Читать книгу The Wharf - Carol Ericson - Страница 9
ОглавлениеThe doll grinned at her with a mouth that resembled a slash of blood, calling up images of the original doll at the Walker murder scene. Kacie pressed two shaky fingers to the red yarn on the rag doll’s face just to make sure it wasn’t blood.
“Kacie, what does this mean?”
She raised her head, her eyes locking onto Ryan’s as he put a steadying hand on her bouncing knee. The gesture had an immediate effect on her and she took a deep breath. She didn’t have to face this alone right now. “Zoe Walker had a doll just like this one. When they found her body, she had one arm wrapped around her doll—this doll.”
“I remember the doll from your book. This one’s not yours, is it?” He flicked the paper with his fingers.
“No. This is the first time I’ve seen a doll like this since I saw the original. Someone sent this to me. That homeless guy didn’t find a package outside the hotel. Someone probably paid him to deliver it to this hotel.”
As a shiver rolled through her body, she pushed the doll from her lap, where it landed on the carpet still cradled in the brown paper.
“Wait.” Ryan picked up two corners of the wrapping. “This might contain some evidence—fingerprints, hair, clothing fibers.”
She shifted away from the doll as he placed the package next to her on the cushion and carefully folded the paper around the toy.
“Do you want to tell me why someone would want to send this particular doll to you?” He sat back on his heels as if he had all night to wait for an explanation.
She had no intention of making him wait that long. Despite her revulsion toward all things Brody, she couldn’t deny the trust this man fostered in her bones.
He’d saved her from the sauna. His capable hands, square jaw and broad shoulders signaled stability and security. His green eyes reflected sincerity—when they weren’t darkening to something more like lust, which happened anytime they wandered over her body.
The fears of the night, beginning with the fratricidal ex-con, flooded her senses, and her pulse rate galloped a mile a minute. She filled her lungs with a deep breath from her nose and expelled it through parted lips to ward off the rising panic and rushing adrenaline.
“Kacie, are you okay?” Ryan squeezed her knee.
“Fighting off an anxiety attack.” She pointed to the ceiling. “I’ll tell you all about this doll and who sent it from the comfort of my own room while holding a glass of wine in one hand.”
“You got it.” He sprang to his feet and held out his hand. “I’ll help you up. One of my officers suffers from panic attacks, and she always gets a little dizzy.”
She gripped his warm hand and struggled to her feet. “You have a cop working for you who has panic attacks?”
“Shh.” He held his finger to his lips. “That’s top secret.”
“But you’re her boss.”
“That’s right. She’s a good cop. She told me about the attacks and it doesn’t need to go any further—not that I think you’ll go running to the Crestview City Council to report us.”
Leaning against him, she tilted her head the other way to survey his face. “That’s decent of you.”
“I have totally selfish reasons. Like I said, she’s a good cop and she makes the department and me look good.”
She licked her lips. Yeah, he probably likes the way that cop’s backside looks in uniform.
He kept his hand on her back and the package tucked under his other arm as he guided her toward the elevator. “I think we can skip the stairs this time.”
As the doors closed, she stepped away from his warmth and wedged her shoulder against the cold mirror inside the car. “This has been quite a day—full of shocks and surprises.”
She counted among those shocks and surprises her immediate attraction to Ryan Brody. The guy had it all in the looks department, including a killer bod, but she’d known that before their face-to-face meeting. She’d seen pictures of him and had even had her P.I. do a little surveillance on him in Crestview.
Brandy, the female P.I. she used, had gone a little overboard with some of the private pictures she’d gotten of Ryan with her long lens.
When Kacie had shuffled through the photos, including quite a few shirtless ones and even a grainy picture of Ryan coming out of his shower, she’d accused Brandy of forming an obsession over her subject.
Brandy, a lesbian in a committed relationship, had just winked.
Kacie’s physical attraction to Ryan made up only part of the equation. The guy had rescued her from a scorching sauna. What girl wouldn’t feel overwhelmed by that?
