Her eyebrows narrowed over the bridge of her nose. This was in print somewhere? How? “Where?”
“On Alyce Chin’s lips.”
Just who was this guy? “Now you’re telling me you read lips?”
Laredo looked at her lips and that same annoying, utterly unsettling sexy smile slipped over his. The one that raised her body temperature by several degrees no matter how hard she tried not to let it affect her. “Yes.”
“Is that part of your private-eye training?” she asked sarcastically.
“It’s private investigator,” he corrected. “And no, it’s not. My mother was hearing impaired. I thought walking a mile in her shoes would help me understand her better, understand what she had to go through every day. For the record,” he added, “I also sign.”
He also made her feel like an idiot, Taylor thought. She was shooting sarcastic remarks at him and he was telling her about being sensitive to his mother’s disability.
“Anything else?” she asked in a flat voice.
Laredo shrugged, amused. “I figure the rest will come out as we go along.”
“We are not ‘going along.’” If he thought he could become her unofficial partner just because she let him question a few people, he was sadly mistaken. “You’re only here because my stepfather seems to think that you could be an asset. Obviously, he’s not always a very demanding person—”
“I bet you take care of that part for him,” Laredo speculated. He saw her open her mouth and he rerouted the conversation before she had a chance to retort. “Why don’t we get back to Eileen’s mother and verify that the baby’s father actually was Terrance Crawford?”
That had already crossed her mind, just not her tongue. “So now you’re taking over the lead?” she asked.
Laredo raised his hands as if to surrender. He also attempted to harness his amusement—rather unsuccessfully, she noted. It still shone in the man’s eyes.
“Just making helpful suggestions, Detective McIntyre.”
She hated the way he emphasized her title. Hated having him hover around. Most of all, she hated that he seemed to always be right.
“If I want your ‘helpful suggestions,’ Laredo, I’ll ask for them.” With that, she turned on her heel and walked down the hallway to the school’s front doors.
She heard Laredo murmur, “No, you won’t,” under his breath behind her, but decided that there was no point in disputing that. After all, he was right. Again.
“Terrance Crawford?” Carole Stevens repeated the name they had put to her less than a half an hour later. “He was the father?”
“That’s what we’re asking you, Mrs. Stevens,” Taylor said kindly.
They were in her kitchen, sitting at the table. Cups of tea Mrs. Stevens had poured cooled in front of them.
“I don’t know,” she admitted honestly, looking from one to the other. “I always thought it might have been, but you have to understand, back then there were always boys surrounding Eileen.” A sad fondness came into her voice as she remembered. “She was like a little Scarlett O’Hara, stringing them all along. She loved the attention,” Carole added needlessly.
“And she never confided in you?” Taylor asked. She thought of her own bond with her mother and felt grateful that there was absolutely nothing she couldn’t come to Lila with.
An almost tortured laugh escaped the other woman’s lips. “I was the last person Eileen would have confided in. Especially after I wouldn’t let her have that abortion.”
Nodding as if he understood, Laredo asked, “Did your daughter have any friends back then, someone she might have told about the baby’s father?”
Carole thought for a moment, then rose to her feet. “Come with me.”
She led them back to Eileen’s room. Once there, she turned toward Laredo and pointed at the mattress. “Lift that, please. Eileen kept her phone book there, along with her diary,” she explained. “For some reason, she thought I wouldn’t catch on.” Carole shook her head in disbelief. “Don’t know who she thought changed her sheets once a week.”
There were two small, five-by-six books, worn with time and the weight of the mattress, lying in the middle. One was a faded lavender, the other gray. Propping up the mattress with his shoulder, Laredo picked up the two books before she had a chance.
Damn but he was fast, she thought grudgingly. Laredo let the mattress drop into place.
Holding up the books, he asked Carole, “Mind if we take these with us?”
Carole locked her fingers together. It was obvious that until this moment, she hadn’t even given either book a thought. Nor had she sought any comfort from flipping through the diary.
“If it’ll help, take them.” And then she hesitated. “I will get them back, won’t I?”
“I guarantee it,” Laredo promised, patting the woman’s shoulder as he held the books against himself with his other hand.
“Give them to me,” Taylor ordered the moment they were out of the house.
Not waiting for Laredo to hand the books over to her, she laid claim to the gray bound address book and pulled it out of his hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered in a clipped, military voice, saluting her.
She ignored him and flipped through the book she’d secured. Only a few names were scattered through the pages.
All they needed was one, she thought as she drove back to the station house.
As she came to a skidding halt in the parking lot, she looked up into her rearview mirror. There was his car pulling into the lot right behind her. Getting rid of him was harder than exterminating an infestation of ants.
“We can divide the names up,” he volunteered.
She stopped halfway up the stairs to the front doors. “Look, what will it take to get this through your head? You’re a civilian.”
“I know that,” he responded amiably.
“And civilians don’t work with cops on cases,” she continued through gritted teeth.
“Sure they do. Happens all the time. Don’t clench your teeth like that, Detective. It’ll wear them away. You wouldn’t like dentures,” he assured her.
