The Woman Who Wasn't There

“Guess their union’s stronger than yours.” He finished going through the last pile and found that it was exactly what it appeared. Garbage. “Nothing,” he announced, rising to his feet.

An exercise in futility. Delene bit back an oath. “Did you check out Mendoza yet?”

He’d placed a call to his sister to check out D’Angelo’s story. When it rang true, he and Kara had gone to see the self-appointed drug lord at his opulent house, only to be told by one of Mendoza’s underlings that the man was on vacation in Florida, visiting his sister. Troy didn’t believe the excuse for a moment, but the location had a true ring to it.

“Mendoza’s out of town.”

She gave him a pointed look. “He wouldn’t have to pull the trigger himself.”

It was Troy’s turn again to grin. “Trying to tell me how to do my job, D’Angelo?”

“Just making a helpful observation.”

Before he could comment on the helpful nature of her observations, a commotion outside the motel room had them both becoming alert. Troy had his weapon out in under a heartbeat.

“Stay here,” he told her.

She had her own weapon and the department had spent its fair share of money training her on its use. She unholstered it.

“The hell I will,” she declared, following him out.

Chapter 4

Troy bit off a curse. Why couldn’t the woman stay in the room the way he told her to?

The next moment, the surge of adrenaline that began to sweep over him receded. There was no danger. At least, not the kind that left bullets in its wake. But something equally lethal had just made its appearance.

The local media.

Troy lowered his weapon and holstered it. A TV network news truck was parked over on the side and a perky strawberry-blonde with a microphone stood in the middle of the courtyard. The woman seemed undecided as to whether she wanted to flirt with the camera or come on as a seasoned professional, despite her very obvious pretty-doll appearance.

“Looks like a slow newsday at Channel Eight,” he muttered more to himself than to the woman at his side.

The words were no sooner out than the reporter swung around and saw them. Recognizing authority, her expression lit up instantly.

There was no way he was going to hang around and be questioned, Troy thought. At least he’d had a chance to go through the dead man’s room to his own satisfaction before the vultures descended.

“Time for me to go.” He tossed the words toward Delene even as he headed for his rental car. Delene didn’t answer, not that it surprised him. But she had fallen into step with him, keeping to his left side so that the motel was at her back. For all intents and purposes, his body hid her almost completely. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she was using him as a shield to block her from the reporter’s view.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Keep walking,” she ordered, her voice low, intense.

Delene had pulled her cap down to partially obscure her face, like a celebrity in hiding. It was obvious that she definitely didn’t want the eye of the camera to find her.

What gives? he wondered.

He didn’t have time to speculate or wait for an answer. The reporter with her cameraman had descended on them. He never slowed his pace but kept walking toward his vehicle as if the woman wasn’t pushing a microphone toward his face.

Undaunted, the woman pressed on. “Detective, what can you tell us about what happened here?”

Never breaking stride, Troy gave the woman his most charming smile, gambling that it would deflect any attention the reporter might have been inclined to give Delene. “You know that we can’t talk about an ongoing investigation, even if we wanted to.”

For a second, the woman seemed physically touched by his smile. She beamed at him in response, attempting a little charm of her own.

“Oh, c’mon, Detective. It’ll be in all the papers by morning. Why not give me a break?” Tossing her hair over her shoulder as she nodded toward the motel room with its harsh yellow tape that proclaimed it a crime scene. “Wasn’t the victim supposed to testify against Miguel Mendoza in next month’s trial?”

He traded his charming expression for one of pure innocence. “Looks like you know more than me, ma’am,” he told her just as he reached his car.

Unlocking the driver’s side, he glanced up to see that instead of continuing on to her car, Delene had thrown herself into the passenger seat of his. She tugged her cap down even lower until the brim was touching her nose.

Not exactly the last word in subtle, he thought, getting in himself.

“Agent D’Angelo, this is so sudden,” he cracked. “Your place or mine?”

After inserting his key in the ignition, Troy turned on the engine. The vehicle made a few strange noises, testifying that as a rental it hadn’t received the best of treatment. He hoped it would last until he got his own car back.

“Drive.” The order emerged from beneath the khaki cap.

“Yes, ma’am.” Once he backed up, Troy turned the car around and pulled out of the lot. Glancing back, he saw that the cameraman was still filming. A really slow news day. He looked over at the passenger seat where Delene was slouched down. “You can come up for air now.”

She sat up, pulling the cap off her head. Delene dragged her fingers through her hair, taking away its flatness before leaning forward to stuff her cap into her back pocket.

Troy waited to be enlightened, but in vain. “Mind telling me what that was all about?”

Delene kept her face forward, staring straight ahead as dusk softly embraced the city streets. She let out the breath she’d been holding. That could have been disastrous, she thought.

“I don’t like reporters.”

No one in his family had a soft spot in their hearts for the people who made their livelihood on tragedy and disaster. “Neither do I, but I don’t fold up like a piece of origami paper when one of them approaches me with a microphone.”

She shrugged. Her bangs fell into her eyes and she combed them back with her fingers. He caught a whiff of something soft and herbal. Clean. Probably her shampoo.

“We all do things our own way.” Delene didn’t follow up the flippant answer by saying that she had a fear of having her picture taken or being captured on film. That she was afraid that maybe, just maybe, Russell would see the end result and realize where she was. That he’d come looking for her.

His seeing the film clip was, of course, only a remote possibility, but she’d gone through too much to get careless now. The consequences were too huge. If she had a choice between being supercautious or supersorry, she’d pick cautious every time.

They drove down another street. Delene hadn’t ventured a single extra word. “Any particular place you’d like me to drive to?”

She shrugged again, as if he should already know the answer. Her agitation level had definitely gone up, he noted. What had he missed? Did she know that reporter? Or the cameraman? And why had she hidden her face like that? He didn’t know her, but she didn’t strike him as the type to hide from anyone.

“Just around until that news truck leaves and I can go back to my car.”

“Right.”

On the following block, they passed several restaurants, all in a fashionable row. Italian cuisine, a steakhouse and a quaint restaurant that could have doubled as the cottage where the Seven Dwarfs lived. There was smoke coming from the chimney. He glanced toward Delene. Since she obviously wanted to kill some time, they might as well make it pleasant.

“Buy you a cup of coffee, Agent D’Angelo?”