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Mac gazed into her sharp blue eyes, then leaned back in his chair. No point in a stare-down. “Okay, so I’ve talked to most of the guys of the group.”
“I need to be with you when you interview anyone else. You need another perspective.”
“You have been talking to D’Annibal. Perspective. That’s one of his favorites.”
She moved sharply and Mac automatically flinched. He’d been around enough perps to sense a threat in a hairsbreadth. But Gretchen just twisted like a robot, then stormed away to her own desk, which was behind his and halfway across the room. She’d been seated closer to him once, but it had left her away from the rise and fall of gossip that other detectives and cops engaged in. She might be universally disliked, but she was going to be in the center of the action, by God. Hanging out with a has-been like Mac wasn’t going to cut it.
He gazed down at his list. There were checkmarks and notations beside the names of the Preppy Pricks he’d already re-interviewed. Nothing much had come from those meetings other than a feeling that they all universally disliked him and that they were reluctant to give anything away. He probably deserved that. He’d pretty much squeezed them through the wringer back in the day.
The only ones he hadn’t met with yet were Hudson Walker and Zeke St. John. He hadn’t started on the girls-women-of the group yet. He hadn’t learned much from them twenty years earlier and he didn’t expect to learn much now, but you never knew. He paused over each of their names.
Tamara…Renee…Evangeline…Rebecca.
He circled Rebecca’s name, feeling something stir in his memory about that one. She was different. A bit of an odd duck. But there was just something about her, something he couldn’t quite remember. She wasn’t Jessie’s closest friend, but she seemed the most like her in ways he couldn’t quite analyze. “What is it you know?” he said aloud, staring at the old picture.
“What?” Gretchen called from the other side of the room, as if he were addressing her.
“Nothing.”
“Damn you, McNally. Don’t leave me out.”
As usual, Mac didn’t respond.
Becca had driven about two miles from Java Man when her cell phone jangled and she saw Hudson’s number on the screen.
“Hey, there,” she greeted him warmly. “I heard the police have started calling.”
Hudson made a sound of annoyance. “Bound to happen. McNally called me and we talked on the phone, but he still wants to interview me in person. That’s probably in the cards.”
Becca thought of Renee and the investigation that had led her to the coast. “I suppose we’ll all have to talk to him.”
“When can I see you?” he asked.
“I just happen to be free right now,” she said and smiled as she turned on her blinker and slid into the slower lane.
“Can I talk you into pizza at my place?”
“You just did. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
She clicked off, a grin on her face, and turned west onto the Sunset Highway to Laurelton. Traffic was thick through Beaverton and out to Hillsboro, but by the time she cruised into the area known as Laurelton, it had thinned to nearly nothing. She headed toward Hudson’s and when she turned down the gravel drive she was met by welcoming lights. She hurried up the steps and rang the bell.
Hudson called, “It’s open,” and Becca pushed the front door handle and entered. Leaving her coat on the hall tree, she walked toward the kitchen where the smell of tomato sauce, garlic, and onions beckoned.
“Hi,” he said, a slow grin stretching into place. Hudson was also in jeans, and he had on a chocolate corduroy shirt, the sleeves rolled up his forearms. They stared at each other a moment, then were in each other’s arms. She started laughing and couldn’t stop and he grinned at her.
Then he suddenly bent her over his arm so that her hair was almost sweeping the floor and he pressed his lips hard and hot against hers. She clung to him for fear she might fall backward, but opened her mouth when his tongue slipped between her teeth and the deepest part of her started to tingle.
She let out a low moan and he lifted his head. “Missed you,” he said.
“Missed you, right back.”
“Pizza can wait,” he said, blue eyes intense.
“Yes…” Becca murmured as he swept her off her feet and carried her up the stairs to his bedroom, kicking the door shut behind them as they fell together on the bed.
There wasn’t much more conversation after that. They yanked at buttons, flies, and zippers, and once the clothes were tossed aside, came together hot and fast. Hudson kissed her in all the places that made her go crazy, touching her intimatel
y, sometimes gently, other times a little more rough, and she returned the favor, surprising him by exploring his body with her fingers and lips.
