Read Home Before Midnight for Free Online Page B

announced.
     
    Steve raised his eyebrows, waiting.
     
    But apparently the clerk had said all she’d come to say. Pivoting on her pointed heels, she marched back to her desk, trailing clouds of perfume like exhaust.
     
    So, okay, he wasn’t the most popular guy in the department. Also not a problem.
     
    Shrugging back into his jacket— Jesus, it was hot—he walked down the gray hallway and opened the door to the public waiting room.
     
    Bailey Wells sat rigidly on a chrome-and-tweed chair, her narrow shoulders straight under a padded black jacket and her hands clasped tightly in her lap. The sight of her clear brown eyes in her smooth, pale face knocked holes in his detachment and punched him in the gut.
     
    His heart pounded. His blood rushed.
     
    He stopped, stunned, as his dead libido roared to life.
     
    Now this was a problem.
     
     
     
     
    BAILEY’S research had never required a visit to the police station. She’d never even gotten a speeding ticket. Which was too bad, because if her police knowledge were based on more than statistics and court reports, maybe she wouldn’t feel so intimidated now. So anxious.
     
    So guilty.
     
    Bailey remembered the look on the detective’s face as she’d disengaged herself gently from Paul’s arms, and a hot twist of shame and dread coiled in her belly.
     
    Okay. She couldn’t change her circumstances. All she could control was her feelings.
     
    She gripped her hands together in her lap. She was pretty sure the department had been expanded and probably remodeled since that night nineteen years ago when Billy Ray Dawler had been arrested for his family’s murders, but maybe Paul could use her observations. Anyway, looking around helped her stop thinking about the reason for her visit.
     
    She noted a flag, some plaques on the wall, a square, smoked glass window like the ticket counter at the multiplex. Beside her chair, a spindly poinsettia dropped leaves onto the blue industrial carpet.
     
    A door on the opposite wall opened, and the detective came out. In this small, stark space, he looked big and dark and not at all reassuring. There were tired pouches under his deep-set eyes and weary lines bracketing his mouth. Smile lines? He sure wasn’t smiling now.
     
    “Miz Wells,” he drawled.
     
    She stood like a student summoned to the principal’s office. “Lieutenant . . .” Oh, God, what was his name?
     
    A corner of that hard mouth twitched. Not a smile, but the slippery knots in her stomach eased. “Burke,” he supplied. “Steve Burke.”
     
    “Bailey,” she said automatically, and then flushed. He knew her name.
     
    He didn’t acknowledge her gaffe by so much as the flicker of an eyelash. Maybe he was being nice. Or maybe Lieutenant Stoneface was used to suspects who stammered and fell over themselves whenever he spoke.
     
    “What can I do for you?” he asked politely.
     
    “You . . . Uh, I . . .” Get a grip, Bailey . She took a deep breath. “You asked me to stop by. To sign my statement?”
     
    “That’s right. This way, please.”
     
    Bailey walked through the door he held open, careful not to brush against his outstetched arm. But as she scooted past, she couldn’t escape noticing his jacket hung open in the heat, revealing a white, wilted shirt and broad, muscled chest. He smelled of warm wool, clean cotton, and adult male.
     
    She shivered. Fear? Or attraction? Either one put her at a disadvantage.
     
    “Nervous?” he asked in his deep twang.
     
    “Cold,” she lied. “It’s the air-conditioning. I mean, it’s not like you’re escorting me down death row.”
     
    “Not yet, anyway,” he agreed blandly.
     
    She gaped at him.
     
    Humor gleamed in his dark eyes, but his expression never wavered. “My office,” he said, nodding down the hall.
     
    She hurried ahead toward another open door.
     
    Three gray metal desks occupied the center of a room lined with shelves and corkboard. A fourth, aloof from the