She's Got the Look (5 page)

Don't go there.
She took a deep breath, forcing herself to focus on the bright, wide-open future with people who loved her. Not the gut-wrenching, humiliating past with people who'd been pitying her. Like all of her Atlanta friends, who had to have known about Bill's affairs long before she did.

“That does it,” Rosemary said. “You've got to tell someone.”

By now, even skeptical Tanya was looking convinced, and Paige's eyes were wide as she whispered, “Maybe she's right.”

“I can't tell a stranger that I sat down the night before my wedding and made a list of men I wanted to have sex with.”

Rosemary was already pushing buttons on her cell phone with the pointed tip of her nail. “You don't have to go into that much detail, sugar. Just call it a little bridesmaid game. Men you're attracted to—you don't have to mention the adultery-free-zone part of it.” Then, before pushing the send button, she added, “This detective's nice and discreet.” She glanced away, not meeting Mel's eye. “He's older. Kindly. Fatherly.”

Never having known for sure who—or where—her father was, Melody couldn't take much comfort in that. “Rosemary…”

But before she could finish her sentence, she realized Rosemary was already talking in hushed tones to someone, her hand curved around the phone for privacy.
A little late for that.

Outnumbered, confused and a teeny bit apprehensive, Melody realized she had no choice. Which was why, a minute later, she agreed to meet with Rosemary's detective friend. Adamant about not barging into the police station, she at least got Rosemary to agree to set up an informal meeting in a public place.

It was ridiculous, of course. But she'd do it. At ten o'clock the next morning, at a diner on Abercorn Street not far from her own apartment, she'd meet with this detective, carefully tell him what she knew, hear him laugh, then forget about it.

Grabbing a pen, she jotted down the man's name, writing it on the list Paige had torn out of the notebook. For
evidence.

Yeesh. Her sexual-fantasy list possible evidence. How utterly embarrassing. She could only hope this Detective Walker was as nice and fatherly as Rosemary said he was.

And that he was
very
understanding.

“W
AIT A MINUTE
,”
Nick Walker said, eyeing his partner on the Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan PD. “You're telling me some woman thinks a chef who choked on a meatball while drunk was actually
murdered?
And that his death might have something to do with the death of a golf pro in Atlanta?”

Nick made no effort to keep the skepticism out of his voice as he stared across his desk at his partner. Dex didn't flinch away from the pointed look and Nick sat back in his chair, sighing heavily. Because apparently his friend
was
serious.

The two of them sat in the bustling station on Habersham Street, getting ready to start another day filled with the promise of lots of crime. First up was investigating a robbery-homicide at a nearby antique store that had been filling the local media. The case had brought pressure on the whole precinct—they'd just come from a bitch-out meeting during which their lieutenant had threatened bodily injury if it wasn't solved soon.

It was a typical weekday morning—already over eighty degrees and sweltering, with air that smelled like used motor oil and felt about as thick. The window air conditioner chugged lazily, managing to circulate a breeze that could only be described as cool by a recent refugee from hell.

At every other desk sat another member of the squad, making calls, writing reports, delaying the inevitable moment when they'd have to leave the building and venture out into the wicked September morning. Because, damn, it hurt to breathe out there. The heat wave gripping the city had lasted nine weeks now. Might be another month before it dropped below eighty.

He hated the heat and not only because his skin hadn't felt dry since Memorial Day. The hotter it got—the
stickier
it got—the more people heated up and committed crimes. Quick to anger, slow to reason, the city had been on a low rolling boil all summer and September hadn't seemed to evaporate any of the steam.

“I know it's probably a long shot, but it's worth a conversation, isn't it?” Dex asked, his tone even, his voice reasonable. As usual. The guy was nearly impossible to rile, unlike Nick who, truth be told, hadn't been too sure he'd ever make detective given his tendency to erupt every now and again. He thought he'd done a pretty good job escaping his badass teenage years, when he'd literally fought his way out of his family's Walkers-are-all-no-good-drunks reputation with his fists. But that old Walker temper did kick up once in a while.

“You're really serious about this?” Nick asked.

“I am. It's a long shot, but maybe there is some kind of connection between these two cases.”

“The Chez Jacques death isn't a case—it was ruled an accident. The investigation's been closed for a month.”

“So this tip probably won't go anywhere. But since you caught the original call, isn't it worth a conversation?”

If the request had come from Draco, Jones or one of the others, he would have immediately suspected some kind of setup. A practical joke at the very least. A blind date at the worst.

