Except on him, Charley had to admit, the smile looked rather seductive—make that very seductive. It was obvious that Melissa was aware of it.
“How about we start with ‘yes’?” Melissa suggested, leaning in as close as she could to him, given that there was a bar between them. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that she was flirting with him for all she was worth and it was only partially to get him to spend money at the bar.
In her mind, Melissa was probably already going home with him.
This was the woman who had gotten her hooks into her brother, who had taken him for everything she could, then tossed him aside, filleted and aching. For two cents, Charley would have loved to sink her fist into that annoying face.
It was a struggle to hold her tongue and not tell the woman to drop the act and behave like a responsible person. For all she knew, to Melissa, this was her idea of a responsible person. The woman had the IQ of a dirty shoelace.
Declan appeared unmoved by the woman’s blatant flirtation, although he remained friendly. “How about, where were you last night?”
Melissa shrugged dismissively, as if that was of no consequence. “No place special. But I can be anywhere you want me to be tonight.”
Okay, enough was enough. Any more of this and she was going to be nauseous.
“We need you to be more specific than ‘no place special,’” Charley interjected.
The pretty forehead furrowed and a look of annoyance crossed her face as she regarded her. “Why?”
“It’s not your turn to ask questions yet,” Charley informed her curtly.
The furrowed brow became more so as Melissa stared at her. “Don’t I know you from someplace?” she asked, struggling to remember.
“That’s another question,” Charley pointed out, determined not to give Melissa a scrap of information.
Anger etched a line into her features. “Listen, you—”
“That’s ‘Detective’ You,” Charley corrected wryly. “And we still need to know where you were last night—and early this morning,” she added since her brother’s time of death hadn’t been established yet.
“You’re police?” Melissa asked, the last of the friendliness evaporating from her voice.
Declan had taken a backseat for a moment, amused at the exchange between the two women. He had a feeling that Charley had it in her to be a real spitfire if she wanted to be.
But since the woman behind the bar had asked a legitimate question, he decided maybe he should step up before the situation really spun out of control.
“Afraid so,” he told her, taking out his identification for her viewing. “Detectives Cavanaugh and Randolph,” he said, introducing himself to her.
“Terrific,” Melissa muttered. The brightness had definitely left her smile. “Did Matt send you to hassle me?” she demanded.
“Why would he do that?” Declan asked, his voice marginally interested.
“Because I broke up with the loser,” she snapped, rubbing at a spot on the bar that wouldn’t give up its stain. “It’s not my fault he thought it was serious between us.”
“Right. He should have realized that the only serious affair you could have was with money,” Charley murmured under her breath.
She knew better, and ordinarily she would have refrained from saying something like that, but she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly at the moment and her temper had gotten away from her.
“You can’t talk to me like that!” Melissa cried indignantly.
“Actually, she could probably talk a lot worse to you than that, so I wouldn’t push it if I were you,” Declan warned her, completely surprising Charley. Whether he realized it or not, he’d just helped her regain control over her temper.
All Melissa seemed to be aware of was being insulted. “Look, you give Matt a message for me. You tell him I don’t care who he sends over, we’re not getting back together and that’s final.”
Declan inclined his head. “I’m afraid it is.”
The bartender looked somewhat perplexed. For the moment, her confusion paralyzed her. “You mean you think he’ll back off?”
“Sergeant Holt can’t do very much of anything anymore,” Declan informed her. “He’s dead.”
The woman behind the bar appeared stunned, as if the person she’d just been talking to had lapsed into a language she couldn’t comprehend. “What?” she asked hoarsely, staring at Declan.
“He’s dead,” Charley repeated, struggling to keep her voice from cracking. Her eyes darted to Declan to see if he noticed her momentary shift in tone, but he seemed only focused on Melissa.
Was that because he still thought of the woman as a suspect, or because the vest Melissa was wearing set off her breasts to their best advantage, emphasizing her cleavage?
Charley couldn’t decide.
“This is a joke, right?” Melissa asked, glancing at her and then Declan, waiting for one of them to tell her she was right.
Charley took out her phone and showed her the photo she’d taken of her brother at the crime scene, the cryptic note still pinned to his chest. “This isn’t a joke,” she said.
Melissa stared wide-eyed at the picture on the cell phone, then turned her head away. “Oh, God, he’s dead in that, isn’t he?” she asked, directing the question to Declan. Upset or not, she never lost her focus, which meant playing to the best-looking man in the room.
“Yes, he is,” Declan replied patiently, knowing that if he left it to Charley to answer her, he couldn’t be sure just what would come out.
Anyone paying minimal attention could see that she didn’t like the woman. Was that because she felt Melissa had treated Holt badly—or because she was jealous of the connection, however brief, the two had had?
“How did it happen?” Melissa asked. “Was it the bullet that killed him?” Her eyes strayed back to the photograph and the hole in Matt’s chest.
“Well, it didn’t help,” Charley snapped.
Then, to her surprise, she saw tears shining in the other woman’s eyes. Given what she knew about their relationship, she wouldn’t have thought Melissa capable of any genuine grief or any real emotion whatsoever. There was a chance that she had misjudged the woman—but she tended not to believe that.
“I’m sorry,” Melissa said. “I’ve got to go sit down somewhere.”
Coming around the bar, rather than take a seat the way she’d indicated, Melissa went straight to Declan and leaned heavily against him, her chest heaving with supposedly trapped sobs.
Making eye contact with him, Charley didn’t even try to hide her disdain. She rolled her eyes, letting him know exactly what she thought of this little performance.
“Who did it?” Melissa asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Declan replied, looking around for a likely place to deposit the woman who at this point was all over him. Under different circumstances, it might have even been a pleasant enough interlude, but given the situation, having her like this was rather awkward and uncomfortable.
Charley grabbed the back of a chair and unceremoniously shoved it against the back of Melissa’s legs, causing them to buckle. The next moment, the bartender found herself landing in the chair with a thud. She swung her head around and glared accusingly at Charley, who in turn smiled innocently at her and reminded her, “You said you