Waters Run Deep by Liz Talley Read Free Book Online Page A

across her heart. He reached up for her to pick him up, so she did, enjoying his arms curling around her neck. He looked back at his mom and Picou. “Mom, Annie’s not in trouble, is she? She told me I could see the gators, but I didn’t wanna wait.”
    Annie froze, her back to Tawny and Picou.
    “Of course not, birdie. And I’ll take you to see the gators, okay?”
    “’Kay,” Spencer murmured, stifling a yawn.
    “Good night, birdie. Love you,” Tawny called as Annie walked to the door. “And goodnight to you, too, Amy.”
    Annie bit off a retort.
    Tawny had gotten that one in on purpose.

CHAPTER FOUR
    NATE LEANED BACK AGAINST the supple leather of his desk chair, his heavy sigh interrupting the silence of his office. He’d been through the files for the third time that week, looking for anything that might grab him, might stand out enough to follow, but there was nothing. Dead end in every direction.
    He grabbed the files and bagged evidence and carefully placed them back into the cardboard box, setting it on the short filing cabinet. His office needed organizing. In fact, his whole house could use a good cleaning. His housekeeper, Gloria, cleaned the toilets and changed the sheets once a week, but she couldn’t make heads or tails of the cold-case boxes lining the wood floor of the living room.
    Damn it. Radrica Moore’s killer would go unpunished.
    He shoved the lid onto the box. Then he hesitated. He didn’t want to give up. Wouldn’t be fair to Radrica. To her mother, who still mourned the death of the thirteen-year-old honor student. He pulled off the lid and propped it against the box, staring into the contents.
    There was very little physical evidence in the case. The body of the African American girl had been found in stagnant water of the flooded timberland just off the Mississippi River, badly decomposed. The cause of death had been inconclusive, though the coroner found evidence of possible defensive wounds. The Rapides sheriff’s department classified it as a homicide, but had nothing else to go on.
    Nate padded into his kitchen, opened the fridge and surveyed the contents: six pack of Abita, leftover barbecue from the Wing Shack and a package of luncheon meat he didn’t remember buying. He grabbed an Abita and shut the door.
    As he cracked open the beer, he shifted his thoughts from the cold case lying dead in his office to the incident at Beau Soleil that afternoon. Even though the boy had been found safe and sound, something bothered him about the whole deal.
    Annie Perez.
    Maybe that’s who had him at attention.
    And not in a way he welcomed.
    When he’d reached the reunion between the “missing” Spencer and his over-the-top mother, he noticed how easily Annie faded into the background—purposely, it seemed.
    She’d skirted the gathering, melding herself into a quiet statue on the perimeter, but her eyes had been searching the group of people gathered as if weighing some unseen force.
    But maybe that’s who she was. Cautious, still and serious. Nothing wrong with being quiet, even if intensity flowed out of every pore of the woman.
    Desire snaked into his belly.
    Exactly what he didn’t need. He lifted the bottle and took a swig, swiping a hand across his mouth. It had been a while since he’d dated. Maybe too long. He’d been busy this past summer with more requests for help on cold cases than he could handle. The state budget had police and sheriff departments cut to the bone, and word had gotten out about his talent with homicide cases that had no pulse. His consulting jobs were freebies, and sometimes when things were slow, Blaine gave him leeway. Not that it really mattered. He didn’t work them for the money anyway. He worked them for the satisfaction of getting what he’d never have—
    completion.
    He walked back to his office and stared at the database open on the computer screen. The Annie Perez he’d met earlier today hadn’t been a real-estate agent in California.