Authors: Lynn Hightower

Satan’s Lambs (37 page)

Joel grimaced. “Not really. I got the impression Edgers was a screwup and they were glad to get him off their hands for a while. Their gain being ATF's loss.”

“What about the intern angle?”

Joel shrugged. “Guy's got a wife, one kid. I've talked to the wife. Intelligent, attractive â¦ down to earth. I liked her. She obviously didn't think Cory could have had anything to do with Cheryl Dunkirk's disappearance. She says he's a workaholic who never comes home and she doesn't think he'd have time to fool around.”

I rolled my eyes. “That's exactly the type that would get snarled up.”

“I know. I refrained from rubbing her nose in it. When she's ready to face it, she will. But I did establish that on the night Cheryl disappeared, Edgers wasn't home. And he didn't mention Dunkirk to her, or say a word about it until she brought it up. Evidently her mother called her to clue her in as soon as the story broke.”

“What an idiot. How could Edgers think she wouldn't find out?”

“âThink' seems to be the operative word. The complication is that it looks like the ATF has another case that this one crosses, I'm just not sure where. I don't know if it has something to do with Edgers or Cheryl, or if there's something more complex here than a love affair gone bad.”

“The family's viewpoint would support that.”

“We got our court order, so Edgers is going to have to donate some DNA. And the Commonwealth Attorney's office is kicking around the possibility of going before the grand jury, but right now that's just talk. They don't have enough to make a case. And now the ATF is doing an about-face, and asking me to lay off Edgers for a while.”

“Huh.” I noticed floating particles in my wineglass. No wonder Joel never liked to drink after me. True love only took you so far.

Joel refilled my glass. “Could be this guy's coming in from out of town just to make it abundantly clear that nobody is protecting anybody, and that the investigation is completely aboveboard. Which wouldn't be a bad idea.”

“But that's not what you think is up?”

“No.”

“Are you okay with it?”

“Assuming I have a choice?” Joel sorted through his noodles, found a piece of chicken and put it in his mouth. “I'm not going to bring my investigation to a standstill, but I'll cooperate when I can.”

“Spoken like a guy who grew up in the Watergate years.”

Joel's lips tugged to one side. I had amused him.

He caught my eye, and raised one brow. There is something very sexy about the way he does this, and I know exactly what he is thinking. He took my chopsticks and the Pad Thai cartons, moved the wineglasses out of range, and deposited Maynard in front of the fireplace. Then he smiled and settled close beside me on the blanket.

“And how are you?” he asked. He put his arms around me, and kissed me. His tongue tasted like wine.

“I missed you today.”

Joel moved a hand up under my black sweatshirt. “I missed you, too.”

With a quick flick of his wrist, Joel executed the singularly male maneuver that disengages a bra in the space of a second.

He kissed my ear. “That's better, isn't it?”

“Um-hmm.”

“And this?”

“Yes.”

“How about that?” He was smiling, watching my face. “Better without the clothes, don't you think?”

I did, but I was too breathless to say so.

“Let me help you with that.”

Joel has a way of getting a woman out of a pair of tight jeans that is impressive unless I dwell on how this method was developed. I was cold without my sweatshirt and blue jeans, and he pulled the blanket up around my shoulders. I noticed the firelight reflected in the wood floors, the living room dark save the flicker of flame. It was as simple as that, a certain man pulling a blanket up over my shoulders because he worried that I was cold. Happiness, I mean.

Joel held me close to his chest, running his fingers up and down the inside of my thighs, kissing the side of my neck, sucking my lower lip into his mouth. I closed my eyes and relaxed against him and was acutely aware when his muscles tensed, and he went very still. I opened my eyes. Joel's face was a fingertip away from mine and he was looking at me in a way that was more speculative than loverlike.

“What?” I asked him.

“What you just said, a little while ago. When we were talking about the possibility that Cheryl's murder has something more to it than an intern being seduced and discarded. You said the family viewpoint would support that angle.”

He settled away from me, lying on his side. I pulled back from him, propped myself against the wall and wadded my sweatshirt onto my lap.

“Yeah, that's what I said. I've spoken to Paul Brady and saw his daughter, Miranda, today. They want to finance their own investigation. I think the main point is to ease their mind, so that they know they did everything they could. Get an independent opinion about what happened to Cheryl.”

