“I don’t know.” Mark shook his head. “This seems like something you should let the police handle.” He walked over to the window and paused to stare out at the people walking past on the sidewalk.
Mark turned to face her. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, April, but I need this to be over. I’d appreciate it if you would help me make that happen.”
It wasn’t an outrageous request. The man was running for reelection. Still, her instincts went on alert. “You want me to say I killed David?”
“From what I’ve seen on the news, there’s every chance you did.”
“I don’t think that’s what happened. What if I can’t just go along with the story people want to believe?”
His mouth thinned, disapproval clear on his face. “Then you might find yourself looking for a job. I wouldn’t want that to happen. I have a great deal of respect for you. But I have a lot of people depending on me. This sort of thing could jeopardize the outcome of the election. It could jeopardize their futures as well as mine.”
She clenched her back teeth together to keep from arguing. Mark was her employer. She would be working for him after he was reelected. She liked her job. Perhaps she could find a way to keep it.
She pasted on a smile. “Maybe you’re right. I’ll give it some time, think things over. I’ll see you at the fund-raiser.”
“All right. In the meantime, why don’t you take a few more days off. After what you’ve been through, you deserve a little time to yourself.”
Maybe she did. Or maybe Mark just didn’t want her nosing around the office, looking for clues as to who might have wanted David dead.
“Thanks, Mark. Have a good day.”
April left the office and headed for home, her mind going over the conversation she’d just had. No way was she letting Mark Rydell threaten her. Why had he? Was he really just worried about his campaign? Or was his motive more sinister? Was there a chance he was involved in David’s murder?
As soon as she got home, she was going to get on the computer and do some digging. See if she could find a connection between David Dean and Mark Rydell that went beyond mayor and campaign manager.
When she saw Jonah tonight, she would tell him about the encounter, see what he had to say.
As she walked into the living room of her town house, she felt a thrill of anticipation at the thought of seeing him at the Derby.
Jonah was smart and, from what she could tell, extremely capable. Beyond that, he was the sexiest man she had met in years.
Until now, her taste had never run toward a guy who looked more like a biker than a businessman, but she couldn’t deny the attraction. When Jonah walked into a room and looked at her with those dark, brooding eyes, she could almost feel the heat sparking between them.
She wasn’t a fool. She knew when a man was interested. Unfortunately, a guy who looked like Wolfe attracted legions of women. She had no interest in a man who probably slept with a different woman every night. If she gave in to the attraction she felt for him, she could be letting herself in for trouble.
Fortunately, Jonah was a professional. Until the case was resolved, nothing was going to happen. She was off-limits—at least for the time being.
April sighed as she sat down at her computer to start her research. She had work to do, but the anticipation remained. She was meeting Jonah tonight at the Derby. She couldn’t act on the attraction she felt for him, but there was no reason she couldn’t enjoy herself.
AFTERHELEFTthe café, Jonah returned to the Max for a while. He spent an hour digging around on his computer but came up with nothing new.
It was time to bring in the big guns so he phoned ahead, then climbed into his black Range Rover and headed for Tabitha Love’s old brick house in Richardson not far from the university.
As he walked up the cement path to the porch, the door swung wide and a tall young woman stood in the opening. She had very short black hair, shaved on the sides and moussed on top, a little silver hoop in one of her sleek black eyebrows and a row of hoops down the side of each ear.
She also had a tongue stud and a nose ring. She looked like a woman who should have an unusual name like Tabitha Love.
“Wolfe! Come on in.”
As he walked past her into the living room, he bent and brushed a light kiss on her cheek. “How’s it going, Tab?” She was pretty but far from his type. Lucky for him, she had no interest in him, either.
Tabby had a geeky boyfriend named Lester Lewis she was crazy about, plus she wasn’t that fond of cops—even theex-variety.
Still, they were friends.
She led him through a living room cobbled together in a sort of dark wood shabby chic, with bookshelves and end tables she had purchased from a thrift store. Brown shag carpet covered the floor.
“When you called to say you were coming out, you mentioned this had something to do with the murder of the mayor’s campaign manager,” she said, leading him down the hall into a bedroom converted to an office that was wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling computers and high-tech equipment.
