“He killed her?” he asked in disbelief, his voice trembling.
“Right now, that seems to be the working theory,” Abilene told the actor. “Unless you know something different.” He paused, giving the actor a moment for the information to sink in. “Any thoughts on that?” he prodded.
Tyler really looked surprised then. “Me? No. No,” he assured Abilene while trying to suppress a shiver of his own. “Just all sounds kind of creepy, that’s all. When I did see them together, they looked happy—I guess,” he tagged on with a shrug.
“You guess,” Abilene repeated slowly, watching Tyler’s eyes.
Tyler drew himself up to be a little taller, a little straighter. Abilene still towered over him. “Well, yeah. I didn’t stare at them or anything. I’ve got my own life,” he said. “And my own girlfriend,” he added with pride. “She’s my fiancée, actually,” he clarified. “And she doesn’t like me staring at other women,” he added with a grin.
“I hear you,” Abilene said with a conspiratorial laugh. “They can get really jealous on you for just being yourself. Nothing wrong with a guy just looking.”
“If you think of anything else,” Kendra said, interrupting what looked as if it had the makings of a guy fest and taking a card out of her pocket, “call this number.” She tapped the phone number beneath her name. “Ask for Detective Cavelli.”
“So, is that the name you’re going with, Good? Cavelli?” Abilene asked as they walked away from the actor’s apartment.
Why did his questions immediately get her back up? It was, after all, a legitimate question. But coming from Abilene, it got under her skin.
Just as he did.
She supposed she was being unfair—but that still didn’t change her reaction.
“It’s the name on the card,” she told him. They stopped at the crime scene one last time. The crime scene investigators were apparently wrapping things up, she thought. That was their cue to leave. “I didn’t want to confuse him. So far, this actor’s our most lucid witness.”
“Or at least he’s playing the part of one,” Abilene commented as they walked over to the centrally located elevator. His comment had her looking at him quizzically and he shrugged. “Hey, he’s an out-of-work actor—they need audiences like most people need air.”
“Speaking from experience?” she asked.
“In a way,” Abilene admitted. “I dated an actress once.” And then he laughed. He’d dated several of them, actually. At different times. Beautiful women with beautiful faces, all clamoring to be used—finding a personal hell on the other side. “Hard not to in this state.”
“Dated an actress,” Kendra repeated. Probably a whole bunch of them, possibly at the same time. He had the charm to pull it off, she decided. If you liked that sort of thing, she couldn’t help adding. “How nice for her,” she commented dryly.
“Nice for both of us,” he said, then added with a smile, “Short and sweet.”
Something in his voice caught Kendra’s attention— and, though she wouldn’t have admitted it in so many words, it also aroused her curiosity, among other things she chose not to explore.
“Is that a requirement with you? ‘Short and sweet’?” she repeated when he just looked at her.
His mouth curved devilishly. “As a matter of fact, yes, it is.”
She’d been right about him, she thought as she got in behind the wheel of the Crown Victoria. Abilene was a player, trading on his exceedingly good looks and satisfying his appetite whenever the spirit moved him. She bet it moved him a lot.
“Where to now?” he asked as he buckled his seat belt.
“Back to the precinct to see what kind of information we can find about the late Summer Miller.” She turned on the ignition. “By the way, what was that back there? With the actor,” she specified.
“It’s called being a detective and gathering information. Also questioning a witness. Why?” he asked her. “Wasn’t I supposed to do any talking? Am I just supposed to be your strong, silent backup?”
She sincerely doubted the man knew the meaning of the word silent. For now, until she got used to him, she just wanted him to stay out of the way, not suddenly step up and take the lead. She had no problem sharing that position if the person she was sharing it with had respect for her. But Abilene wasn’t giving off any of those vibrations. At least none on a frequency she was receiving.
“I only thought, this being your first case, you’d just observe,” she told him.
“This is my first homicide, not my first case,” he corrected. He wasn’t some wet-behind-the-ears rookie to stand in awe of her. If that was what she wanted, she should have gone with one of the department’s newly minted detectives, not him. “The actor just brought up some questions for me. Sorry, was I supposed to clear them with you first before asking him?”
It wasn’t exactly a belligerent question, at least not in tone. But she could feel him challenging her nonetheless. Rules and boundaries needed to be established, here and now. Or maybe she was just reading too much into it. These days, she wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
Maybe she just needed to unwind. Find a way to relax a little. She wondered what her sisters were doing after work tonight. Bridget was usually all caught up in her fiancé these days, but that still left Kari.
Maybe she’d give Kari a call—after she called Thomas to ask him to look into her new partner’s background. She’d feel a lot better if she knew the kind of person she would be working with. Hotshots and redhot investigators tended to come across the same way sometimes. It would be good to have a second opinion on what, exactly, she had on her hands here.
“Well, was I?” Abilene pressed.
Kendra blinked, then realized that she’d lost the thread of the conversation. She needed to ask for clarification—and that annoyed her.
“Were you what?” she asked, sparing him a quick glance as she eased the car to a stop at a red light.
Abilene suppressed an impatient sigh. “Was I supposed to clear it with you first before I asked the actor any questions?” This time, there was an edge to his tone.
That would be nice.
She knew the detective was being sarcastic. She supposed, in his place, she would have felt the same way.
Okay, so she was being testy. But that was because she didn’t like change and she didn’t like the fact that he had a way of looking at her that made her stomach muscles cramp up.
Kendra did her best to temper her own voice. “Of course not. I was just surprised to hear you asking questions, that’s all.”
Matt decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. Shrugging, he stood down and relaxed again. Maybe the woman wasn’t a class-A pain in the butt. She just came across like one. But maybe she had a reason to—one that he intended to find out, provided there was a reason.
“Look,” he said amicably, “there’s going to be a period of adjustment. I get that. If we’re going to make this work, then we need to get things out in the open.”
She was on her guard again. “What things?” she asked.
“Things that bother us about the other person.”
She could feel his eyes on her. It made her feel like squirming. So much for a truce. She would still hang on to the hope that this collaboration of theirs was only temporary.
Kendra