Nita realized that she had reacted too strongly to something that had been an innocent mistake, so she was swift to accept her fault in this matter as well.
However, what she had said about not liking others touching her was the truth as she had been that way since she was young.
Though her reaction was too strong, her reason for doing so was also a strong one.
As she could not reveal her real reason for acting this way, she could only give out an excuse that she had always used in the past.
"I dislike people touching me without my permission." She explained and hoped that Rowan would be understanding, without asking too many questions.
As expected, he nodded his head and raised his hands in defeat, displaying that he would not do so again.
"I did not know you were such a clean freak." He mumbled to himself and Nita rolled her eyes but did not deny it as his assumptions worked in her favor.
"I had always been one, but it only got worse during the time I was away." She added, making him believe that he had made the right guess about her condition.
Eavesdropping on this conversation, Jodie rolled his eyes while rubbing the back of his neck, which had been grabbed so roughly by that scary monster of a cousin who had returned from devil knows where.
"You don't like others touching you but you surely looooove touching me!" He sarcastically stressed on the word 'love' and scoffed at Nita, who had been mistreating him ever since they had met at the Valken family mansion.
She first grabbed his shoulder in her father's office and now grabbed his neck in her brother's car.
Her unruly and disrespectful behavior was now getting on his nerves, but, sadly for him, he could not do anything against her.
After all, even one such thought entering his head would result in his shoulder acting up with that shooting pain all around it.
He wondered what nasty trick she had used against him but until he figured that out, he would keep his anger under control.
Jodie's little outburst did not go unnoticed by the rest in the backseat of the car as they turned to look in his direction.
Nita blinked her dark eyes at the young man before shaking her head at him.
"You might be a powerful tracker but I wonder if you are a good one?" She mumbled out her doubtful words, succeeding in pissing him off further.
However, before Jodie could give her a piece of his mind, Nita continued speaking, not giving him the chance to interrupt her.
"You sensed the people who were in and around the car." She stated, praising his keen sense of smell because even she had not caught all of those scents, as many of them were too faint for her to even notice.
Jodie, on the other hand, had sensed every single one of them and had even listed them out for her.
"But you tend to focus on what others cannot sense rather than focusing on what is right in front of you." She added without giving her cousin a chance to celebrate his little victory for the praise she had given to him.
Not understanding what she was trying to say, Jodie simply looked at her with confusion evident in his eyes.
Shaking her head in disappointment, Nita once again raised her hand and saw him flinch.
However, this time, she did not grab his neck like she had done earlier.
Instead, she pointed toward the back of the driver's seat and raised her brow at Jodie, signaling him to give it a quick sniff.
Earlier, when Nita had slid into the backseat, something had caught her attention, and after investigating it a little further, she had asked Jodie to join her in the car to get his input on the same.
However, her investigation had been delayed due to a certain incident but now that she was back on track, she asked Jodie to get to work right away.
Realizing what she wanted from him, Jodie volunteered to lean forward and sniffed the car seat, following the same steps as earlier.
Another thirty seconds later, he had reached the end of his usual procedure and turned to look at her with his eyes lighting up with excitement.
"How did you even sense that?" He questioned Nita with genuine admiration evident in his expression as he stared at her.
Even though he was a skilled tracker, who had been to the accident site to check it out when the crime scene was still new with all the scents fresh and lingering in the air, he had not sensed this back then.
However, here was Nita, who wasn't a tracker, yet she had pointed him in the right direction, helping him find a clue that could help in learning more about Detrim's disappearance.
Nita found no joy in gaining his admiration, instead, she wished to know what he had learned from his little process.
Hence, she waited impatiently to hear his findings and this was the same with Rowan, who was left in the dark about what was taking place right now.
"What? What is it?" He hurriedly pestered his little brother for answers as he could not understand the cryptic conversation between the two younger ones.
Earlier, he had assumed that Nita was once again bullying Jodie as an act of retaliation for what had happened back at her father's office.
Yet this assumption was tossed aside when he saw Jodie looking at her with those sparkly eyes, which proved that he approved of Nita's abilities.
'But what abilities?' He thought to himself as he had no clue what was happening around him and hence, had voiced out his curiosity in an attempt to gain an explanation from either one of the two.
"I smell rose, bergamot, oranges, jasmine, and umm... vanilla?" Jodie finally revealed what he had sensed earlier, thanks to Nita guiding him in the right direction.
"Hmm... Either Det was carrying a bunch of flowers with him that day or... " Rowan muttered out after pausing for a few seconds to put his thoughts together.
"Or there was someone with him who was wearing a perfume containing those specific fragrance notes." Nita completed his sentence, making him nod at her inference as he had reached the same conclusion.
From what he had just heard, it seemed that his best friend and cousin, whom he often called Det, a shortened form of his name, might have had a passenger in the car with him when the accident took place.
"But how can you be sure that someone was with him?" Jodie tossed his doubt out to the others as it could have been one of the people investigating the crime scene who had worn this perfume, which somehow stuck to the car's interior.