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     affection. And after the divorce, she’d never made any attempts to contact his dad,
     his brothers, or Devlin. She’d abandoned all of them.
    “I’m sorry for your loss.” Unlike her boss, she sounded like she genuinely meant it.
    Devlin nodded his thanks and returned the bag to the coroner. “How did she die?”
    “I’m not sure yet,” Kennerly said. “There are no obvious signs of trauma. But the
     body—that is, Mrs. Buchanan—has been in that basement for some time. It’s difficult
     to pinpoint the cause of death. I won’t know more until after the autopsy and some
     tests.”
    Dozens of questions swirled through Devlin’s mind, but the answers would have to wait.
     Right now, the most important thing he could do was to try to soften the blow for
     his father. He didn’t want the falsely solicitous Drier or the abrupt coroner to break
     the news. As much as he hated the necessity, this was his responsibility. He was the
     one who needed to tell Alex that the woman he loved had been murdered.
    He yanked his truck door open.
    “Wait.” Drier sounded panicked. “Mr. Buchanan, what are you doing? We still need to
     ask you some questions.”
    O’Malley stood on her tiptoes and whispered something to her boss.
    Devlin didn’t wait to see what they were discussing. He climbed into the truck and
     started it up. When he rolled the window down, he didn’t see O’Malley anywhere. He
     directed his comment to the lieutenant. “Your questions can wait. I have to tell my
     father the love of his life is dead.”
    He put the truck in gear just as the passenger door popped open. He slammed on his
     brakes and O’Malley hopped inside. She calmly shut the door and put the seat belt
     on as if she and Devlin were old friends about to head up to the corner store together.
    “What are you doing?” he demanded.
    “Going with you.”
    “No. You’re not. Get out.”
    Her fingers curled against the tan leather seat. “Mr. Buchanan, I royally screwed
     up my career today by defying orders, going into that house without backup, allowing
     myself to be trapped like a rookie while the suspect got away with the victim, and
     then shooting at an unarmed civilian.” She gave him a hesitant smile. “Thank you for
     that, by the way. For pretending you thought it was justified, even though we both
     know I shouldn’t have fired my weapon.” She waved her hand in the air. “Regardless,
     I just lied to my boss and told him I’d established a rapport with you earlier and
     that I was certain I could get you to answer his questions. So that is exactly what
     I’m going to do—ask you questions.”
    Devlin tightened his hand on the steering wheel. Apparently he’d given her the impression
     that he was a nice guy and that he wanted to keep helping her. Well, he’d left nice in the dust years ago. The best way to help O’Malley was for him to get as far away
     from her as possible, as quickly as possible. Which meant it was time to reveal just
     how un-nice he could be.
    He rudely raked his gaze down her body and let out a puff of laughter. “Rapport? Is
     that what they call it these days when a woman wiggles her sweet ass under a man and
     gives him a hard-on?”
    Inwardly wincing at his crudity, he was glad his very proper father wasn’t here to
     see his son’s reprehensible behavior. Alex Buchanan would never tolerate any of his
     sons being rude, especially to a woman. Devlin waited, expecting O’Malley to hop out
     of the truck any second and return to her safe, nice world.
    Instead, her mouth tightened and her eyebrows drew down in an angry slash. “If you
     think you’re going to scare me away by being a jerk, think again. I have two brothers,
     and I promise you there’s nothing you could say that could burn my ears any worse
     than what I’ve already heard. But more importantly, we’re wasting valuable time sitting
     here. This isn’t about you or me. It’s about a young, terrified