FOR THE BABY'S SAKE by Beverly Long Read Free Book Online

takes a lot of guts.” Detective Hanson smiled at her again.
    She smiled back this time. “Thank you.”
    Sawyer grabbed Robert’s arm. “Come on. Let’s go. I want to talk to the boss.”
    Liz stood—so quickly that her head started to spin. She picked up Sawyer’s suit coat, shook it and thrust it out to him. “Don’t forget this,” she said.
    He reached for it, and their fingers brushed. The fine hairs on her arm reacted with a mind of their own. What the heck was going on? She’d never ever had this kind of physical reaction to a man. Especially not one who acted as if he might think she was an idiot.
    Sawyer jerked his own arm back. “I’ll...uh...talk to you later,” he said. Great. She had him tripping over his own tongue.
    Sawyer got twenty feet before Robert managed to catch him. “Hang on,” he said. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
    Sawyer shook his head. “Just forget it.”
    “You act like an idiot and think I’m going to forget it?”
    “Maybe you’ve forgotten this. We’re here to investigate a crime. We’ve got a lot of people to talk to. I didn’t think it made sense to spend any more time with Liz.”
    “Liz,” Robert repeated.
    “Yeah, Liz.” Sawyer did his best to sound nonchalant. “She told me I could call her Liz.”
    “Since when do you hang all over witnesses?”
    “I wasn’t hanging all over her. She seemed upset. I offered her some comfort. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. It’s called compassion.” Sawyer started to walk away.
    Robert kept pace. “That wasn’t compassion I saw. That was a mating call. What’s going on here, partner?”
    Sawyer didn’t know. Didn’t have a clue why he started to unravel every time he got within three feet of Liz. “Liz Mayfield is a material witness to a crime. We had questioned her. I figured we needed to move on.”
    “That’s it?”
    “What else could it be?”
    Robert looked him in the eye and nodded. “Your timing sucks. I could have had little Lizzy’s phone number in another two minutes.”
    “Lizzy,” Sawyer repeated.
    “She’s my type.”
    Sawyer clamped down on the impulse to punch his partner, his best friend for the past two years. “She is nothing like your type.”
    Robert cocked his head. “Really?”
    “Yeah. Really.”
    “I’ll be damned.” Robert laughed, his face transformed by his smile. “You like her.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sawyer walked away from his partner.
    Robert ran to catch up with him. “You’re interested in a witness. Mr. Professional, Mr. I-always-use-my-Southern-manners. This has got to be killing you.”
    “Liz Mayfield is going to help me get Mirandez. That’s my only interest,” Sawyer said.
    Robert slapped him on the back. “You just keep telling yourself that, Sawyer. Let’s go talk to the boss.”
    When Sawyer and Robert reached Liz’s boss, the man held up a finger, motioning them to wait while he finished his telephone call. From the one side of the conversation that Sawyer could hear, it sounded as if the guy was making arrangements to refer his clients on to other sources. After several minutes, the man ended the call and put his smartphone in his pocket.
    “Detective Montgomery.” The man greeted Sawyer, giving him a lopsided smile. “I have to admit I was hoping there wouldn’t be any reason for us to talk again.”
    Sawyer felt sorry for him. He looked as if he’d just lost his best friend. “This is my partner, Detective Robert Hanson.”
    “Nice to meet you, Detective Hanson. I’m Jamison Curtiss, the executive director of OCM.”
    Sawyer watched Robert shake the man’s hand, knowing Robert was rapidly cataloging almost everything there was to know about Jamison.
    “I understand you got the call this morning, warning you of the bomb,” Sawyer said.
    “Yes. I’d just gotten to work. It was probably about ten minutes before eight.”
    “What happened then?”
    “Liz and I left the building.”
    “Then