Page 43 of Watch Me Burn
God damn, this woman is everything I’ve ever wanted.
“I do. I always have.”
She pulled me in for a passionate kiss.
“Same here, Ethan. Always have, always will.”
Chapter 19
Anna
Welcome to the state of Florida.
We were only a few miles away from the hotel we pinned on our map. We did end up reaching Florida late as Ethan pulled over several times to simply take me right there and then at the fucking side of the road like an animal. Just looking at me got him rock hard, and I freaking loved it, as there were times I felt like I would burn to ashes if this hot man of muscles and tattoos wouldn’t make me come with his tongue or fill me up while groaning my name.
So yeah . . . neither of us cared about the delay.
“Do you think we should stop anywhere first?” I asked Ethan as I swerved our RV onto a less crowded road. The engine rumbled over the old street’s bumps.
He rubbed his chin. “Technically, the hotel staff wouldn’t be that upfront if we just waltzed in there demanding to see guest records from over a decade ago. We need to think this over.”
I shrugged. “Wouldn’t being the daughter of a murdered man work fine?”
Ethan gently brushed his rough hand over my cheek. God, I loved when he did that. It made me feel like I was his girl.
“I’m worried that won’t be enough. It’s terrible to even say this, but businesses don’t like drama. It’s bad for business. And some murdered man’s daughter, especially one who stayed at the business not too long before that murder, means drama in their eyes. No matter what happened fifteen years ago, they’re more likely to cooperate if a ‘threat or authority’ is involved, and if it’s from a private source who knows to be discreet.”
I took another turn so we could stop at the side of a residential road.
“We can’t impersonate legal officials or police officers to make threats,” I pointed out. “Just not very believable.”
Ethan was hot as fuck, but his tattoos screamed the opposite of cop.
“Yeah, cop ain’t in my resume,” Ethan murmured.
I focused back on the road. We needed to think of a bulletproof plan—at least, something that’d last us long enough to inspect my dad’s check-in records. But how would we even ask to see them?
“I do have an idea,” Ethan piped up. “But it might piss off your mother if she hears about it.”
I laughed. “She won’t. Besides, I’m okay with pissing her off a little. We are mother and daughter. We piss each other off all the time, it’s part of the deal.”
Brightness returned to Ethan’s features as he began explaining his plan. “With cold cases, mourning families often hire P.I.s who are seen as persistent threats with ties to law enforcement. Some cops work at a snail’s pace, or they’re just incompetent,” he said. “I know of guys in prison whose wives or mothers hired detectives to prove their innocence.”
I nodded slowly. “It’s really sad, but you know, my dad’s case isn’t really like that. Most folks back home, especially my mom, think you did it. How can we paint this to make it look believable?”
“By looking at it from a slightly different angle. Your mom, torn over the recent release of her husband’s convicted killer, wants peace. And the insurance money that was denied to her for all those years.”
“But there was no insurance.”
“They don’t know that. It’s a very common thing to have these days. But in your mom’s case, those fuckers refused to pay, claiming your father took his own life to secure insurance money for his family. But now that I’ve officially confessed, she’s piecing together the facts of your dad’s life to challenge that decision in court. The Florida trip he took just before his murder is the only lingering mystery.”
I watched him in thought. “And we are the P.I.s she hired to solve the Florida mystery so she can sue the insurance company?”
It sounded awful, especially the part about accusing Ethan of the murder once more, and I couldn’t imagine how Ethan felt pondering this, but it could work out in the minds of a random worker in the hotel. People hated insurance companies.
“What do P.I.s even wear?” I asked.
Ethan smirked, “I have absolutely no clue. Let’s google it.”
