Naked Risk (Shatterproof #3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

realization made me second-guess my wanting to be with Watts. And as I sat there in the passenger seat, watching him drive, I realized that’s exactly where I wanted to be. Not there in the car, specifically. Not anywhere in particular, in fact. The place didn’t matter. Where I wanted to be, now and forever, was next to Watts, no matter where we were.
     
    . . . . .
     
    “Good morning, Andrew,” the voice came from his next-door neighbor’s porch. I looked up as I got out of the car and saw an elderly woman sitting in a wooden rocking chair.
    Watts had come around to my side of the car and opened the door for me. He was closing it as he replied, “Morning, Mrs. Woodall.”
    “Nice day not to be working ,” she said.
    Watts placed a hand on my elbow, leading me, almost pushing me toward the front steps to his townhouse.
    “Perfect day,” he said. “Enjoy it.”
    “Are you having a daytime date?” she asked. “This is the first time I’ve seen you with a woman. Is that right or have I forgotten?”
    Wow, this woman didn’t hold back at all. As secretive as Watts had always been, it surprised me that he lived next to someone who sat on her front porch blurting out questions about his personal life.
    Watts slipped the key into his front door and turned it. The door swung open.
    I felt kind of bad for the lady. She clearly meant no harm. Still, it was a bit unnerving for me, and probably a hundred times more so for Watts.
    “This is Allison,” he said, surprising me more than a little, my head snapping toward his direction. “You’ll probably be seeing a lot of her in the future.”
    I waved. “Hi.”
    The woman waved back. “Well, that’s good to know. You two enjoy your day.”
    “And you as well, Mrs. Woodall.”
    I waved to her again and smiled as I entered Watts’s house.
    He closed the door and locked up, shaking his head.
    “She seems nice,” I said. “And why the hell am I Allison?”
    He emptied his pockets into a small bowl on a table next to the front door. “She is. She’s just a little too nice sometimes. Trust me, she doesn’t need to know anything about you, and especially about us.”
    “Doesn’t respect the ‘privacy code’?” I said in jest.
    Watts cut his eyes at me. “Doesn’t know about the code.”
    “Then that’s your fault.”
    He smiled for the first time all morning. “I know it’s hard for you to turn it off, but now is not the time to be all cute and flirty with me. We have some work to do.”
    “Hey,” I said, forcing a disappointed and rejected look on my face. “I’m trying to lighten the mood here. Blow off a little steam.”
    “There will be plenty of time for blowing things later.” His crooked smile almost made me drop to my knees right there in his foyer.
     
    . . . . .
     
    He led me down to his basement where he told me to take a seat in an uncomfortable, old wooden chair that was next to a desk. Watts went over to a large metal cabinet and pulled out a canvas bag. He placed it on the desk and unzipped it, then looked at me as I looked up from the bag to meet his eyes.
    “Polygraph machine,” he said.
    “I’ve taken one before.”
    He smiled. “Well, now you’re about to do it again.”
    For several minutes, he hooked me up to the machine and explained as he went.
    “I assume you know what this is,” he said, placing a blood pressure cuff around my left bicep.
    “Yes.”
    He took two rubber tubes out of the canvas bag and placed them around my lower chest, just below my breasts. “These measure the rate and depth of your respiration.”
    Then two plastic clips on two fingers. “These measure your skin moisture. When you’re nervous, you sweat, and it conducts electricity.”
    I was silent as he switched on the machine on the desk, until a question struck me. “Why do you have this?”
    Without looking at me, he said, “When I first got here, a lot of what we did—what I did—involved detaining and questioning suspects. I