For the Baby's Sake. Beverly Long

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      “It sounds like you stayed pretty calm. That takes a lot of guts.” Detective Hanson smiled at her again.

      She smiled back this time. “Thank you.”

      Sawyer grabbed Robert’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go. I want to talk to the boss.”

      Liz stood—so quickly that her head started to spin. She picked up Sawyer’s suit coat, shook it and thrust it out to him. “Don’t forget this,” she said.

      He reached for it, and their fingers brushed. The fine hairs on her arm reacted with a mind of their own. What the heck was going on? She’d never ever had this kind of physical reaction to a man. Especially not one who acted as if he might think she was an idiot.

      Sawyer jerked his own arm back. “I’ll…uh…talk to you later,” he said. Great. She had him tripping over his own tongue.

      Sawyer got twenty feet before Robert managed to catch him. “Hang on,” he said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

      Sawyer shook his head. “Just forget it.”

      “You act like an idiot and think I’m going to forget it?”

      “Maybe you’ve forgotten this. We’re here to investigate a crime. We’ve got a lot of people to talk to. I didn’t think it made sense to spend any more time with Liz.”

      “Liz,” Robert repeated.

      “Yeah, Liz.” Sawyer did his best to sound nonchalant. “She told me I could call her Liz.”

      “Since when do you hang all over witnesses?”

      “I wasn’t hanging all over her. She seemed upset. I offered her some comfort. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s called compassion.” Sawyer started to walk away.

      Robert kept pace. “That wasn’t compassion I saw. That was a mating call. What’s going on here, partner?”

      Sawyer didn’t know. Didn’t have a clue why he started to unravel every time he got within three feet of Liz. “Liz Mayfield is a material witness to a crime. We had questioned her. I figured we needed to move on.”

      “That’s it?”

      “What else could it be?”

      Robert looked him in the eye and nodded. “Your timing sucks. I could have had little Lizzy’s phone number in another two minutes.”

      “Lizzy,” Sawyer repeated.

      “She’s my type.”

      Sawyer clamped down on the impulse to punch his partner, his best friend for the past two years. “She is nothing like your type.”

      Robert cocked his head. “Really?”

      “Yeah. Really.”

      “I’ll be damned.” Robert laughed, his face transformed by his smile. “You like her.”

      “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sawyer walked away from his partner.

      Robert ran to catch up with him. “You’re interested in a witness. Mr. Professional, Mr. I always use my Southern manners. This has got to be killing you.”

      “Liz Mayfield is going to help me get Mirandez. That’s my only interest,” Sawyer said.

      Robert slapped him on the back. “You just keep telling yourself that, Sawyer. Let’s go talk to the boss.”

      When Sawyer and Robert reached Liz’s boss, the man held up a finger, motioning them to wait while he finished his telephone call. From the one side of the conversation that Sawyer could hear, it sounded as if the guy was making arrangements to refer his clients on to other sources. After several minutes, the man ended the call and put his smartphone in his pocket.

      “Detective Montgomery.” The man greeted Sawyer, giving him a lopsided smile. “I have to admit I was hoping there wouldn’t be any reason for us to talk again.”

      Sawyer felt sorry for him. He looked as if he’d just lost his best friend. “This is my partner, Detective Robert Hanson.”

      “Nice to meet you, Detective Hanson. I’m Jamison Curtiss, the executive director of OCM.”

      Sawyer watched Robert shake the man’s hand, knowing Robert was rapidly cataloging almost everything there was to know about Jamison.

      “I understand you got the call this morning, warning you of the bomb,” Sawyer said.

      “Yes. I’d just gotten to work. It was probably about ten minutes before eight.”

      “What happened then?”

      “Liz and I left the building.”

      “Then what?” Sawyer prompted the man, reaching into his pocket for his notebook.

      “Then I got a second call.”

      “What?” Sawyer stopped taking notes.

      “The second call came in just after they’d found the bomb. Same guy who called the first time. Congratulated me on following directions. Then he told me that unless I closed the doors of OCM, there would be another bomb. I wouldn’t know when or where, but there would be one.”

      “Liz Mayfield didn’t say anything about a second call.” Sawyer couldn’t believe that she’d withheld information like that.

      “She doesn’t know. I’m not looking forward to telling her.”

      “Anybody else hear this call?” Not that Sawyer didn’t believe the guy. The man looked shaken.

      “No. It lasted about ten seconds. Then the guy hung up.”

      “What are you going to do?” Sawyer asked, keeping one eye on Jamison and casting a quick glance back at Liz. His heart skipped a beat when he didn’t see her right away. Then he spied her. She had her back toward him. It took him all of three seconds to realize he was staring at her butt and another five to tear his glance away.

      Robert laughed at him. He was quiet about it—just loud enough to make sure Sawyer heard him. Jamison Curtiss looked confused. Sawyer nodded at the man to continue.

      “In the past forty-eight hours,” Jamison said, “one of my employees received an anonymous threat. On top of that, my business has been shot at and almost blown up. Whoever is trying to get my attention has it. Unless you can tell me that you know who’s responsible, I don’t think I have a lot of options.”

      “We don’t know—” Robert spoke up “—but we will. Who has a key to OCM?”

      “All the counselors. And our receptionist. Everyone has a slightly different schedule.”

      “And everybody knows the code to turn off the alarm?” Robert asked.

      “Of course.”

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