“If you’re lying to me, Banks, I promise I’ll make your life hell.”
“I have no doubt about that, Ace.”
Maybe she was an idiot. Maybe they were just pretty words, and maybe in the end, she’d end up as one of the heartbroken masses.
The one thing she knew for certain was she couldn’t stop herself now even if she wanted to. And she sure as hell didn’t want to.
* * *
Nearly an hourafter Cyrus had made her come twice before finally pinning her boneless form to the wall of the shower, Mina walked into the newsroom, her body still humming from the spectacular, spontaneous sex. Spending the mornings at his house was turning out to be one of her favorite parts of the day.
At her desk, she pulled out her phone to check her messages. Gabby hadn’t said anything more about their girls’ night, so her night had obviously goneverywell indeed. Opening their text conversation, Mina tapped out a quick reminder.
Can’t wait to hear all about your date! How about The Wharf for dinner? It’s been a while since I had some good seafood.
With the reminder handled, Mina tucked her phone back in her purse and made a beeline for the editing suite. Her human interest piece on Cyrus still needed some tweaking before it aired, and she wanted to be sure to include some of the footage from the Compton trial as well as from the swearing-in ceremony.
But halfway down the hall, she spotted Tracy, her producer, flanked by a pair of detectives. She recognized them from a case a few months back, and her curiosity piqued when she placed them as homicide detectives. It was unusual for cops to brave the newsroom, since most of them did everything they could to avoid nosy reporters, but Tracy had a way of convincing people to do things they had zero desire to do and leave them believing it had been their idea all along.
Mina’s flirtatious smile died on her lips when she saw the grim set of Tracy’s mouth. The trio stopped in front of her, and her idle curiosity shifted to a primal, instinctive fear.
Forcing the panic down, she smiled at the detectives. “Gentlemen. What brings you to our hallowed halls this morning?”
The panic came rushing back with a vengeance at the flicker of pity in the taller detective’s dark eyes. Detective Joshua Spencer was one of those older, grizzly sorts who had somehow never really lost that compassionate soul the force seemed to burn out of so many good cops.
“Mina, we need to talk. In my office.” Tracy’s voice was soft, soothing in a way that had Mina’s gut churning.
“Why? What’s going on?”
Stepping forward, Tracy cupped Mina’s elbow, gently guiding her to the opposite end of the hall. They moved without speaking, every second of silence scraping along Mina’s nerves until she felt like a livewire about to snap by the time they reached Tracy’s office.
“Will somebody please tell me what the fuck this is about?” she snapped as soon as the door shut behind them, locking the four of them in a space far too small for comfort. “Is it Cyrus? Did something happen?”
“No.” Sympathy still shining in his dark eyes, Spencer stepped forward and nudged her down into one of the visitor’s chairs. He took the chair beside her, his partner a silent sentry behind him.
“Ms. Ouranos, are you friends with a Gabrielle Lascher?”
“Yes.”Oh god, oh god, oh god. “Did something happen to Gabby? Is that why she hasn’t texted me back?”
“Yes.” Spencer paused, as if the weight of the words were too heavy for him to speak. “Ms. Ouranos, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Gabrielle’s body was found early this morning.”
The room spun around her, the edges of her vision turning black, and she gripped the arms of the chair in a desperate attempt to steady herself. “You’re wrong.”
He wasn’t, of course. He wouldn’t be here, saying these awful words to her if there was any doubt. But denial was her only defense against the weight of the grief threatening to crush her the moment she accepted his words as truth.
“You’re wrong,” she repeated, shaking her head. “I just talked to her. Last night. You have the wrong person.”
“We don’t.” Despite the soothing tone, Spencer’s voice rang with painful conviction. “And I know this is hard news, the worst news, but we could really use your help piecing things together, if you can answer some questions for us.”
Gabby was gone. Her best friend in the entire world, the best and brightest light she knew, had been snuffed out. She wanted to scream, to weep and rage at the unfairness of it all.
But if she did that, if she gave into the hysteria bubbling in her chest, she wouldn’t be able to stop. And she wouldn’t be able to give the detectives what they needed to figure out what had happened to her.
“I-I don’t know how much help I can be.”
The other detective stepped forward, Abbott she thought his name was. His expression lacked Spencer’s sympathy, but there was a cold kind of fury burning in the brown that calmed her in a way Spencer’s sweet understanding couldn’t. “You said you spoke to her last night. Anything you can tell us to help us place who she was with, where she might have gone? All of it puts us just a little bit closer to finding the asshole who hurt her.”
“All right.” Twisting her hands together in her lap, she took a deep, bracing breath and slowly let it out. “What do you need to know?”