Page 41 of Sinful Memory

Clinically insane?

“Interesting,” he settles on. “He provides me certain channels to conduct business within. And in exchange, I provide… well,” he chuckles. “Lots of money. I’m told you have another brother. An athlete.”

“Me.” Cato slides out from behind me and draws the old man’s eye for the first time since stepping in here. “Cato Malone,” he says, serious and dark. “Felix is buying your goodwill?”

Richard looks Cato up and down with the long, appreciative sweeps of a man who knows an athlete when he sees one. He already owns a whole team of them, so he compares Cato’s height to theirs. His arm length. Legs. Shoulder width.

Arrogance.

Character.

“You’re still pretty young, huh?” Richard lifts his chin in acknowledgment. “College ball?”

“I start college in the fall.” He broadens his shoulders and looks down at the man that may, someday, be his boss. “I’m not on the team yet.”

“Point guard?”

Cato smirks. “Number one.”

“You’ll have to make an impression straight outta the gate and prove your place. Get noticed, become valuable to me, then we can talk.” Whittaker straightens in his seat and looks toward the door just as Jenna strides in with Mathew Frederick right on her tail; like he somehow knew she was near.

Poor girl. He’s old enough to be her grandfather.

Frederick is six feet, eleven inches tall, and two hundred and eighty-four pounds—according to the stats I catch on the television every time his team plays. He keeps his hair about an inch long, kind of like Fletch, but his is a dirty blond, in contrast to Fletch’s dark locks. His eyes are an off-brown, almost milky and strange, and his arm is wrapped with tape from here to next week.

He’s the senior-most player on his team and, according to the tape holding him together, his days may be numbered.

“Mathew Frederick.” I twist to show him my badge, though we stand twenty feet apart. “Come on in.”

He looks toward Whittaker instantly. Fearful, and if I were a cynical man, somewhat guiltily.

“Sit down.” Richard flicks his wrist toward the spare chair, the way he flicked it toward Jenna only moments ago.

Frederick slowly wanders forward on lanky, long legs, past a gawking Cato, and settles warily into the chair, his eyes scanning Richard. “Sir?”

“You don’t have to wor—”

“We’d like to ask you a couple of questions,” I cut in before Whittaker gets on a roll.

I wait for Frederick’s milky eyes to peel away from his boss and come up to me.

“Okay?” I prompt.

His chin lifts and falls long before his acceptance passes through his mind. “Okay.”

“So, I’m Detective Archer Malone.” Then I nod toward my partner. “Detective Fletcher. We’re with Copeland City PD, investigating a homicide.”

“H-homicide?” he echoes. Leaning back in his chair, he worries the ring around his finger. “Someone is dead?”

“Anna Switzer.”

I settle on the edge of Whittaker’s desk, and catalog more than Frederick’s words. I take note of his fingers.Fidgeting.His hands.Shaking.I catch the way his foot bounces with nervous energy, and the pulse visible against his throat.

If nothing else, Mathew Frederick is a nervous guy who’ll never succeed in poker.

“She’s a singer,” I elaborate. “Quite famous.”

“I know who Anna Switzer is,” he murmurs. “Like you said, she’s famous.”

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