“No.” She twisted her wrist out of his grip. “You had your minute. You had two days, you heartless cunt.”
He’d prepared an intravenous sedative, just in case. If he restrained her to the bed, she would struggle and risk dislodging the IV.
Mostly, he just needed her to sleep so he could close his eyes for the first time in two days. He was operating on three-percent battery life and rapidly draining.
He reached toward the dangling IV bags and began the flow of the sedation drug, titrating the dose to give her just enough to relax her back into dreamland.
“What are you doing?” Her eyes widened, glazed and unfocused, trying to follow his movements.
“Who are your enemies?”
“The only enemies I’ve made are in this room. What did you do to the IV? What are you giving me?”
“I know who you are, Rylee Sutton.”
She glanced at Cole and back to him. “You should’ve talked to me instead of starving me in the desert. It would’ve saved you the trouble of calling in your friend. So what have you learned? That I’m a stupid woman, who waltzed in here alone thinking I could do some good and instead, ended up getting myself hurt? Go, Rylee. Another failure.” She exhaled a tired breath. “Look, Tommy, I’ve learned my lesson, okay? Believe me when I say I’m done. I don’t want any part of this or you. I just want to go home.”
“It’s too late for that.” He leaned over her, bracing an elbow on his knee. “You wanted me. Now you’re stuck with me.”
Tomas had reached a level of worn-out that hurt. Every muscle wanted to surrender to gravity. What he needed was sleep. Any horizontal surface would do.
But there was a corpse rotting in the desert. An unfinished conversation with Cole. An IV drip that required monitoring. An unwashed, blood-splattered woman in his bed. And too many unanswered questions.
“I’ll ask again.” He put his face in hers. “Who are your enemies?”
Her teeth ground together. “I already told you—”
“We know you’re a criminal psychologist, Rylee.” Cole gripped the upper frame of the doorway, leaning into the small bedroom. “You aid in apprehending scoundrels and testify against them in court. I’d say you make more enemies than we do.”
“Since you know my occupation, you also know that I contract for small-town law enforcement.” More teeth grinding. “I deal with petty thieves and potheads. Tracking devices are a part of your world, not mine.”
“You must be bored out of your mind.” Tomas scrutinized her bleary eyes, willing the sedative to kick in faster. “So you show up here with your fancy, underutilized degree, hoping to dissect a real criminal mind.”
Her mouth stopped grinding, her jaw falling slack. Her head lolled to the side, losing strength. Then she snapped it back, her tone deadened. “You’re the reason I chose that field of study.”
“Excuse me?”
“I went to school for criminal justice, but as I got to know you…” Her words slurred, fighting the sedation. “Your emails…changed my major.” A long, lethargic blink. “I don’t…feel…right. You…drugged…”
Next thing from her mouth was an angry, muttering exhale. Her lashes drooped over her cheekbones, and the tension visibly left her body. She was out.
Finally.
He turned off the drip of the narcotic and swapped the sodium chloride with a new bag.
“She’s taken a lot of interest in you.” Cole approached the bed.
“That’s her problem.”
“She’s making it your problem. Seems she’s in the habit of getting mixed up with the wrong men. Nine months ago, she filed a protective order against Mason Sutton. Three months later, Paul Kissinger started watching her.”
“You think Mason and Paul are connected?”
“Maybe.”
“We need eyes and ears on Mason. Find out what he knows about us.”
“I’m on it. He’s an orthopedic surgeon. Runs a booming practice. On the surface, he seems too busy to get involved with a troublesome ex-wife. What would be his motivation?”
“Jealousy. Obsession. He never remarried and has more than enough money to hire people to monitor the object of his obsession. Especially since she lives five hours away from him.” He let the weight of his head hang, fighting exhaustion. “She’s sexually involved with one of her neighbors.”
“Evan Phillips?”
“Who?”
“The single guy who lives next door to her. Divorced. Forty-something. Good-looking. Works construction. He’s collecting her mail and looking after her house while she’s on sabbatical. I’ll dig deeper, see what I can find on him.” Cole narrowed his eyes. “You look like shit. When was the last time you slept?”
“I need to deal with the stiff in the desert.” Sleep closed in, heavy and persistent. He slumped onto his side in the narrow space next to Rylee. “In a minute.”
“The stiff can wait.” Cole rubbed his whiskers and stared at Rylee’s unconscious form. “Go grab a few hours of sleep in the other bedroom. I’ll clean her up.”
“You’re not touching her.” Christ, that came out sharper than he’d intended. He softened his voice. “This is my mess. I got it.”
“Yeah, I see that. Suit yourself.” With a grunt, Cole left the room and shut off the light. “Stubborn fuck.”
Within seconds, Tomas passed out.
He slept hard and deep, but not long. An hour maybe?
When he woke in the dark, he registered Rylee’s body pressed against the front of his. With his arm around her tiny waist and her head tucked beneath his chin, he didn’t move.
Had she rolled into him? Or had he subconsciously grabbed her to keep her from escaping?
His eyes slowly adjusted to the dimness, bringing the room into focus. A new bag hung from the IV pole. Cole must’ve slipped in and swapped out her fluids. Her boots were off her feet. Cole must’ve done that, too.
She still wore her grimy clothes and reeked of sweat and desert dirt. Or maybe the odor was coming from him.
He removed the phone from his pocket and stared at the locked screen, stunned. He’d slept three hours? Jesus.
Without waking her, he untangled himself from her soft, small body. Then he checked her vitals and headed to the bathroom.
After a quick shower, he set out bottles of water and apple juice on the nightstand, checked her breathing, and left her sleeping to go deal with his other unwanted visitor.
Cole perched on the couch in the front room, eyes glued to a laptop.
“Feeling better, princess?” The man idly flipped a black coin-sized disk back and forth between his fingers, his gaze never leaving the computer screen. “You two looked so cozy in there I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Tomas didn’t acknowledge the dig as he lowered into the armchair. “Any updates?”
“The guy she’s banging, Evan Phillips, walked through her house an hour ago. In and out in ten minutes. No other movement.”
“You think he knows something?”
“I think we can’t rule out pillow talk. If they’re fucking on the regular, she’s telling him things, sharing secrets, like how she’s been reading the incriminating ramblings of a dumbass vigilante for ten years.”