Skin Deep (Station Seventeen #1)(91)
Good Christ, this woman was going to ruin him before they made it to the living room.
Despite the protest from his dick, Kellan pulled back to lead her into the kitchen. As badly as he wanted to get naked with her (damn, he really, really wanted to get naked with her), he also knew Isabella had likely had a hell of a day. Even though she didn’t say so out loud, the vulnerability hiding behind that layer of toughness in her eyes told him in no uncertain terms that she still felt responsible for Angel’s death. Making sure Isabella was okay was his number one priority right now.
“You hungry? I’ve got a lasagna in the oven,” Kellan said, biting back a laugh as her eyes went wide over a hell-yes smile.
“Damn. You made a freaking lasagna? You’ve been holding out on me in the skills department.” She inhaled, the rise of her breasts beneath the V-neck of her dark red top making Kellan second-guess his decision not to strip it off of her.
Focus. “Actually, I can’t take any credit. Kylie made the lasagna. All I did was put it in the oven. Oh, and before I forget”—he broke off just long enough to grab the bags his sister had given him, passing them to Isabella—“she picked up a few things to tide you over until you can get back into your place. She had to guess at the sizes, but she’s pretty good at that sort of thing.”
Isabella blinked twice before staring down at the bags in surprise. “That was really nice of her. CSU is still processing my apartment because there was so much damage to sift through, and to be honest, I had one hell of a long day with this case. I kind of forgot I’d need a few things.”
“She thought you might say that.”
“I’ll have to pay her back next time I see her.”
Kellan laughed. Isabella was nothing if not true to form. “Kylie thought you might say that too. She told me to tell you, and I quote, ‘After all you did to find that asshole Burton, don’t even think about paying me back for these.’”
Pressing a smile between her lips, Isabella set the bags in an out-of-the-way spot and moved back through the kitchen. “Your sister’s kind of a badass,” she said, pointing toward the cabinets with her brows up in wordless question. At his nod, she unearthed two plates, repeating the process with the drawer below to add silverware. “Kylie’s safe, right?”
“Are you kidding?” They might have a truckload of shit to worry about with DuPree still on the loose, but thankfully, his sister’s safety was a no-brainer. “Like you said, she’s kind of a badass. Anyway, Devon’s even more protective of her than I am, and that’s saying something.”
“Good.” Her brown eyes turned serious in the soft overhead light of his kitchen as she kicked into work mode. “DuPree’s been quiet since he shook things up at my apartment, but after today, I’m sure he won’t stay that way.”
Isabella proceeded to fill him in on the case details as he dished up two double-portions of lasagna and led her to the tiny table in his breakfast nook. His shock that Angel’s death had been ruled a homicide turned into anger at the lack of evidence to connect it to DuPree, and damn, between the confirmation that they were up against some top-notch security with this Shadow hacker and the fact that DuPree clearly knew how to outsmart everyone in his path, the intelligence unit definitely had their work cut out for them.
“So Sinclair didn’t get anywhere with this bastard at all?” Kellan asked, stacking his empty plate on top of Isabella’s and bringing both to the kitchen sink a few steps away.
Isabella shook her head, following him to the counter. “Sinclair didn’t even get in the door,” she corrected. “He got dead silence at the Metropolitan, and when he tried DuPree’s office, the receptionist kept telling him the bastard was ‘unavailable.’ We can’t even be sure he was in either place.”
“Damn. How about a search warrant for the penthouse?” Not even DuPree would be able to snake around that.
“Unfortunately, the State’s Attorney can’t use anything we turned up at that party to get search warrants for DuPree’s penthouse or surveillance equipment,” Isabella said with a frown. “The conversations you and I had with both Danny and Angel can’t be corroborated, plus we didn’t have a warrant to be in the penthouse to begin with. If a judge finds out we went to that party before an active investigation was opened on top of that…”
Fuck. “You’ll get laughed right out of the courthouse.”
“Exactly.”
Kellan blew out a slow breath. “And you didn’t get anywhere with the canvas out in North Point?”
Isabella shook her head, dark hair spilling over her shoulders. “Hollister and I knocked on every door in that damned neighborhood today. Not one person can put DuPree or anyone on his payroll at the scene of Angel’s murder, and Hale and Maxwell came up empty on Danny Marcus’s end too. There’s no trace of this guy anywhere near these crimes. DuPree might as well be a ghost.”
Finishing with the dishes, Kellan led her to the living room, parking himself next to her on the couch and saying the only thing he could think of. “I’m sorry.”
To his surprise, she simply nodded. “Thanks. It’s not all a loss, though. Just because we can’t use what you and I saw at the party to indict doesn’t mean the intel doesn’t help the investigation. We know DuPree is forcing these women into prostitution, and we know how he operates. We just have to keep digging to find a way to prove what we know. And once we do that…