Roxy’s eyes closed as Rafe ran his hand along the front of her body.
“I want you.” His voice was heavy with need. His hands were demanding.
Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as a loud chirp pierced through the sexy haze.
“Do you want brownies?” MacAuley stood over the bed.
“No.” She wanted to say yes, but Rafe’s hand was roaming along her body, and she had a feeling he’d stop if she started eating MacAuley’s brownies.
Another chirp, but it somehow sounded closer. Her phone.
She felt the arm before she heard the snores. A snore that blew at the side of her face. Last night pieced together in her mind. Clubbing. Sneaking. Finding a body. Questioning. After the police-party, they’d gone to the front desk and checked in. Apparently, Rafe’s card worked at securing a bed for the night. Then she’d cleaned herself up while Sarina bought her a new outfit with the hotel insignia. They’d grabbed a burger and pancakes before coming up to their room, where Roxy had checked on Sarina throughout the night to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.
Well, Roxy had checked on her most of the night until Sarina threatened to knock Roxy in the head if she touched her one more time. The threat didn’t really hold up, though. If Sarina gave Roxy a concussion, then Sarina would be up all night checking on Roxy.
The room was dark, except for the light sneaking through a crack where the curtains met the bottom of the windows. Not bright, just enough to see the blond hair covering Sarina’s face ripple as she exhaled with the grace of a rhinoceros. Sarina’s arm sat on Roxy’s chest—but not in a front-facing spoon kind of way.
No. Sarina’s arms were open wide like the Jesus statue in Brazil. She slept on her back, her hand resting on Roxy’s boob, ready to fight-club the speedbag.
Roxy edged the arm off her chest—stopping all breathing because that would apparently keep Sarina from waking up.
A gasp and a jump and Sarina opened her eyes. Scowled. “Where are we?”
“Hotel.”
Sarina ran her tongue over her teeth and grimaced. “Did we knock on doors in the middle of the night?”
“We did.”
“Did we actually see a dead guy?” Sarina’s grimace deepened.
“We did.”
“Darn. I was hoping that wasn’t true.”
“Sorry.” Roxy yanked back the blankets. She’d stripped down to her new hotel-bought underthings when they’d come up to the room. If you had to do a walk of shame, you could at least be wrinkle free. “We should get dressed. We might have time to pick up breakfast before we head in to work.”
“Oh, I want breakfast. I have the weirdest craving for pancakes.”
“We had pancakes last night.” Roxy’s feet slogged across the plush carpet. She picked up her gift-shop clothing—an Impact T-shirt and Vegas sweatpants.
“One can never have too many pancakes.” On that they could agree.
Dressed in her gift-shop haute couture, Roxy checked the mirror and cringed. The sweats actually sucked the sexy out of her body. With hair sticking up like she’d French-kissed a light socket and makeup running away from her eyes, she was past tough night and onto rode hard and put away wet. But she hadn’t been ridden hard at all. One shouldn’t look this bad without all the fun to get that way.
Roxy gave up and washed her face, shoved her wet fingers through her hair.
“We should have brought a change of clothes.” Sarina said as she slipped her skin-tight dress back on. And because life wasn’t fair, she was basically catwalk ready. Her hair was still blond, a little flat maybe, but her face didn’t look like a knockoff Pollock painting.
Roxy frowned into the mirror. “To the club?”
“It’s not such a weird thing. We could have gotten lucky and needed something to wear.”
“Has that ever happened?” Roxy couldn’t remember Sarina ever needing a change of clothes after a night at the club.
“No.” Sarina stepped up to the mirror. “I’m a mess.” She fluffed her flattened hair, getting a little bit of height, which gave it life.
“Sure you are.” Roxy made one more try at smushing her bedhead into submission.
Sarina grabbed her purse. “Pancakes.”
“Pancakes.”
Twenty minutes later, Roxy sat across from Sarina in a black booth. Wood beams lined the ceiling, and black drapes with a gold design covered the windows.
Their server ambled over and set two golden plates on the table. Both covered with three giant pancakes. Sarina’s three giant pancakes had blueberries mounded in the center and dripping down the side.