Taylor threw up her hands and ascended the rest of the stairs. She was using energy trying to ignore him when she should have been focusing on the case.
Laredo fell into step beside her.
As it turned out, of the few names in Eileen’s old address book, only one person had not moved away. Valerie Ames still lived at the same address and had the same phone number as in high school. Valerie had never left her comfort zone. Twenty years after graduation, she still resided with her widowed mother.
Cautious at first, Valerie finally agreed to meet with them, but only in a public place. She chose a coffee shop not too far from her house.
“My mother still thinks she’s entitled to know every little thing about me,” Valerie complained in a voice that was almost painfully nasal, adding to its whiny quality. She tore open packet after packet of sweetener and poured the contents into her coffee container. “I swear that woman can hear things from the farthest room in the house.”
Taylor didn’t ask the logical question, if Valerie found living conditions so unpleasant, why didn’t she just move out? She didn’t ask because she didn’t want to antagonize the woman or get drawn into a tedious discussion. All she wanted was an answer to one important question. Was Terrance Crawford the father of Eileen’s baby?
“Terry Crawford?” Valerie repeated when the name was put to her. “Sure, he was the father of her baby. Eileen was crazy about him,” she confided, then added, “for about three months. A record for Eileen.” She made no effort to hide her snide tone. “But then she got pregnant and she was just angry all the time.” Valerie paused to take a long sip of her coffee, then addressed her remark to Laredo, with whom, Taylor noticed, she was obviously flirting. “Especially at her mother.”
“Because she wouldn’t allow Eileen to have an abortion,” Laredo said.
Valerie nodded, her ch
estnut hair bobbing up and down. “That was why.”
Taylor cleared her throat. Valerie didn’t look in her direction immediately. It was only when Laredo, his eyes on Valerie’s, nodded toward her that the woman momentarily shifted her attention.
“We heard that Crawford wanted to raise the baby and was upset when he found out that he couldn’t,” Taylor said, leaving the statement open for comment.
Valerie shrugged her shoulders. “News to me, but then, Eileen didn’t want to have the baby around. If Terry kept the baby, it’d be a constant reminder that she’d made a mistake. She popped that baby out and made sure that there was a social worker right there to whisk it away. Eileen was pretty organized for someone who was so messed up.”
“She was messed up?” Taylor pressed.
Valerie nodded vigorously. “Hey, anyone missing a chance to play house with Terry Crawford had to have a few loose screws.”
“Doesn’t sound as if you and Eileen had much of a friendship,” Taylor observed.
Valerie shrugged again as she drained her coffee container. “Hey, you make do.” Setting the empty container down on the table, she rose. “Well, I’ve got to be getting back. Don’t want to miss my program,” she said cheerfully.
“Wouldn’t want that to happen,” Laredo agreed.
She paused for a moment at the entrance to the coffee shop. “Unless you’d like to ask me some more questions.” Her words were directed at Laredo and it was obvious that questions weren’t what was really on her mind.
“Not right now,” Taylor assured her. “But we have your number if anything new comes up.”
Nodding, Valerie left.
“Think these murders have anything to do with the baby?” Taylor finally asked after a lengthy silence. They were on their way back to the precinct, where Laredo had left his car parked in the lot.
Laredo looked at her now, mildly surprised. “You’re actually asking my opinion?”
“Right. What was I thinking?” Taylor shook her head. Maybe she was getting punchy. “Never mind.”
“No, I’m flattered,” he told her. “Surprised, but flattered.”
“I don’t want you flattered,” she told him wearily. “I just want your take on this.”
He’d been going over the situation in his head ever since they found out about Crawford’s possible connection.
“On the surface, it looks as if it might have something to do with their past. The baby being the connection would be the logical conclusion, but not necessarily the only one.” He laughed shortly. “I don’t think this is Planned Parenthood taking drastic measures and striking back if that’s what you mean.”
“Never mind,” Taylor repeated, this time with more feeling. Served her right for lowering her guard and thinking she could brainstorm with this man the way she had with Aaron.
“That, in case you didn’t recognize it, was a joke,” Laredo informed her patiently. “Loosen up, Detective McIntyre.” He leaned slightly forward in his seat, taking a closer look at her. “And stop frowning. Didn’t your mother ever warn you that your face might freeze that way?”
She slanted a dismissive glance in his direction before taking a right turn. “My mother was too busy warning me about scruffy private investigators with big egos trying to horn their way in where they didn’t belong.”
Laredo nodded solemnly. “Smart lady.” It was against his credo to say anything against anyone’s mother, even in a joke. “I’ll stay on the lookout for one and let you know if I see any.”
“Another joke?” she asked warily.
“It’s not a joke until you smile,” he qualified, watching her.
Maybe he could take a light view of things, but she couldn’t. “I’ve got some nutcase running around, tying wet strips of leather around people’s necks and then watching them strangle to death. And I’ve got two dead people to account for. News flash—there’s nothing to smile about.”
He didn’t see it that way. “There’s always something to smile about, Detective McIntyre,” he told her. “Sometimes you just have to look hard to find it, that’s all.”