And then there was the way he had looked at her.
She glanced down at the body that for years had compelled her to sip diet sodas and munch raw veggies, while her two sisters and her mom could seemingly eat whatever they wanted and still maintain their svelte figures.
Ryan had eyed her as if he wanted to toss her over his shoulder and throw her down on the nearest bed or bend her over the nearest kitchen counter or take her against the wall—any wall.
She pressed her cheek against the cool glass of the mirrored elevator.
“Are you going to faint? Because I can carry you back to your room—piece of cake.” He snapped his fingers.
The elevator doors whisked open and she stepped into the hallway, looking over her shoulder. “I’ll save you the strain on your back.”
His eyebrows jumped to his hairline and he cocked his head. “You’re as light as a feather.”
Great. How many weaknesses and insecurities could she reveal to him in the course of one night?
She invited him into her room and immediately abandoned the idea of the glass of wine. After the accusations against, and subsequent suicide of, his father, Ryan’s mother had turned to drugs and alcohol. Kacie didn’t want Ryan thinking she was a lush on top of all the other flaws she’d put on display that night.
Crouching in front of the little fridge, she asked, “Water? Something else?”
“If you’re still having that wine, I’ll have a beer—and I’ll pay you back.”
“I decided against the wine. Do you still want the beer? It’s on the house.”
“I still want the beer, and I’ll still pay you for it.”
She wrapped her fingers around a chilled bottle and held it up. “Is this okay?”
“That’ll do.” He reached over and took it from her and then twisted off the cap. “Now, tell me about that doll.”
She snapped the lid on a diet soda and perched on the edge of the bed. “Like I told you before, the little Walker girl had the same doll. A strand of Walker’s hair was found on the doll, and it was stuck on top of the blood smears. Walker’s defense team and the prosecution went back and forth on this point. Walker’s attorneys claimed that it wouldn’t be unusual for a piece of their client’s hair to be on his daughter’s doll, and the prosecution argued that it got there during the murder.”
“It was a significant piece of evidence.”
“Yes.”
“So, who sent you the doll and why?”
She pleated the bedspread with her fingers. “I think Walker sent it to me as a warning.”
As Ryan sat next to her on the bed, she proceeded to tell him about her meeting with the ex-con and Walker’s threats against her.
When she finished, he whistled between his teeth. “You’re telling me earlier tonight you met with some ex-con who said he had info that Walker was after you?”
“Yep.” She took a long pull from her can of soda, the bubbles tickling her nose.
“Damn, you live dangerously, woman.”
“That’s what I do. Do you think it was any picnic going to interview Walker at Walla Walla on visiting day?”
His gaze left her face and made a detour to her body before returning. “Umm, no. No picnic at all—for you.”
It was a good thing her temperature was still slightly elevated because her cheeks warmed again at his taking inventory of her. She pursed her lips. Did he think she’d sashayed into the prison visiting room in a bikini?
“Did you catch this parolee’s name?”
“No, but his initials are DB. That’s how he signed his texts, anyway.” She formed her fingers into a gun and pointed it at him. “That reminds me. He said he was in for murdering his sister. I was going to try to look him up.”
“I can help you with that.” He pushed off the bed and sauntered over to her laptop on the desk. “I can search for him on the law-enforcement database.”
“That would be awesome. I was just going to try to search for fratricides in Washington that occurred about twenty years ago.” She flipped up her laptop and turned it toward him.
“Why twenty years ago?”
“From what I could tell, the guy didn’t look any older than fifty, so I figured maybe he served twenty or twenty-five years before his parole.”
Ryan entered a website address and typed in a username and password at the log-in screen. “System’s down. We’ll check again tomorrow. I think you need to get to bed anyway.”
Alone. Get to bed alone.
“I’m much better, thanks, but I’d appreciate it if you could stash that doll in your room.” She drew up next to him, bumping his shoulder, and logged off the computer.
