Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [readnow TXT] 📗

again. “It makes you wonder, what is it about Rosario that makes people not talk about her?”

She glanced at me. “Rape?”

I raised my eyebrows and sucked my teeth. “We now have two rapes in one small group of friends. To be more precise, we have three women and two rapes. And the boy who was murdered is the son of one of the rape victims.”

“Yeah, that had struck me. It doesn’t give us a motive, but it sure as hell suggests there might be one in there somewhere.” She wagged a finger in my direction without looking at me. “I’ll tell you something else. Ed is very reluctant to cooperate with the investigation. Why would a father be reluctant to cooperate with the police in investigating his own son’s attempted murder?”

I stared out the window and said, absently, half to myself, “What would make him reluctant…?”

“Yeah, OK, that.”

“You think Ed shot his own son?”

“We already agreed visibility was terrible. He may not have known the passenger was Luis. Like you said, he didn’t go and finish him off. His intended victim was the driver.”

“Mm-hm… You have a point. But we are still left with the question, what is his motive? After all these years.”

She thought for a moment. “What if Sebastian had found out about his mother’s rape? Maybe he was threatening to report him.”

I made an ‘am not convinced’ face. “Rape is almost impossible to prove if you don’t got forensic evidence almost immediately. There is practically nothing Sebastian could have done. Also…” I shook my head. “We still have that billion dollar question—how did the killer know that they were going to be there at that time?”

She screwed up her brow. “Yeah, especially when you consider it was Angela’s car, not theirs.”

I closed my eyes. “They go from work to Lynda’s house. They get maggot. Somehow, in the early hours of the morning, they go to Angela’s. What happens there, we don’t know, but they end up borrowing her car. And somehow, between their leaving Lynda and getting into Angela’s car, the killer discovers where they are and decides to strike.” I puffed out my cheeks and blew. “That’s not a statement of fact, just an hypothesis.”

“An hypothesis?”

“Yes. And not a very persuasive one.”

“OK. I don’t see how it can be any other way.” I didn’t answer and she looked at me. “Do you?”

“I’m not sure. I’m going to eat a bison steak and drink my half of a bottle of wine and think about it.”

She went quiet. After a moment, she said, “You have bison steak? How?”

I smiled. “You can order it online. I thought I’d surprise you.”

“That’s sweet.”

“I have my sweet side.”

She smiled, but didn’t say anything and we drove on in silence. When we pulled in to Haight Avenue and she stopped in front of my house, she said suddenly, “You have. A surprisingly sweet side. Sweeter than I expected.”

Somehow, she made it sound like that wasn’t a good thing. I stared at her for a long moment, then asked, “Dehan, did I do anything while we were in Goa? Anything to…” I shrugged. “To upset you?”

She stared back at me. Her expression was hard to fathom. There was a thin smile, but that was only on her lips. Her eyes were hard and lingered somewhere between amusement and anger.

“As far as I remember, Stone, you didn’t do anything in Goa.”

I frowned.

She looked at her watch. “I’d better get going. I’m wrecked. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I opened the door, hesitated, and said, “I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

“Enjoy your steak and your wine.”

I climbed out of the car and watched her drive away into the gathering dusk with a strange feeling of unhappiness, made worse by the lack of sleep. All in all, it had been a bad day. One of those really bad days.

I went inside, slung a pizza in the oven and cracked a cold beer.

Eleven

I was woken up by my doorbell ringing. It was already light outside. I fumbled for my watch and saw it was seven AM. I had slept little and badly. I opened the window and leaned out. First I saw Dehan’s car. Then I saw her looking up at me. She gave me that inscrutable smile and said, “Put some clothes on, you’ll scare the neighbors.”

I said, “You have a key. Use it.”

“I left it at home.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “You want to come down and open the door?”

I pulled my pants on, and a shirt, and went down to let her in. As she stepped over the threshold, she said, “I thought you’d be up.”

“Yeah. I didn’t sleep so well. I’m going to jump in the shower. You know where the kitchen is.”

I stood for ten minutes, letting the alternating piping hot and excruciatingly cold water batter some sense into me, toweled myself dry, dressed, and went down. I stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She was standing, watching me. She still had her jacket on and her hands in her jacket pockets. There was no coffee, no bacon, no eggs. I frowned.

“What’s going on?”

She did her inscrutable thing. “You ready?”

“Do you mind if I have breakfast?”

“Sure.”

I went into the kitchen feeling mad and not sure why. I grabbed the percolator.

“You want coffee?”

“No thanks. I had some already.”

I dropped the percolator by the sink, muttered, “Ah, forget it,” and went to grab my jacket. “Let’s go.”

At the door, I turned back and grabbed my car keys from the dish on the breakfast bar. As I closed the door, she looked at me like she was questioning my IQ. “What’re you doing?”

“Today I’m using my car. You’re welcome to ride along. If you prefer to use your