Hold on to Me by Linda Winfree Page B

blinked at him, her expression like someone waking from a wonderful dream to a bleak winter morning. He looked away and returned to his chair.
    “What did you need?” He leaned over and cut off the CD player, stopping the rain and thunder and music. “How did your interviews go?”
    She shrugged. “Just confirmation that Amy led a double life. According to her roommate, she was dating an older man, someone she didn’t want her parents to know about. So much so that she wouldn’t even divulge his name to her friends. Laurie, the roommate, said this seemed to be the first relationship where Amy wasn’t the one in control. Whoever he was, she’d had to work to get him, and she was working to keep him.”
    He crossed his arms over his chest. “So if he’s the killer, maybe she knew that, was using the knowledge to hold on to him.”
    Her mouth tightened a moment before her expression smoothed over. “Anything’s possible. Could be a motive. So either she was dating your killer or she’s not related to the other victims, and the similarities between her death and theirs are coincidental.”
    Frustration dug in with fierce claws. “So we’re not any further along than we were. There are just more avenues to follow.”
    “I never figured you for a quitter, Calvert.” A mocking light glinted in her eyes. “Throwing in the towel before we even get started?”
    The frustration flashed into fury. She was calling him a quitter? Like hell. Calverts didn’t give up before the job was done. He bit his tongue to keep an angry retort from spilling forth. Like reminding her that she’d given up on them before they’d even started.
    Kinda like you did, Lamar Eugene?
    He inhaled sharply. He had quit. Hurt and confused, he’d let her push him away and he’d gotten on that plane back to Georgia, sought sanctuary in the familiarity of home.
    Damn it, but he was a fool.
    Releasing the breath slowly, he relaxed his frown. She still watched him, one eyebrow lifted in silent challenge.
    “I’m not quitting, Falconetti.” Not on this case and not on you, either.
    “Good. So which of those avenues do you want to travel next?” Her smile faltered. “Or do you have another budget meeting?”
    “No, thank God.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, the nicotine urge winding its way around him again. He reached for a peppermint instead and offered her one. She shook her head. He tucked the mint into his cheek to speak. “Where would you go next?”
    She pushed her hair back, feathering the strands between her fingers. “I’d like to see where Sharon and Amy’s cars were discovered. Visiting Vontressa King’s apartment could be helpful as well.”
    The idea of touring possible crime scenes with her wasn’t supposed to give him a thrill, but it did. The more time spent in her presence meant more chances to convince her to let him back into her life, get to the bottom of what had gone wrong between them. He reached for his keys, lying atop his cigarettes on the desk.
    “Let’s do the apartment first.”
    “Great. I’ll grab my things.”
    He followed her to the war room, enjoying the trim fit of her black pinstriped slacks over her taut rear end. Awareness hummed under his skin. Suppressing it, he looked at the neat stacks of files and papers on the table. “You’ve been busy.”
    Tucking her notebook into her small leather bag, she shook her head. “I’ve been hanging out with Schaefer, doing interviews. Cook’s been busy. He’s compiling a database and doing a good job of it, too.”
    Tick lifted a paper from the closest pile, skimming the list of Vontressa King’s friends. “Yeah. He can be really methodical when he’s not being a major pain in my ass.”
    “According to a couple of Amy’s friends, he’s a really fun date, too. Are all of his girlfriends that young?”
    “He doesn’t date any of them long enough to call them girlfriends.”
    “Apparently, neither do you. Your name came up in a couple of