Deadly Reunion

Her words were like a gut punch. Boone turned away from her and scanned the trees and road, determined to focus on watching out for threats. But one thought lingered on his mind like fire licking at a log—he no longer mattered to her.

“So I don’t need you to watch my back any longer.”

“I think you do.” She had tunnel vision where Detry was concerned and would never accept that he was innocent, and she could still be in danger from sources unknown. Not good. She needed him and couldn’t even see it. Or refused to, because he’d hurt her.

Whatever she said, he wasn’t leaving her there alone. He was finally there for her, one hundred percent there, but he feared it was too late.

“Don’t risk your life just because you’re angry with me,” he said. “I think someone else wrote the note for some other reason, and you’re still in immediate danger—maybe more than you think.”

“You’re wrong,” she said, her eyes flashing furiously.

“I am?”

“You’ve been wrong before.”

In court, about her, she meant. Boone knew she was right. He considered apologizing, not for choosing to defend his client over her, but for thinking there were no other possibilities for the evidence having disappeared beyond her being negligent.

That the gun could have been purposely hidden had never occurred to him. Cliff Haggis, the first responder the night of the murder from the small, understaffed, Copper City PD, was a decorated, well-respected police detective. He’d testified he had not seen the weapon Angie had described. Likewise, there was no reason to believe the crime-scene investigation team, called in from nearby Cincinnati, would have any reason to thwart the murder investigation. The only possibility he’d come up with was that Angie had somehow missed the real perp inside the mansion, who had taken the weapon at some point and fled unnoticed before the rest had shown up.

He’d played the case the way he needed to in order to free an innocent man, and he couldn’t apologize for that.

“Okay, so I was wrong—once,” he admitted. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong now. Making faulty assumptions about someone’s guilt could get you killed.”

“There’s steam coming out of my ears, Boone.”

As determined as she was not to listen to him, he was just as determined to protect her. “How about if I keep my opinions to myself and tag along with you anyway?” he asked.

“Why would you want to?”

Boone considered his answer carefully. Because he owed her. Because he thought she was wrong about the threat to her life and didn’t want her to be dead wrong. Because…

“Because I missed you.”

Her cheeks flushed pink. “Quit saying that!”

He shrugged. “Can’t help it.”

“And don’t be charming.”

“Me? I don’t know the meaning of the word.” He grinned, because he was getting through to her. He could tell. “I’m just trying to make you happy.”

Angie, exasperated, waved her hand in the air. “Never mind. Tag along if you want to, while I dig up the gun, but don’t talk to me.”

“Even if I see danger?”

“You’re causing me to have premature aging lines,” she told him.

“See? Even when I’m the exact way you want me to be, you’re not happy.”

He might be right about that, and what did that say about her?

“I’m not talking to you anymore.” Leaving Boone behind, Angie walked up the concrete sidewalk to the cottage, where she rapped once on the door to announce her arrival and entered.

A woman in her late sixties with frosted, dark blond hair and weathered skin sat behind the desk inside reading a bestseller Angie recognized based on a real serial killer. In a cemetery. Gutsy.

The woman met her eyes with some emotion in hers that came and went quickly, spooking Angie. Then her face took on a world-weariness that held a hint of amusement.

“Took you long enough to get in here,” the woman said, laying her novel carefully on the side of her desk and joining Angie at the counter. “I watched you two for a while, but then I got bored. Too much conflict, not enough resolution.”

Uncanny how that about nailed down her entire life, Angie thought.

“You and that fella married?”

“No,” Angie said firmly, ignoring the giant moth trying to take off in the pit of her stomach. “Never.”

“Good thing. You’d be a divorce waiting to happen.”

Wow, if outsiders could tell, she’d done the right thing disengaging herself from Boone. Or trying to, anyway. The door shut behind her and she sensed Boone right back at her side. Close. Very close.

She elbowed him. It was like hitting concrete. He backed off, and she turned her attention to the cemetery’s caretaker. The nameplate on the front counter said she was Ida Zlotsky.

“Ida, I have a problem.” Leaving out as much information as she could, Angie explained who she was and what she wanted to do, including the part about digging up possible evidence. Ida gazed unabashedly at Boone the whole time. Angie wondered if she’d even listened, but then Ida spoke without looking at her.

“Whose grave?”

“Laurie Detry’s.”

With a hard blink, Ida turned her attention from Boone to her—another strange reaction, Angie thought. But since the woman wasn’t saying no, she didn’t challenge her on it, just presented her ID and badge.

Ida checked both with half an eye, then returned her attention to Boone. “He a cop, too?” she asked with a wide smile at him.

“No,” Angie and Boone both said together, only Boone’s “no” sounded more like “no way, never.” Angie gave him a long-suffering look and put her identification away in her bag.

“That was too quick,” Ida said. “What, is he undercover or something? A rogue cop? ’Cause you look just like that rogue cop on that forensics show a couple seasons ago, the one who got killed—”

The very thought of Boone dying hit too close to home and made Angie cringe. Apparently some part of her wasn’t that mad at him. Go figure.

“I’m a criminal-defense lawyer,” Boone said. “I’m here to keep her out of jail.”

Angie thrust her thumb backward toward Boone. “And I’m pretending he’s not here.”

Ida’s pale green eyes lit up. Good thing someone was finding the whole situation funny, Angie thought, because she was nearing the edge of her patience.

“Now, Ida, have you noticed anything happening around here lately you might consider weird?”

“Yeah.” Ida nodded seriously. “You two.”

“You walked right into that one, Angie.” Boone chuckled.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Angie said to the woman. She threw a steely-eyed, “please be quiet” expression over her shoulder at Boone, then turned back to the caretaker. “So would it be all right if we looked for that evidence at the gravesite?”

Ida pushed back wayward bangs from her eyes and grinned from ear to ear. “Have at it. I’ll even look it up on our map and save you the trouble of finding it.”

“Excellent.”

“As long as I can watch what you’re doing.”

Angie sighed. This was just not her day. Not her week. If her sister’s life wasn’t hanging by a thread, she would cash in her metal detector and go home. “It’s police business,” she said, trying to dissuade the clerk and hoping the woman didn’t decide to call the precinct. “Could be dangerous.”

“Honey, I used to work in a biker bar. I can handle danger.”

“I might need Ida’s help,” Boone said. Angie shot him with her eyes, but he chose not to shut up. “She probably has self-defense tricks up her sleeve I never thought of.”

“You betcha,” Ida said, winking at him. “Honey, if you don’t want this eye magnet, I’d like a crack at him.”

“Have at it,” Angie said, rolling her eyes at Boone’s grin. Ida didn’t notice—she was too busy gazing at Boone.

“You sure you’re a lawyer?” she asked him. “’Cause I think you look like one of those handsome mobsters in the movies.”

Lawyer or mobster? Too good to resist, even considering she had taken a vow of silence where Boone was concerned. Turning, Angie opened her mouth, but Boone’s fingers suddenly covered her lips to shush her.

“Don’t even start,” he warned, his dark eyebrows slanting.

She couldn’t speak anyway. The last thing she’d expected was his touching her—or the joy flooding her from the contact.

She stared up at him, confused, and to her amazement, he looked just as startled as she did. But she wasn’t the reason. Turning, she followed his gaze.

Ida stood there, holding a gun in her hand.

Splitting apart to opposite sides of the room like they had been working together for years, Angie and Boone simultaneously drew their own weapons, ready for a stand-off.