Page 34 of Justice for Francesca

Skeletor came screaming across the room to land on Tripoli’s table. His squawks and trills let him know that the bird felt the man was monopolizing his best girl bird-friend. Smiling at the bird’s antics, he gave a piece of fruit to the scolding male. “I’ve got enough to worry about with my own ‘bird.’ I’m not going to steal yours too, big guy.”

12

NOTHING AND NO ONE

Francesca

“How’s it going,Francesca?”

She refused to look up from her computer screen. Acknowledging the name no one called her except for Tripoli would be admitting there was something more going on. While she was woman enough to admit she craved that, she couldn’t have it, so it was better to leave it alone. All night, she tossed and turned with their late evening hours together at the front of her brain, and all it gave her was pangs in her heart and a sick feeling in her stomach.

She exited the search running on her laptop, then exited the program, silently cursing the interruption. She’d have to start over again later.

Without moving her head other than scanning the documents in front of her and comparing them to the new file on her screen, she could tell that Cruz leaned in the doorway, armscrossed over his chest. Her ears heard the smirk as big as Texas across his face.

“I’ve scheduled the last of the employee interviews for you. You’re in for a long day. Better call Mickie and tell her you won’t be home for dinner.”

“It’s girls’ night. She won’t be home anyway.”

She continued to sift through the paperwork in front of her, hoping against hope that she would seem focused enough that Cruz would quickly get bored and move along. No such luck.

“Calder will be along shortly. He went to get the final reports that showed up while we were at lunch.”

Francesca made a humming sound of acknowledgment.

“Everything go okay talking to Ortiz?” Cruz asked.

“Yep.”

“So you’re still on the case?”

“Yep.”

“Could you be a little happier about that?”

“Nothing to be happy or unhappy about.”

Cruz let her continue to pretend to work through the papers in front of her. She knew she wasn’t fooling him. He was far too good at what he did to fall for her act, but right now, it was all she had to cling to, or she’d scream in frustration.

He sat down across from her and started flipping through the papers in the stack in front of him. If anyone walked past the room and looked in the windows, it would look, for all intents and purposes, like they were reviewing information. Francesca knew, though, that he was only giving the papers in front of him a cursory look.

Without looking up at her, he tried a less frightening approach to get her attention again. “Had an interesting guest at lunch today.”

Francesca grabbed a five-inch-ring binder from the edge of her reach and dropped it in front of her, creating a satisfyingthud. Immediately, she began paging through the binder and comparing the information in it to her notebook.

“Calder and I went to that parrot place. Not sure how we’ve never been there before.”

She didn’t look up from her files as she answered. “Maybe because there are live birds flying around that could contaminate your food at any moment.”

“No… although it was kind of loud at one point. Not sure if that was the ladies headed to bingo after their martini lunch prep or the birds though. It was kind of hard to tell.”

“Sounds heavenly. Glad I missed it.”

“Well, the food was really good, the birds were kind of fun, and the company wasilluminating.”

She let the comment slide and reached for the laptop, opened it, and began clacking away at a report form. She knew Cruz had planned to go talk to Tripoli after lunch, so she surmised they’d run into him. Or invited him along. What a clusterfuck that would be if Cruz inserted his nose into that mess.

“Not even a little curious?” he taunted.

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