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“Good. I’m glad. You looked awfully sick for a moment.”
“I’m fine.”
“So if you’re fine…”
“Yeah?” he asked warily.
“Who’s this Tessa you mentioned?”
If he hadn’t been on a busy freeway, Luke would’ve put his forehead to the steering wheel and groaned. Since that wasn’t an option, he just shook his head in complete disbelief. “Are you really asking me that right now?”
“Yes, I am. I told Eve you had a girlfriend to make it clear you’d moved on. I had no idea I’d stumbled onto the truth.”
“Sorry, but you’re off base. No girlfriend.”
His mom didn’t give up. “So who is she?”
“She’s a girl I’ve gone on one date with, and there’s a decided possibility that will be the only one. That’s it.” He left off the date on Tessa’s couch, because he was pretty sure it didn’t qualify as anything other than a drawn-out misunderstanding.
“Well, keep me in the loop.”
“I don’t think so.”
She laughed so hard she snorted. “Okay, but I miss you. Drop by again soon.”
“I love you, Mom, but no more dropping by. I’ll make an appointment next time.”
He hung up and glanced at the dashboard. It was only three, but he felt like he’d just put in a sixteen-hour day. With traffic, it’d be after four by the time he got back to the station. Maybe he’d just call it a day and go home to crack open his dusty bottle of Scotch. If a man didn’t deserve a night of drinking after a scene like that, when did he?
Never, apparently, because his phone rang a minute later, flashing Simone’s name. Luke didn’t even bother sighing when he answered the phone. “What’s up?”
“Care to interview a robbery suspect?” She sounded downright happy. “Someone got caught with his fingers in the pot.”
“Another robbery? At three in the afternoon?”
“Nope. Patrol pulled over some guy on a warrant, and they found a Donovan Brothers keg in the trunk.”
“No shit. All right, I’ll be there in thirty, and I’ll let you know what I found in Denver.”
Luke hung up and hit the switch to the lights hidden in the grille of his car. As he wove through traffic, all his weariness vanished in the reflection of flashing lights. Maybe he could salvage something from this day after all.
CHAPTER NINE
THE PUNK WHO SLOUCHED over the scarred table of the interrogation room could’ve passed for fourteen, but he was a few years past juvenile hall. At first glance, Luke had figured the twenty-two-year-old stick figure in skinny jeans would confess within five minutes. He clearly wasn’t cut out for prison, and he’d been picked up on a warrant for failure to show on charges of petty larceny. With evidence from the brewery robbery right there in the trunk of his car, this kid was in trouble. Then again, he also wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. If he hadn’t skipped his first hearing, he would’ve gotten off with time served and probation.
So yeah, the kid was in a bad spot, but he was sticking with his story that he’d found the keg in an alley and picked it up.
“Listen, Tommy,” Luke said. “You go by Tommy, right?”
“It’s Thomas.”
“We’re not interested in you, Thomas. I know the break-in wasn’t your idea. You were probably brought in at the last minute. So who called you in?”
Thomas rolled his eyes.
“I’m serious, Thomas. You tell us who orchestrated the break-in at the brewery, and we’ll help you out.”
“I told you,” Thomas ground out. “I found the keg in an alley.”
