For Just Cause. Kara Lennox

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СКАЧАТЬ Unfortunately, the same thing that made Billy a mystery also made him undeniably exciting. What if he could read her attraction to him? How awful would that be?

       She had some control over the physical signals she broadcast to the world, but she couldn’t do anything about the pheromones that were undoubtedly wafting from her body in waves.

       As she waited for Billy, a young, skinny Hispanic man covered with tattoos exited from the door that led upstairs.

       He noticed her as he walked toward a beat-up truck, and did a double take, this time perusing her up and down, his expression at first hostile, then more curious.

       Claudia slid her hand into her pocket where she kept a small device that, with the push of a button, would emit a piercing siren. She never went anywhere without it.

      “¿Qué pasa, mama?”

      “Hola, señor.” Her Spanish was limited, but she knew enough to have a stilted conversation if necessary. “Do you speak English?”

       “You want me to speak English, I speak English,” he said with almost no accent.

       “My partner and I are looking for Angie Torres.” She hoped the use of the word partner would cause the man to think she was a cop.

       He smiled slowly. “Police? You?” He laughed and shook his head. Then he continued in perfectly good English, “No cop I know dresses like that.”

       “Do you know Angie?” she persisted.

       The man leaned against a post and crossed his ankles as he lit a cigarette. The signs said he was flirting, not dangerous. She slipped her hand out of her pocket.

       “Yeah, I know her.” And didn’t care for her, apparently, judging from the way he flashed a slight sneer. “She moved out. She inherited a house. Her mom murdered her dad and went to prison for it. She was a piece of work, that girl.” The man closed his eyes and shook his head.

       “Why do you say that?”

       “Always carping about how selfish her parents were, that they were rich and never gave her a dime. But who could blame them? Any money they gave her went up in smoke. I wouldn’t put it past her to kill her dad and blame it on her mama so she could get hold of their money.”

       An alarming possibility, one they should probably look into, though Angie’s only criminal record consisted of a couple of misdemeanor possession charges.

       “What kind of drugs did she use?”

       The young man took a long drag on his cigarette and blew it out slowly—a classic move someone took to collect his thoughts before speaking. “Anything she could get her hands on. Got fired from her last job for stealing Vicodin.”

       That would explain why she wasn’t working at the medical office anymore.

       “Thanks. I appreciate the information.”

       “No problem.” He flicked his ash into the breeze. “You busy later?”

       Lord, she hoped so. She cast a glance toward the back of the building. “Um, my partner is really jealous. You probably don’t want him to see us talking.”

       The man gave her a regretful look, then turned and sauntered away.

       Billy reappeared around the corner. “No fire escape. This building is a code inspector’s nightmare. Who was that guy you were talking to?”

       “A neighbor. He says we’ll find Angie at her parents’ house, which she now considers hers.”

       “Probably at least half of it is. Mary-Francis wouldn’t have been allowed to keep the profits from her crime—in this case, her half of the community property. Was there a will?”

       “I don’t know.”

       “Let’s check out the house.” He paused just before getting into the Roadster. “There’s no reason you have to waste your whole day running around checking out leads. You can drop me at the office and get back to your work. I can do this on my own.”

       “I want to meet Angie,” Claudia said firmly as she opened the car door. It had sat in the sun only a few minutes, but hot air wafted out, and she waited for it to cool off slightly before she climbed inside. “I want to see for myself how she acts when we bring up the coins…and her father.”

       Billy’s eyebrows lifted. “You don’t trust me. You don’t think I can handle it.”

       “Oh, no, Billy, it’s not that. I just…I feel so responsible for Mary-Francis ending up on death row. The prosecution used certain parts of my evaluation to make things worse for her. If there’s any chance of saving her…I just want to do my part, that’s all.”

       “You did your part. You drew the case to our attention. We can take it—”

       “Billy, don’t be difficult. I want to go with you to interview Angie.”

       “So you can do your hocus-pocus on her.”

       “My assessment could be of value to you. Why don’t you just accept my help?”

       “I work better alone.”

       “If I hadn’t been here, if I hadn’t talked to that neighbor, you wouldn’t even know where to find Angie.”

       “I would have figured it out.”

       “We don’t have all day. If Angie finds the coins—”

       “If the coins even exist.”

       “They do. Mary-Francis was telling the truth about that, though not necessarily about the particulars.”

       He rolled his eyes. “Fine. You can come with me. But I don’t want to have to look out for your safety all the time, okay? I almost had a heart attack when I saw you talking to that lowlife just now, and I realized I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

       “I was fine. That guy was not dangerous. Just because he’s poor and has tattoos doesn’t mean—”

       “Save me from a lecture about stereotypes. I’m a former cop and I can smell trouble. That guy was no angel.”

       “We won’t be going anywhere dangerous,” Claudia persisted. Even though she was the one with the car keys, Billy had taken firm control of the reins.

       “Angie could be dangerous. She has something to lose, if she thinks we might be challenging her right to her parents’ stuff. Addicts do desperate things when they’re cornered.”

       Claudia couldn’t argue about that.

       She should have just climbed behind the wheel, rather than debating with Billy over the roof of her car. But she felt compelled to make him agree with her. “It’ll be fine.”

       “If I sense any danger, we’re getting out of there. You’ll do what I tell you to do. Is that clear?”

       “Man, who pushed your macho СКАЧАТЬ