Sole Witness (5 page)

Davis counted to ten before
answering. Lori had never been a liar. Or a murderer. Of course, that had been
high school, but how much could someone change?

“I ran her name through every
database we’ve got. Nothing. Not even a parking ticket.”

“See!” Carver’s eyes lit with
triumph. “You thought she was mighty convenient, too.”

“No, I’m a cop. I’m efficient.
Stop making me crazy.” Davis counted to twenty this time. “Carver, you said
yourself that supermodels have money. Why would a supermodel steal a wallet?”

She shrugged. “There’s more
reasons to steal a wallet than just money.”

“Top secondary reason being to
conceal identity of the victim. You can’t tell me she thought nobody would
notice the dead rap star looked mysteriously like guy in the posters plastered
over all the walls.”

“Bullet to the face. Besides,
there could’ve been something else in the wallet. We don’t know because we
don’t have the wallet.”

“Carver–”

A tidal wave of low wolf calls
swept through the room. Conversation ceased, then continued in louder, faster
tones. He knew without turning to the window what he would see.

“Hamilton,” Carver cooed with a
smirk, crunching her cough drop between her teeth. “Looks like your one o’clock
is here.” She grinned and made fish faces.

Davis glared at her. He stood to
face the glass.

And then there she was.

High, strappy sandals. Long,
skinny skirt. Some sort of flowy top. Slender neck. Perfect face obscured by
massive movie-star sunglasses. Who wears sunglasses indoors?

And that long, silky hair he
loved so much, gone. Instead, her locks tumbled in a sexy, tousled shag.
Different look, same effect. His body tightened in response, although whether
to memory or reality, he didn’t know.

He sure didn’t need a leggy
blonde to screw things up. Not his case, not his life, and not his otherwise
clear thinking.

“I’m going to take her into
Interrogation Room One. You can watch through the glass.”

Carver smirked. “Whatever.”

Davis crossed to the doorway and
stepped into the main antechamber. With one pointed look, junior officer Bock
made a beeline for Lori’s side.

Man. Had they truly not spoken
since high school?

She’d been so creative, so wild,
so fun. She’d smelled like flowers and cheap shampoo and grinned at him
constantly.

Now she looked like money and
expensive perfume, just like Juliana, his high-society mistake. Lori had never
been pretentious and full of herself before, but she hadn’t been rich and
famous before, either.

People changed.

*          *          *

Noon had come and gone. She
should have been here hours earlier… and she might have, if it weren’t for
sleep evading her until just before dawn.

Lori stood inside the entranceway
to collect her breath and her thoughts for a moment. She tugged open the large
glass door, stepped inside, then sagged against the cool concrete wall.

No. She couldn’t breathe. It was
just like Daddy’s precinct.

Pungent bleach, fast-food
hamburgers and forgotten dust mixed in the recycled air. White, textured walls.
Blinding fluorescent lights. Tile floor, scuffed and stained. Phones ringing.
Handcuffs clinking. Voices. Laughter. The screech of rusty file cabinets.

Lori closed her eyes and willed
herself to forget.

“Miss?” came a hesitant male
voice.

With a sudden swallow and a jerk
of her head, Lori focused on the young uniformed officer eyeing her as if she
were a wild animal. His nametag introduced him as Jim Bock. Lori nodded and
thrust out her hand.

“Officer Bock, I’m–”

“Lori Summers. I know.” He shook
her hand as though it were made of delicate porcelain. “I’ve still got that
Swimsuit Edition from two years ago. Awesome to meet you.”

Great. That wasn’t an awkward
conversation opener, or anything. Lori glanced around the open area and gulped.

The two female cops were eyeing
her curiously, but all seven of the men—three in cuffs, four in uniform—stared
at her as though practicing x-ray vision. Lori extricated her hand from the
officer’s loose grip and forced her features into a smile.

“I was asked to come in today
because I called in what sounded like gunshots at Tommy Turner’s studio.”

“Oh, it was definitely gun shots.
What were you doing there, anyway?”

The expression on the young
officer’s face broadcasted his belief that she’d been there to add herself to
Tommy’s gaggle of groupies.

Much as Lori didn’t want people
thinking she made a practice of having sex with rap stars, claiming she’d shown
up to get an autograph sounded equally lame. Even Tommy hadn’t believed her.
Why would the cops be any different?

“I… Do you know who I’m supposed
to meet with?”

“Hold on.” He turned and made
wild hand signals at a large window connecting an adjoining room before turning
back to Lori. “Either Detective Carver or Detective Hamilton.”

A strange sensation bubbled in
Lori’s stomach. It couldn’t be. But–

“Did you say Detective Hamilton?”

The young cop stopped, turned,
and shot her a surprised look. “Yeah. Davis Hamilton. You know him?”

Oh boy. Did she ever.

This didn’t seem the time to
mention she knew him biblically, that the first time she’d seen him she’d lost
her heart. And later, along a stretch of beach notorious for kissing couples,
lost quite a bit more than that.

“Maybe,” she hedged.

Davis had no doubt forgotten
their long conversations, their first tentative touches, those stolen moments
in the photography dark room.

She’d have sworn he’d forgotten
her, too, if he hadn’t shown up at Sissy’s funeral. He’d been somber, silent,
stricken. She was so sure he felt the pain that stabbed inside her soul, but
he’d left without saying a word.

As if she’d conjured him with her
mind, his profile appeared through the window. Pacing, and on the phone. Davis
had always hated talking on phones.

He looked surreal. Taller. Older.
Clean-shaven.

