Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 574(@200wpm)___ 459(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Moran gave him the impression she was a straight arrow, but this woman could lure a man to stray.
Though, Bohannan called her Cin too. That said, it was Rus’s understanding he’d only been with Delphine Larue for a short time but had been living in Misted Pines for years. He could see how Bohannan might have earned the honor of using her shortened name too.
She swung the hand he’d let go to the chairs. “Please sit.”
He moved to do so.
She walked back behind the desk, offering, “Can I get you something to drink? Water? A soda? Coffee?”
He hadn’t had anything since breakfast on the plane. He could use a sandwich. A beverage would just remind him he needed to eat.
“No, thanks,” he answered, and then, for both their sakes, he dove in. “It’s my understanding Polly spoke to you about what’s happened.”
Her amber eyes closed slightly, the movement and the thick line of her false eyelashes hiding her response from him.
But the tone of her voice was holding nothing back.
“Brittanie,” she said softly.
“It’s been explained she worked for you.”
She nodded. “She was a dancer. In the chorus.”
At this point, she put a hand on the manila folders and slid them across the desk his way.
And again, what happened was unexpected.
“The top is for you to take with you,” she said. “It’s Britt’s schedule for the last two months. Her cell phone number and address. The name and phone number of her emergency contact, Keyleigh, another of my dancers. They were roommates, but Keyleigh moved in with her boyfriend about two months ago. Britt stayed in their old apartment. I’ve added a list of any boyfriends that she spoke to me about, friends she had outside of the club, and names of all my staff, in order of those who she was closest to who knew her the best. If you like, I’ll arrange for you to interview them here in this office when you’re ready. The bottom folder is her personnel file. I don’t mind if you take photos, but if you’d please read it here and leave it here. I’m not comfortable with you taking it.”
The first part saved time, because it was all questions he’d ask and information he’d request.
The second he was shocked about, because often, to cover their own ass, an employer demanded a warrant.
“You’re being helpful,” he noted with careful nonchalance.
And again, the amber of her eyes became slits as they narrowed, but this time her reaction wasn’t hidden.
She was peeved because she was insulted.
“One of my girls was murdered. You’re here to find who did that to her. I don’t have the skills to do what you do, or I’d be doing that. Instead, I can give you everything I have that might help.” She dipped her head to the folders. “So I’ve done that.”
“It’s appreciated,” he murmured.
Her voice was as narrow as her gaze when she replied, “I don’t want you to appreciate it, I want you to find who killed Britt.”
Yes.
Insulted.
But more.
She cared about Brittanie.
“Can I ask a few questions about Brittanie?”
She didn’t answer verbally. She sat back in her chair, crossing her arms in front of her, not taking her eyes from him, but her expression told him that was perhaps the stupidest question she’d ever heard.
For the first time since he got the call that another victim had been discovered, he felt like smiling.
He didn’t do that.
He shifted the top folder aside, tapped the personnel file and said, “Tell me what’s not in here.”
No hesitation, she launched in.
“Brittanie’s mother wanted to work for my mother. She was a terrible dancer and an even worse person. And when I say she was a terrible dancer, she was dire. So that explains what kind of person Melanie Iverson is. However, all her life she wanted to work at Bon Amie. Because of this, I think the driving force of Brittanie’s life was to do what her mother could not, not so she’d live the dream for her mother, but to put it right in her face that she could do what her mother couldn’t.”
“You’re saying they aren’t close.”
“I’m saying Britt hated the woman, but then most people who meet her do,” she said coolly.
“Is she close with her brother?”
Her lip curled and she didn’t bother to hide it.
“Dakota is his father, so no.”
He nodded in understanding. “I’ve been given some insight into the family by Sheriff Moran.”
“I bet you have,” she murmured.
“Can you explain that remark?”
Her focus sharpened on him and he knew why.
The inference could be made he knew why she knew what Moran knew, and how she came about knowing it.
Pillow talk.
And Rus couldn’t say that with his quick retort, he hadn’t injected that inference when he asked the question.
It was because he wanted to know if she was sleeping with, or had in the past slept with the sheriff.