Make Me Up (Killer Style 3)

“Not your fault.” He shoved his fists into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “We need to be talking about your case.”

“My case?” That made it seem so distant and harmless. In reality, it was her life swirling around the toilet bowl. Many of her clients would scatter as soon as they heard the news. Having a client die in the middle of a makeup application tended to do that. The others would want her around just to get the inside scoop about what happened. Not that she would say anything even if she knew it. Gossip stopped being her thing once she’d been at the dead center of it in complete ugly glory. Once again, she’d be alone and starting out from scratch.

“No offense,” he said, “but your performance with the cops didn’t do you any favors.”

She lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye, giving off all the bravado she could muster. “I wasn’t looking for any.”

“Then you won’t be disappointed.” He sighed and rubbed his hand against the back of his head as he paced from one end to the other of her living room. “Take me through what really happened.”

“You already heard everything I told the detective.” God, she’d been so glad to see him walk into that hideous white room that it had taken everything she had not to run smack dab into his arms, but showing that kind of weakness in front of the police wasn’t in her DNA.

“You can’t think of anything else?” he asked.

She hesitated. Fergus had been toying with the lipstick… Could he?

No, it was ridiculous. She’d been with him the whole time, and he’d never even opened the silver tube. Just thinking about the possibility made her feel guilty.

“What is it?” Before she could answer, his cell phone chirped out some hard rock anthem heavy on the bass. He glanced down and grimaced. “Shit. I have to take this, but we will finish this conversation.” He raised the phone to his ear.

She flipped him off—very ladylike, she knew. Her mother would’ve been so proud.

“Yeah, I’m with her.” He paused, and his eyes rolled to the ceiling. “No, I am not annoying her.” A longer pause. “There’s reason to be concerned.”

Her stomach hit her toes faster than an anvil dropping in an old school cartoon. She’d hoped she was just being paranoid as usual about the police, but the fact that others were worried increased her nerves by a factor of ten. She closed her eyes, then took in a deep breath and let it out in one long, uninterrupted exhale until her lungs burned from the emptiness. When she opened her eyes again, his phone was an inch from her nose.

“They want to talk to you.”

She stumbled back. “The police?”

He reached out, and his strong grasp on her elbow steadied her. And then there was that gentle smile again, the one that made her forget to breathe. “Sylvie and Tony.”

Not the cops. Relief whooshed through her. “I’ll call her in a little while after you leave.” She pointed towards the door

“We can hear you.” Sylvie’s voice came through loud and clear on the phone’s speaker. “This isn’t something you can handle by yourself.”

She could. She would. It’s how she handled everything. How she’d been forced to handle everything after the police took her dad away in handcuffs and left her on her own. But she couldn’t explain that to Sylvie, not with Cam listening. Especially not while he still touched her arm, reminding her of just how much he unsettled her and how shaky her world had become.

“Who said I’d handle this alone?” She pulled her elbow free, immediately missing the strength he offered and hating herself for it. “I’ll call a lawyer in the morning.”

“Tony’s already talked to his old buddies on the force,” Sylvie responded. “Tell her what they said.”

Tony’s voice came through the phone. “It’s a high-profile case, and you’re an easy target for suspicion.”

“Because I was there?” Her voice sounded pinched to her own ears. “I wasn’t the only one in the room.”

“No, but you were the one closest to her at the time of her death,” Tony said. “And because of what happened before.”

Sins of the father and all that. Yeah, she knew what he really meant. “You mean because of my parents.”

“Yeah, I do,” Tony said.

Cam, standing close enough that a low-level frisson of awareness lapped at her skin, quirked an eyebrow at her in question. She wasn’t about to go into all that—not with him. Especially not now.

“My dad’s conviction won’t have any influence on my case.” She tried to believe her own words, but stubborn doubt tugged at her.

Sylvie sighed into the phone. “But you need to worry about the court of public opinion too. God knows the brass will, and that doesn’t help your case at all.”

“They’re not going to convict me just because of my parents.”