I nodded.
“I came here while you were gone and read him the riot act over the tracker and the mass copying of my keys and keeping us out of the loop with everything.”
“How’d it go?” I asked.
She shrugged. “He said he’d fill us in tonight, but we’ll see if he keeps his word.”
“He will,” someone called out. We spun to see Junior rounding the far end of the hall. He gestured behind him. “We’re in here if you want to join us.”
I was about to have dinner with the whole clan. Nico, Moira, their sons, and all their romantic partners. Great. Splendid. I couldn’t wait to get this started.
Why were my hands so clammy all of a sudden?
Aly squeezed my arm. “We’ll just be a second.”
Junior nodded and disappeared back around the bend.
Aly dragged me into a nearby powder room with barely enough space for us. We were pressed so close that I had a clear line of sight straight into her cleavage. Weirdly, it helped calm my racing pulse. Just last night, I’d nestled my head there after she’d made me come so hard I saw God, and I’d spent several minutes with my ear pressed to her skin, listening to the steady rhythm of her heart. I could almost hear the low ba-dump, ba-dump now.
She took my hands, her eyes large and imploring. “You don’t have to do this.”
I would have leaned down and kissed her if not for the risk of smearing her crimson lipstick. “Thank you, but if you’re here, I’m here. I’ll just have to find some way to deal.”
“You’re sure?” she asked.
“I’m sure,” I said.
She looked amazing tonight, her long hair falling around her in loose waves, her natural beauty accented with makeup, and that dress. God, that dress. I couldn’t wait to see it pooled around her feet later. I’d caught a glimpse of the bra and panty set she wore beneath it, all black silk and lace. An image of me slicing them into ribbons filled my head, but the fantasy would probably never come to life. It turned out fancy lingerie was expensive, and Aly had been low-key pissed after I cut a different set off her.
Maybe I could get away with it if I bought her more afterward.
She shook her head at me. “You’re thinking about sex, aren’t you?”
I grinned. “Dirty, dirty sex.”
“Yeah, you’ll be fine.”
With that, she shoved me out of the bathroom, and we joined the rest of her family in a formal sitting room. Everything about this house was formal, I was coming to realize. The ceiling was sky-high, with white-painted beams bisecting each other in a square pattern. A stone fireplace took up most of the far wall, and a roaring fire had been built in it that turned the room toasty. In the center, beneath a crystal chandelier, sat a trio of white couches facing a circular table filled with refreshments and appetizers.
I’d been expecting a crowd, but only three of Aly’s cousins stood with their parents, Greg nowhere to be seen. I was the only significant other in attendance and didn’t know how to feel about it. Were these dinners supposed to be for the family, and I was intruding? Or had the boys’ partners been excluded because there’d be shop talk tonight?
“Red or white?” Nico asked, gesturing to a pair of wine carafes.
“White,” Aly said.
I eyed the pristine couches before seconding her request.
Nico passed us each a glass.
Aly took a sip of hers and then trained her gaze on the family patriarch. “What’s going on with the investigation?”
Her second oldest cousin, Alec, lifted his brows. “What happened to ‘Hello. How are you?’”
Aly didn’t even acknowledge him, still zeroed in on Nico. “You told me you’d fill us in tonight.”
He gave her a reproachful look. “We don’t talk business until after dinner.”
“That sounds like bullshit,” Aly said.
Moira interjected. “It does, but it’s also a tradition. Food and booze first. People are nicer when they’re tipsy and full.”
“Yeah,” Alec said. “It’s called hangry for a reason.”
Aly frowned. “So, what do we do until then? Exchange frivolous pleasantries and pretend we’re not all waiting for that conversation to happen?”
Moira clinked her glass against her niece’s. “You catch on fast.”
Aly sent me a frustrated glance.
I took a deep pull of wine to keep from having to say anything. Cowardly? Absolutely, but I knew better than to meddle in other people’s family drama, and I wanted to stay in Nico’s good graces as long as I could. I just hoped no one crossed a line with Aly because my Switzerland status only extended so far.
I also understood my girlfriend’s frustration. Brad was all over the news. A child of mega-rich parents had turned out to be a serial rapist and possible serial killer – so far, only the two bodies in the basement had been found, and you needed three for the “serial” title. He was suspected of killing more, and there were plans to excavate the backyard and search the woods we’d fled through looking for further victims.
Nico had stayed true to his word, and a man who looked an awful lot like Brad had been caught on CCTV withdrawing cash from an ATM close to the Canadian border. The crossings up there were on high alert, and Brad’s passport had been flagged. No additional sightings had been reported, but every night, the local news reminded people there was a killer on the loose, and the entire city was on edge, wondering if he’d really fled or if his family was hiding him somewhere nearby.
His parents were housebound because of the media attention, and their lawyers had been extra busy dodging questions and dragging their feet as they tried to slow the police investigation. It turned out the Bluhm’s initial acquiescence mostly came from shock, and now they were doing everything they could to save face in the public eye and distance themselves from what their spawn had done.
There was so much scrutiny on the case that I hadn’t hacked back into the police system despite how desperate Aly and I were to know what was happening. That left Nico as our only source of information.
He gestured at Aly with his glass. “How’s work been?”
She eyed him. “Has your little mole not been filling you in on my daily life?”
Nico grinned. “Greg’s been preoccupied with his own responsibilities.”
“And what would those be?” Aly asked.
“Janitorial, of course,” Nico answered, looking nonplussed.
Aly glanced around. “Where is he tonight?”
“Busy,” all of her cousins said at once.
Well, that wasn’t suspicious.
Aly honed in on it. “With what?”
Nico’s grin slipped. “Anyone ever tell you you’re not great at small talk?”
“Tell me about the investigation, and I’ll try to improve,” Aly shot back.
I hid my grin behind another sip of wine. She’d lured him right into that trap.
The rest of the pre-dinner conversation didn’t improve much from there. Aly and Nico spent most of it trading barbs. Moira attempted to get them back to safer ground several times with well-placed jokes, but neither was having it; they were too caught up in their battle of wills. Junior tried throwing me a lifeline halfway through by bringing up the latest football game, but I’d never been into sports, so that side conversation fell flat quickly.
As uncomfortable as the situation was, I was proud of Aly. The people pleaser in me would have been nice just to put everyone at ease, but she stood firm. We weren’t here because she actually wanted to spend time with her family; we’d been forced. And as funny as Moira was and as welcoming as her sons were being, these people were all criminals. They’d gotten rid of a body for us so seamlessly that it spoke of years of experience.