Roxy dumped syrup over her equally huge three non-fruit-covered pancakes. If the pancake didn’t float, there wasn’t enough syrup.
“You shouldn’t put that crap in your body.” Sarina, the sugar hater, cut a piece of pancake and topped it with fruit.
“Are you sure there’s not a recall on blueberries? I swear, I heard about a recall.”
“That was strawberries.” Sarina cut at the stack on her plate.
“You know what never has a recall? Syrup.”
“Yes, but your food has no food. At least, throwing on some fruit gives you antioxidants and potassium.” Sarina picked up one blueberry. She slipped the perfect bite past her lips. “Nummy.”
Roxy cut her cakes with a fork and folded a bite in her mouth. “I’m on a high carb diet, focusing on the glucose group.” At least, that was what she meant to say. It might have come out as “Armon ricar iet oh gon da guco goup.”
Sarina shook her head and kept shoveling in her real-food. Not that Roxy was judging, her elbow was bending in double-time.
“It’s good to see you haven’t lost your appetite after last night.” The voice was not only recognizable, she’d also heard it in her dream last night. It had been a great dream.
So great, Roxy could feel heat pool in her cheeks. She took a sip of coffee to hide her flaming face.
Rafe sank into the seat next to Roxy with a sigh. He wore the same suit pants and white button up shirt he’d worn last night, but the shirt was unbuttoned to the collar bone. His sleeves were pulled up to the forearm. He looked exhausted, but still edible.
A server hustled over—not their server. No. Their server was a fifty-year-old man with male-pattern baldness. This server was blond with brazen-patterned boldness. “Can I get you anything, Mr. Amato?”
“Coffee and oatmeal, Ashley.”
She actually preened when he said her name, more than a cat who’d just caught the canary. “Be right back.” She swished her hips.
Rafe was either too tired to notice or completely unimpressed. He sat back in the booth. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine, except someone kept waking me up.” Sarina finished the last of the fruit, leaving most of the pancakes. Sacrilege. She pushed away the plate and tossed her napkin on top.
Couldn’t even save them now, even if Roxy wanted to.“I slept fine, except for trying to check an ingrate for a concussion.”
“The ingrate appears to be fine.” Rafe gave a pathetic excuse for a smile to the server as she set a cup of coffee on the table.
“She almost didn’t make it through the night.” Without pictures on her face. Roxy had been so close. So close to drawing a giant penis on her best friend’s forehead. Thankfully, Roxy was too good a person for that. That was the story she was sticking to, anyway.
Rafe yawned and took a deep drink from the cup. The spark was gone from his eyes. He looked like he’d been up all night binge-watching Game of Thrones.
“Have you been up this whole time?” Roxy almost felt bad for the guy.
“Yeah. The cops just left.” He ran a hand down his face as the server put his oatmeal in front of him.
“Cops are still here, Amato.” MacAuley strolled across the restaurant looking like he’d spent the night binge-watching next to Rafe. “Mind if I sit?”
“Sure.” Sarina pushed herself closer to the wall, letting MacAuley slide in.
The waitress miraculously reappeared, dimples popping for the detective. Given her tight blouse, it wasn’t the only thing popping in her repertoire. MacAuley nodded to the brazen one. “Cup of coffee, please.”
“Sure thing.” The waitress wiggled as she disappeared. Where was the old-man waiter when you needed him?
“What are you still doing here?” Rafe ate his oatmeal. “Don’t you have police work to do or something?”
“I’m done for the night. Or should I say morning? Don’t you have a drunk to escort out of the building?”
The edge of Rafe’s mouth tipped up. “They’re all sleeping it off. Anyway, I’m too busy dealing with a murder on my property.”
“Was it murder?” Was it wrong that Roxy found that exciting? She’d never been part of a real murder before. Which—come to think of it—was probably pretty normal.
MacAuley reached for the cup that the waitress put on the table. “I can’t discuss an ongoing investigation.”
“Especially with a suspect.” Rafe motioned to Roxy, like she was the suspect.
