I could think of about a dozen ways to kill someone with both a paintbrush and some clay, but it seemed wisest not to mention that. Besides, he had a point.
“All right, grandma,” I teased. “In that scenario, I’d still feel better if you had a gun.”
He shrugged, eyeing the stretch of woven yarn before him wordlessly. I wasn’t oblivious to the fact that each of the men did actually have a gun at their hip at all times. I’d bet Talon could do a good amount of damage with that needle too, though.
Curiosity itched at me. I swiveled so that I was facing him, planting my feet on the sofa cushion. “How’d you pick up the hobby? Were you drawn in by the pointy stabbiness and just decided to stick around for the wool accessories?”
I hadn’t known if Julius was listening to our conversation, he’d seemed so deep in thought, but he snorted at that remark. Talon shot him a narrow glance over the top of the sofa and then returned his gaze to me. “Why do you want to know?”
“Because it’s a mystery and I have a thing for unraveling them.”
He tipped his head to the side in consideration and appeared to decide that my answer was acceptable. “It helps me decompress. When we’re on the job, we spend a lot of time on edge, ready to act in an instant, needing to be ready for unexpected developments that could put us all in danger. The patterns I work through with the needles are predictable and straightforward. I want to make a scarf, and I get a scarf. It’s a welcome change.”
That made a fair bit of sense. Hearing him explain it kind of made me want to take up knitting. I watched him for another minute, unable to stop myself from admiring how those powerful muscles could move in such small but still incredibly skillful ways to create a product that had nothing to do with broken bones or blood.
Then he added, in case he thought I might forget what he was capable of, “It doesn’t hurt to have a few additional weapons around the place either.”
I had to grin. “Of course not.”
Talon was the complete opposite of Garrison, wasn’t he? Garrison held all kinds of fire in tight while putting on a blasé, disaffected front. Talon appeared unaffected… because he really was that way. I didn’t sense that he was holding anything back in his answer. When he didn’t want to tell you something, he simply didn’t say anything rather than making something up.
I could appreciate that kind of straightforwardness too.
But that didn’t mean the guy didn’t have any emotions. He obviously got comfort out of this hobby. He liked to feel prepared, liked the reassurance of knowing the outcome in advance.
And I’d definitely seen sparks of something more heated in him when we’d gotten close during our sparring session.
It wouldn’t do me any good to dwell on that. Watching his hands work was already making my skin tingle in odd ways. I latched onto an appropriate change of subject, what a normal person who hadn’t focused their whole life on learning to kill might have said. At least, I thought so.
“What do you do with the things you knit?” I glanced around the room, not seeing any vast quantities of hats or mittens or blankets on display—not even one.
“I knit a new scarf for the guys every winter, because Blaze especially is always misplacing them, and the rest I donate to a clothing drive around Christmastime. What else am I going to do with twenty scarves a year?”
Just like that, my perception of him shifted yet again. There was something so… kindhearted about making clothes to keep his partners warm that didn’t fit his icy demeanor at all. And donating the rest to charity? I guessed it’d have been a hassle to sell them or something, but still.
Maybe I should throw out the entire idea of categorizing Talon. It didn’t matter how big the box was—he would never fit.
Annoyingly, that made him even more appealing.
Before I could figure out how to extricate myself from the conversation that had drawn me in more than I’d intended, the front door banged open. As Garrison and Blaze strode inside, I sat a little straighter.
Garrison smiled with a cool confidence that gnawed at my nerves, his gaze skimming right over me. Apparently I didn’t even exist to him now. Fine.
Julius spoke before anyone else had the chance. “We need to talk,” he said in that low commanding voice that his colleagues responded to immediately. Talon put away his knitting and got up. Julius walked over to the kitchen area, even farther from me than he already was, and the other three met him there.
I watched as they gathered on the other side of the island. Their conference began with voices too quiet for me to make out. I got up and ambled over as if I thought Julius’s order might have applied to me too, even though I was sure it hadn’t.
Julius noticed me before I was even halfway there. “This doesn’t involve you,” he said firmly, which made me even more certain their conversation had something to do with the household murders. If it had nothing to do with me, why would it matter if I heard a stray word or two?
I had the urge to demand they let me in on the discussion, but I’d seen how well that’d gone in the past—or rather, how badly. So I meandered across the room, not getting closer to them but not veering too far away, watching for alternative sources of information from the corners of my eyes as they fell back into their hushed exchange.
Ah ha. Garrison had left the kettle sitting on the dining table after his last mug of cocoa, and its stainless-steel surface reflected the kitchen interior like a slightly warped mirror. I sank down into one of the chairs at the table with my back to the men and reached for an apple out of the fruit bowl, just to give me a reason to be sitting there. As I ran my fingers over the smooth skin, I let my gaze linger on the kettle’s shiny surface.
I couldn’t see a whole lot more from here than from the sofa, but I could see it without them knowing I was watching. Their voices stayed low, but their body language relaxed incrementally.
Julius held his notebook up for the others to see. His small, delicate scrawl was indecipherable from here, but the gesture confirmed that he’d written down something important if I could ever get my hands on it. Blaze moved around the group in his usual energetic way, blocking my view of the others every few seconds. I gritted my teeth. If he would stay fucking still for five seconds…
He began murmuring to Garrison, likely heckling him in the way they always did with one another. When he stepped to the side, Talon said something with a wave toward Blaze and then his computers. Blaze grinned—and jerked his flattened fingers past his throat in a vicious gesture I only knew to mean one thing.