Read Online At Close Range by Jessica Andersen - Free Book Online Page A

pursuit, had her brakes sabotaged and nearly been killed in her own home. Now she was being forced to strip in front of—or behind—a near stranger. There was no way she found this titillating.
    The fact that he did was, frankly, a little disturbing. But he was ultra-aware of her every motion within the small bathroom, hypersensitive to each rustle of cloth, each small noise. He pictured her removing her shirt, imagined her unfastening her jeans and sliding them down over the long, sleek lines of her legs.
    He had to clear his throat before he said, “I didn’t bring my kit up,” which just went to show that he was off-stride. He never went anywhere official without the toolbox full of evidence collection basics. “There are paper bags for the dry cleaners in the closet. That should do.”
    A good evidence tech learned to improvise.
    “Can you pass me one?”
    “Sure.” Seth forced himself to cross the room with a measured pace and reach inside the closet casually, as though this were a normal evidence collection.
    As though he wasn’t picturing Cassie naked, sitting on the marble counter between the double sinks, knees parted slightly in invitation.
    “Get a grip,” he muttered. He scrubbed a hand across his face and felt stubble rasp. It had been a long day, that was all. His anti-Cassie defenses were low.
    “Varitek? The bag?” Her voice wrapped around the corner between the closet and the bath, making it all too clear that she was mere feet away.

    “Here.” He hooked his arm through the bathroom door and shoved the bag in her direction, then returned to his window. He pressed his palms against the cool glass and summoned up a memory of Robyn’s face, not as he’d last seen her, bloodied and dying, but as he’d known her in life, sassy and snappy and always ready to stir up trouble.
    In that, she and Cassie were alike, he realized, and was faintly disturbed to find himself comparing the two as he struggled to ignore another rasp of cloth from the bathroom. It wasn’t going to happen between him and Cassie. He wouldn’t let it happen. He wasn’t ready for a new relationship, and was pretty sure he’d never be ready for someone like Cassie.
    She was too much damn effort, like Robyn.
    He and Robyn had worked on their marriage, sometimes harder than it seemed like they should have. When he looked at his sister’s marriage, it seemed like CeeCee and Jack glided effortlessly through the years and the children. In contrast, he and Robyn had busted their butts to get along. They’d gone through three counselors and two sets of mediation sessions, but they had refused to give up, even when things were at their worst. Seth because he believed in one marriage for life. Robyn because she didn’t mind fighting. Hell, sometimes she seemed to enjoy it.
    And when you came down to it, they’d stayed together because while they hadn’t always liked each other, they had loved each other.
    “All set,” Cassie’s voice said at his shoulder. He turned to find her standing there with one hand clutching a bulging dry cleaner’s bag and the other holding her robe shut.

    A faint blush stained her cheeks and he could see the pulse at her throat. It beat fast, as though she were nervous.
    He took the bag. “I’ll enter this into evidence and have someone from my team pick it up as soon as they get into town.” When her eyes darkened, he sighed and said, “I know you don’t like my people being involved, but what other option do we have? Call Fitz back?”
    Something kicked at the back of Seth’s brain when he mentioned Bear Claw’s dinosaur of an ex-crime-scene analyst.
    Cassie shook her head. “No. You did what you had to do. I don’t like it, but I understand.”
    As though suddenly realizing that they were standing dangerously close, she backed away, giving him a flash of her bare feet. Her narrow toes were tipped at the ends with a hint of pink polish that was completely at odds with the woman he knew as