Page 74 of Luck of the Devil
What the hell just happened?
And why did it feel like I’d just lost my best friend?
I stood there, staring at the empty street, my chest tight with more than just anxiety. My body still buzzed with leftover adrenaline and something else I didn’t want to name. Something that pulsed low in my belly, equal parts heat and regret.
The distance between us felt like a thread ready to snap, stretched taut with all the things we hadn’t said.
Now he was gone, the thread snipped, making me feel untethered.
Chapter 20
I was about to go back inside when my phone rang. I pulled it out of my jeans pocket and glanced at the screen, hoping that Malcolm had already calmed down and was calling me. That theory was shot to hell when I saw the number on the screen.
Mason Deveraux.
He’d already called me three times today, so it was apparent he was going to keep calling until I answered. His persistence was ringing alarm bells in my head. Deveraux had to be a busy man. Why was he putting so much energy into contacting me?
I wasn’t ready to go inside and come up with some lame explanation for running out of the house and coming back without Malcolm, so I decided to answer.
“Harper Adams,” I said as I answered gruffly, just like I had when I was a cop. I needed to be the professional PI who had called him last week.
“You’re a hard woman to get ahold of, Ms. Adams,” Deveraux said in a genteel drawl. I suspected his opening and closing statements in court charmed the juries.
“Yeah,” I said with a hint of attitude. “My apologies. I just buried my mother yesterday, so I’ve been a little busy.”
He paused and I was sure he was going to apologize, but he surprised me by saying, “I read about her accident online. I’m sorry for your loss.”
I doubted my mother’s accident had made it past local news, which meant Mason Deveraux had probably researched me. Not that I was surprised. His assistant had warned me it might be over a week before I heard from him, but he’d returned my call right away, and on his personal cell at that. I hadn’t called him back, even after I’d stressed how important it was I talked to him, so he must have wondered why. But if he’d researched me, then he knew about the shooting last October—that is, if he hadn’t already known. His department would have been paying attention to Pulaski County’s investigation and the indictment in the shooting.
Shit. I really should have thought through that initial call before placing it.
I should have been grateful he’d called me back, but I felt slimy, like I was laying a trap for Malcolm. I needed to end this call as quickly as possible without causing any more problems.
“Thank you for your condolences, Mr. Deveraux. And thank you for being so persistent in returning my call from last week, but thankfully, the case I was working on got wrapped up soon after I tried to contact you. Sorry to have bothered you for nothing.”
“Hold on,” he said, sensing I was about to hang up on him. “You said you were investigating the disappearance of a businessman named Hugo Burton?”
Any other prosecutor would have probably been thankful for the reprieve, but then again, most of them wouldn’t have been so persistent trying to reach me. This was a very bad sign. Obviously he had a personal connection to the case I’d called about—hell, I’d pointed out the connection myself when I’d mentioned Rose Gardner had been his girlfriend at the time—so it wasn’t his persistence that made me wary, it was an undercurrent I couldn’t quite name. I needed to give him enough information to satisfy him, then get off the call as quickly as possible. “That’s correct. Mr. Burton’s body was found after a man came forward offering to take the police to his grave. He said a man named Pinky confessed that he and their boss, Skip Martin, a local car dealership owner, killed Mr. Burton.”
“Have Skip Martin and Pinky been arrested?”
I cringed. While the Lone County’s Sheriff Department had bought the story, I suspected Mason Deveraux was going to poke it full of so many holes you could see daylight through it. “No, Martin and Pinky are dead.”
“That’s convenient,” he said dryly.
I ignored his comment. “The sheriff’s working theory is that I made Martin nervous by asking so many questions about Burton. In fact, I’d questioned the man twice. Maybe it made Martin’s employee nervous. There was some kind of confrontation, and Pinky killed his boss, then himself.”
“And this all came from… what did you say the man’s name was?”
“I didn’t, and you do know that I’m not a detective with the sheriff’s department, right? My job was to find Hugo Burton, one way or the other, and I did.”
“I’m guessing a sharp detective like yourself would have dotted all the Is and crossed all the Ts.” He paused. “You have a reputation of being very, very good. Very thorough.”
“Past tense,” I said, trying to keep the bitterness out of my voice. I knew I’d been good. He wasn’t going to butter me up by telling me so. “I’m no longer with the Little Rock police or any other law enforcement agency, Mr. Deveraux. I’m a private detective, available for hire. I was hired to find Hugo. My client was happy. And…” I added, hoping my next statement would end this conversation. “My mother’s car was pulled out of a river around the same time Hugo Burton’s body was found. My job was done, and I moved on to mourning my mother.”
“Yes, of course,” he said sympathetically. “I’m very close to my own mother. I would be devastated if something like that happened to her, but it sounds like you and I are a lot alike, Detective Adams. We’re both workaholics. So if my mother passed, I’d probably jump into work and bury my feelings.”
“I’m sure I’ll find another case,” I said, my voice hard, “but the sheriff’s department is taking over Hugo Burton’s murder, and I doubt they’d appreciate my interference, even if I felt inclined to give it.”
