“For the record,” Aria said, “Sawyer doesn’t know I’m here.” The woman’s anger, Aria noticed, seemed to simmer, coming off her in waves. If she was a part of the Black Wigs, there was no telling what she was capable of, and worse, what she would do to Aria if she said the wrong thing. Aria decided to tell her the truth. It felt like the safest route. “Brad Vicente said one of the Black Wigs had scars all over her body, mostly her neck—” Aria’s gaze fixated on a scar above Christina’s collarbone.
“Ah, so you came to . . . what? Ask me a few questions?”
“To follow you,” Aria said. “If you were involved with the Black Wigs, I thought you might go to meet the others at a secret location.”
“Like a bat cave?”
“Sort of,” Aria said under her breath. If this woman didn’t pull her out of the car and beat the shit out of her, Sawyer would do the honors when she found out what Aria had done.
Christina Farro unfolded herself from Aria’s car window. She stood tall and raised her arms high over her head as if to get the kinks out. Then she was back in her face. “I know all about you and your sisters. I know about your dad and Uncle Theo and all the other creepers hiding out in the woods where you came from. I know you shot your own mother—”
Jesus. The woman knew more about Aria and her family than Aria knew about her. It was unsettling. “I had no choice,” Aria said in her own defense. “My mom was going to kill my sister.”
“I get it,” Christina said. “Sometimes we do what we have to do to set things straight in the world, which is why I have to tell you, warn you, that if you and your sister don’t stop snooping around, you’re going to regret it.”
“So you are a Black Wig?”
Christina Farro laughed. Not a tinkling sound, but low and menacing. “I’m just a girl who’s trying to find her way through life. Just like you.” She smiled. “Now get going, Aria, unless you want to take a little walk with me through the cemetery to see if we can find Cyndi.”
She didn’t need to be told twice. Aria turned on the engine. As soon as Christina Farro straightened and took a step back, she put on the gas and drove off. Every part of her was trembling. When she looked into the rearview mirror, Christina Farro was gone.
Nobody could convince Aria that Christina Farro wasn’t a member of the vigilante group known as the Black Wigs. She might even be the leader. At such a close view, Aria had seen the woman’s jaw clench and her face flush. Not only was she dangerous, she was lethal.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Sawyer and Derek sat at a table for two by a window overlooking Sixteenth Street. Mikuni’s, a Japanese restaurant and sushi bar, was buzzing, servers running back and forth, trying to keep up. “No more talk about work,” Sawyer said after they had both filled each other in on their day.
“All right. What do you want to talk about?”
“Sex.”
His face flushed as he glanced at the couple sitting nearby.
“My therapist thought it would be a good idea for us to talk about it since it’s been on my mind.”
“You’ve been seeing a therapist?”
“After everything that happened over the past few months, I thought it would be a good idea to get it all out of my system. Talking to an unbiased third party is a good outlet for me. No judgment. I think of it as self-care for my mental health.”
“No judgment here if you ever want to talk to me.”
She angled her head. Derek’s wife had been in a car accident three years ago. She’d died instantly. “The therapist said you might not be interested in taking our relationship to the next level because you could still be dealing with your loss—you know—trying to figure things out.”
Their food was brought to the table.
“What do you think?” Sawyer asked after the server left.
“Did you talk to your therapist about my trauma, or yours?”
“Both, I guess. If we’re a couple, that means they’re sort of connected.”
He unwrapped his chopsticks and then set them aside, keeping his gaze on hers.
“What?” she asked.
“I’m trying to wrap my mind around you talking to your therapist about our sex life.”
Sawyer leaned forward, her voice low. “We don’t have a sex life. That’s the point.” Sawyer mixed some wasabi and soy sauce in a tiny dish. “That particular session with the therapist did leave me with more questions than answers.”
“About me?”
She nodded.
“Like?”
“Like what it might be like to lose a spouse, someone you loved and were fully committed to. It must be difficult to put yourself out there, knowing you’ll never find someone quite like the woman you lost. No one you date will ever have the same characteristics or interests.”
“I’m not trying to find anyone like Lisa,” Derek said. “She’s gone. I wish she wasn’t, but those are the cards I’ve been dealt. You’re not anything like Lisa. The opposite in many ways.”
Sawyer wondered what that meant. She didn’t know Lisa. Had never met her before the car accident.
“If it’s okay with you,” Derek said, “I’d rather discuss our nonexistent sex life.” He picked up his chopsticks and used them to dip a bite of sushi into the sauce before popping it into his mouth.
She tried to do the same, but the chopsticks were not cooperating. Finally, she set them down and used her fingers.
“The truth is,” Derek explained, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to rush things. Like you said, you’ve been through a lot recently. When we make love—”
She liked the sound of that.
“—we should be sure we’re ready to take the next step.”
“I agree,” she said. “As long as there are no rules or guidelines—no sex until the third date. That sort of thing drives me nuts.”
“I haven’t been back in the game long enough to pretend to know anything about rules.”
She chewed and swallowed. “Perfect. Because I’d prefer to go into this knowing there aren’t any.”
“Deal.”
They continued to eat. Sawyer snuck glances at him. She liked his face. The color of his eyes, a cross between gray and blue, thick eyebrows, just the right amount of fashionable bristle on his jaw.
He looked up. Saw her staring. “What?”
“Nothing,” she said with a shrug. “Just admiring my date.”
He took a moment to do the same. Heat rose up her neck as his gaze settled on her mouth.
“Stop,” she said, smiling.
“You’re a beautiful woman, Sawyer Brooks.”
“I’m a lot of things, but beautiful isn’t one of them.” As soon as the words escaped, she regretted them. She’d never been good at receiving compliments, but that was one of a list of things she was working on. She was prone to swat away compliments like gnats and yet hang tight to the one negative comment said to her years ago. A therapist, not Jane, once told her she had low self-esteem. You think? If she believed she sucked, how was she supposed to believe someone else when they told her she didn’t? As she debated how to respond, Derek made it easy for her by simply letting it go.