Free Rapid Fire by Jessica Andersen Page A

for the neutral topic. “Two months from now.”
She made a face. “I’m a bridesmaid.”
     
    He
refocused his attention on her. “You don’t approve of the marriage?”
     
    She waved
him off. “It’s not that at all. They’re perfect together, even when they’re
fighting. No, I just don’t love weddings in general. Too much fuss over
something so personal. That’s why I went the Justice of the Peace route.”
     
    That and
the fact that she’d been a rebellious eighteen, marrying a mid-thirties
journalist her parents barely tolerated. Not much to celebrate there.
     
    Thorne
returned his shades to the bridge of his nose. “I remember you telling me
that.” He gestured back to the car. “You ready to go?”
     
    Maya’s
brain froze as she realized what she’d said. What he’d said. She had casually
tossed off a detail from the life she’d left behind, the life she tried damn
hard not to think of, and he’d accepted it with a nod. “When did I tell you
that?” she asked, before she figured out exactly when that little tidbit must
have slipped out.
     
    That
night. After the whiskey she barely remembered drinking.
     
    He looked
at her sharply. “You don’t remember?”
     
    “Of
course I remember,” she said too quickly. “Never mind, that was…” She shrugged.
“Just never mind, okay?” Before he could comment or press, she said, “Where are
we going? Back to the station?”
     
    He gave
her a long, slow look through his glasses before he tipped his chin once, as
though acknowledging her lie. “Not the station. The prison. We’re going to have
a chat with Nevada Barnes.”
     
    That gave
her pause. They were interviewing the Museum Murderer?
     
    “Why
bother?” she said, voice sharp with remembered frustration from her own
attempts to question Barnes, who had confessed not long after Cassie and
Varitek captured him in the museum. “He hasn’t exactly been forthcoming in
previous interviews. He claims he acted alone, all evidence to the contrary.”
     
    “We’re
bothering because this time he’s asked for a meeting. He says he has something
to tell us.” But Thorne’s closed expression told Maya there was more to the
story.
     
    She said,
“Us as in the Bear Claw PD?”
     
    “No.”
Thorne shook his head, lips pressed together in a grim line. “As in you and me.
He asked for us specifically. And I’ll give you one guess how he knew I was
involved with the case.”
     
    A chill
raced through Maya, nerves battling with the hint of a break, with the thought
that she was going to be involved in it. “The Mastermind contacted him.”
     
    And he’d
asked for her by name.
     
    Chapter
Six
    When they
reached the Interceptor, Thorne opened the passenger door for Maya.
     
    She
paused and looked up at him with a frown. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t hold
doors for me. We’re not on a date.”
     
    “Sorry.”
He held up his hands and stepped away from the door. “My mother taught me to
appreciate seventeenth-century Scottish poetry and hold doors for ladies. It’s
a habit.”
     
    But as he
walked around the vehicle while she shut her own door, Thorne admitted privately
that he didn’t hold doors for every female cop.
     
    Face
it—it was just her. She touched something inside him that had gone so long
unrecognized that he barely remembered it anymore. She made him think of his
mother’s dark, lively eyes, his father’s military precision and the simpler
times when he’d known who he was and what he wanted. That was what had drawn
him to her five years earlier.
     
    It drew
him still, but he had no right to want her. Not when he hadn’t decided whether
he was going to do as the chief asked. Assess her, the chief had said, figure
out whether she’s stable enough to be reinstated to duty, whether in Bear Claw
or somewhere else. And for God’s sake, keep her away from Wexton Henkes. It
sounded reasonable, but the chief’s subtext had been clear.
     
    Give me a
good