Killer Among Us by Adriana Hunter, Carmen Cross Page B

up on
her doorstep? He probably expected that she would just let him in
and fuck him! Color hit her face as she realized she wanted him to
do just that.
    He was turned toward the stairs, about to
leave and when he heard the click of the locks he felt his heart
beat a little faster but the sight of her face: Tear swollen and
angry made him bite back the words he had been about to say.
    “ Can I help you?” She asked
haughtily.
    He opened his mouth to say something then he
saw the madly cavorting purple ducks on the bright orange pajama
bottoms and he forgot what had been about to roll off of his
tongue.
    “ Nice pajamas,” was all he
could manage.
    “ Maybe the blonde you were
with today is waiting for you in something more seductive,” she
snapped, her hand coming up to slam the door.
    “ What blonde?” He yelped as
the door closed on his hand, then he batted it open.
    “ The one you were
with!”
    “ Janelle?” He shook his
head, “Where the hell did you see her? Why are you so
angry?”
    “ Why are you here?” Sophie
countered.
    “ I wanted to talk to you.
I’m sorry if this is a bad time.”
    “ Talk about what and why
don’t you go talk to Janelle?”
    Kane was utterly perplexed. He had never had
a woman slam a door on him before, nor had he ever seen a woman
look so adorable in such ugly garments, he honestly wondered if he
would go blind by just looking at the oddly contrasting colors she
had on.
    “ Janelle is likely in her
hotel room sifting through crime scene photos with John. I have had
enough of that case for one day. I wanted to talk to you, I wanted
to see you…shit I have no idea why…” anger flashed through him and
he turned to leave.
    “ Wait!” Sophie took a deep
breath. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I don’t…do…that…a lot. With
people, I mean with other people, not that I do it without
people…er….”
    Her obvious embarrassment broke the tension.
“May I come in?” Kane asked and she nodded, stepping back to allow
him entrance to her apartment. “You have a lot of room here. This
is a Pre-War place; they’re hard as hell to get. Did you knock off
a listing agent or something?’
    Sophie actually laughed at that one. “No. My
…Susan…I had a friend and she wanted to move here. We wanted to
move here. We had a plan and everything but she…”
    “ She died.”
    Sophie blinked. “How did you know?”
    “ You gave me a fake name.
You used her ID at the club, you two look a lot alike, or you did
in the beginning. I was going over your report and …well I checked
it out.”
    Sophie patted the deep recliner nervously,
“Do you want to sit down? I have some coffee if you want a
cup.”
    “ That sounds
great.”
    He watched her making the brew, she seemed
less nervous when she was working and when she brought it to him
she served to him in a way that was telling and she did it without
asking. The cup sat on a small saucer, the handle turned toward
him. She had put just enough cream into it and he took an
appreciative sip before asking, “Do you want to talk about it?”
    She did. That surprised her; she had never
felt the need to tell her secrets. Sitting down on the other chair
she reached for Sassy, who gave her a wounded look and jumped up on
Kane’s lap instead. Kane gave the pooch a few pats and she settled
down, shooting her owner a satisfied glare.
    “ Susan was my sister.
Foster sister. We ended up in foster together, at a home that
belonged to a preacher and his wife. They were the kind of people
that had two faces – one for the public and their true face, one
that was darker than anyone would ever believe.”
    The way her lips thinned told him the rest,
that and the knowledge of Susan’s downward spiral but he sat
quietly, waiting to learn how much she trusted him.
    “ Susan got the worst of it,
she wanted to protect me. She did protect me. She…she had been in
homes like that before and she was, this sounds so wrong but she
was hard even then.