“Don’t let us keep you,” Cash replied in a tone that sounded as icy as his expression looked.
“Yes. We’d better go.” Carson moved to the door and opened it.
“Nice to have met you, Chief Grier,” Lanette purred. “If you ever want a competent secretary, I might be persuaded to come out of retirement. I used to work for a law firm. And I know how to file.”
Cash didn’t reply.
“Lanette,” Carson said shortly.
“I’m coming.” She smiled again at Cash. “Bye now.” She didn’t even look at Carlie.
She went to the door and through it. Carlie didn’t look up from her computer screen. She hoped she wasn’t going to bite through her tongue. Only when she heard the door close did she lift her eyes again and looked through the window.
Carson was striding along beside the blonde and not with his usual smooth gait. He was almost stomping toward his black sedan.
Carlie started coughing and almost couldn’t stop.
“You okay?” Cash asked with concern.
“Got...choked on the air, I guess,” she laughed. She could barely stop. “Gosh, do you think she bathes in that perfume?”
“Go outside and take a break. I’ll turn the AC on for a few minutes to clear the room,” Cash said abruptly. “Go on.”
She wasn’t about to go out front and risk running into Carson and his beautiful companion. “I’ll just step out back,” she managed, still coughing.
She got outside and leaned against the door, dragging in deep breaths until she was able to get her breath again. There must be something in that perfume that she was allergic to. Although, come to think of it, she’d almost choked sitting next to a woman in church the week before who’d been wearing a musky sort of perfume. She’d learned long ago that she could only manage the lightest of floral colognes, and not very often. Funny, her lungs giving her so much trouble over scent, and she didn’t even smoke.
She went back inside after a couple of minutes. Cash was talking to two patrolmen who’d stopped by with a legal question about a traffic stop.
She went back to her desk and sat down.
“You should see your doctor,” Cash said when the patrolmen went out.
She raised both eyebrows. “He’s married.”
He burst out laughing. “That’s not what I meant, Carlie. I think you had a reaction to Ms. Harris’s perfume.”
“Too much perfume bothers me sometimes, it’s just allergies.” She shrugged. “I have a problem with pollen, too.”
“Okay. If you say so.”
“I’ll get the files in better order,” she offered.
“Don’t let some outsider’s comment worry you,” he said curtly. “Women like that one tear holes in everything they touch.”
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