Ruthless Bastard (Dangerous Love 3)

Rhett shook his head with a laugh. “You’re such a fucking goner.”

Yeah, Boone was, and he knew it. Peyton had gotten into his head, and by all appearances, she wasn’t even trying. That one kiss had played on his mind constantly. He wanted more.

He also became aware of the crowd outside being forced off the sidewalk by the yellow tape. Even from where he stood, he saw the concern on the faces he recognized outside. People he knew growing up. His high school principal was there. The lady who owned the flower shop a few blocks down. Even the receptionist from the doctor’s office was in the crowd.

Stoney Creek was a small town. Everyone knew each other. And from experience, Boone knew that as soon as word got out that there was a murder, calls would start coming in about neighbors, old boyfriends, and enemies ratting each other out. But he also knew fear would run rampant in the town he loved and served to protect.

Reminding himself of the job he needed to do, he gave Peyton one last look as she rubbed Kinsley’s back. His sister was sitting on the floor next to Peyton. Her head was over a bucket, her long chocolate-brown hair hanging over the sides. All of which didn’t surprise him. His baby sister had a weak stomach on the best of days. “Catch me up,” he said to Rhett.

“Peyton opened the shop this morning. Kinsley was with her,” Rhett reported. “That’s when they found the body.”

Boone turned his attention to the matter at hand. A few inches away from his boots lay a blond woman in a pool of her own blood. She looked in her mid-twenties, and by her body position, Boone suspected she had no idea the shot was coming. He couldn’t see any defensive wounds on her hands. Her clothes were all in place, making him believe the murder wasn’t sexually motivated.

Doing what he did best, he surveyed the scene. The lingerie shop was narrow and long and set into one of the historic buildings on Main Street. The walls were painted hot pink, with blood spatter now. In the front of the store was a sales counter and white tables set out with the lacy garments, but the victim lay in the back storage room, where a small desk sat with a computer monitor on top. The back building door was closed, and nothing seemed out of place, except for the deceased woman.

Behind the woman, the crime scene technicians were already processing the murder. “First thoughts?” Boone asked no one in particular.

“I’d say it’s a robbery gone wrong,” the third member of their rat pack growing up, Detective Asher Sullivan, said as he walked in through the back door from the parking lot with latex gloves on his hands. His blond hair was styled and gelled, and his eyes were a bright green.

They’d all become best friends in grade school—the three troublemakers back then, who all ended up in law enforcement one way or another, and now tended to work together often.

Asher stopped near the body and gestured at the safe not far from the victim. “Broken into and emptied.”

Boone squatted down, getting closer to the woman’s lifeless body. He kept his hands on his thighs, careful not to touch her, knowing full well if he did even with gloves, the medical examiner would serve him up for dinner. “A shot to the back of the head doesn’t shout robbery.” No, a shot where the victim wasn’t looking at the killer typically meant the shooter felt guilt, not wanting to look at the victim when the life faded from her eyes.

Rhett peered into the safe, then turned around. “Why hit a lingerie shop? The petty cash can’t be worth killing someone over.”

Boone agreed with a firm nod. He’d moved to New York City in his twenties and worked for the New York City PD for ten years. In those years, he’d seen crimes in the city that would always haunt him. A small, coastal Maine town like Stoney Creek didn’t have the gang violence or murders like New York City. Murders were few and far between here, with most being domestic, or resulting from organized crime in surrounding areas. Rapes were even less common. Minor robberies, thefts, and burglaries tended to be what Boone spent his days investigating. Which was a far cry from his time in the NYPD. The blood, the cruelty, the hate—Boone had seen enough death to last him a lifetime. He straightened, shoving his hands into his pockets. “And why hit this shop with a busy club next door?” Kinsley’s jazz club, Whiskey Blues, would have cash on hand, and a lot of it, compared to what the lingerie shop had.

Asher made a note on his pad, then clicked his pen closed. “I agree. Something about this one feels odd.”

Anything odd was never a good thing, and the tension spilling out from Rhett and Asher mirrored what Boone felt too.

The back door didn’t appear broken into, but the residents in Stoney Creek didn’t lock their doors. Boone couldn’t pinpoint what bothered him about what he was seeing here, but something made his skin crawl. And that sensation he trusted, telling him there was more going on here than first appearances.

He parted his lips to say as such, when a high voice snapped, “Stop right where you are.” Marissa, the five-foot-one, short-haired brunette fireball medical examiner entered the back room. “You better not have touched a single thing.”

With a smirk, Boone leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms. Marissa believed in protocol with a capital P. Her compulsive disorder had served her well and made her one hell of an ME.

“Is this still enough for you?” Rhett mused, grinning from ear to ear.

She studied him, her thin lips pinching tight. “Your mouth is moving, so no.”

Rhett laughed softly.

Marissa placed her bag down near Boone, then waved them out of the back room. “Get gone.” She believed in spirts, in energies, and she needed quiet when she worked to allow the victims to speak to her.

Boone never questioned her method, no matter that more than once he questioned her sanity. Marissa never missed a damn thing, and he’d seen her attention to detail send criminals to jail. “You’ll be in touch when you have your findings?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Marissa flicked her hand at him again, solely focused on the victim now.

Boone went to turn away, when the air in the room shifted slightly, becoming thicker, harder to inhale. It came as no surprise after a quick look back, he found Peyton staring at him. When they met that first night in the club, he’d been curious about the gorgeous woman who’d walked through the doors looking a little lost and edgy. But lately, for reasons he couldn’t figure out, his curiosity had gone from mild to hard-core all too quickly. She had this hold over him he couldn’t explain, even to himself.

Needing answers that only she could give him, Boone headed Peyton’s way. She wasn’t the typical blond bombshell. There was an undeniable softness about her. A sweetness, even. Her long hair resembled the color of honey, and his fingers twitched to tangle in their strands. But the ghosts in the depths of her rich hazel eyes were what held him tight. Heartbreak was a pain he understood. And any sort of sadness on her pretty face made him damn near clamor to make her smile.

When he finally reached her, he studied her calmness, surprised she didn’t look more rattled at finding a woman murdered in her shop this morning. “All right?” he asked.

Peyton’s pink lips parted.