Suspicion Of Guilt. Tracey V. Bateman

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СКАЧАТЬ Oh.

      “All right. I’ll have someone come over first thing Monday morning.”

      “Wait! Monday? I have water in my basement! I can’t wait until Monday.”

      “Yes, ma’am. I understand that. But that’s the earliest time we have available. The last orders have already gone out for the day. And we don’t work on the weekends.”

      Denni bit back a nasty reply and hung up. She smacked the counter with her palm. “What am I supposed to do until Monday with water soaking my basement?”

      “Stay upstairs?” Corrigan’s attempt at humor spiked her irritation level.

      She glared. “Not funny.” Besides the question was rhetorical.

      “Sorry,” he muttered. “Do you want to talk about all of this?”

      “No.”

      “Then why did you call me?”

      She shrugged. Why had she called him? She’d walked down the steps this morning to do a load of laundry, discovered the flooded basement, and all she could think to do was call Reece. It made no sense to her.

      “I’ll tell you why. Because you know that a creek in your basement is no accident.” He looked past her and his eyes clouded.

      A feminine voice, thick with disdain, shot through the air before Denni could confirm or deny his assumption. “Oh, great. What’s he doing here?”

      Denni snapped her head around at the anger in Leigh’s tone. The girl leaned jauntily against the door frame, thumbs latched in her front jeans pockets. With her short spiked hair dyed pitch-black, and sporting a lip ring and a belly shirt, the girl looked a little wild, but Denni knew the softy inside. Reece on the other hand looked like a tiger about to spring.

      “So, where have you been all day?” he asked.

      “None of your business.” She dismissed him with a sneer and turned to Denni. “What happened?”

      “Someone left the outside faucet on.”

      Leigh groaned. “Oh, great! Not again. I’ll go hook up the wet ’n’ dry vac.”

      “Don’t bother. We’ll have to get it pumped out. It’s pretty deep.”

      Leigh kicked at the linoleum with one socked foot. “How much is that going to cost?”

      “Nothing.” Corrigan’s voice cut through the air. “I know a guy with a pump.”

      As much as Denni wanted to believe in his good intentions, the offer had the distinct odor of a rat. A big fat suspicious rat with a shiny badge and knee-weakening green eyes.

      “Thanks, anyway.”

      “Yeah. Who needs you?” Leigh growled in his direction.

      Denni couldn’t blame the girl for her animosity. Since the first mishap three months ago—a laptop computer and a pretty expensive stereo system both missing—Corrigan had made no secret of the fact that he wasn’t ruling out any of the girls as suspects. Leigh had seemed to take the brunt of his questions. A fire in the laundry room a month later had only deepened his suspicion. Especially after he’d found a lighter and cigarettes in her room. And no amount of don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover speeches from Denni could deter him.

      “Come on,” he said. “No strings attached.”

      Leigh snorted. “Yeah, right.”

      He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but these guys work by the hour. Who knows how long it’ll take to pump out that much water?”

      “We’ll manage, Detective,” Denni said, mentally calculating how much was left in her account, and if worse came to worst, her credit-card balances.

      “Fine. At least come down and fill out a report.”

      Denni shook her head. “I’ve changed my mind. It was probably just an accident.”

      “Sure.” His lips dripped with sarcasm. “A water faucet that only your girls know is broken. Why would anyone else have turned it on?”

      “I don’t know.”

      He gave a frustrated huff. “If you’d report it, I’d be officially assigned to investigate. We could get to the bottom of this.”

      “Hey, Corrigan,” Leigh piped in. “Where’s our stereo and computer? Weren’t you assigned to that one, too?”

      “Can it, Leigh,” Denni said. There was no sense in antagonizing him.

      Too late. The guy was sufficiently ticked off. He took a step toward the sneering girl. “Why don’t you tell me who you sold them to? Then I’ll get them back for Denni.”

      “Why don’t you stop trying to be a big shot and just do your job?”

      Denni cringed as the gloves officially came off. These two were going for a knockout.

      “Believe me, I’m doing my job, little girl. And unless I miss my guess, you’ll be finding that out firsthand, real quick.”

      “Are you threatening me?”

      “Good grief.” Denni smacked the counter again, heedless of the stinging in her palm. “You two are acting like a couple of three-year-olds. Detective, is there anything else we can do for you?” Belatedly she remembered she’d called him.

      She cringed as his brow went up. “No, I don’t guess there’s anything else I want, but I recognize an invitation to leave when I hear one. I’ll show myself out.” He brushed past Leigh. “I’ll be seeing you soon.”

      “I can’t wait,” she smarted back.

      “Good bye, Detective,” Denni said. “Thank you for the offer of the pump.”

      “Yeah, no problem.” He gave her a long stare, then shook his head and stalked out of the kitchen.

      “What a weasel.”

      Reece’s lips twisted into a wry grin at Leigh’s assessment of his charm—or the lack thereof. He paused on the other side of the wall separating him from the kitchen, feeling like a jerk for eavesdropping, but thinking he might be handed a clue on a silver platter if he hung out at the door for awhile.

      “We don’t have time to think about him right now, Leigh,” Denni’s voice responded. “What am I going to do about Monday’s luncheon?”

      “Oh, brother. I forgot about that.”

      Luncheon? The woman had a serial saboteur on her hands and she was giving a party? Reece scowled.

      Leigh’s voice continued. “Who can we call to get the basement pumped out?”

      “There’s no point. The electric company won’t shut off the electricity until СКАЧАТЬ