“No problem. I’ll stuff her in my closet just so no one thinks I’m sleeping with dolls.”
She jerked her head up and searched his face for a sign of the double entendre, but his clear green eyes, crinkling at the corners, showed only humor. All this talk of beds and sleeping had fired up her imagination again.
“Yeah, you wouldn’t want that getting around your department.” She backed away from him and swept his beer from the credenza. “Do you want to take this with you?”
“No, you can toss it.” He grabbed the package with the doll wrapped inside and tucked it under his arm. “Do you want me to send this to the lab at the SFPD? Even though my brother’s still on leave, I have connections there.”
“I’ll think about it, thanks.”
He saluted and grasped the handle of the door, pulling it open. “Good night. We’re still on for lunch tomorrow, right?”
“Yes, and now we have an advantage because we’ve already met. We can get right down to business.”
“Yeah...business.”
He stepped into the hallway and pulled the door closed, and Kacie let out a long breath.
That man had a way of making her feel like a siren or a femme fatale.
She fell across the bed, dangling her legs off the side. It didn’t matter how Ryan Brody made her feel. She still had a job to do, and that meant proving his father’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
* * *
KACIE PICKED UP the receiver of the ringing phone once and dropped it back in its cradle, further burrowing into the pillows. She could sleep another few hours, but she’d been looking forward to this day for a few years. Never mind that Ryan had sort of spoiled the occasion by being even better looking in person than in his pictures and by saving her life and then saving her sanity by taking that doll away. Never mind all that.
It was game time.
An hour later she put the finishing touches on her makeup, dabbing the excess shine from her lips. She’d dressed in one of her prison outfits—a slim skirt that hit below the knee with a matching jacket—demure, plain, nothing to draw the unwelcome attention of the convicts at Walla Walla or Ryan Brody. He’d already seen her in next to nothing, but that was the night before. This was a whole new day.
She slipped her feet into a pair of low-heeled shoes and hitched her laptop case over one shoulder and her purse over the other. She even had the restaurant picked out for lunch, unless Ryan wanted to go somewhere else. She’d let him choose.
She always let them think they had the upper hand. It had worked with Daniel Walker up until the moment her book came out and he’d realized he’d been duped.
And apparently her trickery still burned a hole in his gut.
She made it to the hotel lobby fifteen minutes early and perched on the edge of the same love seat where she’d unwrapped that doll the night before.
She hunched her shoulders against the chill rippling up her back. What kind of man would send the same kind of doll his daughter had been hugging the moment he ended her life, as a warning? A sick one. But then, she’d only come to realize that about Walker later.
Like many others, she’d been swayed by Walker’s good-looking, grief-stricken face...until she met the man.
She glanced up when the elevators across the lobby dinged open. Ryan strode through the doors and his head jerked in her direction like a heat-seeking missile.
She’d been waiting just five minutes, so he liked being early to meetings, too.
She still had the advantage of watching him approach. If everything that had happened the night before hadn’t transpired, what would her first impressions of this man be?
Tall, good-looking, built, confident, maybe a little cocky. She sucked in her lower lip. This wasn’t working. She couldn’t forget the night before—his concern, his consideration, his blatant attraction to her.
“You’re early.” He offered a handshake. “I’m Ryan Brody, Ms. Manning. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She gripped his hand. “Are you trying to press the reset button? It won’t work. I just tried it.”
He squeezed her hand and wouldn’t let go, as a smile spread across his face. “You’re right. It doesn’t work. I already know way too much about you.”
At least he had the decency to keep his eyes on her face this time, but it didn’t matter. Parts of her body tingled that didn’t have any business tingling under her proper skirt and blouse.
He finally dropped her hand, and she smoothed her palms across the front of her linen skirt. “I don’t know nearly enough about you, so I propose we get started. I made a reservation at Mezza Luna in North Beach, unless you have a preference for something else.”
