This time, the skin under his eye folded a little, and I felt the grin on my own face tip a little more upward.
“Get to work,” he said. “And close my door on the way out. I need to make some calls.”
“Okay.” I pulled his door shut.
I’d told him nothing but the truth. And he didn’t appear to be angry. I looked down at the files. There was a vigilante killer out there, and it wasn’t me. I’d stopped doing that.
Chapter 23
Clark
I’d heard it said once that it’s intoxicating when people unapologetically show you who they are. And fuck if that wasn’t the God’s honest truth. Now that I knew a little bit about Shelly, I Iiked the hell out of her.
Only I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to like her or not.
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One thing that I was almost sure of: Shelly was a benevolent soul. She’d been painted as a narcissistic psychopath of a woman with a penchant for murdering people, but I was pretty sure that Shelly wasn’t a killer. Well, aside from that one time with her father that no one knew about. And I doubted anyone ever would know the truth of what happened in that situation, aside from Shelly and her father. Even Lynn didn’t know what really happened, and something told me it was probably better that way.
Now, I didn’t doubt that Shelly was willing to do some shady things at times, but she did them when they were necessary and when they would fix situations for people she loved or cared about.
And that brain of hers. It worked in a way I couldn’t begin to understand, but I really, really wanted to. I wanted to know how she thought and why she thought and what made her think one way instead of another. But I had a feeling, again, that it was something I couldn’t even try to understand. Shelly herself didn’t understand it.
She was unapologetically who she was.
Who was she?
She was smart. She was a fucking genius. She could create formulas and scenarios in her head and work out problems unlike anyone I’d ever known.
She was loyal. She loved Lynn and Lynn’s child with all her heart, and I’d bet she’d even go to bat for Mason if the situation called for it, although she’d give him shit over it at the same time.
She was funny. She had a biting wit and an understated humor that amused the hell out of me.
Shelly could kick ass. She’d taken that thief down in the mall all by herself, without hesitation. And I’d seen the video of her fight with Megan. She was a small, sturdy package that could kick some serious ass.
She was fucking beautiful. She took my breath away, whether she was in her fancy clothes or her teeny tiny shorts. Sometimes when she looked at me from across the room, I could feel myself react. To begin with, I’d thought it was annoyance. But now, now it was so much more.
She was—most important of all—loveable.
MeeMaw had said that Shelly had never had anyone truly love her, and I believed that, now that I’d spent some time with her. Shelly lapped up praise like a cat laps at cream. Tiny pieces of affection were her catnip. She craved them—no. She needed them. There was a big difference.
Shelly had spent her life taking care of Lynn and her friends. But who was she now that Lynn was settled? Was she still just another person who looked like Lynn? Or was she so much more? I believed she was so much more, even more than I had ever realized. And I wanted to know exactly who she was.
I had a feeling that everyone who had ever met Shelly had wanted her to change. They’d probably wanted her to be more understanding, but they also weren’t aware that she had a difficult time understanding how people felt in different situations. She didn’t lack empathy. She was full of it. She just needed to understand why she was supposed to have it in different scenarios.
She had done some shady things in the past, but I had a feeling that any time that she did, there was a damn good reason for it.
I sat in my office and made a few calls, talked with my former boss about some open cases, and then I realized how late it was getting. I glanced down at my watch. Shit. I was going to be late.
“Hey, Shelly,” I said as I walked out to where she was working.
She didn’t glance up from the computer or the stacks of paper in front of her.
“Shelly,” I said a little more loudly.
“Hm?” she said absently. She still didn’t look up.
“I just remembered that I have to go home early tonight. Are you ready to go?”