Wait. “Am I the suspect? I thought Detective Geary was just trying to scare me.”
“Cops don’t go around scaring people. And I can’t discuss the case.” MacAuley glared at Rafe.
Roxy sighed. “What can you discuss?”
MacAuley sucked down a gulp from the cup. “The coffee here is fantastic.”
“See.” Rafe sat back, draping his arm on top of the booth behind her. “Being on Las Vegas PD means they tie your hands. You’re under their control twenty-four seven.”
“Is that why you left?” MacAuley leaned back. “I always thought you realized you couldn’t cut it.”
“See, MacAuley, that’s your problem. You tried to think.”
Really? They were back to the manhood measuring? Sarina and Roxy’s eyes met as they both rolled them.
A hollow laugh spilled from MacAuley’s mouth. “So, throwing away eleven years of experience and becoming a card-cop was you thinking? No wonder you avoid it so much.”
Eleven years. She’d assumed they knew each other, being in the same department, but that was the exact number of years Rafe had been on the force.
“Is there something going on here? Do you two know each other?”
“We took the detective exam together.” MacAuley grinned. “I was best man at his wedding.”
Wedding? Roxy stared at his bare ring finger. “You’re married?”
“My ex-friend was the best man at my wedding to my ex-wife.” Rafe was now glaring at MacAuley, his fingers flexing.
So much to unpack here—and she hated that saying. Rafe and MacAuley had been best friends. Why did they stop? What happened? Rafe had had a wife. Did she leave him, or he her? How long were they together? What did she look like?
Was Roxy hotter? Not that it mattered, but a girl could wonder.
“I should get going. I need to sleep.” MacAuley slid out of the booth.
Wait. She had questions. A lot of them.
He dropped a twenty on the table. “It was nice seeing you again, Sarina. Roxy.” He acknowledged Rafe with a nod before leaving.
Rafe tipped the coffee cup back and rose. “I should go, too.”
“You can’t just drop all of that on me and leave. You were married?” Roxy put her hand on his arm. She’d physically hold him back if she could get answers.
“First? I didn’t drop it on you, he did. Second? I don’t want to talk about it.” Rafe sat back down.
“But,who did you marry? What happened? Why aren’t you and MacAuley friends anymore?”
“How about this?” Rafe sighed as he peered into the bottom of his empty coffee cup. He was either wishing there was more or wishing he could get swallowed up by the thing. Either way, his fidgeting and frown said he was uncomfortable. “We drop the questions about my life, and I’ll tell you what I know about Donnie Dunne.”
“Like why I’m a suspect?”
“That one’s easy. You were in the room alone with him for an indeterminable amount of time and covered in his blood. In theory, you could’ve been the last one to see him alive.”
In theory. Indeterminable. Like they couldn’t determine what she’d been doing. But she’d told them. There were brownies. “But you know, in reality, I didn’t do it. Right?”
“We’re waiting on the forensics, but it looks like he was stabbed seventeen times.”
“Seventeen?” Roxy thought about the night before. She hadn’t noticed how many times he’d been stabbed. She’d just noticed the blood. “Seems like overkill. Pun intended.”
“Or someone who was really ticked off. They’re bringing in his wife for questioning, but no one saw her on the premises.” Rafe ran hand over his face with a sigh. “That dammed club opening. I told them they needed cameras that backed up real-time. But that was too expensive. We’d have camera footage if the power surge hadn’t happened.” He shook his head, the dark around his eyes somehow darker.
“You should go home before you fall asleep at the wheel.” Roxy had more questions, but she’d find a way to ask them later. When he was awake.
“Yeah.” He stood and threw a twenty on the table. Apparently, that was the going rate for crashing a person’s breakfast. “See you later.”
“We should get to work.” Roxy left the two twenties on the table and inched out of the booth. She wasn’t jumping up and down about going in to work, but maybe serving a few summonses would keep her mind off the cluster she’d found herself in.
“So far, this is a great day.” Sarina got up and smiled. “Free hotel room and a free breakfast.”
Roxy would agree if she wasn’t a suspect in a murder.