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“Here.” As Dean handed over her purse, Francesca noticed that his mood had changed drastically. Gone was the friendly Dean, the childlike Dean, even the embarrassed Dean. Now he seemed angry—brooding and angry. But, considering how he’d been treated, she found those emotions justified.
“Go take your medication,” Butch said. “I can always tell when you try to skip.”
Dean glared at him again, then turned on his heel and left the room.
“So what’s it gonna be?” Butch asked.
Francesca didn’t bother to check her purse for her phone or her wallet. What was there was there. She had bigger concerns. Slinging the strap over her shoulder, she raised her chin. “Where’s your office?”
CHAPTER 13
As she’d expected, Butch’s office was the ramshackle building she’d hidden behind when she’d first spotted that mannequin and thought it was a corpse. About four hundred square feet, it had two doors, four windows, a large metal desk, a few office machines and an old air-conditioning unit, which sounded as if it was leaking water, hanging out the window closest to Butch’s chair. A tiny apartment sat off to one side, an obvious addition. Francesca could see part of a bed through the open doorway, but she didn’t have the impression the apartment was currently occupied.
The scent of cigar smoke clung to the cheap wooden paneling and brown shag carpet. Francesca could also smell dog, even though the Doberman was currently chained up outside. A pot of coffee sat on top of a makeshift minibar constructed of wooden planks and cinder blocks. Everything around her pronounced Butch king of the junk heap.
“Sit down.” Shoving a pile of newspapers off a chair of cracked vinyl, something he’d probably pulled in from the yard, he waved her into it. Then he helped himself to a cup of coffee without offering her one, took a seat across from her and propped his feet on the desk.
“What?” she said when he scowled at her without speaking. “You wanted me here for a reason.”
He gulped down some coffee. “We got off on the wrong foot the other day. But I won’t apologize for that. You had no right to trespass on my property.” He touched his cheek as if remembering the moment she’d gouged him. “Or scratch my face like a damn hellcat.”
“Unlike what you told the police, you were chasing me!” she argued.
“I was just trying to figure out what you wanted.”
She couldn’t believe he’d continue to lie when, as far as he knew, they were alone. “By tackling me? Come on. You already put on a circus for the police. I was there, remember? I know what happened. You were feeling a lot more than curiosity.”
Shifting so he could reach the desk while his feet remained on top of it, he put down his coffee cup and picked up a heavy crystal paperweight, which he tossed from hand to hand. “Maybe I was.”
“So now you’re admitting it?”
“I’m admitting that I was trying to hide something. But not what you think. I had no intention of murdering you when you came here. I’ve never killed anyone.”
She watched that paperweight shift from hand to hand, thought how easy it would be for him to bash her head in before Jonah or Finch or anyone else could rescue her. “Then why did you react the way you did when you found me on your property?”
“Because I knew what you were. The last stranger who came snooping around here all dressed up was also a P.I.”
“Looking for yet another missing person with a connection to you, no doubt,” she said dryly.
A hint of malice passed over his face but was gone almost as soon as it appeared. “Looking to catch me with a woman other than my wife,” he corrected.
Francesca brought her purse around so she could prop it in her lap. “You think Paris is collecting proof that you’re unfaithful? Considering the profile you posted on that dating Web site where you met April, that shouldn’t be too hard. A quick Internet search would do it. I’d be happy to help—for free.”
The animosity didn’t reappear, as she’d thought it would. Instead, he laughed. “Paris would never leave me. It’s not like I’m sneaking around on her, so you got nothing on me. As long as I’m discreet and my emotions don’t get involved, she lets me do whatever I want. It’s my girlfriend’s husband who has a jealousy problem.”
His girlfriend? Francesca hadn’t expected him to divulge another ongoing relationship. She hadn’t even expected him to have one. Or maybe that was how he worked. Maybe he kept various women on the side as girlfriends until they became too demanding, or he tired of them, or the desire to kill grew too strong to resist. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”
The paperweight landed on his desk with a thud. “None of your business. I won’t drag her into this. She’s got her hands full dealing with that husband of hers. She doesn’t need any more trouble, especially from you.”
“Interesting. You seem to care about her—enough to protect her, to some extent—and yet it doesn’t bother you that you’re breaking up her marriage.”
“Why would it?” he said. “I don’t owe her husband any more than I owe you. I never forced her to sleep with me. The way I look at it, she’s breaking up her own marriage. That’s her choice. But it doesn’t mean I’ll make it easy for the people her husband hires to document us so he can take away her kids.”
Francesca didn’t conceal her smirk. “You’re telling me that was all that had you worried when I showed up here, Butch? What your girlfriend’s husband might do with proof of her infidelity?”
He spread his hands wide. “Believe it or not.”
Rocking back, she folded her arms on her purse. “What about April?”
