Simply Sinful (Simply 1)

“I don’t know yet.”

She wanted answers as much as she wanted Kane. Kneeling beside him, each movement she made was deliberate and calculated. She reached inside the large, cardboard carton, bending close enough to smell his cologne and far enough over to give him a glimpse inside her shirt…if he cared to look.

She darted a glance out of the corner of her eye. He didn’t notice her watching him. His gaze was glued to her cleavage, his eyes cloudy, his cheekbones pulled tight.

She suppressed a smile. Despite the less than perfect circumstances and the threat hanging over her, she had Detective Kane McDermott just where she wanted him. The last time he’d lost his focus, they’d slept together. And she had every intention of making it happen again. Only this time, it wouldn’t be just sex. After she coaxed him into opening up to her, she’d engage his emotions, too.

For now, she would tackle what was within her control. She perused each page, smiling as she remembered how both her mother and her aunt would curl up for hours with this pastime. Her mother had been hiding from life. Her aunt had just enjoyed the escape. Kayla shut the paperback and laid it on the floor. “Nothing here.”

“The ones I’ve looked through are all completed. Your aunt was an expert.”

Kayla grinned. “Easier to be an expert when you work in pencil. Erase your mistakes, cheat a little by checking the back.” She laughed aloud. “Aunt Charlene was pretty good. Mama did more cheating than her sister. She made more mistakes, too.”

“And you made none at all?”

“I’m not perfect, Kane.”

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

She glanced at the book in her hand, one that looked like an old crossword but held precious family memories. “This one’s completed, too.”

“Let’s cover them all. I don’t want to miss anything important.”

Half an hour later, Kayla wanted to scream. They’d been through more than half the box. The pencil-smudged books were all the same. Most finished, the last few half-finished. She grabbed for the next book in the box. “This is ridiculous.”

“Just keep looking.”

She curled into a more comfortable position, picked up a pencil, and grabbed the next book. This time, she started working the puzzles, much as her aunt had probably done. She chose puzzles and individual questions at random and, just as she suspected, her answers matched Aunt Charlene’s. They would, of course, since her aunt had been as intellectual and meticulous as Kayla was.

Gnawing on the end of the pencil, she tossed the book down and went for the next one. Fifteen minutes and three books later, she began finding mistakes. Obvious ones. Ones her aunt would never have made.

Unless she’d done so on purpose. And considering Kayla had also begun finding a pattern of last names in the puzzles, she suspected these were more than game books. The implication of that sent chills crawling along her skin, and she groaned aloud.

“Find something?”

She glanced at Kane, knowing she had to reveal her discovery, hating it at the same time. “Mistakes in the entries, names instead of answers,” she muttered.

He raised an eyebrow. “Let me take a look.”

She handed him the two books she’d made headway with, and he scanned the pages along with her notes. “Looks like pay dirt.”

She frowned. “Don’t sound so pleased.”

“It’s better than coming up empty.”

“What’s the date on that first one?” Kayla asked.

“Date?”

“Every book has a handwritten date next to the first puzzle.”

“Hadn’t noticed,” he muttered.

“Marks your progress from month to month, or year to year. Didn’t I mention my family was slightly neurotic?”

“No, but you should have. We could have started at the bottom of the box and come up with something sooner. Come on.”

“Where?”