Erin choked on a chuckle and Brady couldn’t ignore it. So he did the last thing she’d expect, he winked at her. The resulting flash of shock on her face was very satisfying. He turned back to the speakerphone and the mayor, who had missed the little exchange. “Very true, Commissioner,” he said. “So I don’t see why we should change what has always been an effective policy to date. I tell them nothing, they stew and dig harder, I tell them nothing, they fill their columns with wild speculation and false leads, then I solve the crime, it all comes out in the wash and we go on to the next public debacle.”
Erin crossed her legs the other way, costing him a split second in timing, but a crucial one as it gave her the opening she’d been waiting for. “Gentlemen, if I might intrude.” She turned that polished PR smile on him. He hated it, which for some strange reason, made him smile in return. That made her blink, even if only for a second.
Damn, but this was kind of fun. Fun in a very this-can’t-be-good-for-me way.
“Detective O’Keefe,” she said, the smile toned down now. Point for Brady. “I understand how pointless this may seem to you, but even you must admit that in an election year, something like this case can have far reaching consequences. This is no longer simply about solving a murder. It’s about protecting innocent people’s reputations and possibly their livelihoods.” She relaxed and exuded that “everything will be fine if you simply trust me” vibe. “I don’t have to know every gritty detail. I merely need a brief conference with you on how I want to handle this with the press. All I need from you are enough details to support my angle.”
“Your angle?”
Brady looked to the mayor, who had been watching them like someone at a tennis match. Henley seemed more than happy to allow Erin to handle things and didn’t use the moment to jump to Brady’s defense. Coward, Brady thought.
“There is a way to present the situation to the public,” she continued insistently, “even to feed their need for titillation, without compromising the innocent.”
Brady had to hide his smile when her last comment got a visible reaction from the mayor.
“Now, Ms. Mahoney,” he blustered, finally looking a little concerned, “I really don’t think—”
The confident smile returned. “Mayor Henley, we’ve been over this.” She leaned forward, oozing sincerity. “I know exactly what line to walk and how not to cross it.”
And Henley totally bought it. Brady swore under his breath, knowing he’d just lost this hand.
To her credit, she didn’t gloat. She turned to him and flipped open her Palm Pilot. With total businesslike mien, she looked at the small screen. “I can give you thirty minutes right now,” she said. As if he were the one demanding her time. Very clever.
Brady knew when to hold and when to fold. He also knew a new hand got dealt each round. So she’d won this one…it wasn’t as if she’d made a run on the house. Not yet, anyway.
He turned smoothly toward the mayor. “Can we use your conference room?”
The mayor didn’t bother to hide his relief. His mood was now as expansive as his smile. “By all means.” He waved them inside the long room that connected with his office. “I’ll have Teri come in with some coffee.”
“Thank you,” they said in unison.
Brady waited until the mayor’s secretary had come and gone, then took his time pouring his coffee. He even fixed Erin a mug. “Sugar?”
She eyed him warily now. “Black is fine.”
He slid the mug toward her and took a seat catty-corner to her at one end of the immense black table. With a relaxed smile that gave away none of what he was really feeling, he asked, “So, what is your angle?”
She leaned forward and pushed her mug aside. Folding her arms on the table, she looked him right in the eye. “Why don’t you tell me yours first?”
3
ERIN STUDIED Brady closely, but couldn’t tell what was going on behind those enigmatic eyes of his.
He shrugged, looking for all the world as if he couldn’t care less that the commissioner and mayor had basically just sold him down the river. “I don’t have an angle.”
“So just like that you’re going to give me everything I want?” Careful, Erin. Those eyes had flared, even if only a tiny fraction. At any other time she’d have jumped on that zap of electrical energy that had just shot between them. She would have worked it right up to the edge of professional acceptability. Meaning just enough to reduce her opponent to a quivering mass of hormones, but far shy of allowing him to believe it would ever lead to anything. Much less anything serious.
Now, fun and casual? That she might be up for. Just not with Brady. There was nothing fun or casual about Brady O’Keefe. Dangerous and unpredictable, that was Brady. She’d never encountered electricity of the type that seemed to flare up every time she came within ten feet of him.
But she didn’t lean back now. Because her job demanded she didn’t. And as long as she remembered she was here on a job, one that could push her small firm into the spotlight, she’d be fine.
When Brady didn’t respond to her challenge, she opted to take control of the meeting. Something she should have done last night. She cleared her throat and got to work. “I want to present this as a homicide. The brutal slaying of a well-known member of Philadelphia’s upper crust. We will focus on Sanderson’s numerous philanthropic contributions and what a loss his death will be to the underprivileged. We want to stir up outrage that such a worthy member of society has been taken from us. We want people demanding this obviously deranged killer be caught.”
“Erin—”
She talked over him. “I’m well aware that the media’s focus is going to be on the kinky sexual elements present at the scene of the murder.” She stopped and looked at him. “You have ruled this a homicide, am I correct?”
Brady stared at her for such a prolonged moment, she was certain he was going to balk, or get up and walk out. In the end, he did neither. But there was no electricity now. She wasn’t exactly relieved. Not a good sign.
“We’ll have the full report from the medical examiner later today,” he said finally. “But preliminary findings are edging toward heart attack.” He leaned back, but didn’t go so far as to smile smugly. Though she sensed he wanted to. “Not exactly the brutal slaying you are so anxious to depict.”
“So, he what then? Died of an overdose of sex? I mean, this is a murder investigation, isn’t it?”
“Right now we’re waiting to hear the final postmortem from Theo. Until then we treat it as a homicide. Once the results are in, we’ll rule whether there was foul play.” He looked her in the eye. “Or whether ol’ Morty preached hard-line morality to the people, while privately practicing something fairly…well, amoral, certainly by his own standards anyway.” He folded his arms. “You have an angle on how to play that possibility to the media?”
She swallowed a curse word and didn’t much like the taste. “Brady, if Sanderson is portrayed as some kind of sex pervert, there will be total chaos in the mayor’s political party while everyone tries to run and distance themselves from the guy. I’ve already got Henley’s campaign manager breathing down my neck over this.”
Brady shrugged. “Not really my problem. My problem is to determine if Morty died getting his satin-covered rocks off, or if someone helped him along a bit. But I’m here to tell you, your job isn’t going to be easy either way. Morty was not well liked. There are people who will come out of the woodwork to crucify him when they get wind of this.”
“Exactly,” Erin retorted. “Chaos. And with