He smiled big at the windshield.“You aresointome.”
She whacked his arm again with her, “Shut up.”
But he caught her hand this time before she took it away andheld it against his thigh the rest of the way to the restaurant.
Eddie and Hank weren’t there yet, so they got a table,regrettably.He’d prefer a booth and to have her cornered in it, his thighpressed to hers and her close enough to touch.But they needed a table for thediscussion.Better and freer eyelines.
They got chips and salsa, their drinks.
But neither of them even opened a menu.
If you knew LD, you knew what you were going to order at LD.
The end.
Hank and Eddie showed, introductions were made, and itwasn’t only Dutch who noticed the intensity of interest they had in Georgie.
And it wasn’t about her being with Dutch.
Eddie, the more direct of the two, cut right to it.
“You’re a reporter.”
“I’m on vacation.”
“And you’re here because…?”Hank asked.
“Because she’s with me and she’shelpin’me out by using her sources,” Dutch answered.
His tone was undeniable, and these men were cops, neither ofthem even owned a bike, and the cloth they were cut from might be a differentcolor, but it was the same cloth.
So they read the tone, understood it, and that was the endof that.
Hank nor Eddie looked at the menu either before they allordered and then they didn’t waste any time with it.
“We both read through it before we came here and the KhalonStephens case stinks, man,” Eddie started it.
Dutch straightened in his chair.“Stinks how?”
“Fishy,” Hank said shortly.“From start to not-quite-end.”
“What do you mean?”Georgie asked.
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Eddie answered.
“How about the beginning,” Dutch suggested.
“Well, first, cops at the scene report, and pictures proveit, the resident of the duplex opposite the Stephens family had visibly beenbeaten.Bloody nose.Swelling.Contusions on face and arms.Like she’d beenheld by them and hard.There was also sign of a struggle in the room,” Eddiesaid.
“Or a fight,” Hank added.
Dutch knew that distinction meant something, but Hank leftit at that, and Eddie carried on.
“Bed had been slept in, but it does not appear there was astruggle there.The covers were thrown back like she got out.Not like she wasawakened in surprise by an intruder and was pulled out.”
Dutch glanced at Georgie.
Georgie gave him big eyes.