He spread his arms, and the cotton of his T-shirt tightened across his chest. “I’m a little underdressed. I thought since we were old friends, we’d be going more casual.”
“You look fine.” And fine had a whole other meaning for the way his jeans hugged his muscular thighs and tight backside.
“I can run up and throw on a sports coat, even though the summer weather is finally starting to peek through the fog.”
“Mezza Luna isn’t that formal, but it’s a good place to conduct business. I like to feel like I’m dressing for work because this is my job.”
“If you’re sure they won’t kick me out.”
“I’m sure.” She pointed to the front doors of the hotel. “I called ahead for a taxi. It should be here in about five minutes.”
“I’m impressed you’re so organized after the night you had.”
She crossed her arms across her waist. “Speaking of which, where’s the doll?”
“Stashed in the closet. Are you sure you don’t want me to send it to the SFPD lab for analysis?”
“It’s not against the law to send someone a doll, is it?”
“No, but if we can link it to Walker...”
“Oh, I know it’s Walker. The ex-con told me Walker wanted to make my life a living hell, and the doll is his first shot.”
“He’s not going to have a second.” He placed his hand on the small of her back and steered her toward the taxi, which had just pulled up.
Somehow she believed it when he said it.
He opened the door of the taxi for her and she slid across the seat, giving the restaurant’s address to the driver.
It didn’t take him long to get there, speeding through the streets, dodging cable cars and buses and maneuvering around pedestrians. The taxi squealed to a stop in front of the restaurant, and Kacie insisted on paying.
“Tax write-off for me.”
Ryan took a detour to the men’s room, leaving Kacie to confront the unfriendly hostess, who acted as if she were guarding the gates of Fort Knox.
Kacie dug in her heels. “Our reservation is for 12:45, and I requested a specific table. I don’t think I should have to wait for that table.”
The hostess pursed her lips and tapped her pencil on her reservation book. “We have a very important person coming later, and he always likes that table.”
“Is there a problem with our reservation?” Ryan raised his brows at the hostess, his mouth turning up at one corner.
The hostess brightened up, flashing a set of white teeth and pulling back her angular shoulders. “Not at all, sir. I’ll seat you immediately.”
Her slim hips swaying in front of them, she led them to their table.
If Ryan thought that woman had any intention of kicking him out of the restaurant for dressing too casually, he hadn’t checked his reflection in the mirror.
Kacie pulled out her chair before Ryan could do it for her. He must have that effect on all women, not just her. She’d been silly to think his attention to her was anything more than his customary way of relating to women. Women loved him and he loved them back.
Good. She tugged on the lapels of her jacket. That made her job a lot easier.
Made lunch a lot easier, too. The hostess ensured that they had warm bread and cold water on their table in record time.
Kacie flicked open the menu, while munching on a piece of that bread drenched in olive oil.
“I’ve never been here before. Have you?” Ryan ran his finger down the sheet of daily specials.
“Once or twice. Everything’s good.”
“I think I’ll go with the fettuccine with clam sauce.”
“Excellent choice.” She dabbed her fingers on the napkin in her lap. “Do you want to get down to business?”
“Sure, but can we finish last night’s business first?”
Last night’s business when she’d been ready to turn down her sheets for him at the crook of his little finger?
“We had unfinished business?”
“The security guard. Did he ever get back to you? Did he ever talk to those teenage boys?”
“I didn’t hear from him, and there was a different clerk at the front desk this afternoon.”
A waiter approached their table and took their order. When he left, Kacie pulled out her mini-recorder.
“I hope you don’t mind if I tape our interview.”
“Nope.” He dug into the bread basket and dropped a piece on his plate. “You must have some fascinating recordings of Dan Walker.”
“I do. A lot of times, it wasn’t until I listened to the recording that I got to understand the man, as much as you can understand a sociopath. He’s very distracting to talk to—he’s such a good actor.”
“And I’m not.” He spread his arms. “What you see is what you get.”
