Twirled Bond (Holly Woods Files, #5) (3 page)

Screw it.

I kick him, making contact with his shin. He yells a curse and then darts out the kitchen, swearing at me the whole time. Good. I’m glad it hurt him. Next time, it really will be his balls.

He’s my brother. It’s my job to torture him.

“Don’t worry.” Drake gets up from the table and boxes me in against the counter. His hard, muscular body presses against mine, and he kisses my jaw. “You’re not fat.”

“I’m not helpin’ you with Nonna’s wrath.”

“I’m not sayin’ it for that.” He continues kissing my jaw until his lips find my neck. “I’m sayin’ it ‘cause it’s true.”

“Drake Nash, put my daughter down.” Mom strolls in through the back door. “If you must do it, do it in your own kitchen. You share one, I believe.”

Drake sighs heavily and releases me in time to see her walk straight through the kitchen and turn toward the stairs. “There’s no catching a break with this family, is there?”

I reach back inside the cookie jar and grin when my fingertips connect with one final cookie. Ha!
Suck on that, Brody Bond.
“No.” I tear a bite off, still grinning, and shove the last of it in Drake’s mouth.

He takes it, his eyes sparkling with laughter, and turns. “Let’s go before your mom tells me off again. I’ve had enough of the women in your family for one day.”

“You realize I am one of the women in my family, right?” I pull the front door shut behind me.

“Yeah,” he says, glancing over his shoulder and unlocking his truck. “But I can fuck you to shut you up. That’s why you’re my favorite.”

“D
id you see that the theater is reopening this weekend?” Bek slides into my office, a cardboard holder with two mugs of coffee in one hand and a paper bag emblazoned with Rosie’s Café logo clasped in the other.

I sniff.
I smell hot pastriiiiies
. “How could I not? There are fliers all over the damn place. Including through my freakin’ letterbox.” I grab a small pile that’s next to me and wave them through the air, making a flapping sound. “I can make a flip book.”

She stares at me for a moment before she drops herself into the chair on the other side of my desk and sets the coffee and the pastries on the desk. I reach for the pastries like a starved woman and all but accost the greasy, hot, carb-filled goodies as I pull them from the bag. Bek stares at me like I’m insane, but she wisely waits until I’ve had a mouthful of coffee and a mouthful of croissant before she talks.

“Wow. Listen to how supportive you are.” She rolls her eyes, snatching her own pastry in the bag before I steal that too.

What? I’m hungry. No. I lie. I’m hangry.

“I need caffeine and carbs. Lots of it.” I tear a bite off my croissant and moan as the buttery goodness explodes across my taste buds. God, it’s good. Rosie’s outdone herself this morning. “Honestly, I think it’s great. That place has been shut down for, what, like, over fifteen years?”

“Do you remember the year it closed? We finally convinced our moms we could sit through the Nutcracker after, like, six months of trying, and then it closed right on Halloween.”

I sigh and nod. That was the saddest thing ever. We were twelve years old, and after a failed cinema attempt the Christmas we were eleven, which was sadly our audition for the Nutcracker, we finally convinced our parents to take us. We literally begged until we suffocated ourselves with a lack of oxygen. They agreed, and then...the thing freaking shut its doors.

I’m still struggling to get over it.

“Does this mean we can see it this year?” I ask, the thought sprinting through my head. “Oh my god.”

“Noelle, Drake took you to Dallas to see it last year. It was your birthday present.”

I roll my eyes. “I know that, and it was amazing, but he hated every second. Plus, at the Holly Woods Theater? That’s the childhood dream, Bek.”

My best friend grins around a mouthful of croissant. She knows I’m right. Not to mention Drake slept through half of it. He’ll deny the sleeping, but he’ll admit that he only sat through the “longest-ass pantomime” of his life because of me.

Aw. He’s cute sometimes.

“I know. He’ll probably be happy he doesn’t have to take you.” She wipes her mouth with her napkin.

