Beth Andrews - In This Town

He tapped his fingers against the top of the table. Searched the room again. Rolled his shoulders back and finally gave in and took off his suit coat and laid it on the seat next to him. Christ, but he hated waiting. Much preferred doing to sitting, though so far today he’d done a hell of a lot of the latter.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t be patient when need be. It took time to gather evidence, to sift through facts and unearth the truth. That’s what he’d done for the past four hours. Read reports—thoroughly, patiently—anything and everything that had to do with Valerie Sullivan’s disappearance and Dale York’s background. Dale’s criminal record alone had taken up almost an hour of Walker’s time, encompassing the years from when Dale legally became an adult until he, too, disappeared from Mystic Point eighteen years ago.

Now it was time to move this investigation into the opening stages.

“Well, hello there, Detective.”

Cursing himself for letting her sneak up on him, Walker looked up and met Tori’s eyes. Her lips were curved in a flirtatious smile, a coffeepot in her hand. His stomach did one slow roll even as his instincts kicked in—the ones telling him he was ass-deep in trouble.

“Mrs. Mott,” he said, keeping his tone polite and formal.

“Don’t tell me, you were passing by, minding your business, when you heard one of our famous doughnuts calling your name?”

He liked her voice. The sound of it, all husky and inviting and sexy. The thought, unbidden and unwanted, floated into his brain. He pushed it back out.

“Actually I was hoping to run into you.”

She leaned forward to pour coffee into his cup. Her shirt gaped slightly, giving him an enticing view of creamy skin and the soft swell of her breast. She straightened and he jerked his gaze down to the table. But not before catching sight of the humor lighting her eyes.

She was laughing at him. No doubt she thought he was just another man to be crushed under one of her skyscraper heels.

“Were you, now?” she asked. “And why is that?”

He sipped the coffee to ease the dryness of his throat, realized it was better than expected and took another, longer drink. Just because she was sexy enough to make a man’s hands sweat didn’t mean he had to fall all over himself like some goddamn horny teenager.

It was clear she was used to calling the shots. So was he.

Whether personal or professional, he preferred relationships where he was in charge. Where he was the one to walk away.

He had a feeling no man walked away from her.

“I was hoping to ask you a few questions,” he said.

She shifted her weight to her left leg, causing the material of her skirt to stretch across her hips. “And here I thought that was why we set up my interview. Friday afternoon at three forty-five if I’m not mistaken.”

He could be patient, he reminded himself. But that didn’t mean he had to like it. Didn’t mean he couldn’t do whatever it took to hurry up the process. “I’m free now,” he said mildly.

“Well, isn’t that convenient, you coming into this restaurant and sitting in my booth five minutes before my shift ends?”

Walker met her eyes, kept his hands still, didn’t want anything to give him away. “Yes. Very convenient.”

She made a sound, sort of a hum, then she smiled slowly. “Can I get you something to go with your coffee?”

The scents of grilled meat and French fries reminded him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, made his mouth water. But he wouldn’t order food from her, wouldn’t eat in front of her. He couldn’t. If they’d been at the police station, he’d never pull out a sandwich and bite into it during an interview.

And that’s what this was. Just another interview, a way for him to get information out of her. Not some chummy lunch date. No matter how hungry he was.

“I’m good,” he said, lifting his cup for another sip. “Thanks.”

“Let me just put this down and we’ll have ourselves a nice little chat, hmm?”

He watched her walk away. What living, breathing, heterosexual man wouldn’t? Returning a few minutes later, she slid into the seat across from him and set down a bottle of water and a plate with a thick slice of apple pie.

“I hope you don’t mind if I eat while you interrogate me,” she said, unwrapping a napkin from around a set of silverware. “I skipped lunch.”

“This isn’t an interrogation.”

Tori raised her eyebrows, used her fork to break off the point of the pie, releasing the scents of cooked apples and cinnamon. “Isn’t it?”

“Just a few questions.”

“I’m going to be in big trouble, you know,” she told him in that throaty voice of hers right before she slid the bite of pie into her mouth, her glossy red lips wrapping around the fork.

He narrowed his eyes. In trouble? She was trouble. The kind most men had a hard time resisting.

Luckily he wasn’t most men.

“Why would you be in trouble?” he asked.

“Talking to you without a lawyer present?” She shook her head, forked up another bite. “My sisters aren’t going to be too happy with me.”

“That happen often? Your sisters being unhappy with you?”

She sipped her water, eyed him over the top of the bottle. “More often than not.”

That, at least, had the ring of truth to it. But if it bothered her, he couldn’t tell. Which only pissed him off. He read people for a living but with her, he was at a loss. And that made her dangerous. Intriguing.

He drank more coffee to hide his frown. No, not intriguing. She was a means to an end, that was all. The weak link in this case, the one person he figured he had a good shot of using to catch a break in his investigation.

He wouldn’t get far with either Chief Taylor or Layne Sullivan—they were both cops, from all accounts good ones. Or at least they had been before they’d started sleeping together, raising suspicions they had let their personal feelings get in the way of their professional ethics. Nora Sullivan had graduated at the top of her class in law school, was smart and savvier than her angelic looks indicated. Her boyfriend, Griffin York, had been through the system himself as a teenager.

Walker chose Tori because she didn’t know the legal system, not like her sisters. Because he’d guessed she was stubborn enough, arrogant enough, not to listen to her sisters’ warnings about keeping her mouth shut.

She was all flash, no substance, and he wouldn’t have to dig far to get to what was inside of her. She was obvious. Fake. He had no use for her, or her… What had her sister called it?

Her sex kitten act.

No, he had no use and little respect for women like her, who used their looks and their bodies to get what they wanted. But he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d somehow underestimated her.

Shaking his head, he cleared that crazy thought right out of his mind.

“I have four sisters,” he said, trying to draw her out, ease her into trusting him.

“Four? You have my sympathy.”

“It wasn’t so bad.”

“I find that hard to believe. We don’t have a brother but we did torment our younger cousin. When he was little, we used to dress him up in our old clothes, shoes, the works. I think there were even a few times when Nora and his sister put makeup on him and did his nails. Bright pink polish.”

Walker worked to hide a wince. “No painted nails.” At least not that he can remember—thank God. Though there was no way he was telling her about the time Leslie and Kelly, his older sisters, dressed him as Goldilocks for Halloween. Complete with curled hair. “Your cousin, that’s Anthony Sullivan, correct?”

Her hesitation was slight, her gaze thoughtful. “It is. Luckily he turned out okay. So far, anyway.” Her gaze drifted over Walker. “Seems like you turned out all right yourself.”