Sure enough, beads of sweat stood out on my stomach. I was probably getting burnt, too. It was hot. But the idea of standing up and moving around in this ridiculous bikini made my nerves jump.

“I’m good. I’m watching. Which you should be doing, too.”

“I can watch from inside the pool.” He dipped a foot into the water and kicked a splash at me. It felt like ice, and I gasped when it hit my skin. “Come on.”

“Stop.” I sat up and pulled my knees into my chest.

He splashed me again, bigger this time. “You know you want to.”

“Stop.”

He didn’t stop. He splashed me again and laughed when I squealed and splashed again until I jumped up—completely forgetting about how naked I felt—and rushed him, shoving him into the pool, which was easy, given his recent injuries. Of course, shoving him into the pool was a terrible idea if I wanted him to stop splashing me. It only got more intense, and soon we were both laughing and it was almost like we were just two people having fun at a pool instead of who we really were—an awkward love/hate couple brought together by murder.

The water did feel good, though. I jumped in and swam to the far side and back again in one breath.

“Look at you, mermaid,” he said when I surfaced.

“Hardly,” I said. “I used to swim a lot after my mom died, that’s all.” Truth. Some of my best memories of Mom were together in the pool or at the beach. Mom loved to swim, and she passed that love down to me. After she died, I came to the pool to feel closer to her. I loved the way the water blocked out the noise and let me think. For those few minutes underwater, I could hear her talk to me. It was like she wasn’t gone; she was just in the water that we both loved. I tugged at my bikini bottom self-consciously.

“Never did much swimming in our neighborhood,” he said. “And my mom couldn’t afford to take us to someplace like this. Maybe that’s why I was hanging out here. Maybe I was just swimming. Or running on a treadmill. Hell, I don’t know. Who says I was chasing someone?”

“It was on your work computer.”

He bent his legs and propped himself against the wall, letting the water come up to his neck. “There’s a lot of things on my work computer. I looked up a restaurant menu today—does that mean I’m casing the restaurant? No.”

“Okay. Jeez.” I felt defensive. Like I had led him down a false path. Like if we didn’t find the guy who hit him, it would be my fault. “Haven’t you told me in the past that a bad lead is better than no lead at all?”