Tangled Web: A Small Town Romance (The Cortell Brothers Book 6) by Giulia Lagomarsino (an ebook reader txt) 📕

she waited for me to feed her. I held it out to her and watched as she took a bite. But I couldn’t watch just her mouth when the knife was so damn close to me.

She moaned and stood up, flipping the knife around in her hand, as if she wasn’t wielding a deadly object. “That’s sinful.”

She sauntered back into the kitchen and returned to cutting the flowers. Deciding that if she could eat it, so could I, I shoved a large bite in my mouth and chewed. But then I started wondering if maybe she had poisoned it with something she was already immune to, like maybe she had the vaccination for it or something.

I choked on the pastry, coughing so hard that I couldn’t stop. Lorelei quickly brought me a glass of water, and before I could think better, I swallowed down the whole glass. I started panicking, sure that at any moment I was going to have a heart attack and die.

“Are you okay?” she asked worriedly.

I nodded, though I was anything but okay. I was freaking the fuck out. I couldn’t take the pressure, constantly wondering if she was trying to kill me. But I needed this time with her. I had to figure her out, so I forced myself to take a deep breath and get my shit under control. I was a professional. Well, I wanted to be.

“So, how’s your foot?”

She took a seat beside me, lifting my foot up off the ground like she had every right to. I stared at the boot around my foot, remembering when the tub fell on me. I thought it had crushed my ankle.

“It’s alright. The doctor said it was bruised pretty good. I have to wear this boot for a week, just to take the pressure off.”

“And you’re icing it?”

“Uh—“

She stood before I had a chance to answer, and grabbed a bag of frozen vegetables out of the freezer. Coming back to me, she opened the boot and rested my foot on her leg, placing the bag of peas on top. She was being so caring. This didn’t ring true with being a serial killer. Who took care of their victim before slaughtering them? Or maybe that was how she lured her victims in…

“It’s really bruised. I’m so sorry that happened.”

Was she really? I wasn’t so sure about that. She was the one that had told me to wait right where I was, and then a tub fell on me.

“It was an accident,” I said with a smile. “Old houses are unpredictable.”

“Yeah, but I think I remember Eric saying during the walk-through that the floor was rotting in the bathroom.”

Ah, so she did know. And she was admitting to it so that she couldn’t be accused of hiding the truth later.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” I said nonchalantly.

She smiled up at me. “So, you forgive me?”

“Of course,” I laughed. “It’s not like you were hoping I would get crushed by the tub, right?”

She smiled brightly and shook her head. “Not yet. I don’t know you well enough to know if you deserve such a death.”

A shudder ran through me, but luckily, she took it as the chill from the frozen vegetables. “Well, I don’t want to bother you. I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay.”

“Do you still want help at the house?”

She cringed. “You’re willing to risk your life again for paint samples?”

I shrugged like it was no big deal. “You don’t have any other tubs upstairs, do you?”

“Not unless there’s one in the attic.”

“Fingers crossed,” I joked.

“Alright, then come on out when you’re feeling up to it.”

“Will do.”

She grabbed the pill bottle off the counter and brought it over to me. “Don’t forget to take your pain pills.”

I nodded, taking them from her, but once she was out the door I flushed them down the sink. There was no fucking way I was taking pills that she handed me.

I dug through her financials, blown away by the amount she had in checking and savings. She was rich, but what really got me was the trust. Going over the papers that Barty got me, I could see his concern with her receiving the trust. Literally everything in there went to her after her husband’s death. Companies worth millions would be signed over to her with full control. Stocks and shares in companies that were doing really well, stood to make her even richer. Not to mention there were houses scattered around the country and overseas that could make her a tiny profit. And when I said tiny, I meant she would be the richest person I’d ever heard of.

Tossing the papers down, I sighed and rubbed at my eyes. I felt like I was going cross-eyed from the paperwork. She didn’t necessarily seem like she was after the money, but then again, she was updating that house, using all the money she had to make it exactly as she wanted, like she had money in reserves. She was counting on that other money to keep her going after her savings was depleted.

I had to see her again, talk to her and get a good feel for who she was. When I saw her a week ago, that hadn’t really told me a lot, besides the two murder attempts. My foot was still in the boot, so I would have to hobble around, but I couldn’t delay. I had already received daily emails from Barty asking for a followup on how the investigation was going. As of right now, I had nothing concrete to go on.

Putting away all my paperwork, I headed for the door. I hated taking the fucking stairs and had avoided it as much as possible. Pulling on my beanie before I headed outside, I zipped up my coat and hunched against the cold wind. Winter was just around the corner and based on the weather forecast, this year was going to be especially cold and snowy.

Luckily, my injured foot