A total hunk with a protective streak a mile wide and a smile that could melt the insides of the snootiest, skinniest restaurant hostess in North Beach.
Kacie cleared her throat and set up her recording device. “That’s good to know.”
As she placed her finger on the record button, Ryan put his hand over hers like a caress. “Can I ask you a question before we get started?”
When he touched her like that, he could ask her anything. She flicked his hand off hers and pressed Record. “Go ahead.”
He glanced down at the red light blinking on the recorder. “Why my father’s story? Why are you interested in writing a book about a twenty-year-old cold case?”
“Because it is a cold case. Your father, an SFPD homicide detective, was suspected of being the Phone Book Killer, a serial killer he was investigating himself, but nobody ever proved it.”
“A lot of people said he proved it when he jumped from the Golden Gate Bridge and the murders stopped.”
“Damning evidence, but there are so many more who believe he was set up, and now all four of the sons he left behind are in some type of law enforcement. It’s a great story.” She shrugged her shoulders, stiff from her lies.
“You can count my two older brothers among those who believe in our father’s innocence. They’ve recently stumbled across some new evidence and have agreed to give it to me to pass along to you.”
Her water sloshed as she set down her glass. “Sean and Eric know I’m writing a book about the case?”
“Yeah. They’re okay with it. I told them your angle is that someone set up Joseph Brody.”
They wouldn’t be okay with it if they knew her true purpose...and her true identity.
“Great.” A smile stretched her lips. “And I’d love to see that new evidence. What do you remember about that time?”
“Not much. I was young and confused, and then I lost my dad, who was a larger-than-life figure for me.” His green eyes darkened as he took a sip of water. “Do you still have both of your parents?”
“Y-yes.”
He splayed his hands on the white tablecloth in front of him. “It’s hard to explain the loss of a parent, especially at a young age. You can’t begin to understand the hole it leaves.”
Oh, but she could.
“You’re right.”
“And then I lost my mom.” He studied his fingernails. “She turned to prescription drugs and alcohol, and Sean had to take over the parenting duties.”
“Your mom passed away.” She knew the whole painful Brody story.
“Not until I was an adult, but it was still tough. So many wasted years.”
Their food arrived, and Kacie turned off the recorder. Ryan’s soulful eyes and sensitive mouth were going to make this a lot harder than she’d anticipated.
The smell of garlic and fresh clams wafted from Ryan’s plate, putting her chopped salad to shame. She dug into her rabbit food as he twirled his fork into his creamy pasta.
They ate in silence for a few minutes before he pointed his fork at her salad. “Is that all you’re having?”
“It’s a big salad.”
“It’s a salad.” He held his fork out to her, tightly wrapped in fettuccine, the savory steam curling beneath her nose. “Try some of this.”
She tapped her plate. “Put it here.”
“Then you’ll have to twirl it up again. Here.” He hunched forward, the fork centimeters from her lips.
She opened her mouth and he placed the fork against her tongue. She sealed her lips around the tines and sucked the pasta into her mouth as he drew the fork out with a flourish.
Tingles raced up her inner thighs and circled her belly. She grabbed her napkin and pressed it against the lower half of her face while she chewed. This craziness had to stop.
“Good, huh?” He grinned, but his heavily lidded eyes looked more seductive than smiley.
“Very good.” She dropped the napkin from her still-warm face. “Now I will return to my regularly scheduled salad.”
“Just let me know if you want another...taste.”
She waved down the waiter. “More iced tea, please.”
She had to find some way to stay cool. Did all this sex appeal come naturally to Ryan Brody, or was he cranking up the charm for some ulterior motive? She’d already told him she planned to focus the book on proving his father’s innocence. He didn’t have to butter her up.
Her gaze dropped to his strong hands as he ripped a roll in two and smeared a pat of butter across one half. Although she wouldn’t mind if he buttered her up, down and sideways.
She’d never felt this way about a story resource before.
