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“And I wanted to talk to you. Could you put some clothes on?”
“No,” she snapped.
“Lori.” He sighed. “Is Molly here?”
“No. Why?”
“Because I thought maybe this was another attempt to get me to look at your ass. I’m not sure why you two think that’s so funny, but you do.”
“She’s not here. And I don’t want to talk to you. That’s why I didn’t call you back, genius. And that’s why I’m not getting dressed. Go away.”
“Lori.”
“No. You’ve clearly got bad news and I am not in the mood.”
His gaze dropped from her hairline to her eyes, and the granite of his shoulders softened to something closer to limestone. “Is something wrong?”
“I’ve had a bad day, that’s all. Shouldn’t you be out rescuing people from bears or something?”
“Bears?” This time his gaze slid lower, all the way down to the wine she held in her hand. She’d feel more secure in her wildness if she’d managed to drink more than a quarter of the bottle. “I think Molly’s a bad influence on you.”
“You think? Look.” She jiggled the bottle. “I’m a lush now. Though at least I’m not drinking from one of those fancy boxes that Molly likes.”
Ben’s sigh was familiar. He used it often enough around Molly. “Do you really want me to come back tomorrow? Because you might be better off adding to this bad day while you’re still in it.”
Damn it, she could hardly argue with that. Ben was right, probably because he had years of experience delivering bad news to people. She felt her resentment rumble back an inch or two, and get mixed up with sympathy for him.
Careful not to spill any of the red wine on her cheap brown-flecked carpet, Lori gestured with the bottle toward the couch. “Fine. Come on in. You’re dripping doom all over my stoop anyway.”
It turned out to be less than she’d expected, but still jarring to hear it said aloud. Ben hadn’t found some forgotten photo of the assailant’s name scratched into the dirt before her father had passed out. No, the evidence was all strongly circumstantial.
“The medical examiner confirmed the previous findings of blunt force trauma to the head. She also looked over the CT scans and X-rays.” He glanced up from his notes at that point. “In her opinion, those injuries couldn’t have been caused by a fall unless he’d fallen headfirst down an incline.”
Lori made a soft, involuntary noise and looked away. “But the blow was to the back of the head.”
“She said something about the angle of the force.”
Staring at the blank TV, Lori nodded, then took a swig from the bottle.
“I’m sorry,” Ben said.
In an attempt to keep from crying, Lori made herself speak calmly. “I’ve been going through his records. He bought some land about a month before the…injury.”
He leaned forward. “Land?”
“Yeah. It looks like he bought it directly from the bank. I thought that might mean it had been foreclosed on.”
His pen scratched furiously against the paper as he asked questions about the date of purchase and the bank. Lori got up to get the papers she’d found, and Ben stood with her, still writing.
“I’ll get to this first thing in the morning,” he said when she handed him the papers.
“Thanks.” She started for the door, but Ben’s hand fell on her shoulder to stop her.
“Are you okay, Lori? What’s going on?”
“Besides my father’s murder?”
He paused, and his fingers tightened gently on her shoulder. “Yes, besides that.”
