Home Before Midnight by Virginia Kantra Read Free Book Online

others, jammed in the corner behind a barricade of filing cabinets. The office looked like the computer lab of a financially strapped middle school. Stacks of books and papers jostled for space on the shelves. Fluorescent lights hummed and flickered overhead.
     
    Burke prowled to the far desk and pulled up a chair for Bailey.
     
    Cautiously, she sat, wary of the unfamiliar courtesy. Paul respected her too much as a colleague to open her door or hold her chair. “Thank you.”
     
    Burke propped against the edge of the desk, his knee by her shoulder. Too close. Again. The man had no concept of personal space. Or else he was deliberately intimidating her.
     
    “How did you sleep last night?” he asked.
     
    She didn’t think he really cared. Unless he wanted to know if guilt had kept her tossing and turning all night.
     
    Well, forget him. She’d already endured her mother’s interrogation and her father’s unspoken concern this morning. No way was she embarking on another round of explanations and excuses with a suspicious detective.
     
    “Fine.” Politeness prompted her to add, “And you?”
     
    “I haven’t been to bed yet.” From his perch on the desk, he loomed over her. “I hear the Do Drop’s comfortable.”
     
    Bailey’s stomach sank. At least now she understood his interest in how she slept. Last night, one of the uniformed officers had driven Paul to the Do Drop Inn, a bed-and-breakfast in the center of town. Burke wanted to know if she had spent the night with her boss.
     
    “I didn’t stay at the inn,” she said stiffly. “I was at my parents’ house.”
     
    Burke regarded her without expression. The silence sucked at her like quicksand.
     
    “Frank and Dorothy Wells, eight hundred and eleven Cardinal Street. I got in about three.” Bailey stuck out her chin. “Way past curfew.”
     
    He regarded her, that gleam still in his eyes. “I’m not going to charge you.”
     
    “Well, that’s a relief.”
     
    “Not for being out late, anyway.”
     
    Resentment smoldered, a welcome, warming lump under her ribs. “Look, I didn’t come here to play games. Do you want me to sign a statement or not?”
     
    Wordlessly, he handed her two closely typed pages of plain office paper.
     
    “It’s short,” she said, surprised.
     
    “You got anything you want to add? Any details you left out?”
     
    Was he kidding? She couldn’t tell.
     
    “I won’t know until I read it,” she said.
     
    Despite the lightness in her head, the twisting in her gut, Bailey forced herself to read critically, carefully, searching for inaccuracies or bias. She was used to organizing and summarizing facts. She was good at it.
     
    So was he.
     
    When she finished reading the statement through the second time, she looked up and found Burke watching her with heavy-lidded eyes.
     
    “Well?” he asked.
     
    She wet her lips, struggling to be objective. “It’s very thorough,” she said. “Concise. A little dry.”
     
    Like Burke himself, she realized.
     
    His lips curled. “I wasn’t asking for a critique of my writing skills. Not that I don’t appreciate it, given your line of work. Was there anything you wanted to add?”
     
    “Oh.” She flushed furiously. He was almost good-looking when he smiled. If you liked that ex-football player, muscle-bound type. Which she, thankfully, did not. “No.”
     
    He leaned forward. “Then if you’ll just sign and date this here . . .”
     
    She snatched the pen from him and signed, stabbing the pen at the paper.
     
    “You sure there wasn’t something else?” he asked almost gently.
     
    She squared her shoulders. “There was, actually.”
     
    Burke didn’t stir from his perch on the desk. But his attention sharpened on her like a hound dog’s spotting a squirrel. “What’s that?”
     
    She met his gaze straight-on. “I have to plan a funeral today, and I don’t have a body.”
     
    He nodded. “Autopsy’s scheduled for this afternoon.