She didn’t agree, but she was in no mood to argue. “Right.” Feeling suddenly drained, Taylor dragged her hand through her hair.
“Why don’t I buy you dinner?” Laredo suggested out of the blue. She glanced quizzically in his direction. “Maybe things’ll come together if you don’t have to listen to your stomach complaining.”
Now what the hell was he talking about? “My stomach?”
“Yeah. Can’t you hear it?” He nodded toward it, as if she didn’t know where to find it. “It’s competing with your thought process—and mine.”
Her thought process was being competed with all right, she thought. But it wasn’t her stomach that was causing the problem.
Still, he did have one valid point. She was hungry. “All right, but you’re buying.”
“That’s what I just suggested. Was I speaking too low for you?”
As a matter of fact, his voice was low. And it was getting to her in ways she definitely found distracting. “Shut up, Laredo. Nobody likes a wiseass.”
She heard the smile in his voice. “I’ll try to remember that.”
She took the next turn a bit too sharply, struggling to bank down the unwanted reaction she was experiencing. “You do that.”
Chapter 7
“S o what do you do when you’re not detecting, Detective McIntyre?” Laredo asked her as the waitress retreated with their orders.
When he’d offered to buy her dinner, Taylor had expected Laredo to bring her to one of the dozens of fast-food places that littered Aurora, serving anything from hamburgers to pizza to Asian food, all of which could be consumed on the run.
Instead, he’d brought her to Fiorello’s, a well-reviewed, four-star restaurant that specialized in Italian cuisine. She’d always been very partial to Italian food.
Had this been just a lucky coincidence on his part, or had Laredo known about her preference? And if so, how? And why? Why was the private investigator trying to cull favor with her?
What was he up to?
“Your problem is that you overthink things,” Frank had told her more than once. But then, little brothers had a tendency to be critical. It was due to the very nature of their position within the hierarchy of the family.
She supposed that maybe Frank had a point. It happened. After all, even a broken clock was dead-on twice a day.
“I sleep,” she answered tersely. Before Laredo could say anything in response, she asked, “Do you come here often?”
“No.” He took a sip of the ice water he’d requested. “As a matter of fact, it’s my first time.”
Well, at least he was being honest. So far. “What made you pick it?”
He looked at her for a long moment, as if weighing his answer. And then he laughed, shaking his head. “You don’t stop.”
That certainly wasn’t an answer. Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”
“Being Detective McIntyre. You really don’t stop, do you? You just keep on ‘detecting,’” he added when she continued to look puzzled.
He was trying to distract her. I don’t distract that easily, Laredo. “Most people tend to go to a restaurant they’re familiar with.”
Their eyes locked. “There always has to be a first time.”
He wasn’t referring to going to a restaurant. As she had to consciously concentrate on breathing, she could feel his words slipping in under her skin, undulating their way through her whole frame. Settling into her very core. It took effort not to let her thoughts drift off.
“You knew I liked Italian food.”
He’d asked Frank if his sister had any preferences when it came to eating out, but he wasn’t quite ready to tell her that. Instead, he looked at her as if this was all news to him.
“You do?”
A two-year-old wouldn’t have been fooled by this man, she thought. “You don’t do innocent very convincingly, Laredo.”
> Broad shoulders lifted and fell in a casual shrug. “I guess I’ve got to practice in front of the mirror more often.”
The conversation momentarily stopped as the waitress returned with their dinners. The young woman placed the Italian herb chicken before Laredo and the Alfredo shrimp with angel hair pasta in front of Taylor.
The moment the waitress backed away, Taylor leaned forward and said, “I’ll take that as an admission.”
She reminded him of a dog he’d once had. His grandfather had bought it for him, hoping that it would help him cope with the loss of his mother. Whenever the dog latched onto something, there was no way to get the animal to drop it.
“You must be hell on wheels in an interrogation room, Detective. I’d like to watch the next time you’re up,” he told her.
She couldn’t decide if he was laughing at her or if he was serious. In any case, it didn’t distract her from getting an answer to her question. “Why would you ask what my favorite food is?”
Waiting until after he sampled his dinner, Laredo countered with a question of his own. “Why wouldn’t I?”
He was a master of the runaround. She would have expected nothing less. “I asked first.”
Hungry, he took another bite of his food. He noted with satisfaction that despite her headstrong attack, Taylor was eating, too. “Maybe I’m just trying to find a way to soothe the savage beast.”
“The expression is ‘soothe the savage breast,’” she informed him, “and it refers to music, not food.”
He paused long enough to grin at her. “Trust me, you wouldn’t want to hear me sing.”
Wasn’t the man capable of a straight answer? If she did have him in an interrogation room, she had a feeling that he would drive her crazy.
“I’ve got a question for you,” she posed gamely. “What do you do when you’re not cracking wise?”
“I try to crack cases,” he told her seriously. The next moment, the smile was back. Laredo leaned over the small table. Coming much too close to her. “Life’s too short, Detective McIntyre. Have some fun with it before it’s over.” He indicated her meal. “Enjoy your food. Enjoy your diet soda,” he added, lifting his glass in a mock salute.
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