Alice Orr - Key West Heat

“Come on, Tony,” Des was saying. “What do you think I’m going to do? Abscond with your prisoner?”

“She’s not in custody, Des, and you know it. We’re just keeping her here to talk to Detective Santos. He’s on his way.”

“Does he have to talk to her tonight? Can’t it wait till the morning?”

“She may have been the last one to see April Jane alive. Santos will want to question her about that.” Tony glanced over at Taylor on the settee. “There’s something else too,” he added, barely loud enough for her to hear.

“What’s that?” Des asked, also glancing at Taylor then looking away.

She didn’t like the way they were talking about her instead of to her. She was even less pleased when Tony leaned toward Des and said something in a whisper. Des’s expression remained as unreadable as usual, except for a slight tightening around the eyes.

“Wait just a moment here,” Taylor said, rousing herself from the settee and mustering as much indignation as she could manage in her state of near exhaustion. “If you have something to say that relates to me, I want to hear it.”

Des gave her a cautionary look with “Keep quiet and let me take care of things” written all over it. That made Taylor even more indignant. Suddenly, she didn’t want anybody taking care of things for her, not even this man whose brawny body tempted her to do just that—at least until she wasn’t feeling quite so tired and out of sync with everything.

“I appreciate your concern, Mr. Maxwell,” she said, “but I am perfectly capable of handling this myself.”

“I thought you said she was a friend of yours,” the officer said to Des. “How come she calls you by your last name if you’re such great friends?”

“We’re recent acquaintances,” Taylor said before Des could answer.

She was determined to speak for herself in every way. “Please tell me what you were whispering about with Mr. Maxwell.”

“That’s confidential police information.”

“If it’s so confidential, why were you sharing it with Mr. Maxwell? Is he a member of the police force?” Taylor levelled a steady gaze at the officer. “You can answer that question for me, or for my attorney.”

“I think I can help you out with that one, Miss...” The man who had stepped through the doorway consulted a notepad before going on. “Miss Bissett,” he said. “You are Taylor Bissett, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

He was medium height and sallow-complected. Taylor noticed a slight muscle tic in his left cheek. Even without that added clue, his manner told her that he took his job very seriously. In laid-back Key West, he was anything but laid-back.

“I’m Detective Santos. I’ll be taking charge of this investigation. What are you doing here, Maxwell?” Santos shot a dark-eyed, suspicious gaze at Des. “How do you know Miss Bissett?”

“She’s Netta Bissett’s niece.”

“Oh, yes,” Santos said with a nod. “Your friend with the big house in Casa Marina.”

Taylor thought she might have heard a hint of sarcasm in the way he said “friend.” Or maybe she was imagining that. Either way, Taylor didn’t like the tone of the discussion or that her aunt was its subject.

“If you have questions that have to do with me or my family, I must insist that you address them to me.”

“I see.”

Santos looked her over, no doubt taking in her rumpled dress and unruly hair and probably doubting that she was as capable of taking charge as she claimed. Taylor smoothed her skirt and stood very straight. She wasn’t about to be intimidated by this officious man. Des Maxwell was another story. He was looking at her too, and she felt his gaze as if it had fingers to reach out and touch her. Those fingers travelled over her, but not at all in the same way Santos had looked at her. There was nothing in the line of duty about Des’s eyes. She warmed to the tropical intensity of their touch, from the skin on down into the center of her where she suddenly felt desperately in need of warming.

“Since you are speaking on your own behalf,” Santos said, with unmistakable sarcasm this time, “maybe you can tell me why the perpetrator appears to have been in your room when the victim encountered him.”

“In my room?”

“You’re in... “ Santos again consulted his notepad. “Second floor, front left?”

“That’s right.”

“According to my officers, there are no signs of disturbance in any of the other rooms, but it looks like there was quite a disturbance in yours.”

“I don’t know why that would be.”

Taylor was confused. Why would a thief single out her room? She hadn’t brought any valuables with her to Key West. This time, she was relieved when Des intervened.

“Isn’t Miss Bissett’s room off the veranda?” he asked. “Maybe the guy climbed in that way. April Jane could have heard him and gone up to investigate. The struggle might have started up there and ended up down here when April Jane ran down to call the cops.”

“Interesting theory,” Santos said with something like a sneer. “Did you think that up all by yourself, or do you have an inside source of information I should know about?”

“I was making the point that the guy could just have happened to come in through Taylor’s room.”

“Maybe.”

Santos was looking Taylor over again. She might have been unsettled by that, but her attention seemed to be stuck on the way her name sounded when Des spoke it and how that sound spread over her like heat, the same way the touch of his gaze had done. Once again, she told herself that such thoughts were only the effects of exhaustion on her overtaxed mind. Unfortunately, she wasn’t as sure that was true as she would have preferred to be.

“What makes you think there was a struggle?” Santos was asking Des. “I only said there were signs of a disturbance.”

“I assumed you were talking about the same kind of thing as out there.” Des gestured toward the entryway with its shattered lamp and general disarray. “That looks like the scene of a struggle to me. Besides, I knew April Jane. She would have put up a fight, and she was strong enough to give the guy a pretty hard time.”

Taylor had to agree. April Jane hadn’t come across as a woman who would sit still for being pushed around, or for letting somebody rob the place, either.

“What about you, Miss Bissett?” Santos asked. “Do you think the perpetrator just happened to be in your room when the victim found him and decided to give him a hard time, like Des says?”

Hearing April Jane repeatedly referred to as a victim brought the body bag and the city morgue to Taylor’s mind once more. She swallowed the lump of sudden grief in her throat.

She hadn’t known April Jane Cooney personally, but the woman had to have deserved something better than to be a live human being one minute and a victim the next. The true horror of what had happened here tonight was beginning to impress itself upon Taylor. She was seized by a terror that felt familiar somehow. Why familiar? She had experienced very little violence in her life. Yet, this deep-down fear had been with her before. It had been with her in her dreams.

“Miss Bissett, is there some reason you don’t want to answer my question?” Santos was studying her with continued interest.

“What was the question again?”

“Do you think that the perpetrator just happened to be in your room?”

“I can’t think of any other explanation.” Actually, she couldn’t think much of anything right now. “Detective Santos, would it be possible to continue this in the morning? I’ve had an exhausting day.”

“Murder can do that to you.” Santos was at it with the sarcasm again. “By the way, do you have somewhere else to stay? This place will have to be closed down, at least for the next few nights.”