Page 22 of Swerve
“He’s never done anything like that.”
“Glad I could be the first.”
This brings a half-smile to her mouth, and as if it has surprised her, she instantly sobers. “Maybe he thinks you can help find Mia.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Or maybe he’s just an ornery cat?”
The assessment clearly offends her. She pulls Pounce a little closer and says, “I believe animals have the ability to sense things that humans do not.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.”
“I have no idea whether you’re right or not, but do you think you could stick him in another room until we’re done?”
She considers the question long enough that he’s fairly sure she’s going to tell him to go screw himself, but instead, she disappears from the living room, the cat staring back at him over her shoulder. He hears a door open and close down the hallway and then looks up as she walks back in the room without the cat.
He feels a short stab of guilt that she’s conceded to booting the cat, realizing he’s given her absolutely no reason to like him enough to answer any of his questions. “If you’d rather he hang out in here, it’s fine.”
“Why are you here, Detective Helmer?” she asks, ignoring the concession.Her arms are folded across her chest, her manner now all business.
“So you got through medical school while raising your kid sister?”
“I did.”
“That ever feel like a burden?”
Her eyes go wide at the question, shock rippling across her face. “Is there a point to your question?”
He lifts his shoulders in a half-shrug, holding her gaze. “Should there be?”
Outrage flares now, and he can feel her desire to give him the verbal dress-down she thinks he deserves. “Are you implying I had something to do with my sister’s disappearance?”
“Did you?”
It’s a little direct, even for him, going for the jugular that way, but he’s not in the mood for dancing around the real reason he’s here. He’s already made one significant error in judgment within the past twenty-four hours. He doesn’t need to add another to the list.
She visibly struggles for control, her cheeks red with a rush of anger. “So is this what’s happening with Mia’s investigation? This is the best your department has got? Send over a detective with an obvious chip on his shoulder to grill the sister who must have a reason to want her dead?”
“No one said anything about dead,” he says, his voice even.
“Are you trying to back me in a corner?”
He watches her rein in her disbelief. When she speaks again, her voice is the one he imagines she uses as a doctor with a patient she expects to disagree with her recommendations.
“My sister is my entire world. She is the only family I have. I am dying inside at the thought of her being hurt or—”
Her voice breaks there, and the regret that shoots through his chest is a surprise.
“Can we sit down?” he asks.
She leads the way to the sofa in the center of the room and sits at one corner without answering him.
He takes the other corner and makes the decision to try a different course, pulling a pen and notepad from his jacket pocket. “Tell me what Mia likes to do.”
“I went over all of this at the station last night.”
“Indulge me.”
