Chapter One
Shayna Curtis stared at the locked door, debated for about ten seconds, then decided to pick the lock.
Rain pounded down on her as she fished the kit from the worn hobo-style bag on her shoulder. Having an overprotective big brother who’d decided his little sister needed survival-skills lessons before his first deployment came in handy sometimes, as much good-natured eye rolling as she’d done at the time.
Now, to break in before one of her new neighbors called the police. Being arrested for breaking and entering probably wouldn’t be the smartest way to kick off her fresh start here in DC or to make the best first impression on her new roommate. Though, since said roomie was late to meet her and not answering his phone, she thought that earned her a pass.
She inserted the tension wrench, raked the pins, and twisted the wrench until the lock gave way.
“Annnd I’m in,” Shayna said to herself, mentally fist pumping as she opened the door and stepped in out of the rain. “Thanks, bro.” No doubt Ryan would get a kick out of knowing she’d picked her way into his best friend’s townhouse. Hopefully the best friend would find it humorous, too.
She dumped her purse on the hall table and then dashed back out into the downpour to grab her laptop, toiletries, and one bag of her clothes. The rest would have to wait until the rain let up, though she wasn’t happy to leave her camera equipment in the car.
Back inside, she dumped her things and turned on the lights, illuminating a space that was surprisingly modern compared to the old red-brick rowhouse’s exterior.
Gray hard woods stretched throughout the first floor, connecting the open living room dominated by a cushy, stone-colored sectional sofa with a gleaming white kitchen. A large sliding door with transom windows above at the back of the space looked out on a fenced-in brick-paved patio with a hammock that had her name written all over. The property backed up to a narrow road and a tree-lined field beyond.
She turned away from the view and trailed her fingers over the smooth surface of the silver quartz breakfast bar. The kitchen was spotless—not a dish in the sink or a crumb to be found. Her gaze scanned over the living room. Everything was neat as a pin with nary a pillow askew.
That was going to make things interesting, wasn’t it?
Perhaps the coolest—or freakiest?—feature was the floating staircase that connected the first and second floors. The stair treads were stone rectangles that protruded from the wall but weren’t otherwise connected, and the hand rail was nothing more than a sheet of plate glass, which added to the illusion of being suspended in thin air.
“This thing is a trip,” she said to herself as she made her way upstairs, each newly explored part of the townhouse offering only the barest clues about the man who’d be her roommate for the next two months.
Billy Parrish. One of her brother’s best friends and a former Army Ranger who now worked as a private detective.
If the interior reflected the guy, she’d guess he was either the kind of anal military man who’d been able to bounce quarters off his rack. Or he was never here. God, she hoped it was the latter.
The gray hard woods continued up here, where four doorways extended off the hallway—two closed, two open. She went to the open ones first and found a basic but spotless bathroom and a large bedroom she suspected might be the guest room since, in addition to a queen-sized bed, it had a large curved desk and two sets of bookshelves that probably comprised Billy’s home office.
And finally Shay found something that looked lived in.
The desk wasn’t messy—certainly not by her standards—but there were tidy stacks of books, file folders, and legal pads. Two cups filled with pens and paper
clips. The bulletin board above the desk represented the most personal thing she’d seen yet, covered as it was in neat rows of pinned phone numbers, photographs, and papers of various sorts.
She leaned over the desk to get a better look at a picture of two guys in camo sitting in beat-up beach chairs, beers in hand. Her brother grinned back at her. And so did Billy.
She’d first met him eight years ago when Ryan had brought him home for Christmas over one of the Rangers’ typically short stateside rotations. She’d been a high school senior, busy with the school newspaper, the winter dance committee, and the nail-biting excitement of college acceptance decisions, while Billy had been a tall, broad-shouldered, belly-laughing god.
Despite the fact that she only saw him occasionally, she’d crushed hard each and every time she had the chance.
Not that he’d looked at her. First, because he was six years older than her and, as such, way out of her league. And second, because her brothers would’ve killed him. Killed him dead.
Well, there was just one brother who might possibly interfere in her love life now. If she had a love life, which she decidedly didn’t. Though, it was funny how she no longer hated the thought of her brothers’ overprotectiveness the way she once had now that she’d lost one of them.
On a sigh, she shook the thought away.
Fresh starts and all that.