Free Blood Score by Jordan Dane

when they got to the kitchen. All pretenses of civility were done and gone.
    “ I can show you where he keeps the java, Slick, but don’t expect me to make it for you. Suzie homemaker, I’m not.”
    “ Why am I not surprised?” He matched her stance. “Do you know if Olivia Davenport cheated on Ethan?”
    “ Ha.” She grinned and leaned against the kitchen counter. “You know something or else you wouldn’t have asked the question, tough guy. Don’t give me the same bull your partner laid on Ethan. Routine, my ass.”
    “ Your ass would be anything but routine.” He cocked his head and smiled.
    Rachel narrowed her eyes—pretending to be offended—before she eased into a grin.
    “I’m not sure I like that you’ve checked out my ass.”
    “ Oh yeah, you do.” Cronan raised an eyebrow before he rummaged through kitchen cabinets looking for coffee. “A woman who goes to as much trouble to look the way you do expects men to notice. Now where is that coffee? And answer the damned question.”
    ***
    Thirty Minutes Later
     
    “This is shaping up to be a movie of the week, a flick on that women’s channel,” Cronan said with a straight face as they heading for the front exit. “You know those cable TV shows where all men are bad and someone’s gotta die?”
    Angel rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. You’re such a guy.”
    “ Why do I get the feeling that wasn’t a compliment?” He opened the front door for her and let her pass. Once they got outside Ethan Chandler’s building and were beyond earshot of the media circus, Angel made sure an overzealous reporter hadn’t followed them before she compared notes with Gabe as they headed for their ride.
    “ He had sex with Olivia last weekend, not the night she was killed. So we’re missing one condom donor,” she said. “Ethan was definitely hurting, for real.”
    Angel knew what it felt like to lose someone special. Maybe she’d projected her grief onto Ethan, but she preferred to think she was a good judge of character.
    “Did he know his girlfriend cheated on him?” Cronan asked. The abrupt question surprised her.
    “ I, ah…never asked. I mean, it never came up.”
    “ Never came up? Come on, Angel. You ask the questions and they answer. That’s how it works.” When her face heated, her partner changed the subject. “According to Vampira, Olivia didn’t have a monogamous bone in her body. She would have screwed anything breathing. PR lady wasn’t sure that breathing was a strict requirement. Her words, not mine.”
    Cronan reached into his pocket for his car keys.
    “Rachel didn’t have any real proof,” he said. “Only her suspicions, but she’d seen Olivia flirting, even when she had that poor schmuck with her. If that’s true, Olivia was a real piece of work, with a mean streak worthy of her mad skills.”
    Normally Cronan didn’t speak ill of the dead— unless they deserved it.
    “ You believe what Rachel told you?”
    “ I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I’ve got a feeling she’d lie about her own mother if it gave her an edge. She’s got no…soul, you know?”
    “ Yeah, I hear that.”
    Cronan unlocked the vehicle and looked over his shoulder at her. When she caught him staring, she shrugged and asked, “What? Do I have something in my teeth?”
    “ No, it’s just…” He flipped the keys in his hand, avoiding her eyes.
    “ Come on, buddy. How long have we been doing this?” she insisted and propped her hands on the roof of the vehicle. “Now tell me. What’s up?”
    “ You got a little distracted back there. You do a good interview, but you didn’t press him. You walked on egg shells to avoid the subject of Olivia cheating.” He stood outside the driver’s door and turned to look up the street as he spoke. “Jealousy can be motive for murder, Angel. If he knew about her extra-curriculars, that could’ve set him off.”
    “ In case you didn’t notice, the guy’s blind, Gabe.”
    “ Yeah, but where do