As the youngest on the squad, the newest detective
and
one of the only two unmarried men on this floor—the other being his partner—he was the target of a lot of jokes. Not to mention a lot of schemes to get him as tied-around-the-balls as every other poor married sucker he worked with.

But this was Dex. Mr. Serious. The most straightforward, honest, no-nonsense guy in the building. And his partner.

Dex was
also
the only one in the building who knew that Nick had once been married. Briefly.
Badly.
To a woman who'd then sabotaged Nick's relationship with his entire family, separating them for a decade with her lies. So Dex wouldn't play some kind of setup game with him.

“I know how it sounds, but Rosemary swears it's true.”

Nick grunted but said nothing against Rosemary. He still hadn't quite forgiven her for the stakeout snafu a few weeks ago, when he'd nearly blown his cover trying to help some woman move her furniture.

Some
woman. Yeah, she had been that.

For some reason, he hadn't been able to put her completely out of his mind since. Occasionally he'd even considered cruising by her place, seeing how she was doing. Seeing if she had any more chairs she needed moved.

He hadn't done it. Not only because he just wasn't in the market to meet a woman right now, but also because she'd seemed so damned vulnerable. So hurt. So desolate.

The last thing she needed was a visit from a workaholic cop who'd deceived her about who he was on the day they'd met.

“Rosemary swears, huh?” he finally said, knowing Dex was waiting for an answer.

“Yeah. And you know how she is.”

Oh, yes, he knew. Frankly, Nick didn't know how his friend had hooked up with the woman, who was the spoiled, pampered daughter of one of the former mayors of Savannah. Yeah, she was hot, and she managed to keep Dex a lot more on edge than any woman he'd ever dated—which seemed a good thing for someone as quiet and uninvolved as his partner. The differences in their financial situations were glaringly obvious, and Dex had made more than one comment about trying to keep up with Rosemary.

Besides being rich, she was flighty. Not to mention oversexed, bored and pretentious.

Dex was about as down-to-earth and unpretentious as they came, which was one reason he and Nick got along so well. Nick hated pretension. He had no patience for the old guard who hadn't yet realized the Civil War was over and the grand and glorious days of plantation owners were mere textbook footnotes.

Coming from a white trash Georgia family in a small town in the northwest corner of the state, he'd never realized the elitist culture still existed elsewhere. Sure, Joyful had been full of the haves and the have-nots, like every other town—the Walkers definitely being on the have-not list. But until he'd started working to solve some of the crimes targeting the upper crust of this old, proud city, he hadn't realized how far in the past some people seemed to live.

That was how Dex had met Rosemary. Somebody had robbed a pricey house she had listed with her real-estate agency.

“I told Rosemary you'd meet the woman today at ten.” After naming the location, Dex added, “You'll know her by her red hat.”

Nick didn't respond right away, merely studying his friend, watching for a shift of the eyes or a tiny grin that would say he was being had. He saw neither. Just stalwart, calm Dex. The nice, stoic, friendly side of their good-cop, bad-cop routine.

“Why, exactly, did Rosemary decide I was the person who had to meet with this mystery woman? Why not you?”

“She apparently doesn't like Northerners.”

The explanation wouldn't make a whole lot of sense in a lot of other places. But this was Savannah. Dex, who hailed from Pennsylvania, had never lost the clipped tone or flat accent that pegged him as someone from above the Mason-Dixon line. This wouldn't be the first time he'd been eyed with suspicion by some spoiled wannabe Southern belle.

Nick disliked the woman already.

He gave it one more shot. “Last I checked, Rosemary didn't exactly admire my tact with women.”

A half smile appeared on Dex's face. “Only because you told that reporter doing a story on Rosie's real-estate business that you'd rather go to bed with a cross-dressing, three-armed circus freak than ever go out with her again.”

He remembered.

“I think Rosemary's changed her mind,” Dex said. “She never liked Angie Jacobs anyway and didn't much care that Angie dropped the story once she found out you were a friend of ours.”

Just as well, because Angie was a piranha.

“Rosemary now thinks you might just have great instincts.”

“Until the next time she decides I'm a cretin because you have a beer with me instead of meeting her at some party where they serve bait on crackers and call it gourmet cook-in'.”

“Careful, your moonshiner background is showing.”

Rolling his eyes, Nick rose to his feet and tossed a file at Dex. “Make yourself useful while I'm chasing your girlfriend's boogeymen. See if you can find anything on this plate. Could be connected to the break-in on Wright Square.”

He hadn't really expected Dex to complain, and he didn't. Instead, he gave Nick a relieved smile. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

“You owe me many, especially for having to drive the P.O.S. during the Miller stakeout. But who's counting?”

