Bulletproof Hearts

“Do you?” she asked. “Learn to live with them, I mean?”

“There’s nothing else you can do,” he told her. What he wanted to do was to offer comfort and understanding. He knew how hard it was to face the darkness alone, and he wished he could spare her that.

Objectivity, he reminded himself, and took a mental step back.

“All right. Let’s get through your questions.”

He pulled the chair from behind the desk and straddled it, facing her. “What time did you receive the phone call?”

“Twelve-twenty.”

“You’re sure about that?”

She nodded. “I’d fallen asleep. The first thing I did when I heard the phone ringing was look at the clock.”

“Did the caller identify himself?”

“Didn’t we cover all this already?”

“I want to go over it again, to make sure we haven’t missed anything.”

She sighed.

“Did the caller identify himself?” he asked again.

“Not right away.”

“But he did give you his name?” Dylan prompted.

She paused, frowning. “No.”

“Then why did you assume it was Roger Merrick?”

“Because he talked about making a deal, and when I said he should talk to his lawyer, he said Hawkins couldn’t help him. I guessed his identity, and when I called him by name, he didn’t deny it.”

“But he didn’t confirm it, either.”

Her frown deepened. “No.”

“How did you know where to find him?”

“He gave me the address and I scribbled it down while I was on the phone with him.” She rose and moved toward the desk, her knee brushing against his thigh. Silk against denim, yet the brief contact sparked like flint on steel.

She froze, her wary gaze locking with his for just a second. But in that brief moment of connection, he saw it in her eyes: awareness, attraction. Then she turned away, rustled through her briefcase.

Dylan had to remind himself to breathe, to remember the purpose for his visit. He was here to do his job—it was his only hope of getting justice for Beth.

She handed him a single page with the hotel insignia at the top. He gave it only a cursory glance.

“That’s the address he gave me,” she told him.

“The address the caller gave you,” he amended.

“That’s what I said.” She picked up her glass again, her fingers trembling slightly. Was she shaken by their brief contact—or was her nervousness a result of the topic of their conversation?

It didn’t matter—he was here to investigate Merrick, not the A.D.A. The reminder didn’t cool his hormones, but it at least focused his thoughts. “What if I told you that Roger Merrick didn’t make that phone call?”

“But—but I spoke to him.”

“Had you ever spoken to him before?”

Natalie shook her head. “Why would I?”

He ignored her question to ask another of his own. “How long did it take you to get to Merrick’s apartment after you left here?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t remember.”

“Approximately?”

She shrugged. “Twenty minutes. Maybe half an hour.”

He’d followed the route earlier that evening. It had taken twenty-two minutes to drive from the hotel parking lot to the front door of Merrick’s apartment building.

“Did you leave your room as soon as you got off the phone?”

“No.” She studied the contents of her glass rather than meeting his gaze. “I tried calling you first. And when I didn’t get an answer…”

She hesitated, and he thought he saw a touch of color rise in her cheeks.

“When I stopped to think about it, I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of driving across town at that time of night on my own,” she admitted. “It took me a few minutes to talk myself into it.”

The embarrassment, the hint of vulnerability, made him want to reach out to her, to offer comfort and reassurance. But he wasn’t her friend, he was a cop—and he needed to act like a cop. “A few minutes—five? Ten?”

“Maybe ten.”

“Which would put you at his apartment by one o’clock?”

“I guess so.”

He nodded. He’d been paged about fifteen minutes later, which corroborated her version of events. Almost.

He folded his arms over the back of the chair, his eyes locked on her. “I just don’t understand why Merrick would ask you to meet him on the other side of town if he was already here.”

Natalie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“We checked the hotel’s phone records,” he told her.

“And?”

“The call that came into this room was made from one of the courtesy phones in the lobby.”

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