Under His Protection

“For the record, when did you last see Peter Winfield?”

She blinked at the recorder, then met his gaze. “Last night at around eight-thirty, nine o’clock. He’d called me and asked me to come over.”

“What happened?”

“He wanted one more chance to make me stay with him.”

“Make you?”

Always a cop, she thought, reading something into every little thing. “Well, make isn’t really correct. Convince would be a better word.” Threaten would be even better.

“Why did you divorce?”

She looked down at her coffee, watching the cream separate into a star shape. “Irreconcilable differences.”

“I don’t buy that for a second.”

Her gaze jerked to his. “It’s personal.” Nash wasn’t getting details. No one was.

“But you left town with him so quickly.”

This was old news, she thought. “It was four months after you and I had broken up, Nash. You’d already shoved me out of your life, so what do you care now?”

His mouth tightened, a lid on what he really wanted to say. “We were together for a year, and you never did give me a good reason for why you left me.”

She didn’t want to rehash this now. “Oh, there was plenty of reasons, they just weren’t yours. I needed someone who wanted what I did.” Someone to love me back, she thought. To want me for a lifetime and not just a frequent date.

“And did you get all you wanted?”

Damn him. He knew she hadn’t, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t deliriously happy with what she had right now. It wasn’t any of his business why her marriage ended, only that it had. And who was he to ask questions now when he didn’t bother four years ago? If he had, she’d have told him about their baby. “Are old feelings and reasons part of this investigation, Detective?”

Nash felt the slam of a door as if it hit his nose. She was right. He had to get back to business and not relive their past.

“Did you drive over last night?” he asked.

“No, it was only just getting dark and it was a clear night. I walked.”

“Did anyone see you?”

“Walking here? I imagine so. Anyone I know? I can’t say. When I got here, the restaurant was full, and the staff were waiting on guests. I came up here and knocked.”

“What was Winfield wearing when you saw him?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Answer the question, please.”

With the way he spoke to her, so cold and detached, as if they’d never shared a bed and some really great sex, she wondered if she should stop right now and call a lawyer. But she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“He was wearing Brooks khaki slacks, matching socks. A hunter-green, tailored, short-sleeve shirt, pressed and creased. Brown Florsheim shoes and a brown belt.” Good clothing had been an addiction of Peter’s.

Nash made notes in a black leather book. His gaze slid up to meet hers, and for a second his expression softened a fraction. Lisa glimpsed the man she once loved. Then just as quickly that man was gone again.

“Did anyone else know you were going to see him?”

“I might have mentioned it to my staff.” She wiped her eyes again, then threw the wad of tissue into a trash can.

“I’ll need to talk with them.”

Why? she wanted to know, but she didn’t argue. “Free country. They’re adults, not children. I’ll give you their home numbers.” She wrote the information on the back of a business card and handed it to him. He didn’t even glance at it, simply tucked it in his notebook. “Kate’s at the counter now, and Chris doesn’t come in till after his last class. He’s a college student at USC.”

Nash scribbled and she noticed the shorthand. She’d flunked that course.

“What were you wearing at the time you visited your husband?”

“A lime-green skirt and top, matching sandals and purse.”

He arched a brow.

“Matching jewelry, too. Wanna see it?”

“I’ll want to take all of it.”

“What?” Her eyes widened, and the feeling she’d had moments ago landed like a brick against her heart. “You think I had something to do with Peter’s death.”

Nash continued to write.

“Nash Couviyon!”

Still he didn’t comment, then slowly met her gaze again. “I don’t have an opinion yet. We need samples from your things to compare with what forensics finds in the room.”

“You definitely think he was murdered?”

Nash wasn’t ready to say so just yet. “The death of a healthy man is always suspicious.”

“Oh, for the love of Mike,” she said, and the air left her lungs in one shot. “You actually think I had something to do with it?”

Her words drained away any feeling she had, any trust she might have given him. Then the she-cat he remembered and had loved came racing back.

“This meeting is over,” she said.

He strove for patience. “Lisa, I have to look at all the possibilities.”

Her green eyes narrowed to slits. “Look elsewhere, Detective,” she said, and started to rise.

“Sit down!” he snapped.

Lisa lowered herself into the chair again, scowling at him.