Holding up the roll, he asked, “Do you want the other half?”
“No, thanks.” She pushed her plate away, dabbed water droplets from the tablecloth with her napkin and repositioned her recorder on the table.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
He polished off the rest of his meal, including the rest of her roll, and then perused the dessert menu. “Do you want to share a dessert?”
“I’m good.”
He ordered a coffee instead and leaned back in his chair as he stirred in a swirl of cream. “Fire away. Ask me anything you want about my father’s case. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll ask my older brothers.”
Kacie flipped open her notebook, which contained sheets of printed-out questions. She dived in.
“The Phone Book Killer case was unusual from the get-go, wasn’t it? After the first two victims, the killer started communicating with your father, one of the detectives on the case, claiming he was selecting his victims out of the phone book.”
“That’s right. Serial killers have been known to contact the police to brag and taunt, and the Phone Book Killer singled out my dad. Of course, that’s one of the aspects of the case that caused some doubt about my father. Why him?”
“Good question.” She drummed her fingers against the tablecloth. “Then he kidnapped your brother. Was that some kind of warning?”
“According to Sean, that’s what my father thought. It was the killer’s message that he could get to any member of my family.”
“But your brother wasn’t harmed, which became another oddity of the case.”
Ryan raised his shoulders and let them drop. “People say Joey Brody staged the kidnapping to divert suspicion from himself.”
“Then the evidence from your father started to pile up—missing days from work, plaster found in the trunk of his car, the same type of plaster used in casts, which the Phone Book Killer was wearing to disarm his victims.”
“Too pat. Too easy.” He massaged the back of his neck. “In hindsight, it smells like a setup.”
As she reeled off the elements of the case against Joey Brody, Ryan had an answer for every one of them. He had emphasized that his older brothers believed without a doubt in their father’s innocence, and Ryan’s hot defense of Joey Brody put him firmly in that camp.
Of course they were all in that camp. Admitting your father had blood on his hands had to be hard.
After another hour of question and answer, where they saw the restaurant clear out and received several visits from their waiter with more coffee and iced tea in hand, Kacie clicked off the recorder.
“I really appreciate your openness. It can’t be easy. Y-your dad sounds like he was a great cop.”
And Daniel Walker had been a great football player.
He shrugged. “Life is full of trials and tribulations. How about you? You look like you’ve had it pretty easy—smart, attractive, successful.”
Straightening her shoulders, she folded her hands on top of the notebook. “I’ve been lucky. I have a wonderful family. Great parents, two older sisters.”
“I hope you appreciate that.”
Anxious to hide the emotion that had overcome her, she swiped her recorder from the table and ducked down to stuff it into her bag. “Oh, I do, but you’re right.” She popped back up with her phone and wallet in hand. “We all have our...disappointments in life.”
A loud voice carried across the mostly empty restaurant. “Kacie Manning, right?”
She jerked her head up and zeroed in on a pudgy man with a black goatee making his way toward their table. “Do I know you?”
He stuck out his hand. “I’m Ray Lopez. I’m a reporter with a local TV show.”
Great. That’s all I need.
“Good to meet you, Ray.” She gestured toward Ryan. “This is Ryan Brody. Chief Brody.”
“Oh, hey. No introductions necessary. I know who Chief Brody is. I’m like this—” he held up two fingers pressed together “—with Sean and Eric. Eric’s fiancée, Christina, and I go way back.”
Ryan shook Lopez’s hand, sizing him up with one glance. “Sure, I know who you are.”
Kacie’s gaze bounced from Lopez to Ryan. Sounded as if Ryan wished he didn’t know Lopez.
“I’m a big fan of yours, Kacie. Is it true you’re doing a book on Joey Brody?”
“You know, I’d rather not discuss that.” She swirled the ice in her water glass and took a sip.
“Say no more.” Lopez raised his hands. “It’s just that I’ve been trying to get exclusives for years with the Brodys. Guess I’m the wrong sex or something.”
