Free Beautiful Maids All in a Row by Jennifer Harlow Page B

say something, but I held my hand up. “You don’t have to say anything. It isn’t my business.”
    “She just—”
    “I don’t care,” I said again, “it isn’t my business. Your personal life is yours—it has nothing to do with me.”
    Relief washed over his face. “Fine.”
    “Good. Now, if you’re done with your little soap opera, can we please get to work? Every second we lose is a second he gains.”
    He nodded. “What do you need? Where do you want to start?”
    “I want to talk to Justine Romy’s family. See her house. Maybe I can gauge a little more as to why she was chosen.”
    “Fine, let’s go.”
    —
    Uncomfortable silence filled the car the entire drive to Arlington. I’d never needed a cigarette more in my life. The terrible traffic jam we were in wasn’t helping. Out of everything I hated about Washington, the traffic topped the list. It was two in the afternoon and we hadn’t moved an inch in three minutes. Luke kept drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, driving me nuts. Probably on purpose.
    “It’s going to take an hour to get twenty miles,” I said with a sigh.
    “We’ll get there.”
    Then we didn’t move again or say another word for another three minutes. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I opened the window, pushed in the cigarette lighter, and rummaged around my bag for the pack.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “I need a cigarette.” I pulled it out, but Luke grabbed the pack, throwing it out of the window. “Asshole!”
    “Don’t smoke around me.”
    “Well, excuse the hell out of me.” I raised my window. “You didn’t have to toss out the whole pack. Now we have to stop at a gas station so
you
can buy me another pack.”
    “Yeah. Like that’s going to happen.” We moved a little more, then stopped again.
Fucking traffic.
    “Why are you so pissed at me?” I asked. “
I’m
the one who should be pissed.”
    “Why is that?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. How about the fact that you apparently told the whole fucking world about our one-night stand?”
    “What makes you think it was me?”
    “Gee, how about the fact that there are only two people who knew we slept together, and they’re both in this car? I know
I
didn’t say shit. So, what did you do? Take out an ad in the
Post
?”
    He paused. “No, it was BNN.”
    “Not funny.”
    He let out a long sigh. “I would have taken it to my grave, you know that. But—”
    “But what? You had a few too many beers one night?”
    “
But
they asked me directly during the investigation if we had ever slept together. I knew people were suspicious of us, and I thought that if I lied they might not believe the rest of my testimony, and you’d end up either in prison or the psych ward.”
    “Great, so I’m the whore of the FBI. Perfect.”
    “You think I wanted everyone to know? Do you know how much shit I’ve gotten in the past two years over that?”
    “Oh gee, poor you,” I said sarcastically. “You had to survive a little ribbing in the locker room.”
    “It was more than ‘a little ribbing.’ I have a reprimand in my file.”
    “I’ll cry you a river.”
    His hands clenched the steering wheel so hard his knuckles cracked. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
    “Good, neither do I.”
    I looked out of the window. The traffic picked up, and we were finally out of Washington. I reached over to turn on the radio and the new Taylor Swift song came on. I looked at the passing buildings along I-395. Not a lot had changed in two years. Tall office buildings towered over endless strip malls and gas stations. When we finally reached Justine Romy’s town house in Arlington, I was downright homesick for Spanish moss, wraparound porches, and sprawling landscapes of lush green. Who knew I would have turned into such a country girl?
    A tricycle lay on its side on the small patch of grass that served as a front lawn for the two conjoined houses. Luke walked ahead of me, climbing the