For Just Cause. Kara LennoxЧитать онлайн книгу.
you don’t like field work?”
He froze. “How do you know that about me?”
“During your original evaluation. You said you didn’t want to work in the field. You told me then you were tired of it. And because Daniel asked me if there was any reason, in my professional opinion, that I thought you weren’t fit for active duty, so to speak. At the time I didn’t know you were a lunatic, so I said no, no reason, that you were just ready for a change.”
“We almost got our heads blown off today, and you want to know why I don’t like field work?”
They ended up back in the living room. Claudia spotted a bloodstain on the carpet, probably from Theresa’s assault. Her stomach turned, and their earlier confrontation with a loaded gun barged back into her mind.
What she recalled most clearly was how Billy had again put himself between her and danger.
She wandered back to the fireplace and noticed something she hadn’t seen before. Lying on the bricks was a hunk of ceramic material, about the size of a poker chip but curved. It bore a bright blue glaze. She picked it up and studied it.
“Watcha got there?”
“A fragment of something. It doesn’t belong to anything in the vicinity.”
Billy studied the area where the fragment had lain. “Hey, look at this. There’s a spot here on the hearth that’s not as dusty as everything else.”
Now that she looked more closely, she realized the arrangement of statues was unbalanced. “You think another statue used to be here?”
“Could be.” He picked up the statue of St. Francis and flipped it upside down, examining the bottom. He did the same with the angel. “These statues are hollow inside.”
“A good place to hide coins?” Claudia ventured.
Billy nodded. “It’s an old drug-smuggler trick, hiding stuff inside statues.” He thought about it some more. “I like it. But why wouldn’t Mary-Francis just tell us that?”
“Maybe she didn’t know exactly where her sister put the coins. Or she doesn’t trust us. She’s still hoping to keep the coins for herself when—if—she gets out of prison.”
“And the robbers beat Theresa until she told them where the coins were hidden.”
Claudia shivered at the thought of what that poor woman must have gone through—the terror, the pain. “Let’s just get out of here, okay?”
“A woman’s life is at stake,” he reminded her. “We owe it to her to be thorough. Why are you so nervous? You told me you face down violent offenders in your work pretty often, right?” Billy checked the contents of two drawers in the coffee table that had been overlooked.
“That’s different. That’s in a controlled setting, when I’m squarely on the right side of the law. This is breaking and entering, and I for one don’t relish explaining to Daniel how we got ourselves arrested.”
Billy didn’t seem bothered by their straying into unlawfulness. “Hey, Claudia, check this out.” He held up a small white box that she at first thought was a pack of cigarettes or a deck of cards.
Claudia looked longingly toward the front door. “Billy, please.”
His face softened, probably sensing her distress. She didn’t make any attempt to hide it. “Okay.” He tucked the item into his pocket.
Claudia didn’t take a full breath until they were back in her car. She started the engine, again turning on the A/C full blast.
“You okay?”
She waved away his concern. “I’m fine, considering I just committed my first felony.”
“Misdemeanor trespassing, tops.”
“How comforting. What was that thing you found in the drawer?”
“Probably nothing important. It was one of those Flip video cameras. You ready for some lunch?”
How could he act so normal after all they’d been through? After seeing the visceral evidence of a violent crime? Then again, he was a former cop. She knew some homicide cops could literally eat a sandwich while standing over a bloody corpse.
“I could at least use something cold to drink,” she said.
She hadn’t planned on sharing another meal with Billy. Last time, she’d spotted Tubby’s and gotten all sentimental, probably revealing more about herself than she’d intended. But Tubby’s did make her think about one of the happier times in her life. At age thirteen she’d been placed in a foster home with another girl close to her age, and they’d become inseparable. One of their hangouts had been Tubby’s. Marlene, who’d been pretty and popular, had shared her clothes and makeup and had made sure Claudia was accepted into her “in” group of kids.
For the first time in her life Claudia had felt like an accepted member of a peer group. She had belonged.
After about six months, Marlene’s real mother had regained custody, and the friendship had ended abruptly—along with Claudia’s acceptance. It turned out her “peer group” had only been putting up with Claudia for Marlene’s sake.
“You like Mexican food?” Billy asked. “I saw an El Fenix on the way over here.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
Billy gave her directions, and five minutes later she was pulling into the parking lot, the lunch crowd thinning out by now.
Once they were seated in the blessedly well air-conditioned restaurant with a basket of chips and hot sauce between them, Billy took the tiny video camera from his pocket.
Claudia couldn’t bring herself to order an actual meal, so she requested an iced tea. Billy gave her a disapproving frown, ordered a plate of beef enchiladas, then returned his attention to the camera, fiddling with the buttons.
“Theresa took quite a few movies. Does she have kids, grandkids?” He looked at the screen and grinned. “Aw, cute baby.”
“I saw some family photos at the house, so, yes, I’m sure she has children. Mary-Francis said her sister was a widow.”
A baby’s laughter issued from the camera’s tiny speaker. Billy pushed more buttons. “Now we have what looks like a Little League baseball game. And this one…an elderly lady’s birthday party and…someone who apparently just got a new car.”
“Sounds riveting. Will the Academy of Motion Pictures be calling?”
“Same baby again. This time he’s walking.” Billy smiled a really sweet, unguarded smile, and her heart swelled. He continually surprised her. Sure, she could tell herself the kiss they’d shared earlier was an isolated incident, that it would never happen again. But the desire she felt for him wasn’t going away.
Not until she figured him out.
Claudia was great at coaching her clients on relationship matters, but the fact was, she’d never had a successful romantic relationship, just a few spectacular failures—like Raymond Bass.
He’d been executed last year.
It seemed every man she met had an angle in wanting to date her, and she always figured it out much too easily. If they were interested in sex and nothing else, she always knew it, no matter what they told her or how sweet they appeared to be. They were so painfully transparent.
Then there were the ones who wanted free therapy. Pass.
Her abysmal love life was a failing on her part. She couldn’t put the blame on anyone else. Because part of her strained to learn every detail about a potential boyfriend so that she could feel safe; then she lost interest when no mystery remained.
Billy’s motives for kissing her were impossible to read. He was