Heart of the Matter by Marta Perry Read Free Book Online

sharply.
    “We’d like to show how much money the base brings into the local economy.” Ross’s explanation sounded smooth.
    Too smooth. She’d already sampled his interview style, and this wasn’t it. As for her father…
    Ordinarily when Daddy looked the way he did at the moment, he was on the verge of an explosion. No one had ever accused Brett Bodine of being patient in the face of aggravation.
    There was no doubt in her mind that he found Ross’s questions annoying. But why? They seemed innocuous enough, and surely that was a good angle to bring out in the articles.
    “So you’ll let me have the records on your local contractors?” Ross’s expression was more than ever that of a wolf closing in for a kill.
    She braced herself for an explosion from her father. It didn’t come.
    Instead, he tried to smile. It was a poor facsimile of his usual hearty grin. “I’ll have to get permission to release those figures.”
    He wasn’t telling the truth. Her father, the soul of honor, was lying. She sensed it, right down to the marrow of her bones. Her heart clenched, as if something cold and hard tightened around it.
    Her father, lying. Ross, hiding something. What was going on?
    Please, Lord.
    Her thoughts whirled, and then settled on one sure goal. She had to find out what Ross wanted. She had to find out what her father was hiding. And that meant that any hope of keeping her distance from Ross was doomed from the start.

Chapter Four
    R oss paced across his office, adrenaline pumping through his system. Lt. Commander Brett Bodine had been hiding something during their interview. He was sure of it. His instincts didn’t let him down when it came to detecting evasion.
    Too bad those instincts hadn’t worked as well in alerting him that his so-called friend had been preparing to stab him in the back to protect the congressman.
    He pushed that thought away. He’d been spending too much time brooding about what had happened in Washington. It was fine to use that as motivation—not so good to dwell on his mistakes.
    This was a fresh case, and this time he would do all the investigative work himself. He wouldn’t give anyone a chance to betray him.
    He’d have to be careful with Amanda in that respect. All of her wariness with Ross had returned after that interview with her father. Was it because of Ross’s attitude? Or because she, too, had sensed her father’s evasiveness?
    He didn’t know her well enough to be sure what she was thinking, and he probably never would.
    Pausing at the window, he looked out at the Cooper River, sunlight sparkling on its surface. A short drive across the new Ravenel Bridge would take him to Patriot’s Point and its military displays; a short trip down-river to the harbor brought one to Fort Sumter. Everywhere you looked in the Charleston area you bumped into something related to the military, past or present.
    The Bodine family was a big part of that, apparently. Brett Bodine’s attitude could simply be the natural caution of a military man when it came to sharing information with the press. Ross didn’t believe that, but it was possible.
    He’d have to work cautiously, checking and double-checking every fact. Still, he couldn’t deny the tingle of excitement that told him he was onto something.
    Once he had the list of suppliers that Bodine had so reluctantly agreed to provide, he could start working from that end of the investigation. Finding the person who was paying the bribes would lead inevitably to the one accepting them.
    Sliding into his chair, he pulled out the folder containing the anonymous notes and the transcript of the phone calls. He hadn’t felt this energized in over a year. This was the real deal—he could feel it.
    He’d just opened the folder when a shadow bisected the band of light from the door he always kept open to the newsroom. He looked up. It was Amanda, with an expression of determination on her face.
    “I’d like to speak with