Faces of Evil [4] Rage by Debra Webb Read Free Book Online Page A

want me on this one. Grayson mentioned this was your idea.”
    “I need you on it,” he corrected. “There’s a difference. I want Wells or Harper with you at all times. You can keep your head down and still work this case. Stay out of the limelight. Don’t piss off any reporters and have them hounding you more than they do already. Their focus on you adds to your visibility as a potential target.”
    “As long as they stay out of my way we won’t have a problem.” She absolutely did not need Burnett telling her how to play nice with the reporters or how to take care of herself. They had been over this before.
    Instead of arguing with him as he spouted all the reasons he was right and she was wrong, she used the most ridiculous observations to distract herself. He was wearing the navy suit today. The one she really liked. With the pale blue shirt and the red tie. The suit with its narrow lapels and sleek cut accentuated his broad shoulders and the color did amazing things for those blue eyes of his. None of which she wanted to notice, but she had no more will power where he was concerned than she did with a bag of peanut M&M’S.
    The abrupt silence made her blink. He had stopped talking and was watching her stare at him. “You shouldn’t wear that suit.” She made an unpleasant face for emphasis. And to think just the other day she’d almost told him it was her favorite.
    He looked down at his jacket, smoothed a broad, long-fingered hand over the trim lapel to the one button fastened at his lean waist. “I like this suit. What’s wrong with it?”
    Her shoulders poked up then fell. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s the color.” She backed toward the door. “Or the cut. Something is”—she held up a hand and moved it back and forth as if she couldn’t excavate the precise words—“just not right with that one.”
    He waved her off and headed for his desk. “I want a proper sound bite by five o’clock.”
    There was something else he did exceedingly well. Tick her off. “Maybe then you can brief me on Sylvia Baron and why she thought you would take her side over mine.” The demand was out of her mouth before she could stop it.
    Her insecurities notwithstanding, Burnett was supposed to have her back at moments like the one that occurred today between her and Baron. And he’d fallen down on the job.
    “She’s Senator Robert Baron’s daughter. The Baron family believes they still run Birmingham the way they did in the old days.” He shrugged. “She’s throwing his office around, that’s all. It’s what she does.”
    A senator’s daughter. Well, well. Jess remembered something about him and a senator’s daughter. “Weren’t you married to a senator’s daughter the first or second time?”
    Burnett glowered at her from behind his desk. “I was not married to Sylvia.” He shuffled a stack of messages.
    Oh my God, that was it . If he hadn’t been married to her it had to have been someone close to her. “Her sister then.”
    “Yes,” Burnett confessed as he reluctantly met her gaze once more. “I was married to her younger sister. It was a long time ago but Sylvia doesn’t seem to notice. When it suits her, she uses that ancient history to her benefit.”
    Right there, in a nutshell, was the number-one reason Jess disliked small-town life. Everyone knew everyone else and made it a point to know his or her business. Furthermore, most people were related by blood or marriage, or both. The whole small-town mentality was as pervasive as it was invasive. It made her crazy.
    “Do you have any other ex-wives or ex-sisters-in-law running around here that I’m likely to lock horns with?” Might as well get all the cards on the table. Burnett had married the first time less than a year after his and Jess’s breakup. Just like that, she did a mental finger snap. Six years together and he was over it in less than one.
    But, like he said, that was ancient history. And yet, she couldn’t put it fully