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but kept his whiskey-burn gaze on me. “What friend is that?”
    My lips moved. My mind was absolutely immobile.
    “I do not think that is any concern of—” the senator began, but Rivera interrupted again.
    “What's her name?”
    The image of a dismembered corpse flashed through my mind. “Kathleen,” I said.
    “Kathleen what?”
    “Cahill,” lied the senator.
    “What's wrong with her?” Rivera asked.
    “I have sworn to keep her condition quiet so that she is not bothered by those—”
    “What's wrong with her?” Rivera asked again, and turned his glare on his father.
    The elder man lifted his chin with arrogant defiance. “If you must know… the young lady is with child.”
    “Yeah?” Rivera smirked. “You gonna be a daddy again, Senator?”
    “She is the daughter of a dear friend who has—”
    “So was Salina. It didn't stop you then.”
    Silence plowed into the room, then: “Still bitter that you cannot keep a woman for yourself, Gerald?”
    “You goddamn bastard,” snarled Rivera.
    “Stop it,” I said, and grabbed his arm, but maybe I was trying to restrain the wrong Rivera.
    “Are you so weak that you cannot accept a little competition?” asked the senator.
    Riveras lips twisted into a grin, brows lowered over deadly eyes. “You want competition, old man, let's—”
    But at that moment I pulled a plate from the sink and slammed it against the counter. It crashed into a hundred satisfying shards.
    The jerks jerked toward me in unison.
    “What the hell is wrong with you two?” I gritted, and slammed my gaze from one to the other.
    “He—”
    “He—”
    “Shut up!” I ordered, stabbing a finger somewhere between them.
    The senator recovered first. “I apologize for my son,” he began. “I see he has not yet learned—”
    “We don't have a mutual friend,” I said, and turned my gaze from the older to the younger Rivera. Usually, runaway honesty isn't a problem with me, but the blatant lies of father to son had frayed my nerves. “The senator has asked me to investigate a death.”
    Rivera's brows jerked into his hairline. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Just informally, of course. He thought the police department might be too—”
    “What death?”
    “That's not the point here,” I said, tone calculated to soothe the wild beast. “It simply—”
    “What fucking death?” Rivera growled.
    I straightened my back. “Kathleen Baltimore's. But I believe her death took place well out of your jurisdiction.”
    He stared at me a second, then threw back his head and laughed. “Jesus, McMullen, who do you think you are? Columbo?”
    “No.” I may have mentioned before that I hate to be laughed at. But being laughed at by a braying clod like Rivera makes my blood hurt. “I realize—”
    “You're lucky to still be breathing after that last fiasco.”
    “Well…” I could feel my temper rising toward the boiling point, but I diluted it with common sense. Two irate idiots were enough in one kitchen. “Thank you for your profound—”
    “You damn well better thank me. I've saved your ass more times than a fucking firefighter.”
    “I don't think it proper that you speak to a lady in that tone,” said the senator.
    “And you!” Rivera rounded on his dad with a sharp snort. “What the hell are you thinking? You got some hot deal cooking? Maybe one of your asshole friends offed another of your asshole friends and you want to know what's what? Decided McMullen here is expendable?”
    “A woman has died,” the senator said, tone stiff and holier than hell. “I did not know her, but I feel in my heart that it was not—”
    “Heart!” Rivera laughed again. The sound was about as pleasant as the rumble of a road grader. “You don't have a fucking heart.”
    “Rivera,” I said, but he turned toward me, spewing vitriol.
    “So you were willing to lie for him, too, huh?”
    Emotion was splashed across his face like acid—anger and hate, but there was