Chasing Venus by Diana Dempsey Read Free Book Online Page B

else.”
    “You will.   It’s only coincidence in my case.”   And extraordinarily bad luck.
    “Then you’ve got
nothing to be concerned about.”   Simpson rose and walked to her front door.   That, apparently, was that.   Come in, put her in a panic, and leave.
    “Have a good day, Ms.
Rowell,” Higuchi said as he brushed past.
    The men let themselves
out into the picture-perfect California afternoon.   Yet even in the unseasonable heat, all
Annie could do was shiver.   She sank
onto the sofa Helms and Pincus had just vacated and
rocked back and forth, shaking.
    Before this afternoon,
her worst nightmare had been that she could be the killer’s next target.   Now a horrifying new possibility had
presented itself.
    She could be a suspect,
too.

CHAPTER FOUR

 
 
    In a red vinyl booth in
a taqueria south of San Francisco, Reid watched
Sheila raise her left arm to glance at her watch.   The motion caused a half dozen silver
bangles to shimmy down her olive-colored skin, jingling all the way.   She tapped her nail on the
tabletop.   “Simpson better get here
soon.   We have to leave for the
airport in 45 minutes.”
    “He’ll be here.”
    “Is he always this
late?”
    Reid nodded.   He’d known Lionel Simpson for years,
from when Reid was a cop.   Since
Reid had been hosting Crimewatch they’d intersected more often, what with tips from the show leading to one perp or another getting nailed.   The show helped the feds, the feds
helped the show; it was a symbiotic relationship.
    Reid didn’t know what
it was—his LAPD tenure, the show, maybe the fact that he was
third-generation law enforcement—but lots of his friends wore
badges.   Probably it was the shared
experience, the we’ve-been-in-the-trenches mentality of people who regularly
witnessed horror.   Sometimes Reid
felt separated from everybody who didn’t.   He envied them.   He just
wasn’t one of them anymore.
    He inhaled the
tantalizing aroma of pork frying in fat and dipped another tortilla chip into
the best salsa he’d had in some time.   Given that he lived in LA, home of primo Mexican food, that was saying
something.   He nudged the basket
closer to Sheila.   “Try some.   It’s great.”
    She shook her
head.   “How can you just sit there
and eat?”
    “I leave it to my
producer to get nervous.   She does
it enough for both of us.”
    “At least we’ve got
everything we need for the piece in the can.”
    They’d spent the last
24 hours in San Francisco collecting elements for the novelist-murder story,
but Reid could still think of some he wished they had.   In particular, an interview with Annette
Rowell.   He’d stayed up later than
he should have reading Devil’s Cradle and was looking forward to delving into it again on the flight home.   He wasn’t a big fiction reader but the
mystery had pulled him in.
    The author had lingered
in his mind as well.   As
wide-ranging as his acquaintance, he’d never met a published novelist
before.   He wasn’t clear what his
preconceived notion had been but this woman didn’t fit it.   She seemed too healthy and vibrant to
spend her days in front of a computer, living in her imagination.   Was she trying to escape something?   Or was that another off-base
preconception?
    He drained his Coke and
instantly a bus boy materialized to refill his glass.   He could tell he was getting the best
service in the house.   From the
moment he and Sheila had shown up, a quartet of Hispanic men eating at the bar
had pivoted on their stools to stare.   They wore the rapt expressions he often saw on viewers who ran into REID
GARDNER, CRIMEWATCH HOST! in the
flesh.
    A bell jangled on the taqueria’s door, heralding a new arrival.   Lionel Simpson appeared at their table,
wiping a handkerchief across his forehead.   Apart from mild perspiration, probably prompted by sprinting to the
restaurant from his car, he looked as spit-and-polished as ever.   Even though it was a