Blind: Killer Instincts Read Free Page A

were grieving and trying to put tragedy behind them. They did it however they could. It might not have been the right way, but it’s what they did.”
    He wasn’t like the others. Usually the people who sought her out spent forever poring over the words and the pictures. He seemed to be after something specific. He clearly wasn’t going to outright ask her what he wanted to know, and for some reason she couldn’t stop wondering why. She had enough issues without adding another, but she could never keep her nose in her own business. She wasn’t about to judge them. She didn’t need any more cracks in her glass house.
    Jacob tried to focus on the food. The barbecue was some of the best he’d had in ages, and he was pretty picky when it came to calling food good. But any time he’d begin to mull the flavors over, Emma would dip her finger in the sauce and lick it off, and he’d be back to staring at that mischievous smile, those dark, soulful eyes.
    Emma Ration was not the woman he’d expected.
    He’d read her file, knew enough of her life story that he’d expected to find some washed-up, hard-used woman working an angle. But she was different. Unlike her father, unlike Jacob, TBK hadn’t left a mark on her he could see, and he knew the darkness of humanity. He saw it every day, working the streets of Oklahoma City. But despite his gut feeling about her, he still couldn’t trust her. Could he? Did he dare lay it all out on the table and pick her brain for real? No, he didn’t. People like her didn’t trust cops. So he’d torture himself a little more by watching her eat a sandwich like it was the best erotic film he’d ever seen.
    She was attractive in her realness. He couldn’t think of another word to describe it. Emma was authentic to who she was, and maybe that person was a little redneck, a little rough around the edges, but she didn’t seem like she was about to apologize for it.
    He’d have liked to be interviewing her father, but the Ration family survivor was next to impossible to find, as was his wife, Emma’s mother. There was also a baby momma and a younger son who was in the Navy before getting thrown in the federal prison. In a family of questionable people, Emma stuck out. There were two things in her file, a DUI and an altercation where no one had pressed charges. It sounded like some guy had tried to intimidate her, and she’d shown him how bad her bite could be.
    Emma was the kind of woman he needed to stay far away from. And yet, he’d kept digging.
    Thanks to social media, it was pretty easy to track down her current activities. She was a huge motocross racer, or whatever they were called. She had a website dedicated to metal sculptures she made out of reclaimed trash. And she had a job at a garage that appeared to specialize in recreational vehicles.
    To top it all off, she was easy on the eyes. Her tank top stretched across ample breasts. It was a show of will he didn’t just stare at them all night. Her left arm had a tattoo from shoulder to elbow of a dirt bike chick soaring through the air, done in pretty fine detail, against a backdrop of what he would call a race course. There were a few other tattoos, but he hadn’t paid attention to them. Her smile kept snagging his attention. There hadn’t been much to smile about these last few years, even less now. He was almost jealous of her easy ability to simply be happy. What was that like?
    Emma glanced up and caught him staring at her again. One side of her mouth kicked up. He wanted to lick those lips.
    “Do you have any other questions for me?” she asked between bites.
    He was pretty much done with what he needed. He could pay now, get up, and leave, which was the safer option. But it had been so long since he’d sat and eaten a meal with another person. A hell of a lot longer since that person was female and beautiful.
    “How’d you get started racing bikes?”
    “Mm, that’s personal.” She waggled her finger at