Deadly Deceptions by Miller Linda Lael

Author:Miller, Linda Lael [Miller, Linda Lael]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Harlequin Enterprises
Published: 2012-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TEN

RIGHT ABOUT NOW, you’re probably thinking I broke down and told Tucker all about seeing the prologue to Gillian’s murder on my TV screen—and about my visit to Vince Erland at the county jail.

I did neither. I needed to make sense of both experiences within myself before I could share them, and I was a long way from doing that. I’m big on processing, and that’s a private thing.

So we ate Chinese food in my kitchen and drank coffee.

Dave scored some of the chicken, then curled up in the corner of the room, yawned and went to sleep. He had the air of an exhausted traveler, home at last after crossing mountains and valleys and windswept prairies.

All to get to me, the human Mecca.

I looked askance at Tucker, because I couldn’t look askance at the dog, now snoring contentedly, with his bent ear almost touching his nose.

Tucker followed my glance and grinned. “Falling in love?” he asked.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “No,” I said. I’d loved my cat, Chester, and he was gone. I’d loved Russell, the basset hound—ditto. I’d even begun to love Justin’s dog, Pepper, for heaven’s sake, and where was that going to get me?

I flat-out couldn’t afford to love Dave, too.

“Liar,” Tucker said, looking smug.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” I said. “Bringing that dog here, expecting me to take him in.”

“It’s required in my line of work,” Tucker answered. “A lot of nerve, I mean. And you’ve been wanting a dog ever since Russell went into Witness Protection.”

He was right, of course, but I didn’t have to admit it.

My conscience, napping during the Dave exchange, yawned, stretched and shook itself awake. Focused on the gun I’d bought that day.

I’d buried the Glock, still in its case, under the crumpled take-out bags piled on the table, hoping it wouldn’t catch Tucker’s eye before I was ready to break the news that I now owned a lethal weapon. I wasn’t sure how he’d react—he might be relieved, but he was more likely to give me the speech about how easy it would be for an assailant to get hold of the gun and use it against me. The standard discourse on tragic accidents would follow, complete with verifiable statistics.

Tucker, like many cops, believed ordinary citizens were better off without guns. It wasn’t that I disagreed with him—in fact, I was sure he was right—but I wasn’t an ordinary citizen. I was a detective, and a psycho magnet.

I had enemies.

I could feel them, a dark pressure in the atmosphere around me.

It made me shiver, dimmed the light flowing in through the kitchen window.

I looked at Dave again. He’d be a lousy guard dog, small as he was, but he’d make good company, I supposed. I’d just have to be extra careful not to start caring about him too much.

He slept on.

Tucker and I finished our meal in silence, and when he would have cleaned up the bags and cartons, thus uncovering the Glock, I suggested sex instead.

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