Page 32 of Triggered By Love
“It was a misunderstanding. They mistook me for someone else,” Saul said.
“Who would they mistake you for?” Jason asked, hoping to drive the questions toward his brother. If he wasn’t mistaken, his brother had stayed in the model apartments upstairs.
“No one, at least not anyone I know.”
“At least they didn’t hurt Avery.”
“Oh, no, that wasn’t what they wanted,” Saul declared hotly. “They weren’t trying to hurt her.”
“Just someone with her?”
“I wasn’t with her. I was only driving rideshare, but they didn’t believe me.”
“I’m sorry they mistook you for someone else.” Jason squelched a yawn to seem as if he wasn’t interested in the answer. “Did they have a message for her?”
“Not really, they just said I’d better not rat them out, and they’d know if I did. Which is why you put me in a bad situation coming here like this.”
“Lucky I’m plain-clothed. If they were watching, they saw me come out of the bar with Avery, and since I didn’t go in with her, they’d think I only met her there. You have any idea what they want with her?”
“No.” Saul’s voice was flat, and Jason got the distinct impression he realized he’d said too much. “Nothing.”
“Hmmm…” Jason hummed. “I’m sure you have an idea.”
“I don’t, really.”
“Think they might have mistaken you for a male model?”
The man’s breath caught, and Jason could hear him swallow.
“No, man,” Saul answered in a small voice. “I’m the guy behind the camera.”
“Bet you get great pictures. I’d like to see them someday.”
“Yeah, if I get a break somewhere.”
“You never know,” Jason said.
After Saul’s breathing steadied, Jason searched the apartment. He found what he was looking for underneath the sofa cushions. Glossy black-and-white modeling shots for Garm Guillory, one of the deceased male models.
Chapter Eleven
Avery calledJason early the next morning and was relieved that Saul was okay. He was lucid and woke up with only a dull headache. The blood in his ear turned out to have trickled down from his scalp wound.
“He’s going to work, and I promised we’d stop by after we finish at the range,” Jason said.
Pushy guy, this Jason, but she didn’t call him on it. She was impressed he’d spent the night monitoring a guy he didn’t know.
“I didn’t say I was going to the range with you,” she teased, even though as a creature of habit, Saturday mornings were for shooting, not sleeping in.
“I’ll be by at seven thirty to pick you up,” he said and hung up.
The nerve of this man!
His forcefulness didn’t bother her the way it should have. Her father was like that, brusque and straightforward. He was disciplined too. As an Army guy and a retired general, he used to act like a drill sergeant, getting them up early Saturday morning for pushups, calisthenics, and a brisk run around the park.
Jason was downstairs chatting with the doorman at exactly seven thirty. Avery spotted him as soon as the elevator door opened. Her heart fluttered, and her pulse sped up, and she was about to rush out when she stepped back and let the doors close automatically.
What was wrong with her? Acting like a giddy schoolgirl on her way to the county fair with the star quarterback wasn’t remotely her modus operandi. She’d always been calm and collected. It was what had made her a good model, back before she turned self-conscious.
