Free Broken Build by Rachelle Ayala Page A

night?”
    Jen refused to acknowledge her. She walked to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. With Rey dead, she didn’t need a roomie anymore—especially a nosy thirty-something waitress who ate her food. She slammed the fridge door. “I thought I told you to stop stealing my yogurt.”
    Sherry dropped the empty carton into the wastebasket. “Oops. I’ll leave a dollar on the table.”
    Max wagged his tail and sniffed at Jen, expecting a treat. She stroked his head and pulled a box of cereal from the cabinet.
    “I was just wondering…” Sherry clicked the remote. “You going out with Rey and he ends up dead?”
    Jen spilled cereal into the bowl. “I didn’t go out with him.”
    “Sure. I saw you guys leaving the apartment together.”
    “It wasn’t a date.”
    Sherry dragged herself from the couch and plucked a soda from the fridge. “Don’t you even feel freaky about it? Someone you know is dead, just like that.”
    “Yeah, I do. But I can’t dwell on it. He’s just some guy I met at the fitness center.”
    Sherry’s eyes twinkled. “He was kind of cute, I’ve gotta admit.”
    Jen lost her appetite, swept the rest of her cereal in the sink, and turned on the disposal to drown out Sherry’s grating voice. She was not about to discuss Rey or anybody with a woman she’d met a month ago. A lump swelled in her throat. Today would be his funeral. She couldn’t imagine how his mother and sister must feel. And if it were true he had a daughter…
    She pulled a jacket over her sweater and slipped on her running shoes.
    “So what’cha doing today?” Sherry pitched the empty can at the wastebasket and missed.
    “Work.” Jen bit her tongue to avoid more nastiness and stuffed her laptop into her backpack. Sherry was here to share the rent, not butt into her business.
    Sherry shrugged and grabbed Max’s leash. “Come on. Let’s leave Ms. Prickly Pants to her misery. Oh, and your lawyer friend was by last night. I told him you went to the Pizza Arcade.”
    Jen didn’t dignify that remark with a response. She grabbed her keys and rushed out the door to the carport. Her heartbeat didn’t steady until she was well away from her apartment. What if Sherry talked to the police and told them she had gone out with Rey? She gritted her teeth to hold back tears. Rey, why did you have to die?
    And Rodrigo. His sad eyes burned in her memory. When Jen had returned from staying with her uncle, he had refused to talk to her, told her to leave him alone, even tried to pay her to go away.
    A car horn blared behind her. Jen stepped on the gas and made the left turn before taking a deep breath. Can’t change the past.
    She drove down Trimble and turned left on Zanker. She had to install the new fileserver today. A single car sat in the Shopahol parking lot. Jen pulled next to it and smashed the curb with a sickening crunch. Damn. She reversed it and cut the engine.
    A gust blew dried leaves in a circle on the sidewalk. Jen locked her car and bent to examine the damage—a cracked air dam on her brand new Eclipse. She dropped her keys and spit on her finger to rub out the black scratch.
    The neighboring car’s bumper stretched over the sidewalk. That’s why she had misjudged. Her eyes widened. Dried brownish streaks flaked off the bumper and grill, and a tuft of black hair was pinched to the license plate holder.
    Jen stood and backed from the car—a white Camry! She must not scream. Drive away. Pretend she didn’t see it. Whose car was this? Her breath came in sharp puffs, and she doubled over, trying not to hyperventilate or faint. She quickly retrieved her keys from the sidewalk. A pair of trousered legs met her on the way up. The scream erupted from her throat, and strong hands clamped her wrists.
    Steel-grey eyes bore into hers. “Calm down. Are you okay?”
    Words scattered from her throat. She tried to pull away, but the man, the CEO, the delectable Dave Jewell held her tight. He picked up her backpack and