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“Call if you need me,” he said, shook hands with Tony Navarro, then strode to his car, undoubtedly relieved to have escaped.
Tony didn’t move. He wasn’t watching the attorney’s departure; he was looking at her, and his expression puzzled her.
“Do you need the key for the side door?” she asked. “Let me get my purse, and I’ll give you mine.”
“No—” A hand on her arm stopped her. “Actually, yes, thank you, but there’s something else I’m hoping you’ll do for me.”
Now suspicious, she echoed, “That I’ll do for you?”
“You must have taken today off work.”
“Yes.”
He rubbed his jaw. “Is there any chance you could take more time off?”
What on earth? “I could, but why?”
“I could use some help going through the stuff in the garage, and on the lawn.” When she gaped, he grimaced. “The truth is, you’d recognize something that doesn’t belong, or should be there and isn’t. I probably wouldn’t.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “I’m supposed to use up my vacation days to help you go after my father.” Even as she said that, she flashed on that diamond ear stud. If it was a diamond.
He cocked an eyebrow. “Look at it this way. You’ll have a chance to point out evidence leading to someone else.”
Beth’s first thought was that he would be taking the risk that she’d spot evidence pointing at her father…and bury it. Probably why what he was suggesting had to be unusual, if not unprecedented.
And he was right—this offer would make her part of the investigation. What could she do but accept?
CHAPTER FIVE
TONY FELT PROFOUND relief at Beth’s agreement to help but suspected Lieutenant Davidson’s first impulse would be to scold him, once he learned one of his detectives had brought a family member of the principal suspect into the investigation.
Worry later about justifying this, he decided.
“Can we get started now?” he asked.
“Well… I suppose.” She glanced down at herself. “I’m not really dressed for it, but that’s no big deal.”
“I’ll do any dirty work,” Tony assured her. Those chinos looked good, lovingly hugging well-rounded hips and long legs. Her pretty three-quarter sleeve cotton blouse, striped in two shades of a mossy green, was probably the kind of thing she wore for work. It would be less professional and more sexy if she’d just undo one more button, he couldn’t help thinking, his gaze lingering at the shadowy hint of cleavage he could make out.
“Let me get my purse.”
“You don’t think the things in the backyard are worth looking at?”
“We’ll probably have to, but—Wait a minute.”
He stayed at the front door as she snatched her purse from the kitchen table, then paused to say something to her father, who was out of sight in the family room. Tony couldn’t hear what was said. When she came back, they went out the front door.
“I know you’ll need to go through everything, and Emily and Matt are the ones who looked at a lot of the stuff that’s in the backyard, so I’m not sure what’s in some of the boxes,” she explained. “But—” She came to a halt, looking at the yellow crime scene tape. “Should we duck under the tape, or…?”
“Yeah, let’s,” he said. “I don’t want to take it down yet.”
She inserted the key in the side door of the garage and blew out a breath at the same time. “What I started to say is we did come across some boxes full of Mom’s things. So I think it makes sense to start there.”
“Yes. It does.” Damn, could it be this easy? “But if you’ve already looked through the boxes, why are they in here? I assumed you were shifting them outside as you made decisions.”
“We were.” The door open, Beth ducked under the tape but then hesitated on the threshold, and he couldn’t blame her, considering yesterday’s happenings.
He reached past her to flick on the lights, which failed to dispel the gloom. Tony ripped away the newspaper he’d taped over the pane of glass in the door, nudged Beth inside, and went to tear down the papers covering the window over the workbench, too. Unfortunately, the improved light made more visible the missing sheet of wallboard, which Larry and Jess had carried away along with the body. Stains remained evident in the baseboard as well as in the soft wood of one of the bracing two-by-fours.
