“Take a seat.” I sit in my big, comfy chair and remove my gun from my waistband.

Drake cocks an eyebrow. Slowly, he lowers himself into one of the tub chairs. “You found the body?”

“No. Dean found it and came to tell me.”

“Why would he tell you before callin’ the police?”

Now I raise an eyebrow. “Because it’s on my property, perhaps?”

“You always keep a gun in your pants?” He nods toward my pretty on the desk.

“Only when I have conclusion-jumping detectives in my office and a dead body in my Dumpster.” I smile sweetly, totally hating that he caught me in a stupid moment. Damn it, I know better than shoving a gun in my pants. But, hey—dead body in the Dumpster. Desperate times and all that jazz. “Can you get to the point of this conversation, please?”

Drake focuses his steely gaze on me. “Tim thinks the body was placed there recently.”

“It was,” I say, confirming the coroner’s suspicions. “I threw some trash in it before I went for lunch with Bekah, and she definitely wasn’t there then.”

“When did you go for lunch?”

“Midday.”

Drake glances at his watch. “So she’s been there for an hour at most. Did you see her when you came back in?”

“I generally don’t gaze at Dumpsters unless I’m using one.”

“Your sass is doin’ nothing but pissin’ me off, Noelle.”

I stare at him flatly. “I just saw a mutilated dead body, Detective. Excuse me if I happen to have a mechanism that helps me cope with such incidents. If it bothers you, spit out whatever it is you have to say and bug my employees so we can get back to work.”

“You’ll have to close the office for at least twenty-four hours,” he says, his voice sharp. “We’ll need to search the building.”

“How did I know you’d say that?”

“I can get a warrant if I need one.”

“Believe me, if my desire to piss you off was stronger than the one to keep my business going, I’d refuse you entry until you had a warrant and gave a flamingo a striptease,” I bite out. “As it is, I have a job to do.” I pull my spare set of keys from the drawer and throw it at him. “They’re all labeled. I’ll be outside at four p.m. tomorrow to collect them, and that goddamned yellow tape better be nowhere except for the parking lot.”

Drake’s lips curve. “You know you can’t take anything home with you.”

I lean forward. “Do cops have a thing about patronizing ex-cops or is it just the detectives at HWPD? I’ve already had it from my brother this morning. I’m more than aware that I can’t take anything out of the office that’s currently in it. Which is why I’ll be printing copies of all my current cases to take home so that I can still work.”

“It’s much easier to do this job when you’re not working against an ex-cop.”

“If you think this is me working against you, Detective, you don’t know me very well.” I get up and walk to the door. “Are we done here? Because it looks like I have a busy afternoon, and as pretty as you are to look at, you’re not the greatest company.”

His smirk comes back as he stands, my keys in his hand, and walks toward me. I pull the door open and glare at him when he stops in front of me. Looking up at him, I’m aware of how much bigger than I am he is, both height-wise and muscle-wise. He has a good three inches on my height and I’m wearing freakin’ high heels.

“Keep it that way, Noelle,” he says in a husky, dominant tone. “I’d advise you not to work against me. I’d have no problem putting you in cuffs.”

“And I’d have no problem spending the night in the lockup for impaling your penis with my stiletto.”

He holds my gaze for a long moment. “I want all of your staff out within ten minutes after they’ve been interviewed. You’ll get your keys tomorrow as promised, providing we don’t find anything in here.”

My body tenses at his insinuation. “My staff aren’t murderers, Drake.”

“That’s Detective Nash.”

“Then it’s Ms. Bond.”

“One day,” Trent says, appearing to the side of me, “you two will give up the sick foreplay and just fuck.”

“I’d rather shoot myself in the foot,” I snap, smirking at the burly man in front of me.

Drake takes a deep breath. “You should. That way, you may think twice before doing it to other people.”

“Perhaps. But you still haven’t learned not to piss me off when I have a gun in my hand.”

“You don’t have a gun in your hand, Ms. Bond.”

Two seconds later, I have my brother’s 9mm dangling from my finger and directed at Drake Nash’s chest. Both men tense, and my smirk becomes a grin as I turn to Trent.

“You should really secure that better. I didn’t even have to try.” I pass it to him and look back at Drake. “Well, Detective? Are you going to stop harassing me and move on to my staff now? I’d like to print my reports.”

“Your brother will wait with you to make sure you don’t remove anything from your office.” Drake’s eyes flit across the room then settle on me. “Try not to piss any of my men off, Noelle.”

“Ms. Bond,” I correct him. “Try not to drink all of my coffee in the kitchen.”

“All right,” Trent interjects. “Noelle. Inside. You’re not doin’ yourself any favors.”

“Neither is the dead body outside,” I mutter, turning away from that bastard Drake Nash and walking back into my office.

News travels fast in Holly Woods. Especially when there’s a murder. Something that happens not regularly, but enough that it’s never quiet. I’ve just never been in the middle of a Holly Woods murder before, much less the investigation.

And definitely not a suspect.

Which is technically what I am, along with all of my staff. And that sucks. I don’t have time to be a suspect, and I have even less time to have Detective Drake Nash sniffing around my business. His obnoxious self is a giant pain in the ass.

If he weren’t a cop, I’d shoot him in the foot again. I’d enjoy it as well.

Jesus. I really need to stop thinking about shooting the man. It simply isn’t going to do me any good, because I might have a bit of a twitchy trigger finger. Which is how he ended up getting shot by me in the first place.

So, yes. No more pointing guns at Detective Drake Nash.

I grab a cupcake from the box and slink down in my seat. Restaurant stakeouts on Saturday nights are the worst damn thing in the world. There are only two or three small-to-medium-sized restaurants in Holly Woods, so they’re almost always full on a weekend.

This makes my job very hard when someone I’ve been hired to follow goes to dinner with someone other than their spouse. Sadly, nine times out of ten, my clients’ hunches are right, and despite the businesslike tone of the dinner meeting I’m observing, there are slight hand brushes and moves like wiping food from the other person’s mouth that give it away.

Unfortunately for me, that isn’t enough to convince my client that her husband is a love rat. I need a kiss or, at the very least, a blatant tit grab.

Why can’t these scumbags make my life easier and just have at each other in an alleyway?

I sigh and grab my can of Diet Pepsi. Stakeouts are the worst part of this job. One day, I’ll simply install my own cameras in every public establishment in town and collect the tapes every morning. Then I could technically do stakeouts in my pajamas at home.

Ahh, pajamas.

I glance at the clock. It’s almost ten p.m. Yes. I should be in my pajamas, especially after the hellish day I’ve had. I’m pretty sure all a girl should do after finding a dead body is hide beneath her covers with Jack Daniel’s and cake. And then never, ever, ever come out again.

I answer my phone as soon as the screen lights up. “Noelle Bond.”

“Why are you sitting outside Red?” Drake.

“I’m working. Why do you want to know? Wait. How do you know where I am?”