The Heart of a Killer. Jaci Burton

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      Four

      Anna was an hour and a half late, figured Dante wouldn’t hang around and wait for her, or maybe wouldn’t show up at all.

       She hoped he wouldn’t be there. One less thing she’d have to deal with. She was tired and she wanted to go home, take a shower and forget the night had happened.

       She walked in and took a look around. He was easy to spot since it was past the breakfast rush hour. There were only two other tables occupied. Dante sat in a booth at the rear of the restaurant, his back to the wall.

       Interesting.

       She told the hostess she was meeting someone and headed toward where Dante sat nursing a cup of coffee, two menus sitting on the edge of the table.

       “You waited.” She slid into the booth.

       He lifted his head, smiled at her. “Yeah.”

       “Sorry I’m late. Paperwork had to be done.”

       He shrugged. “If you didn’t show, I’d head out.”

       “So you ate already?”

       “I got hungry after an hour or so, figured you’d chickened out.”

       She bristled. “I don’t chicken out.”

       He didn’t reply, so she poured coffee from the carafe on the table. “You sleep yet?”

       “No. I’ll sleep later.”

       “Where are you staying?”

       He shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”

       “So maybe you’re not staying?”

       He lifted the cup to his lips, then smiled. “Trying to run me out of town, Detective?”

       He was saved from her biting retort by the waitress, who took her breakfast order—actually her dinner order.

       “You look tired. Long night?”

       She nodded.

       “Why the night shift?”

       She took a long swallow of coffee. “More crime happens at night. Less time spent sitting at a desk. We’re out on the streets and that’s where I like it. Besides, I don’t have a shift. People don’t die on shifts. I work when I work.”

       He leaned back in the booth and studied her with his unfathomable gaze. Years ago she couldn’t get enough of his eyes, could stare into them for hours, getting lost in the blue depths until she’d lost track of time. She used to think she was the luckiest girl in the world that Dante Renaldi had chosen her as his girlfriend.

       They’d sit together in secluded spots like this and make all kinds of plans about their future together.

       Until that one night changed everything.

       And then Dante had up and left without a word.

       So much for their pledge to spend forever together, no matter what.

       “You thinking about work, or about me?” he asked, forcing her gaze from her cup of coffee and her thoughts away from the past.

       “Work.” She wouldn’t tell him her thoughts had been centered on him. He didn’t need to know that him showing up had dredged up memories she’d long ago buried.

       “Any leads on George?”

       “I can’t tell you that. It’s an ongoing investigation, one in which you might be a suspect.”

       He laughed, and the sound rippled through her nerve endings.

       “You aren’t serious about that. It was George who was killed. My foster father.”

       She shrugged. “So?”

       “And I just got here.”

       “I hear better excuses than that from people who pulled the trigger with witnesses standing right in front of them.”

       “And probably lousy excuses from those who didn’t. Isn’t it your job to weed out those who did from those who didn’t?”

       Wasn’t he a smart-ass? “Yes.”

       “Then I guess it won’t take you long to figure out I had nothing to do with George’s murder.”

       She drained the cup and refilled, not taking her eyes off Dante while she poured.

       “You’re wondering about my motivation for showing up all of a sudden after twelve years, and ending up right in the middle of a murder.”

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