The Men with the Golden Cuffs (Masters and Mercenaries #2)(60)

He placed obvious emphasis on the word “someone,” all the while pointedly looking at her.

Serena pushed the coffee away. She felt sick to her stomach. Just an hour before, she’d been in Jake’s arms and the world had seemed a warm and happy place. Now she was reminded of its brutality.

“Did you check for prints on the car?” Adam asked.

The door swung open again and Jake entered, followed by Ian Taggart. Jake sat down on the other side of her while Ian Taggart loomed over the proceedings like a large predator waiting to decide who to eat for dinner.

“Of course we’ll check for prints.” Hernandez leaned forward, looking right at her. “Do you have any idea who called the press? There’s a news van sitting right outside this place.”

No wonder Ian looked ready to kill. Damn it. Ian Taggart seemed to be a man who enjoyed his privacy. He wouldn’t like news crews lining up in front of his underground sex club. She was causing him an enormous amount of trouble. Would he drop her as a client? Would Jake and Adam hang around if no one was paying them to? How could they? She would need to leave town. She might have to change her name.

“Serena.” Jake’s harsh tone pulled her out. He gave her a faint smile and then turned back to the cops. “She does this thing where she kind of checks out when she’s panicked. I think it’s an author thing. They asked you a question, sweetheart.”

Question. Yes, they had asked about the press. She wiped her eyes. The last thing she wanted was her trouble to be splashed across the papers. “I don’t know. I certainly didn’t call anyone.”

Adam leaned forward. “She hasn’t called a damn person. She’s been in shock. I’ve been with her the whole time.”

Chitwood waved him off. “Calm down, Mr. Miles. We’re not accusing her of anything. Now, let me give you an update. We can print the car, but I don’t know what it’s going to tell us. The car came out of the shop earlier today, right?”

She nodded. “So anyone in the shop could have touched it.”

Chitwood tapped his pen on the face of his notepad. “Yes. I hate to tell you this, Ms. Brooks, but it’s going to be very hard to figure out who should or shouldn’t have left a print on your car. The car has also been sitting in a parking lot in the middle of the city. That makes things harder than if it had been in your garage the whole time. I’m a bit confused, though. Did you say the car was locked?”

Jake sighed. “I went over this. I opened the car. I opened the trunk first, and then I unlocked the doors. Adam opened the back passenger side, and that’s when we found the snake.”

It seemed surreal. A snake. She’d never seen a snake up close where there hadn’t been glass in between them. But someone had handled it. Someone had risked being bitten because it was more important to hurt her than to be safe. She felt so distant. She knew they were talking, but it seemed to come from far away.

“I’m just interested in how this person might have gotten around your car’s security system.” Chitwood wrote something on his notepad.

“I could do it,” Adam replied. “I’m sure there are a lot of people out there with the technical skills. You cops have to deal with this crap all the time. You know a criminal with purpose can get through just about anything.”

Hernandez stared a hole through her. “Or someone has a key.”

She felt her face flush.

Chitwood stopped writing and looked up. “Does someone else have a key, Ms. Brooks?”

“No one else has a key,” Adam said, and then he sighed. “Bridget or Chris?”

“Bridget is too disorganized. I left one with Lara. I sometimes lose things. I had two sets from the dealership and a valet key. I gave Lara the extra set. But she wouldn’t do this. The only way she would touch a snake is on a pair of Manolo Blahniks.” They couldn’t possibly think that Lara was involved.

The two cops exchanged glances. She could tell immediately that they didn’t believe her. They had decided that she was using them to further her career at the beginning of the investigation, and nothing had happened to deter them from it. They weren’t going to change their minds until they had a body on their hands.

Chitwood smiled, an unctuous little expression. “That can certainly be cleared up with a simple phone call. Don’t worry about it. I’ll call her myself tomorrow. Now, we have animal control determining the breed of snake.”

“It rattled. I think it’s safe to bet it was a f*cking rattlesnake,” Jake said, his voice low.

“There are many different varieties of rattlesnakes, Mr. Dean,” Chitwood pointed out. “I would like to know the breed. I would like to know if it’s common or rare. Perhaps it was bought from a store that specializes in reptiles. There might be a money trail to follow.”

“Of course, it could all be normal. You know we do have snakes in Texas,” Hernandez said. “Sometimes they find their way into cars.”

Serena shook her head. “I can tell you what kind it was. It was an eastern timber.”

“You’re an expert on snakes?” Chitwood adjusted his tie.

“I’m an expert on my own work,” Serena replied, her voice a flat monotone. She was sure what she told them next would do nothing but confirm their suspicions about her. “In Sweetheart in Chains, I had a scene where the bad guy slipped an eastern timber rattlesnake into the hero’s car.”