“Hey, we got him, didn't we?”

That they had. They'd gotten him and the scumbag wouldn't be putting his filth onto the streets of Savannah anytime soon.

Muttering under his breath about spoiled society brats with conspiracy complexes, Nick left the precinct and drove the short distance to the café. He could have walked the few blocks, but it was too hot and he was too irritated.

Dex had to have named the location for the meeting, which was the one good thing about this whole mess. Because this place sure knew how to serve biscuits and gravy.

“Red hat,” he reminded himself, shaking his head as he walked in the front door. “Just what I need, a red-hat lady.”

Once inside, he remembered another good thing about this restaurant. The air-conditioning worked a darn sight better than it did at the precinct. Or in his city-issued car.

Standing in the doorway and taking in a resigned breath, he looked around the place, which was decades old but still popular with locals and tourists. He kept his eye out for a red hat and blue hair. Because, really, if the woman was one of those red-hat ladies, she had to be at least one hundred and four.

No red hat. No big red feathers, or jewels or lace, like he'd seen on the more flamboyant headgear sold at the boutiques around here, which catered to the rich and to the tourists. Definitely not his shopping grounds. He felt much more at home at the Wal-Mart near his west Chatham apartment.

A few late-morning customers chatted at a couple of the tables in the front room, occasionally beckoning to a harried-looking waitress who carried a steaming pot of coffee. Two men sat at the counter, and another was paying at the cash register.

Skirting the edge of the place, he walked into the second room, where a dozen more tables took up nearly all the available floor space. Several of the tables were occupied, but only one had a person sitting completely alone. And that person, he realized, was wearing a baseball cap. A
red
baseball cap.

So maybe she's only ninety.

Unfortunately, the woman sat below a stained-glass window depicting the most overutilized image in all of Savannah—the Bird Girl statue that'd been on the cover of The Book…
Midnight In The Garden of Good And Evil.
Nick could happily live the rest of his life without seeing another book, window, magnet, bookmark, T-shirt, mug, poster or postcard with that particular picture. But it'd never happen, not unless he moved away from Savannah. It was as intrinsic to this city as the Gordon Low house, where giddy, giggling Girl Scouts flocked by the thousands to worship their founder.

Pulling his attention off the window, he peered around the few customers and waitresses, staring at the woman in the cap. He noted a pair of tanned shoulders, exposed by the sleeveless blue tank top the woman wore. And, of course, the cap, with a short, dark-colored ponytail sticking out the opening in the back, looking too damn bouncy and jaunty in this wilting heat.

Reminding himself that Dex would never send him on a wild-goose chase when they were working a case, he made his way down the narrow aisle, nodding to the waitress. The busy woman paused to stare back and give him a once-over.

Nick didn't necessarily like the attention he got from women—particularly because of the bullshit he caught about it from the other guys in the squad. But, on occasion, it came in handy. Like now. Because with one quick smile and a hand gesture, he had the woman promising to be right over with a fresh pot. If history was any indication, he'd have a cup of coffee within twenty seconds of sitting down.

Moving toward the woman he was to meet, he continued to study her without her knowledge. Each step that brought him closer to his target seemed slower than the one before. Because the more he saw, the more suspicious he became.

Her shoulders weren't merely tanned and soft looking against the pale blue shirt. They were also toned. Curved. Leading to long, slim arms. Definitely young looking.

She moved one of those arms, reaching to adjust her ball cap. Her movements were graceful. Fluid. They drew his eyes to the thick dark hair, a rich, reddish-brown. A
familiar
reddish-brown. “My, oh my,” he whispered.

It was her. He knew it as sure as he knew the way the sun winked orange and purple as it went down over the horizon. Sitting in front of him was the woman he'd helped a few weeks ago. The one who'd fallen on the mattress the day he'd nailed Manny Miller, the drug trafficker.

Nick's heartbeat kicked up a notch as a nearly unfamiliar sensation crawled through his veins.
Interest.
It was as unexpected as it was exciting, and for some reason the quiet, stale morning suddenly seemed ripe with expectation.

He'd been thinking about her for weeks. And fate, or Rosemary Chilton, had given him another chance to meet her.

Suddenly the woman looked to the side, her attention drawn by a passing busboy. The movement gave him a glimpse of her profile. Long enough to confirm her identity by the full lips, the stubborn curve of her chin, the sweep of her long lashes.

More importantly, it was long enough to see the absence of those shadows beneath her eyes. And to notice that her face had filled out, looking less gaunt, less distressed. More beautiful.

The cop in him analyzed her features and noted the changes.

The man in him took a much more
carnal
inventory.