Inside Out Read Online Free PDF Page A

It didn’t feel right with it on and him there.
    â€œHow’d you find me?”
    He didn’t sit, just stared at his surroundings.
    Walking over to the sofa to look at the prints hanging above it, he replied, “Your address is in your books.”
    Tracey accepted that answer for about three seconds. “It is not.”
    â€œDamn, I should have checked before I said that, huh?” He chuckled. “And not even a thank you for bringing them back.”
    â€œThank you. Now tell me how you found me.”
    â€œEasy. I knew your name already. I just had Marsha in the front office look you up for me this morning. I told her we’d gotten our notebooks mixed up and I had to find you ’cause there was a big test coming up. I’ve been ridin’ around for about an hour trying to find your house. Even with the GPS, I passed it like three different times. You really ought to get someone to chop those trees down out there.”
    â€œListen, Detective CSI, I happen to like those trees. Why didn’t you just get her to call me or call me yourself so we could arrange for me to pick them up?”
    He shrugged.
    â€œThat’s your answer?”
    He shrugged again with another lopsided grin.
    â€œIt’s late.” Her voice didn’t hold half the resilience it had earlier. “It would be irresponsible for me to let you drive like that.” Tracey closed the door behind him and offered him something to drink. Reflex, pure reflex. That’s what one did when one had a guest. Did she really have a guest?
    He wanted something alcoholic. After explaining to him that that defeated the purpose of letting him in, she agreed. She gave in because he kept walking around her living room, picking up everything, looking at everything, touching everything. He picked up the heavy wooden fetish her father had brought back for her from the Ivory Coast. He ran his hands over the hips and lips of the roughly fashioned fertility talisman. He turned it in his palm, then set it down on its little pedestal once more, so softly that she never heard it touch. Tracey gave in to Garrett because whenever he spoke to her or she to him, he would watch her face and pay more attention than she was accustomed to. He studied her as he had that talisman. She gave in to him because she barely had a choice.
    Out of milk for white Russians, Tracey started a pot of decaf for an Irish coffee. “Be happy I’m not a cheapskate; otherwise you’d be drinking water.”
    He smiled. Another tickle. Dammit, she hated it when he did that. She got up and moved into the kitchen. When she came back, he was sitting where she had been sitting, in her favorite spot, her favorite chair, and didn’t look as if he was going to move. She didn’t say anything, needing a little more time to size up the situation. Plus, she didn’t want to be rude.
    Tracey handed him the glass, and he tasted cautiously. “This is good. Thanks.”
    â€œSo happy you like it.” They were quiet for a moment. “Okay, I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, but why did you ask Marsha for my address and not my phone number?”
    He responded—or didn’t—by telling her he liked her furniture because it was weird. He seemed amazed when she told him she’d helped her mother make most of it. She pointed out the dark tan leather armchair he had usurped from her, one of her mother’s signature designs.
    â€œThis is amazing.”
    â€œMy mother is trained in interior design, but for about the past ten, fifteen years, she’s been involved with industrial design as well.”
    â€œAwesome,” he said. Tracey hated that word. “How’d you get into law?”
    â€œWell, I’m not ‘into law’ exactly. I’m in the MBA program. I’m hoping to specialize in the legal aspects of operations management. You know, like labor unions, HR policy, etc. It’s kind