AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Sounds like a good job. What’s your name?”
She blushed ferociously. “Liana.”
He pulled out a chair and sat down. “Nice to meet you, Liana. I’m Doyle. Did you know Judge Braddock?”
She swallowed, then nodded once.
“What do you think of him?”
A shrug. “I don’t really think of him, you know?”
“Like the guy? He friendly?”
She focused on her papers. “Sure. Yeah. Whatever.” She looked up. “He’s dead now, right?”
“That he is.”
She held his eyes for a moment, then looked back down at the tabletop. She didn’t say a word, but Doyle would have sworn the girl smiled. Not that he got a chance to ask, because Ytalia was returning, a file in her hand.
Doyle moved toward her, ignoring the pursed look of disapproval she shot his way as he stepped away from the girl.
“Is that all?” she asked, passing him the file.
“I think that about does it,” Doyle said. And if Tucker’s open mouth was any indication, the wrap-up was a surprise to him.
“What are we doing?” Tucker asked once they were outside the building, the file in the Catalina’s trunk, and the two men leaning against its polished mustard-yellow body.
“Waiting,” Doyle said, an activity that took another ninety minutes and included sending Tucker on a Starbucks run. He’d just returned when Doyle saw what he was waiting for—Liana, leaving by the side door and walking away from them down the sidewalk.
He hurried to catch up, leaving Tucker and the coffee behind. “Hold up there, kid.”
She slowed, looking back over her shoulder, and frowned. Then she kept right on walking. He fell into step beside her.
“Anything you want to tell me?”
“No.”
“The man’s dead. He can’t hurt you now.”
She stopped, facing him with wary eyes. “If he’s dead, what does it matter?”
“Goes to motive,” he said. “Hard to put a killer away if you don’t know why he killed. Even with solid evidence.” At the same time, if Doyle’s suspicions were correct and Braddock had been abusing little girls, he was going to come off as even more of a son of a bitch and end up making Dragos look better by comparison.Shit.That was one hell of a fucked-up trade-off.
“I’m glad he’s dead,” the girl said.
“Why?” Doyle asked, certain he knew the answer.
“He told me not to tell. He told me I’d get in bad trouble.”
“He can’t get you into trouble now.”
She looked down at the sidewalk. “I was thirteen,” she said, her voice so soft that he could barely hear it, even with his preternaturally keen senses. “I kept his dirty secret,” she said. “But I don’t have to keep it anymore if I don’t want to.”
“No,” Doyle said, fighting to stay level. Now wasn’t the time for the rage to rise. He needed to be calm. Needed to not scare the girl. “Tell me what he did, Liana. What did Marcus Braddock do to you?”
“He hurt me,” she said, her voice flat. “He raped me.”
And then, with Doyle gently prodding the truth from her, Liana told him everything.