Ryan tossed his napkin onto the table. “Excuse me?”
“Just a little joke, Brody. I’d rather work with Kacie Manning than with me, too.” He winked and sauntered back to the hostess stand.
“What a jerk.” Kacie rolled her eyes.
“He’s been kind of a local fixture here the past few years.”
“Does he really know your brothers?”
“Yeah, but Sean just tolerates him and Eric can’t stand him.” Ryan made a move for the check, which had been perched on the edge of their table for an hour. “Let me get this.”
She beat him to it, snatching it up and pressing it to her chest. “Tax write-off, remember?”
As she snapped her plastic down on the tray, Ryan tapped her phone on the table. “You have a couple of messages.”
“I heard them come through earlier.” She picked up the phone. “Didn’t want to disturb our flow.”
“Yeah, we do have a flow, don’t we?”
The hostess with the mostest had extricated herself from Lopez, who’d since left the restaurant. She parked herself next to Ryan’s chair, batting her fake eyelashes. “Is there anything else we can do for you today?”
“No, thanks. Sorry we took up this table all afternoon.”
“No problem.” She waved her perfectly manicured nails. “I could see you were hard at work over here. If you like to play as hard as you work, a friend of mine is having a party tonight at a private club. I could get you in as my...guest.”
Kacie clenched her teeth as she tapped her phone to view her messages. He could do whatever he wanted while he was here, including partying with pretty people, as long as he made himself available to her for their interviews and a few field trips.
But she didn’t even hear his response as she read over her second message. The blood drained from her face and her head felt like a balloon ready to float away.
“Kacie?”
She glanced up from the display to meet Ryan’s eyes, wide and questioning.
“Are you okay?”
The hostess backed up from the table. “I’ll let you two finish your business.”
Kacie dragged in a breath and released it through dry lips. “It’s my contact from last night. He wants to meet again tonight.”
“The ex-con?” He snapped his fingers for the phone. “No way.”
She raised her brows. When had she appointed him her master scheduler? She handed him the phone anyway, realizing she’d have a hard time saying no to this man.
He peered at the display and read it aloud. “‘Meet me same place as last night, same time. More info. DB.’”
He handed the phone back to her. “You recognize that number?”
“It’s the same one he used before and the same initials.” She pressed her damp palms against her napkin, still crumpled in her lap. “Maybe he knows about that doll. Maybe he saw who gave it to the homeless guy.”
“Maybe you should ignore him.”
“I can’t. He’s warning me about Walker.”
“Or he’s doing Walker’s bidding. You ever think of that?”
“Yes. I’m not stupid.”
“Oh, I know that, but you’re not thinking clearly right now. You are not going to traipse down to the wharf alone at eleven o’clock at night.”
“I have to go. He might have important information about Walker’s next move against me, maybe something I can give to the police this time.”
Ryan held up his hands. “You weren’t listening. I said you weren’t going there alone.”
A little thrill raced down her back. She couldn’t help it. “He’ll never talk if he sees you there.”
“Who said he’s going to see me?”
She waved her hand to indicate his imposing form. “Little hard for someone like you to blend in.”
“I have my ways.”
She added a tip to the bill and scribbled her signature. As she tucked the receipt in the side pocket of her purse, she said, “As long as you stay out of sight. I don’t want you spoiling my meeting.”
“How about saving your life?” He pushed back from the table and stepped around it to pull her chair out for her. “Is that okay with you?”
She nodded as silly schoolgirl butterflies took flight in her belly.
This was exactly the effect Daniel Walker wanted to have on her—wrap her around his little finger, tell her sweet little lies.
What could Ryan Brody’s motive possibly be? To make sure she wrote a favorable book about his father? She’d already told him she planned to do so. Did he doubt her?
She’d have to watch herself with this man, in more ways than one. Because she couldn’t let a sexy grin and a pair of strong arms deter her from exacting her revenge on his father.
Her mom deserved justice.
