Page 45 of Don't Cross Mo Ellery

“Oh, I don’t mind,” Leslie says as I fly past her. “I’m out of purse dogs, but I do have—”

“Can’t talk right now... thank you... have to...” I hot-step it sideways down the terrible steep stairs and straggle-run across the parking lot in my heels and black dress, the dogs loving this spontaneous jog, while I wave frantically at Chris. The windows are up and he’s drumming passionately on the steering wheel while clearly singing at the top of his lungs, which I would find cute if we weren’t in mortal danger.

“Chris!Chris!” I yell, but he doesn’t hear me until I slam my body into the passenger door and tug at the handle. “Unlock the door! There’s murderers!”

He jumps and blushes and turns down the volume. The doors click open, I get the dogs in the back seat, then leap into the front.

“Go,” I yell.“Punch it!”

“What?” Chris blinks at me, distinctlynotpunching it.

“Murderers!” I say again, gasping for breath. “We have to get out of here, stat! Oh god, I need my inhaler. Where’s my inhaler?” I root through my bag. “You don’t have any lunch bags in here, do you?”

Chris starts the car, but he doesn’t put it into gear. Instead he turns to me disapprovingly. “Once again, you don’t have asthma.”

“That’swhat you want to respond to?” I shriek. “Not the murder part? Seriously, you need todrive.”

He finally pulls out of the lot.

“Okay, fine,” he says calmly. “What’s the murder part?”

“Cran’s brother murdered him! And I’m next!”

“So this guy you know from work,” Chris says, “his brothermurderedhim? This was part of the funeral service?”

“No!I overheard him talking.”

I turn in my seat, straining to look past the dogs and through the back window. It doesn’t seem like anybody’s following us. But good lord, in the time we’ve been sitting here, tiny old Leslie has tottered down the stairs, gotten into her massive Escalade, and squealed out of the parking lot.

You know, likeweshould be doing.

“Are you sure?” Chris says gently. “Maybe you misheard.”

“No way,” I say, feeling the heat rise up in my face. “You always do this! You always second-guess me!”

“To be fair, you overreact a lot—”

“I’m not overreacting this time! They’re murderers! And you’re pissing me off!” I groan with frustration, as he reaches over and pushes my hair back from my face. But he doesn’t stop there. He runs his fingers through my hair and back to my neck.

I look up. He’s got a smoldery look in his eyes that I haven’t seen in forever.

Wait, what? Is this happening? Did my plan actually work? And also, why’d it have to workrightafter I identified some murderers?

“But the... murderers,” I manage to whimper as Chris slowly sucks on one of my fingers.

“I know a great secluded parking lot,” he says, his gaze lingering on my cleavage. “They’ll never catch you there.”

Chapter 14

I decide to put the whole murder thing on hold for just a minute.

Maybe twenty minutes.

Tops.

We pull into the parking lot of a former abandoned elementary school that’s now an abandoned cop academy and park behind the dumpster. It feels sexy and dangerous—maybe not as dangerous as murder, but I’m not thinking about that now.

I’m thinking about Chris and the hand he’s sliding up my leg.