Dani Sinclair - Sleeping Beauty Suspect

Her glare should have been registered as a weapon. He held out pacifying hands. “I gather that wasn’t a trick question? Okay, look, before you get a crick in your neck staring up at me, have a seat. The furniture may not look like much, but it’s comfy.”

To prove it, he went over, set her water on the coffee table and plopped down on the recliner, praying she wouldn’t scoot out the door. After a moment’s indecision, she came and perched on the edge of the chair across from him.

Now that he had enough light to study her features, he saw that circles darkened those striking eyes. A furrow was etching itself between her eyebrows. He put her age in her early twenties and revised it up a notch after considering her for a moment.

“Were you doing drugs?”

“What?!”

Outrage started her coughing again. He got up and handed her the glass.

“Sorry. That was the speculation I heard at the hospital. I take it you weren’t doing drugs?”

“I don’t…use drugs,” she got out between coughs. Her outrage was too genuine to be faked.

“Got it. Didn’t seem real likely. I mean, why get all dressed up to go to an abandoned house and mess with something like that?”

Flynn averted his stare from the rise and fall of her chest as she struggled for breath. He waited while she got the coughing under control.

“How did you come to be inside that house?”

In answer, she shook her head. The hint of fear he’d glimpsed at the hospital again lurked in the silvery blue of her eyes. She was definitely scared and trying not to let it show.

“Okay, let’s come at this from a different direction. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Getting ready to go to bed.”

“In an evening gown?”

She managed a scowl before concentration pleated her forehead. “I came home after the party. I was having a glass of wine. The doorbell rang.” She stopped. “I don’t remember anything after that.”

“Nothing?”

“Why would I make that up?”

“Okay, relax. If you get all worked up you’ll start coughing again. So you came home after some party.”

“My father’s sixtieth birthday party.”

He nodded. “Alone?”

She offered him a troubled look. “A…friend dropped me off.”

Flynn wanted to ask about her “friend,” but decided not to press his luck. For some reason she aroused his protective instincts and he suspected she wasn’t the type to appreciate that. He got the distinct impression that she was used to taking care of herself.

“So you were having a glass of wine and someone rang the doorbell. You went to answer it and that’s the last thing you remember?”

She nodded. It didn’t take a genius to see she was straining to remember more.

“Are you prone to seizures?”

The glare was hot enough to sizzle. Flynn spread his hands. “Hey, I had to ask. What about dizzy spells?”

“No!”

“How much wine did you drink?”

“I wasn’t drunk.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Her eyes darkened along with her scowl. “I didn’t come here to answer questions.”

“Why did you come here?”

“I wanted to know what you saw.”

“Smoke, mostly.”

She stood. “You can’t help me.”

“I did save your life today,” he challenged mildly without rising.

She hesitated and inclined her head. “Yes, you did. I wanted to thank you.”

“No problem. That’s why the county pays us the big bucks.”

“They do?”

He grinned. “Nope, but we live in hope.”

She didn’t seem to know how to handle his teasing.

“Your bruises, are they from when you fell through the roof?”

“How did you know about that?”

“The entire rescue was on the news.” She sounded disgusted. “That’s where I got your name.”

Scellioli!

Sally had told Flynn there was video footage. “Well don’t you think a rescue justifies telling me your first name? Last I heard they were calling you Sleeping Beauty. While it’s catchier than Jane Doe, it’s not a moniker I’d want.”

Her skin darkened with color. She started to cough again. “Come on, Beauty, we can work on the name thing in the kitchen. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t eaten all day.”

“Don’t call me that!” she managed to gasp out between coughs.

“I didn’t coin it,” he protested, “and believe me, it’s better than what the guys at the station house are going to settle on me. They’re merciless. Do I look like a Prince Charming to you? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.”

She didn’t smile. In fact she looked horrified.

“Hey, that’s my ego you’re trampling.”

“Prince Phillip.”

Flynn stared at her. “What?”

“In Sleeping Beauty his name was Prince Phillip, not Prince Charming.”

He grinned wryly. “I’ll be sure and point that out to them. Do you like eggs?”

“What?” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Eggs?”

“Yeah, you know, those white oval things with the thin shells and yellow centers? Hens lay them, people eat them. You aren’t allergic, are you?”

“Of course not. What are you talking about?”

She followed him to the kitchen.

“There’s no ‘of course’ about it. Lots of people are allergic to eggs. I’m talking about feeding us. I’m starving. I know there’s a nice big steak in the fridge with my name on it, but I’m not sure what else is in there. I’m thinking steak and eggs and toast. Or maybe baked potatoes. I might still have a couple of them left. I was going to go shopping after I came off shift. I know there’s an apple. There might even be enough lettuce left for a salad. If you don’t want to eat you can watch me.”

He began pulling ingredients from his refrigerator. Eggs, cheese, green pepper, there were even grapes and a couple of apples and ice cream for dessert. Plenty of stuff to cobble something decent together.

“You cook?”

“Don’t sound so horrified. We take turns cooking at the station all the time. I’m no gourmet, but I’m not so bad. Burning things is frowned on at a fire station.”

He turned the gas on under the cooktop’s grill. “Of course that doesn’t stop Smokey, so nicknamed because he was foolish enough to start a grease fire one night. He’ll never live that one down.”

“You don’t have to cook for me,” she managed to say.

“No, but it seems rude to cook for myself and then eat it in front of you.”

“I can’t stay here.”

He began pulling more ingredients from the refrigerator. “I don’t remember inviting you to stay. I’m just offering to cook us some dinner while we talk. Or did you eat when you changed clothing?”

“No, but…” She started coughing again and took several more sips from the water glass.

“Pull up a stool at the counter and stop trying to talk. I’ll impress you with my mastery. My stomach is making demands. And I believe that’s yours rumbling in agreement?”

She blushed again. After a moment’s hesitation she took a seat at the breakfast bar, still striving to control the urge to cough.

“Don’t fight it too much. You need to purge those lungs. Let’s see what else we have in here.”

There was only one potato so he went with the eggs, conscious of her eyes watching him with a bemused expression. “Don’t you cook?”

“Not very often,” she admitted.

“I like to cook. Mom wanted me to become a chef instead of a fireman but this way I get the best of both worlds.”

Her expression was understandably confused. He was deliberately trying to keep her off balance so she wouldn’t leave. That pleat between her eyes wasn’t new. She was a worrier and she wasn’t sure what to make of him. It only made sense. He was a big, muscular guy and she was alone in a strange house with him. She was understandably nervous. Any sane young woman would be, so he did his best to appear nonthreatening as he chopped onions and the green pepper that had passed its prime but was still usable.