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“Absolutely not, but if you just don’t get in the way and don’t do anything that could potentially screw up my case, then when we’ve got whoever is behind this, the story is yours. I talked to Okano today and the higher-ups. Everyone’s in agreement.”
Katherine Okano was an assistant D.A., a smart no-nonsense woman who had worked her way up in the department and given Reed a chance when he was looking for a job. She, looking over the tops of rimless glasses, had listened to him and frowned, thinking everything over before giving him the okay.
“And I have to stop looking into things? My story on the history of the Beaumont estate?”
“That wasn’t just BS to get close to the investigation?”
“Approved by Fink. You know that.”
He stared at her long and hard, then squeezed her hand. “As long as you don’t get in my way and stay out of trouble and, Nikki, whatever you do, don’t do anything where you could get hurt.”
“Okay.” She nodded and said honestly, “I’ll do my best.”
He cocked a disbelieving eyebrow, which she found ridiculously sexy.
“I think l should tell you what I pieced together.”
“While researching your story on the history of the place.”
“Mmm.” She nodded. “I found out that Margaret Duval had an affair with Baxter Beaumont way back when.”
“I’m listening,” he said, but got up to let Mikado inside.
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I heard something of the sort. Though I hadn’t heard Baxter’s name.”
The dog came over to Nikki and placed his head on her thigh. She ruffled his neck and scratched behind his ears.
“I’m just trying to piece it together myself, but Tyson told me about it.” She explained about her run-in with Baxter’s son and what Tyson had explained about his grandmother’s nurse. Then she added the gossip she’d overheard at the Red Knuckle. “And then I did some calculations. Look, I know this is a little far-fetched. I have no source on this, no reliability. Just maybe a feeling.”
“I deal in facts.”
“Fine, I know. But I think it could be possible that Rose Duval might be Baxter Beaumont’s daughter.”
“What?” He was walking to the refrigerator and stopped dead in his tracks. “That’s a pretty big leap.”
“Maybe. But a possibility.”
He opened the fridge and pulled out a beer, then twisted off the top. “And she’s the daughter who escaped . . . well, maybe escaped. We’ve already had someone claiming to be the missing Rose.”
She was out of her chair. “Really?” This was news she hadn’t heard, her pulse ticked up. “And?”
“A fraud,” he said. “We’ve got her DNA and are already processing it, but her story didn’t hold any water.”
“Tell me.”
“She came in with her husband, claimed she had a memory loss.” He sketched out the meeting with Herman and Greta Kemp. “Delacroix called her a fake from the get-go and it was obvious that they were hoping to cash in on the fame.”
“Why?”
“You tell me.” He took a long drink from his bottle. “We live in a whacked-out world. Fame. Money. Power. That’s what everyone’s looking for these days.” He winked at her. “I know that’s why you hunted me down.”
“Hunted you—?” He was teasing. Despite how serious the conversation had gotten. “I guess you know me,” she said. “A gold digger through and through.”
* * *
Owen Duval was sweating, his nerves strung to the breaking point, his thoughts ragged and he didn’t need any reporter begging for a story to tell “his side” of what had happened to his sisters. “No,” Owen said into the phone, pacing around the small confines of his apart
