t wild about most people either. She’d always figured her antisocial bent was because the bounty-hunting thing tended to feature the more unpleasant side of humanity, but Kieran was a firefighter. He should be surrounded by other disproportionately attractive heroes and adoring groupies, so she wondered what skewed his worldview. Then she remembered who his dad was, and his crabbiness made more sense. She met his gaze, feeling a bone-deep curiosity to discover all of this man’s secrets.
“What exactly did the sheriff say?” Fifi asked, bringing Charlie back to the point of this discussion. It was too easy to get distracted while Kieran was filling up all the space in the room.
Kieran’s gaze lingered on Charlie’s for an extra hundredth of a second before moving to Fifi. “What questions did she ask me?”
“Not unless they’re something very different than what we’ve just asked you?” When Kieran gave a tight shake of his head, Fifi continued. “Then no. I’m wondering how she left it. Don’t leave town? We’ll be back later today with an arrest warrant? We’ll be watching you from the shrubs outside your living room window tonight?”
Kieran flicked a look over at Charlie before his gaze returned to Fifi, and his almost-smile was back. “Sometimes the familyresemblance is obvious.”
Bennett gave a cough that sounded like he was disguising a laugh.