Probably? He’ll punch the air in delight, the shit.

“What are you doing today?” I glance up at her as I open my planner. No matter how my tech-god, Carlton, tries to convince me Google Calendar is how I need to organize my life, it’s not gonna happen. He can pull my bright, perfect Erin Condren planner from my cold, dead hands.

“I am...” She pauses and pulls her phone from her purse. “Going to have a lunch consultation in Austin with one Miss Jacey Ford. She’s a senior at college and found an apparent engagement ring in her boyfriend’s closet three months ago.”

“And he hasn’t given it to her yet.” Typical. “I’m going to start a side business that teaches people not to fucking snoop.”

“No, you won’t. At least seventy percent of our cases are because people snoop on their other halves.”

I purse my lips. Damn, she’s right. Maybe I’ll save that side business for another day. You know, half past never.

“Okay,” I say, “I won’t. But I should. Snooping is never good.”

“So, you wouldn’t snoop on Drake if you thought he was cheating on you?” Bek slowly raises one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

A loud laugh barks out of me, and I clap my hand over my mouth. Fuck me, that’s the most obnoxious sound I’ve ever made. Even Bek is trying not to laugh at the horrid noise, but here I am now, giggling.

Drake.

Cheat on me.

The man is a little dumb on occasion, but he’s not downright stupid. And he’d have to be to cheat on me. Not to mention he doesn’t have a lying bone in his body.

“I have a crazy Italian grandmother with a questionable respect for the law, an ex-cop for a father, and three very current cop brothers who, after a year of our being together, are still side-eyeing him at Friday night family dinner.” I pause then tip my coffee cup in her direction. “Not to mention I’d shoot his ass before they could get anywhere near him.”

“Shoot his ass?”

“You’re right. I’d aim it right at his dick so he could never use it again.” I sniff, sip my coffee, and put the cup down. “You don’t fuck with Noelle Bond.”

“Of course. The golden rule of existence for everyone in Holly Woods.” She dramatically rolls her eyes. “It’s a damn good thing he’s stupidly in love with you.”

I grin. It is—and, with as much as we do bicker and I tease about him, that doesn’t mean I don’t know how lucky I am. With my job, it’s not like I’m not reminded on a daily basis how much worse it could be.

“Has he spoken to his dad yet?”

My smile drops with the abruptness of her question. I shake my head by way of an answer, and mercifully, her phone rings, putting our conversation to an end. She grabs her things then answers as she leaves, the faint scent of her perfume lingering in the air over my desk.

I pull a small bottle of nice-smelling spray out of my drawer and give the button a push. Not that Bek’s perfume is awful; it’s just stronger than I’d like. Not to mention there are no more croissants to cover it up with their hot, greasy, yummy scent.

I slump forward on my desk and bury my fingers in my hair. I should have known she’d bring up Drake’s dad. It’s become a regular question, but it’s been a couple of weeks since she last asked me, so I thought it was over. Clearly, I’ve been thinking wrong.

Ever since the gossip mill churned out that Gianna was dating Drake’s dad, Malcolm Nash, Drake’s been subject to constant interrogation he’s somehow managed to brush off. His skills of evasion used to piss me off, but now, I watch smugly as he uses them on every Betty, Tom, Samuel, and, well, Nonna.

It’s something I’m still trying to understand, even though the situation has been ongoing for several months. On the one hand, I wonder how he can’t want a relationship with his dad, and on the other, I understand why he doesn’t. It’s been a long time since his dad walked out on him without any answers, and honestly, I don’t know if Drake wants them anymore. They might do more harm than good.

But the fact that his mom is dating his dad again... I know the reasons had to be something serious but forgivable. Gianna is mostly Italian, after all, and I don’t know about the majority of the nationality, but my family sure holds a grudge. The fact that she’s forgiven him... Well, that speaks volumes to me.

