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Gideon ignored her and stepped into the dimly lit, windowless restaurant. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said this was the best place in town for soul food. It was also a good place, filled with good people. Even the ghosts who dropped in here were happy.
“Detective Raintree.” Tanya herself greeted him with a smile that deepened the wrinkles on her serene face. “The usual?”
“Yep.” He grabbed his regular booth.
Tanya looked at Malory and raised her eyebrows slightly. “And for you, young lady?”
“I’ll just have a salad. Vinaigrette on the side.”
The order was met with silent surprise. Gideon glanced back at Tanya as Malory joined him. “Just bring her what I’m having.”
Malory started to argue, then thought better of it.
“What if I don’t like what you’re having?” she asked when Tanya was out of hearing distance.
“You’ll like it,” he said.
It was the first time all day they’d been in a quiet place, alone, and he took the opportunity to study Hope Malory critically. Her hair was mussed from the ride in his convertible. She’d smoothed it with her hands but hadn’t run to the ladies’ room to make more extensive repairs. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes smart. Take-no-prisoners smart. Man, she was gorgeous.
And she was pissed.
“So what are you doing here?” he asked.
“I just wanted a salad,” she said softly.
“In Wilmington,” he clarified. “This is a relatively small department. I know the detectives from the other divisions, and I know the uniforms. You’re not one of them, so how did you end up with this ill-advised and temporary assignment as my partner?”
She didn’t take the bait. “I transferred in from Raleigh. I worked vice there for the past two years.”
He was surprised. She looked too young to have been a detective for two years. “How old are you?”
She didn’t seem to be offended by the question, as some women might have been. “Twenty-nine.”
So she was on the fast track. Ambitious, smart, maybe even a little bit greedy. “Why the move?”
“My mother lives here in Wilmington. She needs family close by, so I decided it was time to come back home.”
“Is she sick?”
“No.” Malory squirmed a little, obviously getting uncomfortable with the personal nature of the discussion. “She fell last year. It wasn’t anything serious. She sprained her ankle and hobbled for a couple of weeks.”
“But it worried you,” he said. Of course it did. Malory was so earnest, so relentlessly dedicated and serious. If anything had happened to her mother, she would see it as somehow being her fault. And so here she was.
“It worried me a little,” she confessed. “What about you?” she asked quickly, turning the subject of the conversation around. “Do you have family close by? Other than Echo, that is.”
People who asked too many questions always made him nervous. Why did she need to know about his family? Of course, he had started this personal discussion. Turnabout was fair play, he supposed. “I have a sister and a niece who live in the western part of the state, a few hours away, a brother in Nevada and cousins everywhere I turn.”
That last bit got a small smile out of her. Nice. Maybe she wasn’t entirely earnest, after all.
“What about your parents?” she asked.
“They’re dead.”
Her smile faded quickly. “Sorry.”
“They were murdered when I was seventeen,” he said without emotion. “Anything else you want to know?”
“I didn’t mean to pry.”
