Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #1: Books 1-4 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [classic children's novels txt] 📗

Dehan arrived twenty minutes later. She pulled up behind my Jag, climbed out, and stood looking at me from the sidewalk.

“How many of those have you had?”

“This is my third.”

“I’ve got some catching up to do, then.”

I smiled. It was a relief to see her. Even when she was mad, she was never judgmental. She kept it real.

“You going to come in, or do I have to go and get you?”

She pushed through the gate and came up the path on her long legs and walked past me into the house. I followed. She stood in the middle of the living room, taking in the scene with a cop’s eyes: the martini glass half-finished on the floor by the sofa. She turned to face me. “You’ve got lipstick on your cheek.”

“And only on my cheek. Stop jumping to conclusions. You want ice?”

“Yeah. Can we sit in the garden?”

We took our drinks outside and sat at the garden table. The frogs were louder out there. She put her foot on my chair and asked me, “So what happened?”

“She called at eleven…” I paused and looked at her. “You have to understand something, I am presenting myself to this woman as a bent cop. So my behavior is not exactly exemplary, okay?”

She gave a small smile, but most of her humor was in her eyes. “Okay…”

I told her the whole story, in detail, without leaving anything out. It was almost like a confession, and I was aware while I was doing it that I was looking for some kind of absolution from her.

She listened in silence, holding her glass in both hands and watching me. When I’d finished, she gave a small sigh and sipped her drink. Then she gave a small laugh. “You called her babe?”

I snorted. “I guess I was inspired by your talk of Frisco and yeggs.” I became serious. “The point is, I am having trouble telling the truth from fantasy here.”

She was quiet for a long while, turning her glass in her fingers. After a bit, she asked me the question that was eating her. “Stone, is she getting to you?”

“What do you mean?”

She fixed me with her big black eyes. “We can be straight with each other, right? I have to tell you, you have been acting strange since you met her. Are you falling for her?”

“Of course not.”

“There is no ‘of course’ about it, Stone. You said yourself this woman is beautiful. She is intense and passionate. Hell, she sounds fascinating. Any man would be attracted to her.”

“I am not falling for her, Dehan.”

She shrugged. “Okay, whatever you say. So what is it that’s confusing you?”

I frowned. “The whole thing sounds fantastic. The two sisters separated. One is brought to the States. The other is brought up in England. The younger one falls in with a guy who is ‘pure evil’ and ‘has no soul.’ It’s like a Mexican soap opera. Now she has her hidden and can’t tell me where she is. All the cloak-and-dagger mystery.” I sat forward and put my elbows on my knees. “I’ll tell you, before she arrived and told me her crazy story, I was convinced I had it sewn up. Now I don’t know what to believe.”

She drained her glass, stood, and went inside. She came out with the bottle and refilled my glass and her own.

“I’ll replace this tomorrow,” she said, and sat. “You want my advice?” I nodded. “Bring her in.”

“What?”

“Come on, Stone. It’s as clear as daylight. If it was anybody else, you wouldn’t think twice about it.”

“I can get more out of her if I play her along.”

“Bullshit. We have an eyewitness who saw Tamara Gunthersen commit a double homicide, and she may well have been party to a third. Emma Girt is harboring a suspected murderer. Bring her in and throw the book at her. Threaten her with jail time if she doesn’t give up the whereabouts of her sister. Make her understand that if she does not cooperate, her husband, her business, and her million-dollar lifestyle on Madison Avenue are going to go up in smoke.”

She watched me and read my face like a book. I puffed out my cheeks and blew hard. She pointed at me. “Now you need to be asking yourself, what makes her different? Because you and I both know, if it was anybody else, you would be all over them like a rash. So what makes this dame different?”

I thought about it.

“Nothing.”

“So?”

“I am not protecting her.”

“So what are you doing?”

I spread my hands. “I’m trying to understand, Dehan. This woman is hiding a lot of secrets. If we go charging in like a bull in a china shop, we risk her clamming up and blowing our one shot at this case. I am not convinced that her million-dollar lifestyle on Madison Avenue is all that important to her.”

“You think her aspirations are more spiritual?”

“Don’t be sarcastic.”

“Sorry. Let me ask you something, Stone.”

“What?”

“Why did you ask me to come here tonight?”

I shrugged. “I value your…”

“No. Not all that. Why did you ask me here. Why did you ask somebody, anybody, to come here tonight.”

I frowned. “Because I was confused. I needed to…”

She cut across me. “When was the last time you were this kind of confused about a case?”

She had me pinned like a bug on a board. I stared at her a long time. “Never.”

She raised her eyebrows and said, “So here is the John Stone classic question. What is it about this case that makes it so much more confusing than any other? And you and I both know the answer.”

“Her.”

“You said it yourself, Stone, you had