Deadly Little Secrets by Jeanne Adams Read Free Book Online Page B

wading through the files.
    Connecting with her peers, feeling for anyone, meant emotions. Emotions meant pain, and she wanted to avoid any more of that for a while. It had taken her a month after Rome to pick up the pieces of her heart. She’d known everyone on the team there, from their dogs’ names to their birthdays, childhood hangouts, and even their favorite gelato. Knowing them that well made their loss a constant black hole, especially since she felt responsible. She’d lost her parents so young, and those memories had leapt in to compound the loss of her friends in Rome. One day they were there, the next, gone.
    Talking to the agents who’d worked this case originally, she’d come perilously close to getting involved again. Emotionally invested. Dealing with an irrational attraction to Gates Bromley made it worse.
    Uh-uh. No way.
    Before she could dig herself a hole of despair—far too easy in her current mental state—the alarm on her PDA chimed the time.
    â€œShit,” she cursed, cutting the thing off mid ping. “An hour to get home, damn it.”
    She’d waited too long to leave. She’d meant for the alarm to remind her, at home, that she had to get dressed. Shutting down her computers and flinging things into her briefcase, she hurried out.
    Luckily, it took her only forty minutes to get home, a near-miracle for a Friday night. Even with that bare excess of time, Ana was still over thirty minutes late to the Prometheus Gallery to meet Jen. She hadn’t finished her deep data runs on the gallery, Carrie McCray, and her late husband. She preferred to have the data at hand, but there hadn’t been quite enough time to get it all done. She’d made the choice to have the info on the art be her primary focus, but she had the basics on McCray and everything else. If she had to, she could wing it.
    â€œGood evening, ma’am.” The attractive, tuxedoed man at the door greeted her with a smile. “If I could have your name?”
    â€œOh, certainly!” She pretended a breathy excitement she in no way felt. “It’s Shirley, Shirley Bascom.” She smiled in turn. “ Ms. Shirley Bascom,” she emphasized as she tossed the long strands of the red wig over her shoulder. She’d already assessed him as gay, but you never knew where a little flirting might get you. She was rusty though, and it showed.
    Confirming her suspicions, he blushed a bit but suavely deflected her ersatz interest. “Yes, of course. Here you are. Please, go right in. The bar is to your left about halfway down the gallery. It’s quite a crush in there,” he added, his impersonal smile back in place.
    â€œOooh, I’ve so been looking forward to this,” she gushed, turning toward the doors with an absent “thank you.” She had to suppress a smile at his soft sigh of relief as she turned her attention elsewhere.
    Once inside the doors, she moved confidently through the crowd. She’d recognize Jen, of course, but her friend was quite petite and there was, as the gatekeeper had warned, a real crush. However, she’d seen photos online of Jack D’Onofrio. It was hard to miss a six-foot bald man with a goatee.
    Thought was as good as deed, and she homed in on the tall form of the supposed millionaire standing near a pillar not far from the bar. Easing through the mass of people, Ana touched Jen on the arm.
    â€œHey, A—”
    Ana hugged her friend to cut off the use of her real name.
    â€œHi sweetie!” Ana gushed. “How fun is this? Ohmygosh, I told that gorgeous man at the door my name, and he let me right in.” She rolled her eyes at Jen and saw her friend’s expression change. “And he said, ‘Here you are Ms. Shirley Bascom, go right in,’” Ana grinned at her ploy to remind Jen of the name she was using. “How about that?” She pushed the fashionable green glasses she was wearing