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)
This wasn’t important for him to know, exactly.
But it put him at a disadvantage not knowing it.
It was a small town and the personalities in it were going to be intertwined. He didn’t have ten years to untangle that mess, but messes like that always had some bearing on small-town crime.
He had no idea if he, in Moran’s position, colleague to colleague, would admit to having had an intimate relationship with a victim’s employer.
Then again, he married at nineteen and never considered stepping out on his wife, so it wasn’t something he’d ever have to consider.
He couldn’t deny he’d also made this inference simply because he wanted to know.
This was because, complicating matters, at least for him, he wanted to sleep with Lucinda Bonner.
No, he couldn’t deny that, even to himself.
“Everyone knows about the Iversons, Agent Lazarus,” she said. “And just so you won’t put your foot in that stinking pile again, you should know Harry’s wife died some time ago. They’d been married a year when it happened. And the reason he still wears her ring tells you all about the devotion he had to the woman who slid it on his finger.”
He thought of the pretty, smiling woman in the picture on Moran’s credenza.
Fucking hell.
Poor Moran.
Right.
Next.
“What else do I need to know about Brittanie?”
Lucinda let it go without hesitation.
“She didn’t want to be like her mother, but in some ways, she was. She called in sick often. It got to the point of a written warning. It was the only way I could put a stop to it.”
This, he could learn in her personnel file.
Lucinda kept talking.
“She wasn’t very smart about money, and she’d sometimes ask to wait the floor on nights she wasn’t performing. She’d get in trouble when it was time to pay rent, but she had a new Louis Vuitton bag. That kind of thing.”
This was important.
He could imagine someone who wanted a life that included designer bags finding ways to get them that might lead her to trouble.
Though, if she found that trouble, it’s unlikely that person would rape her, sodomize her and cave her skull in. It’s hard to pay back a loan or work it off when you’re dead.
However, that didn’t rule out the possibility by what means she might work off a loan would put her in a position she’d be left in a hotel room by a copycat murderer.
“I have a no fraternization policy,” Lucinda carried on. “And she consistently fraternized. She got a verbal about that as well. This was an issue for her. She had a small cadre of friends because she tended to try to steal boyfriends, and sometimes succeeded. All she knew in her life was drama, and she didn’t understand how to live without it. So she created it in order to find her safe space, not comprehending it wasn’t actually safe.”
“It’s my understanding she dated Cade Bohannan’s son.”
She perked up. “Has Cade waded into this?”
“I wish I could share with you, Ms. Bonner, but in terms of how we investigate, I can’t.”
She let that go immediately too.
“Yes, she dated Jace. I was pleased when they started going out. He’s young, but he’s also his father’s son, so he’s a good man, he knows what he wants, and what he doesn’t. Sadly, he didn’t want drama, and it didn’t last.”
“You cared about her.”
She uncrossed her arms, set her hand on the desk and drummed fingers that were tipped in nails that weren’t long, nor were they short. But they were perfectly symmetrical, squared off and painted a soft beige.
Enough to dig into your skin, not enough to tear it.
Unless she lost control.
He took his mind off her nails by looking at her face, which of course made him think about her nails sinking into his skin if he made her lose control.
She was staring at the bare corner of the desk when she said quietly, “She was a talented dancer. And she was a good kid. She wasn’t brought up right, but she listened, and sometimes she learned. She was very funny and very full of life. People she cared about, she’d do anything for them if it was within her power.” Lucinda lifted her gaze to his. “I liked her. I don’t take all my girls under my wing because most of them don’t need it. But Brittanie was different.”
Lucinda Bonner wasn’t as old as he was, he’d put her at thirty-five, tops, so she was nowhere near old enough to be Brittanie Iverson’s mother.
But that feeling was there. Her eyes glowed with something deeper.
I don’t have the skills to do what you do, or I’d be doing that.
“Did taking Brittanie under your wing pass beyond Bon Amie?” he asked.
She shook her head, the movement melancholy, like she wished she had.
“I didn’t let her waitress when she needed money because I didn’t need an exhausted girl dragging on the chorus line. Also because she needed to learn how to manage her money. We had conversations. We had moments. And with Britt, there were more of those than any others, past or present. But all within these walls. As much as my girls matter to me, all my staff matters to me, boundaries are essential. If I didn’t set them, I’d have a revolving door of broken hearts, girl fights, loan requests and my couch would never be empty.”