His Vanilla Girl | ✔

Chapter Twenty-five

His words made her pull back and stare at him, eyes wide and mouth open. "Why?"

"I'm not giving whoever did this a chance to get you, too."

"And Becky, you're moving in with me," Nathan echoed. "Sylvester, if there are any problems back at your place, you and Maria can stay with me."

Before Becky could reply, the cops began their usual round of questioning: "Who lives here? What happened? Were you here when it happened? Did you see anything unusual?"

Sylvester lost track of everything as his mind went back to the day that he lost his child. Karen had called him, told him she was getting an abortion, and that she didn't want him coming around anymore. He tried a few times to stop by, but her Father told him in no under terms to get off his property and never come back.

Julie had found him sitting on his steps, drowning his woes in a bottle of whisky. They hadn't conversed much before then. She had just started working in his shop a week prior, and on that fateful day one thing led to another and he found comfort with her. Little by little, she brought him back, letting him know there were people you could still trust.

And now she was dead.

"Caleb, are there any other women that this person may go after?" Constable Harry said.

"I'll email you a list," Sylvester muttered. He really didn't want to go into detail with Maria sitting beside him. It was a no-no in his book to talk about other women to his current woman. The conversations never ended in his favor. Jealousy always reared its ugly head.

"Can you think of any common denominator between the women so far?"

"Besides me?" he asked wryly.

"Ya."

None that he cared to talk about. The entire world didn't need to know what he was or who he was. "Not that I can think of."

"Did she attend your meetings at that hotel?" Harry asked.

"No, not Julie. She kind of kept to herself. Did you guys check my store yet? She would have been working," Sylvester commented.

Harry held up a hand and stepped away from them, speaking into his radio and then listening to the response before looking back at him. "We have a car heading over there now."

"Come on, guys, I'll take you," Nathan offered.

Sylvester stood up, finally gathering his strength. "Let's drop the girls off at your place, and then you and I can go."

"Where you guys go, we go," Becky said, planting her feet stubbornly and crossing her arms.

Nathan shook his head, adamantly refusing. "It might not be safe."

"Well then, you can do your big macho agent guy stuff and protect me."

"I don't want you to get hurt, Becky," he said, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. "Whoever is doing this is dangerous and I just got you back. I'm not willing to risk losing you."

Maria watched the exchange between the two and saw both love and worry shining in Nathan's eyes. He really cared about her, more than Becky thought he did. And she didn't want this situation to put their relationship in danger.

"Becky, maybe we should go back to his place. Let the boys do their thing," Maria said, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"But—" Becky started to say, but Nathan shut her up with a kiss and then whispered something quietly into her ear and her roomie's face turned red. "You wouldn't."