informative?”
“Uhh, very, Mr. Kincaid. Thank you.”
“Good, good. But my intention wasn’t for you to closet yourself away with them all day.”
Jolted by the undeserved reprimand, Anjali checked the time on the clock. No more than a half an hour had passed. She swallowed the urge to defend herself. “Of course. I’ll study the rest later.”
“Excellent.”
Anjali’s forehead creased as she hung up.
Why’d he made such a point of giving her the DVD this morning, if he didn’t want her to study it?
Anjali massaged the stiff muscles in the back of her neck and made her way down the row of massive cells. Breathe , she reminded herself.
Jake lay on the bed, reading again, dressed as he’d been yesterday. The green scrub bottoms exposing more beautiful man than any murderer had a right to be. Damn, so much for hoping he’d be less—well, less , on second sight.
“Dr. Mehta.” His deep voice rumbled up from his large chest and stroked over her like a caressing hand, raising the tiny hairs at her nape and her arms.
She peeled her tongue off the roof of her mouth, gripping her tablet like a vise. A subject. He’s just a subject .
All that man stood and moved to the wide bars. Shadows glided over his honeyed skin, dappling him like the sun through a forest canopy. She blinked at the poetic thought. Where had that come from?
“Mr. Finn,” she said in what she prayed was a normal voice, shaking her head inwardly. The odd thought had popped up because there was something, so wild, so animal, about him. That’s all.
“Call me Jake.” He smiled. The expression lit the eyes that almost, but not quite, met her gaze before sliding to the side, and down.
Was his refusal to look her in the eye an internal expression of shame? She made a quick note, then, skeptical of this sudden overture, tilted her head and viewed him from the corner of her eye. “That’s very . . . friendly of you.”
He shrugged, reminding her of the little boy shrugging off the heavy hand of the policeman. “You’re the only entertainment around.”
She snagged the chair from behind the desk against the wall and perched on the end. “I want to talk about your childhood.”
“So do I.”
She’d been readying her files. Her head flew up at that, and she checked to see if her mouth was hanging open again. It was.
Her teeth rattled as she snapped it shut. She raised her eyebrows. A tiny huff preceded her words. “You do?”
The cell next to his seemed to hold his attention. Only one high cheekbone and part of his lean jaw were available for inspection behind his veil of inky hair. “But I think it’s only fair that you go first.”
Flustered, Anjali shoved back in her seat and crossed her arms, considering. If it got him talking, what could it hurt? One of her old professors had been fond of the saying, ‘give a little, to get a little.’
She sucked her lower lip. “What do you want to know?”
He shrugged, leaning one shoulder against the bars, chin tucked into his chest, arms crossed, his face still mostly hidden. “Tell me about your family.”
OK. That could hurt. “There’s nothing to tell.”
“You’re alone like—” he hesitated. “—me?”
She sighed. You can do this, Anjali. You can talk about them as if it doesn’t hurt anymore .
She moistened her lips and stared past him across his cell at the empty cement-block wall stretching from his sink and mirror to the utilitarian metal desk and folding chair in the right-hand corner. “I was born in Bombay. Mumbai,” she corrected. “I was an only child, but I had several cousin brothers and sisters, grandparents, uncles, aunts, great-grandparents . . .” She recited the list in a droning voice, hoping he’d get bored, hoping he couldn’t hear the tears that always threatened when she thought of her family. Damn. She blinked hard. She wouldn’t cry in front of a stranger, and certainly not one who was a subject.
“Cousin