On the far side he watched a mom with two kids trailing behind her. She was urging them to keep up, as her hands were full of groceries. One was a little girl, somewhere around the same age as the little sweetheart he had kept a picture of, only this one had red hair and pigtails. Beside her was a boy, a little bit older, kicking rocks down the street.
He was focused too. With fierce concentration on his face, he reached out with a sturdy foot and kicked the rock with all his might. Of course, it went forward about six feet, and that was it. But the little boy kept scampering after it and kicked it again.
He watched as they headed to a little row of condos up ahead. And surprise, surprise, she went inside and left the other two in the front yard. He stood and casually strolled in that direction. He took note of the street name and house number. As he got closer, the mother called the children in, and, as soon as they heard her voice—and something about her tone—they immediately swept inside, and she firmly closed and locked the door. He kept on walking past, but no way would he forget what was so carefully guarded inside that house.
Because, man, they were perfect. And he was so damn lonely.
Chapter 15
The elevator openedin front of Kate, and she stepped out to see Simon leaning against his living room doorjamb. She stared at him. “Thanks for seeing me,” she said calmly. He just glared. She smiled a little bit. “You weren’t busy, were you?”
He swirled some golden liquid in the glass he held. “I’m always busy.”
“Interesting,” she murmured. His gaze narrowed, until she spoke again. “So you don’t happen to know anything about an earlier stabbing, do you?”
His eyebrows shot up, and his facial expression turned neutral. “No,” he said. “Why would I?”
She shook her head and said, “Just something I heard on a 9-1-1 call.” She studied his face, but absolutely no change was in his expression. “You must be good at poker. Especially as you didn’t ask me,What stabbing?”
His gaze flattened. “Are you charging me with something, Detective?”
“No,” she said. “Should I be?”
He gave a negligent shrug of those elegant shoulders. Something was just so damn appealing about him, and she had a hard personal line she’d never been tempted to cross, but he was damn hard to forget. But why was she here now, when she should have hauled him in for questioning? Anger over the attraction made her more brisk than normal. “Honestly I’m still not exactly sure what you are up to,” she said. “I just wanted to keep track of you.”
“You didn’t have to personally come to my apartment to do that,” he said.
“Maybe I’m looking for injuries,” she said smoothly. She watched as he froze and then lifted his gaze, as he sipped his whiskey. Interesting reaction.
“Injuries. You already know I got into a fight with that dead guy you found beaten up downtown.”
“I do,” she said. “I also know what those bruises would look like if they were real.”
He stared at her. “Did you have any other questions for me, Detective? If so, maybe I should call my lawyer.”
“If you want to, feel free,” she said, studying him. After a moment she confirmed, “Where were you two weeks ago, on that Monday, between four and six in the afternoon?”
He stared at her in surprise. “I’m always working. I have no clue for that time frame. Most likely I was moving through some of my building projects,” he said. “You remember those. You followed me often enough.”
She gave him a flat stare and asked, “Where were you?”
“Not sure,” he said. “I’ll have to think about it.”
“You have five minutes,” she stated.
He glared at her, turned, walked over to the side table, pulled out his little black journal, which he used to keep track of what he was doing, and said, “I was on a project on Denman Street.”
“Any calls on your phone that will prove it?”
“Phone calls,” he said, looking up at her. “You’ll have to get a subpoena for my records, if that’s the issue.”
“I can do that easily enough if I have justification,” she said, with a nod.
“Which you don’t,” he said. “Which is why you are fishing. The question is, why, though?”
“Because I think you are the one who phoned in that stabbing,” she said.
He stared at her, the corner of his lips twitching into a tiny smile. “Why the hell would I do that?”