trusting anyone involved to tell us the truth. Not even Pettigrew.”
“That leaves us high and dry. I couldn’t get that kind of political info from the MPD, much less Montgomery’s force.”
Harry stared at me. It was uncomfortable.
“You’ve been dating an investigative reporter for a year and don’t know how it’s done?”
“I don’t know what you’re suggesting.”
“We need a top-flight investigative type from the Montgomery area. A guy with deep connects on the political side, where everything happens.”
“I don’t know anyone like that, Harry.”
“You know someone who would.”
“Dammit, Harry, I can’t call Dani and ask her to…”
Harry went to the stereo and snapped off the speakers. The room filled with silence. He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
“She messed you over. She knows it. She’ll have the guilts and be vulnerable. Use it, Carson. She goddamn owes you.”
“You want me to call her? Just say…what? I’d like to come over, we need to talk?”
Harry’s voice got quiet.
“I’ve got a little experience in this area, bro. She wants to talk. She needs to talk. All you got to do is aim what she talks about.”
CHAPTER 30
I stood in the center of Dani’s living room and held her in my arms, looking over her shoulder. I had never seen so many flowers in a room where there wasn’t a corpse. Explosive bouquets in vases. Crystal tubes holding lone roses. Sprawling vats of carnations. Kincannon seemed to have some kind of flower fixation. I enjoy the scent of flowers, but her house reeked with the damn things.
I’d arrived five minutes earlier. We’d engaged in a tentative fashion, stilted Hello s and How you been s, broken sidelong glances, and finally, touching.
The full embrace with failing words.
Then, finding the words. The explanation.
She leaned back, her eyes red and wet and swollen, blond hair matted to a damp cheek.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Buck just happened. Buck and I dated several months before I’d met you, stopped. Then he came by last month, just to float the notion about my becoming an anchor. It started out as dinner.”
“But you fell into…old ways.”
She looked away. “Yes.”
“I was always working, Dani,” I said. “I wasn’t there for two months.”
I admit distraction. I admit stupidity. I had taken our relationship for granted for weeks. But I also knew she only had to grab my hair and tell me her feelings, and I would have changed the situation.
Or so I wanted to believe.
I said, “Are you serious about him? Kincannon? Is this relationship everything you want?”
Something changed. Her eyes turned to a dimension far away. She looked like she was stepping through a door with one chance to retreat before the door closed.
“Yes…,” she said, the word hissing away.
“Then everything will be for the best.”
She put her hands on my chest. Agitation shivered through her face.
“He’s very caring, Carson. He calls every hour at least. Look at all the flowers. He’s going to teach me to sail. I’ve never-”
I felt a rush of anger. “You don’t have to sell him to me, Dani. I don’t like Buck Kincannon. And I’m not going to change.”
She dropped her hands loose to her sides, stared at the scarlet carpet.
“Of course.”
She walked across the room. A realization came to her eyes.
“This is the last time you’ll ever be here, in this room. In my house.”
“Yep.”
She turned away, dropped her face into her hands. “What have I done, what have I done…”
I went to her, held her shoulders. She remained hunched over, tucked into herself.
“What have I done…”
“Dani? Are you sure you’re all right?”
She spun, took my face in her hands. “Oh God, Carson, I’m so sorry. For my stupidity. For everything. If there’s anything I can do…”
I pulled her close.
Be careful around Buck Kincannon, I could have said. Watch yourself. Clair Peltier thinks they’re dangerous, unstable, unhappy people capable of…
Instead, I put on a sad face and a bewildered voice and said, “I dunno, Dani, maybe there’s something on this you could help me with, just a name. It’d save me a week’s work…”
I left Dani sprawled on her couch, sobbing. Inconsolable. In the last few minutes she had fallen into a world where her grief was within some private internal domain. I took one last look at Dani’s home, knew my hours there were over. I stepped outside and pulled the door shut.
“Excuse me, who are you?” a voice said.
I turned to face Buck Kincannon striding up the steps. In the drive was an automobile that looked fresh from a wind tunnel. His cologne moved in advance of his body, something light, almost feminine. Kincannon wore a gray linen suit, blue shirt, lavender tie with a small hard knot. Not a wrinkle anywhere. I wore a coffee-stained thrift- store jacket over faded jeans, and was too many miles from my morning shower.
“I’m Carson Ryder.”
Neither of us made a move toward shaking hands. He nodded, made a show of waggling his forefinger at me, a remembrance.
“Right, I recognize you from the party. I liked the cowboy getup, something different, funny. You’re just leaving, right?”
The last line he delivered double entendre, the slight smirk at the corner of his lips saying, You’re history, loser. The bright teeth sparkled with innocence. I made no answer as we moved past one another in the disengagement dance. I was walking away, he was moving toward the door.
He paused, snapped his fingers.
“You’re a detective, aren’t you? I’ve heard a few things about you.”
He hit the word few, like I was a guy who stopped by every couple of weeks to mow the lawn.
“Really?” I said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He canted his head, grinned, raised an imperious eyebrow. It looked like a pose for a menswear catalogue.
“From the news?” he presumed.
“From Harry Nautilus.”
Kincannon pursed his lips. Shook his head. “Sorry. The name doesn’t ring a bell.”
He dismissed me with his back. Started to knock on the door. I said, “You worked with Harry Nautilus on a project a few years back, a sports venture.”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Bringing Tiger Woods to town for the Magnolia Open?”
“Putting together the little ball field up in Pritchard. The one for the poor-as-dirt kids.”
He froze before his knuckles knocked the door. Turned to face me. The glittering eyes had gone flat. I looked into frosted black marbles.
