Big Bad Wolf (Third Shift #1) - Suleikha Snyder Page 0,3

to get to him. And the fact that he’d noticed her meant she was in.

She leaned forward, folding her hands on the metal table in a parody of his. “I’m here to learn, Joe,” she told him. “Nothing more, nothing less.” The skin around his left eye was black and blue. His right cheek looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to it a week ago. But it was his gaze she focused on, his intensity that held her fixed.

Nate’s hand settled on her knee. A warning squeeze, not a stolen grope. He was in no way interested in any of her body parts besides her brain—not just because he was gay, but because he didn’t subscribe to the toxic male posturing that seemed to permeate most law firms. He’d likely brought her on board because she’d profiled his boyfriend a few months back over Friday night drinks. His now ex-boyfriend.

“Tread carefully,” he was saying with the squeeze. “Tread carefully but work it.” She was thirty-five. Older than a lot of her fellow junior associates. She didn’t need the warning. She knew how to be careful.

“Bullshit,” Peluso pronounced, that almost-smile returning to his face. Bizarrely, she kind of wanted to see the real thing. “It’s never ‘nothing less.’ You want something from me. And good luck with that, ’cause I got nothing to give.”

He was guilty, but he didn’t seem to have any guilt. Not about what he’d done. That much was clear. And he wouldn’t stand for more bullshit. So, she told him the truth as she knew it. “Okay. Here’s the bottom line, Joe. They’re here to defend you. I’m here to break you down. Get inside your head. Find out what makes you tick.”

It amused him. He tilted his head, sizing her up with his good eye. “I’d like to see you try.”

The way he said it—a cocky, casual threat—should have sent a chill down her spine. It didn’t. It just got her back up. “That’s the beauty of it, Joe,” she told him. “You won’t see it. You’ll be halfway there, looking around and wondering why you told me every secret you’ve never told another soul.”

She’d tried that line on a few clients here and there. Most of them laughed, because they didn’t believe her. They didn’t realize that she’d been cracking people like safes since long before the psych degree. When one of her older brothers had held her Malibu Barbie for ransom, she’d gotten the doll’s location out of him in four minutes. She’d been eight.

People told her things. Whether they wanted to or not. People connected to her. Whether she wanted them to or not. It was a blessing and a curse. Maybe it was her supernatural gift.

“You’ll give me everything,” she assured.

Joe Peluso didn’t laugh off the challenge. Instead, he seemed to mull it over. His brows winged together. His eyes went distant. He interlaced his fingers, cuffs clinking against the tabletop. He watched her watch him. Nate shifted beside her, obviously unsettled by the standoff, but he wouldn’t have asked her along if he hadn’t thought she could handle it.

She could handle this. She could handle him.

She knew Joe was guilty…and she knew she was just that good.

* * *

His new lawyers were slick talkers in expensive suits. Fine by him, since the public defender who fucked up his last trial was a dumb shitbag who couldn’t string a sentence together, much less a defense. And he knew these guys were in it for the headlines. It sure as shit wasn’t about the money, because he didn’t have any to pay them with. The woman, though, he couldn’t figure out. Secretary? Paralegal? They’d introduced her at the beginning. First name Neha, last name something with a lot of syllables. She’d spent most of the hour scribbling on a yellow pad, occasionally looking up at him and tapping her lips with her pen.

They were good lips. Full. She wasn’t wearing lipstick. Someone probably told her to wipe it off before coming out to the jailhouse in case the sight of Posy Pink incited a prisoner riot. The problem was, she couldn’t wipe off that she was hot. Black hair pulled back into a prim ponytail. Huge doe eyes. Smooth brown skin. What he could see of her above the table was bangin’. Her tits looked like they’d be a perfect handful. Makeup or no, the woman was a total fox. Enough to start a riot all on her own. Which was