A quick nod. “Me, too.” Her fingers reached for the frame. Traced carefully around the wooden edges. Piper got the feeling that Lopez touched that photo—in the exact same, tender manner—quite often. “She’s the reason I have this job. When you lose someone you love, you can either give in to the pain or you can let the rage take over.” A shrug. “I tend to fall onto the side of rage, just so you know.”

Uh…“I think rage looks good on you.”

Lopez’s hand fell away from the frame. “I see why he likes you so much. You are…unexpected, huh? One of those women who marches to the beat of her own drum?”

Now Piper had to blink. “Isn’t that what you are?”

“Absolutely. Why be like everyone else? That’d just be boring. And anyone can be boring. I’d rather be ragey. Dangerous. Someone has to make the sick assholes out there pay for their crimes. I figure that someone might as well be me.” She sat in her chair then motioned for Piper to take the other seat in the office.

Piper eased down. The chair wobbled beneath her, and she was about fifty percent certain the chair would break before she got back up.

“I came off tough yesterday because I hadn’t ruled you out as a suspect. For all I knew, you just blinked those big eyes of yours, twirled your hair, and got Eric to think you were some innocent damsel who needed rescuing…while you were actually out, you know, torturing your ex and killing him.”

Piper deliberately blinked her “big eyes” at the detective. Once. Twice. “I don’t twirl my hair.”

“Noted.”

“And I did need Eric’s help—I still do, unfortunately, though I don’t like it. I don’t like it because now he’s in danger.”

A considering nod. “Because he’s sleeping with you.”

“Yes.” She wasn’t going to pull any punches.

Lopez nodded. “We slept together.”

Piper ground her back teeth together. “I’m trying to like you.”

“It didn’t mean anything to either of us. Sure, it was fun. But there wasn’t an emotional connection. And I could walk away. I do that—I always plan to walk away.” Her gaze darted to the frame. “You get hurt otherwise.”

Piper’s chest burned. For an instant, she thought of her parents. Of the way her mother had fallen so hard when her father left.

“I’ve talked to your exes,” Lopez murmured, voice much softer now. “Seems you have a pattern similar to my own. You like to walk away, too.” Now the detective was studying her with a knowing glint in her eyes. “You going to walk out on Eric when this is all done? When you don’t need him anymore?”

Piper folded her hands in her lap. The chair wobbled. “I feel like you’re interrogating me again.”