I’m also highly conscious of the fact that it’s not my place to be involved. I’m here to support Drake and be the person he can vent to, not push him. That’ll only serve to drive a wedge between us, and fuck knows we can do that just brushing our teeth together in the morning.

We’ve learned the hard way that morning bathroom time—unless it involves a shower—needs to be equivalent with alone time.

None of this means I don’t want to be involved though. I do. Sometimes, I want to grab my six-foot-something brick wall of a hot detective and shove him through his mom’s door—a place he currently refuses to go.

Yep. He refuses to go to his mom’s house because he doesn’t trust her to not have his dad there in an attempt to build some form of a relationship or force him to at least speak with him. I thought it was childish at first, especially when Drake added that, if she shows up to our house with him, he can just not answer the door, but...I understand.

I do. He thinks I’m just saying it sometimes, but I’m not. It took me a while to come around to the idea—which is strange, considering I’m the most childish person I know—but it makes sense to me. Still, I don’t like talking about it, mostly because there is nothing to talk about.

Gianna is dating Malcolm. Drake point-blank refuses to talk with his dad and only sees his mom in public or at our house. It’s been that way since Gianna finally admitted it, and I don’t know if it’s going to change any time soon.

Honestly, I just want the shoe closet first.

“Yo.” Carlton pokes his head through my door, swinging off the doorframe. His scruffy, blond hair swishes into his eyes, and he jerks his head to flip it out of the way.

“I just wanna...” I squint and make a cutting motion with my first two fingers, pointing them toward his hair.

He grins. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. I pulled those files you were looking for.”

I frown. Files? What files?

“For the case you’re working on.”

“Oh! Yeah. Those. Thanks.” I smile, even as he walks toward me and laughs.

I still have no idea how I run a successful business. I’m literally winging it.

“Did you see the news today? About that girl?” He drops himself into the red tub chair Bek was in not so long ago.

I freeze. The last time a missing girl was on the local news, we found ourselves on the trail of a satanic serial killer.

“No. What girl?”

“Daniela someone. She went missing fifteen years ago this weekend, they said. Her parents are holding a candlelight vigil for her at the church this year.” He scratches his head. “The news anchor said they do it every year, but because it’s been fifteen years, they’re asking everyone to come along. Apparently the police mocked up time-lapse photos of how she’d look now and all that stuff.”

“Daniela Russo.” The memory of a raven-haired little girl instantly comes to my mind, and my heart pangs.

“You know her?”

“I did. We went to school together—we were best friends. I remember when she went missing. We’d just started high school.” I look down at the sticky notes in front of me and rip one off the small, bright pad. “How strange they’re making a fuss now.”

“Was she kidnapped or something?”

I shrug and meet Carlton’s gaze. “Who knows? Nobody was ever convicted of anything. We all assumed that, after a couple of years, yeah. She’d been kidnapped and killed somewhere far away, but there was no evidence of it. She literally went out one night and disappeared into nowhere.”

“That’s kinda scary.”

It is. No doubt. But, if he really wants to see scary, he can walk in on Nonna showering.

I shudder just thinking about it.

“I don’t think she’ll ever be found,” I say after a long moment of heavy silence. “I think it’s been too long. Unless she’s actually alive and comes back or something.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Don’t you have hope?”

“What for? I’d rather think the worst and be proved wrong than live in hope of something every day just to be crushed.”

“You’re so cynical.”

“You say cynical. I say realistic.” I sip my coffee and smile. “Don’t you have work to do instead of insulting me?”

“Yes.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I’m on a break.”

“Carlton, it’s not even ten a.m. You’ve been here for an hour. Unless your break involves you in your car, on the way to Rosie’s to bring me cupcakes, your break is
over.
”

He grins and stands up. Before he leaves, he turns back to me. “Hey,” he says, making me look away from my laptop. “If I did that, like, six times a day, would I get six breaks?”

“Yes. But you’d also get the bill from my doctor when I’m inevitably treated for obesity. And I’ll yell at you instead of my treadmill.”