Read Photo Finish (9781101537510) for Free Online Page A

them.”
    I still didn’t say anything, and she frowned at me.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWhy, which?” I said.
    â€œWhy did you run toward danger?”
    When I was younger and more insouciant, I would have quoted the late great Philip Marlowe and said, “Trouble is my business,” but tonight I was cold and apprehensive. “I don’t know.”
    â€œDid you see anyone in the club threaten Nadia tonight?”
    I shook my head. I hadn’t seen anyone threaten her tonight. Earlier, that was another story. But my years as a public defender had taught me to answer only the question asked.
    â€œDid you come here tonight because you thought there would be an attack on someone?”
    â€œIt’s a club. I came because I wanted to see the acts.”
    â€œYou’re a private investigator. They tell me you’ve been involved in a lot of high-profile investigations.”
    Someone had ID’d me to the police. I wondered if it was the club’s owner, out of malice. “Thank you,” I said.
    Milkova pushed her short hair back behind her ears, a nervous gesture—she wasn’t sure how to proceed. “But don’t you think it’s a strange coincidence, you being here the night someone got shot?”
    â€œCops have days off. Even doctors. And PIs have been known to take them, too.” I didn’t want to throw Petra to the wolves, and that’s what would happen if I said anything about wanting to keep an eye on where my cousin worked.
    No one had bothered to turn off the Body Artist’s computer, and the plasma screens on the stage kept flashing images of flowers and jungle animals. It made a disturbing backdrop to the interrogation.
    â€œVic, what are you doing here?”
    I looked around and saw Terry Finchley, a detective I’ve known for a long time.
    â€œTerry! I might ask you the same question.”
    Finchley’s been out of the field for five or six years now, on the personal staff of my dad’s old protégé, Captain Bobby Mallory. I was surprised to see the Finch at an active homicide investigation.
    He gave a wry smile. “Captain thought it was time I got my hands dirty again. And if you’re anything to judge by, they’re going to get mighty dirty indeed on this investigation.”
    I looked again at my stained hands. I was beginning to feel twitchy, covered in Nadia’s blood. Terry climbed the shallow step to the stage and told Milkova to get him a chair.
    â€œWhat have you learned, Liz?” Finchley asked Officer Milkova. So the E stood for Elizabeth.
    â€œShe’s not cooperating, sir. She won’t say how she knew the vic or why she was here, or anything.”
    â€œOfficer Milkova, I’ve told you I didn’t know the victim,” I said. “It makes me cranky when people don’t listen to me.”
    â€œPretty much any damned thing makes you cranky, Warshawski,” Finchley said. “But, out of curiosity, how did you get involved?”
    â€œI was leaving the club. I heard gunshots. I ran across the parking lot and saw a woman on the ground. She was bleeding; I tried to block the wounds, so I didn’t take time to follow the shooters. But on the principal that no good deed is left unpunished, I’m being treated as though I had something to do with the dead woman’s murder.” My voice had risen to a shout.
    â€œVic, you’re exhausted. And I don’t blame you.” Terry’s tone was unusually gentle, the sharp planes in his ebony cheeks softening with empathy. He’d felt angry with me for a lot of years. Maybe I was finally forgiven. Then his voice sharpened. “The techs are annoyed because you took evidence from the crime scene. And, for that, I not only don’t blame them but need you to turn it over to them.”
    Okay, not forgiven. He was just doing good cop–bad cop all in one paragraph.
    â€œIt wasn’t evidence. These