“Oh. Okay.” A jerky nod. “It’s ridiculous to be afraid of being alone. I’ll just—I’ll let you get back to sleep. Sorry for bothering you.”
He was an asshole. Why did things always come out wrong when he spoke?
Maisey spun away and practically ran for her bedroom.
He grabbed the blankets and the pillow.
***
Her body was completely straight and stiff in the bed, and her heart was racing so hard that every thunderous boom filled Maisey’s ears. The booms were so loud that she almost didn’t hear her bedroom door squeak open.
Almost.
Maisey bolted upright in bed. “Odin!”
“Yes?” Calm. Quiet. The total opposite of her cry.
Her chest heaved. “What…what are you doing?”
“Going to bed.”
She’d left her bedside lamp on, and she could see him clearly as he stalked across the room—with the blankets and pillow curled under one arm—and he settled down on the floor near her bed. Maisey blinked, then immediately grabbed the side of the mattress and lowered her head so she was peering down at him. The angle put her almost right on top of him. “Why are you in here?”
“Because you’re afraid.”
“I…” She was afraid, yes. But… “You said no.”
“I meant…” His words were halting. “No, you didn’t need to leave the door open. If you didn’t want to be alone, then I would just come in here with you.”
She stared at him.
He smiled at her.
Hold up. Had he smiled before? She couldn’t remember, but his smile had some of the tension sliding from her shoulders. “That’s really sweet of you.”
His smile slipped.
Right. He hated being called sweet. Salty. “I appreciate it,” she quickly corrected.
“Try to sleep.”
Her hair was hanging forward and she was half-off the bed. She pushed back. Settled against her pillows. Her hands slid over the sheets. Smoothed them unnecessarily.
“I’m glad you’re…okay.” Again, his voice was halting. “I would never want anything bad to happen to you.”
That made two of them. Not like she wanted something horrible to happen, either. Not to her. Not to any of the people she cared about. Like Whitney. “Do you think…” She licked dry lips. “Is this what happened to Whitney? She was taken. Maybe tossed into a car. Driven away.” Killed?
“Your friend Whitney…” He stopped.
She rolled toward him. “My friend Whitney—what?”
“How well did you really know her?”
The question caught her off-guard. “As well as you can know someone, I suppose. I mean, we all have secrets.” Wasn’t that the way of things?
“What secrets do you have?”
“Tell me yours,” she heard herself say, “and maybe I’ll tell you a few of mine.”
Silence.
Fine. She took that as a no. It was not secret-sharing time.
“Whitney frequented a bar about thirty miles away. It’s a hangout for criminals and people looking to hire criminals for dirty jobs.” A pause. “Since you hired me, I’ve spent some time looking into her life. Tracing her last steps. Got a few acquaintances who knew some info about her—like that she visited Ramsey’s every Friday. Just like clockwork.”
Ramsey’s. The name clicked. Relief filled her. “That wasn’t something shady. That was just research.”
“What?”
“Research. She told me that she wanted to get more field work under her belt. She’d been going to Ramsey’s to observe—”
“Ramsey’s isn’t a place where you go to have a damn tea party,” he rumbled.
“Whitney didn’t go there for tea. She had an interest in criminal psychology.” Once more, her fingers slid over the sheets.
“You get that her interest might have led to her disappearance?”
No, because she’d been so sure that Clay—
Maisey stopped the thought. She’d wanted to find proof of Clay’s guilt or innocence. Odin was telling her there might be other suspects. “We’ll go to Ramsey’s?”
“I was planning to go tomorrow—”
“We’ll go,” she said definitely. “Because you said you were going to be staying extra close to me, remember? What better way than to take me with you?” Maisey held her breath.
“Tricky,” Odin finally said. “Fine. You go with me. But you do not leave my sight, not even for a second, got it?”
“Got it.” She slid onto her back and smiled up at the ceiling. All too quickly, her smile fled. The moments seemed to slowly tick past. Maisey strained but she couldn’t even hear the sound of Odin breathing. Carefully, she inched over to the side of the bed and cast a quick glance down at—
He was staring right up at her. His hands were behind his head. The blanket fell around his hips.
“Hi,” Odin told her softly.
Her stomach did a little quiver. “Hi.”
“Still can’t sleep?”
She was wired. Her fingers kept wanting to tremble. “I’ve never been nearly abducted before.”
“You’ll crash and when you do, it will be hard.” A pause. “You know I won’t let this happen again?”
Because he was staying close. Her fingers tightened around the edge of the mattress. “I don’t want to let this happen again. I need to learn how to protect myself.” She would be enrolling in a self-defense class, ASAP. She should also buy some mace. Maybe a knife that she could hide in her bag or even a taser. There were even taser-like guns, weren’t there?
“I’ll teach you. I can show you moves that will make a man twice your size cry like a baby.”
That sounded promising.
“War taught Rose, and the tricks he showed her damn well came in handy.”
Rose. The name was familiar. Rose Shadow had been the reporter who’d first led Maisey to Odin—or rather, to Trouble for Hire Investigations.
“The trick is that you can’t be afraid of hurting your opponent. You can’t hold back.” A pause. “Though it’s always the fucking opposite for me.”
“I don’t understand.” She was still peering down at him.
One hand moved from behind his head. He held his hand up to her. Stretched out his fingers. “Put yours against mine.”
She did. A shiver darted through her.
“I’ve always been bigger. Stronger. Holding back is the only way I don’t hurt people. That’s why I made my rules.”
Her fingers slid over a little. Curled with his. She wasn’t even sure why she’d done that, but now they were holding hands. She expected him to pull away.
He didn’t.
“What are your rules?” Maisey asked, curious. A heavy lethargy pulled at her, and she yawned.
“Don’t ever hit first. One hit from me can be enough to knock someone out. So I make sure the person I’m fighting has it coming.”
That seemed like a good rule. “What else?”
“Finish the fight. Never walk away when your opponent can still attack.” A beat of silence. “If you show mercy to the wrong person, it can come back to bite you in the ass.”