Capturing Cleo

The latest bit was, Tempest was behind a petition to get Cleo’s liquor license revoked. Something about being too close to a church, even though the church in question was three blocks away and she’d been in operation there for over two years without a single problem.

Jack Tempest had either loved his ex-wife very much, or hated her beyond all reason. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, coming into the room and catching him daydreaming with his fingers enmeshed behind Rambo’s ears.

Cleo looked too damn good. Hair damp and curly, blue slacks and matching blouse snug, heels high—if not as audaciously high as last night—she was soft, nicely curved and feminine.

“I thought cops were like vampires and had to be invited in,” she said in a voice that was definitely not soft.

“Your neighbor, Syd, let me in.”

Cleo rolled her eyes and mumbled something obscene, and Luther forced back a smile.

“I don’t suppose you have any coffee?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I don’t drink coffee.”

“No wonder you’re not a morning person,” he said, rising slowly and pushing back the urge to find out if Cleo would growl and sigh if he rubbed behind her ears. She’d probably bite his hand off. Changing the subject seemed like a good idea.

“Why didn’t you ask who was at the door before you opened it?”

Cleo stared at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving. “I thought you were my neighbor. She often drops by in the morning before she goes to work.”

“And why in hell do you keep a key under your mailbox?”

She shook her head. “Sometimes Syd lets Rambo out when I work late, and sometimes I forget my key, and…it’s really none of your business where I keep my spare key.”

“It’s not safe,” he argued.

“Who are you,” she said. “Keeper of the city? Defender of the weak?”

“Watchdog over the stupid,” he added.

Her amber eyes narrowed. “So now I’m stupid.”

“No, but keeping your key—”

“I pushed my ex off a tall building and I’m stupid.” She did as she had last night, offering her hands to him, palms up, wrists together.

His eyes fell to the delicate veins there, to the curve of her wrists and the pale softness of her fingers.

“So cuff me, Malone. Take me in. Arrest me and get this over with.”

He leaned in, ever so slightly. Just enough to make Cleo lean back. “Don’t tempt me.”

Chapter 3

“This is not the police station,” Cleo muttered, as Malone pulled his gray sedan to the curb. “As a matter of fact, we’re not even close to the police station.”

Malone threw open his door and unfolded his long body from the driver’s seat, ignoring her statement. He rounded the car and opened her door for her, leaning slightly in. Like it or not, he took her breath away when he moved in close like this.

“The Rocket City Café has better coffee,” he said as he offered his hand to assist her from the car. She grudgingly placed her hand in his and stood. “Besides,” he added as he released her hand and closed the car door, “you’re nervous. The station would just make matters worse.”

“I am not nervous,” she retorted.

The annoying Detective Malone responded with a brief smile.

The Rocket City Café was a small restaurant with plastic red-and-white checkered tablecloths and a strange collection of patrons. Two old men sat in a corner booth and argued about local politics. A group of elderly women crowded around a table in the center of the room, and from the excited utterances about brownies and bundt cakes, it seemed they were planning a bake sale. A middle-aged waitress in a pink uniform and a white apron leaned against the counter where a No Smoking sign was prominent, and smoked as if she really enjoyed every puff. A very young short-order cook, with his long hair in a hair net, scrubbed the grill behind the counter. He was singing, and not very well.

When the waitress saw Malone she smiled and put her cigarette out in a nearby coffee cup. “Hey, Sugar,” she said, with a grin that transformed her face into a mass of wrinkles. “The usual?”

“Yeah, and…” He glanced down at Cleo. “What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t make me eat breakfast in front of you while you sit there and glare at me. Get something to eat. They have really great doughnuts here, and if that doesn’t grab you, they have pancakes. Eggs. Cinnamon buns.”

She stared at him silently.

He lifted finely shaped eyebrows and pinned those dark eyes on her. “At least get something to drink.”

The waitress was waiting. Malone was waiting. And Cleo just wanted to get this over with. “Orange juice,” she said, giving in too easily. “And toast.”

Malone led her to a booth against the window, where they could watch the people passing on the sidewalk. This position also placed them as far away as possible from the other customers, no doubt so he could interrogate her without having to lower his voice.

Cleo sat, and the old cushion sank.

“So,” Malone said, taking his own seat, which didn’t seem to sink quite so low. “Tell me about Tempest.”

Cleo fixed her eyes to Malone’s. He thought she was nervous? She’d show him. She could be fearless when she had to be, and she was not afraid of this cop or anyone else. “Jack was a mean-spirited, unfaithful, unscrupulous snake. Marrying him was the worst mistake of my life, and I am not sorry to know that I won’t ever have to see his face again.”

The waitress popped into the picture to place a huge mug of coffee before Malone and a tall glass of cold juice before Cleo. Their conversation ceased until she moved away.

“Do you know who killed him?” Malone asked calmly.

“No.”

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“Probably not.”

Malone took a long swig of coffee. “Fair enough,” he said as he set the mug on the table. “I’ll need a list of everyone who was in the club last week when you told your little grapefruit joke.”

“If I can remember.”

“Do you have a gentleman friend, Ms. Tanner?” He didn’t look at her as he asked this question, but stared into his cup of coffee. “Someone who might have felt compelled to defend your honor and then leave a grapefruit behind so you’d be sure to know this murder was a…gift?”

“No gentleman friend,” she said precisely, her heart clenching at the idea that someone might have thought she’d consider Jack’s murder a gift.