His shaggy brown curls had been
cropped close to his head. He didn’t seem like Davis without wavy hair and
paint-stained fingers. Had he looked like this at the funeral? All she
remembered was sadness, and the rain.

Officer Bock motioned again at
the window. “He’ll be right out.”

How strange to think of Davis as
a cop. He’d been an artist for so long.

Lori had been so angry when he’d
given in to his parents and gone away to law school. His father was a big shot
defense attorney who expected his progeny to aspire for the same lofty
paycheck. And unlike her, Davis had the SAT scores to do anything he wanted.

But a cop? That was a big a
stretch from lawyer as it was from artist.

Why this path? For the sense of
power? The Davis she’d known hadn’t cared much for power. But then, the Davis
she’d known hadn’t wanted to go to law school, either.

“Lori?”

Suddenly, he was in front of her.
Bigger. More muscular.

Lori swallowed but couldn’t
speak.

The quiet, deep voice she
remembered. The same soft brown eyes. New scent. He used to smell like paint
and charcoal and art fixative. Now he smelled like cop—soap, sweat, spicy
aftershave.

Pure trouble either way.

*          *          *

“Lori?” Davis asked again.

She stared at him without moving.

Her scent invaded his nose and
all he wanted to do was touch her. He couldn’t let himself act on his crazy
impulses. One touch and he’d be lost.

He had to remain objective. He
was a cop. She was practically a suspect.

Despite the self-warning, his
fingers grazed her arm before he even realized he’d reached out to her.

She jumped.

Oh, nice. His very touch repulsed
her. That ought to remind him to keep his distance.

“Lori, do you want to go into a
private room with me to talk about yesterday?”

She nodded and fumbled with her
sunglasses. They slid up to the top of her head. Her eyes were wide and
bloodshot. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.

Davis decided not to mention it.

“All right,” he said instead.
“Follow me.”

She followed him into the
interrogation room.

For the first time, he wondered
what the familiar room looked like to someone who wasn’t a cop. Stark walls,
one of them halved by the two-way mirror. A single oblong table, covered in
forgotten stains.

Not exactly a Martha Stewart
special.

He motioned to one of the metal
folding chairs and she sank into it gracefully. She’d always been graceful.
Well, except for the hot nights when they’d been–

“So.” Davis cleared his throat.
“Tell me about yesterday.”

“It’s good to see you,” she
answered, her voice husky.

He fell into his chair. “Yes,” he
answered and stared at her as if he’d been given permission to breathe again.
“It’s been a while.”

“Since the funeral.”

Davis nodded. “Since the
funeral.”

“You didn’t speak to me. You
spoke to my mom, but not me.” She rubbed her nose with the back of one hand and
for a moment, Davis was transported backward through time.

“I– I saw you, but I didn’t know
if–”

“I got to the studio between six
and six-thirty. I don’t know exactly. I don’t wear a watch. I was coming from
across town, from the main library. Traffic was bad. Spring Break. Rush hour.
Sunset. No place to park… that block is metered. The shots—I was pretty freaked
out.”

Davis checked his notes. “The 911
call came through at six twenty-five.”

She paused, as if considering.
“That’s about right.”

“Did you call right away?”

Lori shook her head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Like I said, I was pretty
freaked out. Call me a coward, but I drove off. Headed for home. And as soon as
I could breathe without hyperventilating, I pulled over and called.”

“How much time would you say went
by?”

“I don’t know. Five minutes? Ten,
max?”

Davis nodded. “That jibes with
the M.E.’s report. How do you know Tommy Turner?”

Lori removed her sunglasses from
her head and tucked them into the neck of her blouse. “I was in his first music
video two years ago.”

“And you kept up a
correspondence?”

“Not exactly.” The weight of the
glasses tugged the neckline even lower and a hint of cleavage winked at him as
she shifted in her seat.

Davis swallowed.

“Then why did you go over there
last night?”

Lori looked away. It was just for
a second, but that slight break in eye contact pricked at Davis’s well-honed
sense of mistrust.

“No reason.”

“Come on, Lori. We all have
reasons for everything we do.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me at the
funeral, then?”

Dammit. “Focus. We’re talking
about Tommy Turner.”

“Okay.”

“Were you his girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Were you going over to have sex
with him?”

Lori’s cheeks pinked. “None of
your business, but no.”

“We spoke to the band members.”

“So?”

“Tommy sent everyone away at five
thirty because he was expecting a ‘hookup’. He’d told them about it on Sunday.”

Lori crossed her arms. “Well,
today’s Tuesday, and even I didn’t know I was going over there until yesterday.
Monday, in other words. So I guess I wasn’t the hookup.”

“Then why were you there?”

She tossed her head. Much of the
effect was lost without her long hair to flip over her shoulders, but the
mulish expression was the same as old times. “To get his autograph, okay?”

“Give me a break, Lori.”

“Not for me, for a friend.”

Davis could just feel Carver
smirking from the other side of the glass. “Lori. Do you know how many times
we’ve heard the ‘for a friend’ routine?”

Lori glared at him, her
red-rimmed eyes direct and unwavering. “Well, it’s true.”

He sighed. “Let’s talk about
something else for a while.”

“Fine.”

“Why are you in Isla Concha?
Aren’t you usually traveling for photo shoots and the like?”

“Why? Are you going to tell me I
can’t leave town?”

Davis grit his teeth. “Maybe.”

“Screw you, Davy.”

Davy. God. He hadn’t heard that
name in… twelve years. Not since– no. Concentrate. “Lori, please answer the
question.”