“And you turned them down.” Joel was so still as he watched, as if my decision answered a question he didn't want to ask.

“I took the case.”

He looked away from me and exhaled sharply. Then he stood up and reached for his pants and shirt, dressing methodically, wordlessly.

“I'll sleep at home tonight,” he said.

“Does that mean here or the loft?”

“The loft.”

He was just as aware as I was that a new bed had been delivered and assembled yesterday afternoon, and that we had planned to sleep in it for the first time tonight.

“You don't want to discuss this?” I asked him.

He glanced down at me, hands working deftly to knot his tie. “If you'd wanted to talk about it, I assume you'd have brought it up before you took the case.”

“Joelâ”

“Have you accepted a fee?”

“A retainer. Yes.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five hundred.”

“I hope it's worth it.”

Joel never got angry with meâeven when I got angry with him. His calmness diffused things between us; kept us running on an even keel. I'd never understood how he could be so even tempered and gentle with me. I'd even wondered if it meant he was emotionally lazy or something ridiculous like that. Leave it to me to make a good thing questionable.

But he was angry now.

“So what, Joel, you're just going to leave?”

He started picking up the boxes of Pad Thai, gathering up the two wineglasses.

“Stop cleaning up, dammit, and talk to me.”

Joel paused, but did not look at me. He set the glasses and garbage down very gently on the floor and headed toward the door.

“If you're going to go to the trouble of putting your tie back on for the drive home, why don't you tighten it up a little and choke yourself with it?”

Joel closed the front door and made a point to turn the key in the lock.

I could not believe he was going to walk out like this, and my hands were shaking, my stomach full of butterflies. I didn't mind arguing things out, but I can't stand it when a man walks off and won't deal with things. I hate uncertainty. I want confrontation and closure.

I grabbed the front door and twisted the doorknob. “I don't need you to lock me in, Joel. If you're leaving, just go.”

I knew he was standing right outside the door.
Come in here
, I thought.
Come back and talk to me
.

“I'm tired, Lena. I need to go home and get some sleep.”

“Fine then, go.”

I heard footsteps on the sidewalk, a car engine catch, the grind of tires on the drive.

Would he really be able to sleep? Could he just set this aside and go on with his routine, because I knew that I'd spend the next ten hours agonizing and punching my pillow.

At least now I knew what made him mad.

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Acknowledgments

I am always grateful and surprised by the generosity of people who will share their time and expertise with writers.

My thanks to the multitalented Matt Bialer, a gifted photographer, as well as the world's best agent and my particular friend.

And to my friend and editor, Peter Rubie, whose insight and flashes of brilliance helped make this a stronger book. I'm glad we didn't kill each other.

To my good friends Jim and Becky Lyon, who answered my endless questions on criminal law, the legal system, and various matters of plotâusually while cooking me dinner and entertaining me with bagpipes. And most especially to Jim, who prepares me for the real world by disagreeing with everything I say.

Also to attorneys Jeff Darling and Sharon Hilborn of the legal firm Lyon Golibersuch & Darling, and to Lexington attorney C. Wayne Shepherd.

My thanks to Ron Balcom, of Balcom Investigative Services, for generously inviting me to his office and letting me bombard him with questions.

To Captain Dick Owen for advice and answered questions, and to Officer T. Jay Wilson, for letting me ride along, answering my questions, and sharing insights, even though I fell asleep during a suspected B&E.

About the Author

Lynn Hightower grew up in the South and graduated from the University of Kentucky, where she studied creative writing with Wendell Berry and earned a journalism degree. She is the author of ten novels, including two mystery series, one featuring homicide detective Sonora Blair and the other featuring private investigator Lena Padget.
Flashpoint
, the first Sonora Blair mystery, was a New York Times Notable Book.
Satan's Lambs
, the first Lena Padget mystery, won the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. Hightower has also written the Elaki series of futuristic police procedurals, which begins with
Alien Blues
.

Hightower's novels, which have been translated into seven foreign languages, have appeared on the
Times
(London) bestseller list and have been nominated for the Kentucky Literary Award, the Kentucky Librarians First Choice Award, and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, where she was named Creative Writing Instructor of the Year in 2012. The author lives with her husband in Kentucky.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Andrea Worthington

ISBN: 978-1-5040-3751-8

This edition published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

180 Maiden Lane

New York, NY 10038

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