Suspicious Activities by Tyler Anne Snell Page A

other loved ones.
    He exhaled a long breath.
    Then he’d kissed her. His boss. Exactly a week after he was hired.
    Jackson ignored his reflection, knowing he needed to shave and probably had a blooming bruise against his jaw thanks to Reardon, and went into his bedroom to change. It was a small room, as was his apartment in its entirety, but it was where he’d lived since he came to Dallas five years ago. It was the only home he’d really had as an adult and he found himself hoping Nikki liked it as much as he did. His thoughts went to her apartment again, back to her bathroom. He wondered if she’d ever use her tub again after Ronald Dabney had died there.
    Halfway through pulling up his jeans, Jackson froze.
    “—pain was what I was asked to deliver and it had to be in the bathtub.”
    “Know that it was those successes, those wins, that destroyed you.”
    Jackson buttoned his pants and tugged on his shirt. He opened the door and went out into the living room, trying to make sense of something he didn’t think he could. Not alone, at least.
    Nikki was sitting on the couch, phone discarded on the coffee table. She looked up at him and instantly sat straighter.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked, voice hardening, her brows pulled together.
    “Did one of Orion’s most successful cases have anything to do with a bathtub?” he asked, sitting next to her. Their shared kiss had flown to the back burner. Right now they needed to deal with Andrew Miller and not Jackson’s growing attraction for the beautiful redhead.
    “What?” she asked, a slight smile pulling up the corner of her lips. “First of all, there’s not really a way to rank the success of our cases. If we hold up our end of the contract, then to me that is success.”
    Jackson rephrased his question. “Are there any cases that got a lot of good press compared to the others? A lot of media attention?”
    Nikki looked like she was about to discard the question with a little laugh. Then her face fell. Jackson saw recognition flare behind her green-brown eyes. “Nikki, which cases?”
    She shook her head a little in disbelief. Maybe because she hadn’t thought about it until now or maybe she didn’t want to entertain the idea she’d just had at all.
    “Nikki?” Jackson prodded.
    She gave a little nod.
    “Even though we tried to keep things relatively under wraps, there have been three Orion cases that couldn’t avoid a lot of media attention,” she said. The color drained from her face. Jackson leaned in.
    “And one of them involved a bathtub,” he guessed.
    Nikki nodded.
    “In a roundabout way. A Jane Doe was found in a bathtub in Maine a few years ago,” she said, voice trailing as if she was ahead of herself remembering other details. “It threw our contract way off, but in the end, Oliver helped catch the killer who put her there. Orion was partially credited with the outcome and given enough money to afford our expansion.”
    “Wait,” Jackson said. “Oliver as in Oliver Quinn? He was the agent on the case?”
    “Yes,” she confirmed. “But, Jackson, the other two Orion contracts that I’d count as our biggest wins...”
    “Yeah?”
    “The agents in charge were Mark Tranton and Jonathan Carmichael.”
    Jackson titled his head, full understanding seeping in.
    “So Orion’s biggest successes involve Oliver, Mark and Jonathan. The three men Andrew Miller believes you stole from him,” Jackson summarized. “Well, this just keeps getting more and more interesting.”

Chapter Eleven
    “I think we might be reaching a little here.”
    Nikki and Jackson had moved to the small table in the kitchen. He had put a pizza in the oven and passed her a beer. Which she took without hesitation. It was more than welcome after detailing out every part of Oliver’s, Mark’s and Jonathan’s biggest contracts to him.
    They’d been complicated, dangerous and unexpected. They’d also turned out better than anyone could have hoped, bringing Orion