Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79681 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 398(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
My lips curved up slightly at the way her eyes slitted, her jaw tightened, her chin lifted.
Yep.
That was the rich-bitch-trifecta.
"Excuse me?"
Oh, and the arm-cross too.
It was like there was some How to Make it Clear You Come from Money handbook. And she had memorized every word.
"Gunner," Quin said in his boss-voice, something he didn't use all that often on me, so I had to venture a guess that he didn't want me fucking this up either because she needed our help too much - and he was a sucker for a damsel in distress it seemed - or because she was willing to pay a mint for our help.
Or both.
"Right," I said, pretending to be chastened. "Your blowjob-for-money arrangement is none of my business."
Quin mumbled under his breath at that, giving me his patented Try to keep your mouth shut look that he seemed to only reserve for me. "Gunner, this is Sloane Blythe-Meuller," he explained.
Yep.
She had the rich name going for her too.
This was something else.
"Miss Blythe-Meuller, this is Gunner."
"As you could hear," Sloane started, chin up like a queen looking down on her peasants, "that is Miss Blythe-Meuller. I don't need a sugar daddy; I finance myself."
And I'd swear the words came out like You are beneath me.
That was what her tone said.
Well, shit, she was probably right in some ways.
I didn't even know what a silver spoon felt like in my hand.
"If you two could tamp down the egos for a bit," Quin cut in, ignoring the woman's gaze as it cut to him, "and have a seat," he added in a tone that implied he had invited her to sit her nice ass down several times already. "We have to discuss the case."
"Sorry we don't have any rose petals to sprinkle over the cushion," I said as I dropped down in the chair as she lifted her purse, and inspected hers for a second.
At my comment, her eyes went small again, but she finally sat her ass down, her purse resting on her lap, head still all stuck up high, and her gaze avoiding me entirely.
"Alright," Quin said with a sigh, running a hand down the dark scruff on his face. "So Miss Blythe-Meuller was leaving work four months ago," he launched right into it. "And she saw a man take a bullet to the head."
Well, shit.
That dirtied up her nice pink and gold world, didn't it?
"She, of course, got out of there. And went right to the police about what she had seen. Turns out the man with the gun was Rodrigo Cortez."
"The?" I asked, clarifying. It wasn't exactly an uncommon name. But while there were a thousand Rodrigo Cortezes, there was only one known for dealing meth in the city.
"The," Quin agreed. "The DA had been trying to build a case on him for years."
"And you and your Louboutin," I started, it being the only designer I could think of, "clad-ass just fell right in his lap."
"Louboutin makes shoes, not slacks," she shot back, rolling those light eyes of hers, likely thinking I couldn't see without her facing me.
"Anyway," Quin cut in, voice getting strained. "They brought him in, did a line-up, pressed charges. Talked Miss Blythe-Meuller into testifying."
It didn't exactly escape me that she never told him to just call her Sloane. Who did that? Especially if they had one of those annoying hyphenated names like that?
"Got cold feet?" I asked, draining the rest of my coffee.
"I got death threats," she corrected, her gaze finally going to me. "At home. At work."
I nodded at that, figuring it seemed about right. That was the M.O. when you had a case built only on witness testimony.
"You went back to the cops with this?"
"They offered to put me on the..." she trailed off, trying to remember the term.
"BOL list," I supplied, meaning Be On the Lookout list. Which was a fancy-ass way of saying that a cop would drive past your house or business every once in a while. Being completely useless.
"Yes, that. I saw them drive past... once every three or four hours. Truly, it is shocking that this man managed to slip through such a rigorous safety net."
"You could have gotten private security," I suggested, putting my mug on the edge of Quin's desk. She certainly seemed like she could pay for a decent crew to keep an eye on her.
"I did. Three separate firms."
"Landers, Eccelson, and Heiro," Quin supplied.
Those were good names, big names.
They were who you went to when you needed to guarantee your own safety. Celebrities and politicians used them. If they couldn't do the job, the job couldn't be done.
"What happened?" I asked, looking at Sloane even though her gaze was on the watch on her wrist, rolling it around, a small sign of nervousness in her otherwise very composed body.