Touch of Red (Tracers #12)(45)

He rested his hand on her shoulder. “As the guy who wants to date you? I can give you all the time you want. As the cop investigating a shooting in which you could have been killed—”

“I wasn’t the target.”

“We don’t know that. And until we do, I need every scrap of relevant info. So, I’m sorry, time’s up. We’re going to talk about this.”

His voice was all-business, and she knew it would be pointless to argue.

She pulled back from him. “Fine.”

“Fine.” He gazed down at her. “You eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Me neither.”

After a halfhearted debate, they decided on a diner near the university. The ride there was silent and strained, and Brooke spent most of it staring out the window of Sean’s truck at the rain-soaked streets. When they arrived, he asked for a corner booth where they’d be able to talk with some measure of privacy.

Brooke scooted in first, and Sean slid around until he was right beside her. Before she’d left the house, she’d pulled a thick sweatshirt over her tank top, both to ward off the chill and to keep Sean from staring at her bandaged elbow.

A young waitress stopped by and asked for their order.

“I’ll have a milk shake,” Brooke said. “Double chocolate.”

Sean looked at her, then glanced at the server. “Make it two.”

When the waitress disappeared, Sean leaned back and rested his arm on the back of the booth. “Ice cream for dinner?”

She shrugged. “Comfort food. It’s been a crap day.”

His brow furrowed, and she wished she hadn’t reminded him. He looked all serious now, and she glanced away, bracing herself for an interrogation. Nothing about this felt like a conversation between friends, and it wasn’t.

As the guy who wants to date you . . .

Was that truly what he wanted? She’d known he wanted something from her, but she’d thought it had more to do with sex. Was that a line, or was he sincere? Maybe she was being overly skeptical, but that was how she was now—always second-guessing her instincts and questioning her judgment when it came to men.

Sean was watching her closely, and she resisted the urge to squirm in her seat.

“So, what did you want to ask me?”

“Let’s start with the vehicle. At the station you identified the truck as a ’95 Chevy Silverado, all-black.”

“That’s right.”

“Are you sure about the age on that?”

“It’s an estimate. Give or take a few years.”

“Only a few?”

She huffed out a breath. “What are you getting at?”

“Jorgensen drives a black pickup.”

“I know what his truck looks like. He drives an F-250. That’s not the truck I saw today.”

Sean just looked at her.

“I told you, it wasn’t Matt. He’d never do something like this.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know, all right?” Her chest tightened. “I was with him for two years. We didn’t exactly break up on good terms, but he wouldn’t try to gun me down in the street, for God’s sake. He’s not capable of that.”

“What’s he capable of?”

Sean watched her, his expression unreadable. This was his cop face, and again she felt like she was in an interrogation. She looked away from him. A tear leaked out, and she brushed it away.

“I’m sorry we have to talk about this,” he said quietly.

“It’s fine. Let’s just get it over with. What do you want to know?”

“Why did you guys break up?”

She took a deep breath. “I didn’t like our pattern.”

“So, you’re the one who ended it?”

“Yes.”

“Were you living together?”

“No, thank God. That would have been harder.” She sighed. “He wanted me to move in with him, but I never felt good about it. I don’t know. I’d lived with someone once before, and it didn’t work out, and I didn’t want to go through all that again.”

“You said you didn’t like your pattern.”

Sean watched her, waiting for her to elaborate. He was looking so closely, picking up every nuance of her body language. He was good at reading people, and he’d know if she tried to sugarcoat anything, so she might as well tell him the truth.

“He had a temper.” She cleared her throat. “He would yell. Throw things. Get up in my face. He wasn’t like that at first. I don’t know what happened, really, but it changed.”

She looked at her hands and tried to collect her thoughts as all the old feelings came back. “Stuff would escalate, and my reaction only made things worse.”

“What was your reaction?”

She paused to try to describe the utter calm that would settle over her. “It wasn’t a conscious thing, really. It was just what I did. He would get louder and more pissed off and all red in the face, and I would go completely calm. I wouldn’t say a word or react or anything. It used to drive him crazy.”

“You were in control and he wasn’t.”

“I don’t know. Probably.” She glanced up at Sean, then looked down at her hands. “There was this one time, we were at the yogurt shop down the street from my house. We got in an argument over something stupid and he was being unreasonable. So I rolled my eyes and walked away from him. That set him off. He followed me down the sidewalk and started shoving me from behind, saying he wasn’t done talking to me. He kept shoving me and shoving me, and I kept walking faster and faster so I wouldn’t trip. And every jab was like a shock because I couldn’t believe he was making this scene in public.”