So he bit back his initial reaction, and said as casually and conciliatorily as he could, “I had an interesting conversation with the landlady. She’s known Ralston for nearly twenty years.”
“You talked to a witness?”
“I helped her with her groceries. We chatted.”
Armstrong stared at him in disbelief. “Chatted.”
“She invited me in for cookies.”
“And milk?”
“Coffee.” Sean grinned. Playing with Mister Special Agent Armstrong was getting fun. “I can introduce you if you’d like.”
“Cut the crap, Rogan.”
Sean straightened, mimicking a soldier at attention. Just the facts. “The last time Tessie remembers seeing Ralston was Wednesday night, when her granddaughter walked in after their weekly bingo date. However, she heard him in the lobby Friday morning arguing with another man. She didn’t go out—she was still in her pajamas—but she was getting ready to call the cops when the visitor left and Ralston stomped up the stairs.”
“Friday,” Armstrong said flatly.
“She also knows a lot about Ralston’s rap sheet, which I’m sure you’ve already pulled. But the one thing you might not know yet is that Ralston was an informant.”
Sean hid his enjoyment as he watched Armstrong react to the information.
“Informant.”
“Do you ever speak in complete sentences?” Sean jibed.
Armstrong stepped forward, a vein pulsing in his jaw, and Sean didn’t budge, but he realized there was something more going on between him and Armstrong than he knew.
“What branch were you in?” Sean asked, changing the subject.
Armstrong didn’t blink. “Air Force. Ravens.”
Security force. They worked heavily in South and Central America, where Sean’s brother Kane had the strongest influence. Had his oldest brother messed with this former Raven?
“You were never in the armed forces,” Armstrong said with disdain.
Sean needed to call Duke to find out … but he didn’t want to pull in his brother. It had been hard enough to get Duke to let him and Patrick open up RCK East and slide out from under the auspices of their controlling brothers. He’d find out more about Noah Armstrong through his own sources. And whatever the problem was, it had nothing to do with Lucy or this case.
“No, I never served. But I do fly.”
“Do you?”
“You probably already know that.”
Armstrong didn’t comment.
“Ralston was an informant for the D.C. police for years, as long as Tess has known him. The cop’s name was Jerry Biggler. Know him?”
“No. But I will.”
FIFTEEN
Sean was speechless when Lucy came to the door wearing a royal-blue dress that somehow managed to be both modest and sexy as hell. It had a high neck and revealed little flesh, but it hugged her shapely and athletic body as if it had been created just for her. The skirt swirled around her calves as it would on a dancer. With her hair pinned loosely back, she was, simply, stunning.
“Thanks again,” Lucy said as if he were the one doing her a favor. She set the alarm and locked the door.
Sean found his voice. “Hey, beautiful, my pleasure.”
She hesitated before putting her keys in her purse, and Sean mentally hit himself. That sounded like such a line. A line he’d happily use on any of his previous girlfriends, but Lucy was nothing like them, and he wasn’t going to treat her like the flavor of the month.
Sean lowered his voice. “I really mean it, Lucy, you look amazing.” He reached up and touched one of her thick curls. Her hair was soft and shiny, and her lips—he knew he’d better not think about her full, painted lips right now.
“Thank you.” She smiled, and he relaxed. He wanted to give Lucy a fun night out, even if they were going to a fund-raiser for a victims’ rights group. He intended to convince her to go for dessert afterward.
He opened the passenger door for her, and she said, “Chivalry isn’t dead. I thought my brother Dillon was the only one who still opened doors.”
“I don’t do it for just anyone,” he said as he closed the door. She might have thought that was a line, but it was the truth.
As soon as he pulled away from the curb, Lucy asked, “About what you said yesterday, looking into why Roger Morton was in D.C.—”
“Let’s not ruin this evening.” He wanted to tell Lucy about what he’d learned, and about Ralston’s murder, but he didn’t want her to be upset or preoccupied with Morton tonight.
“Not knowing is worse than knowing.”
“I haven’t learned anything important.” He hesitated, then said, “I narrowed down all Morton’s known associates within a hundred-mile radius who are still alive and not in prison. The three I spoke to don’t know anything.”
Lucy glanced at him, her narrow eyebrow raised. “And they told you the truth?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m a Rogan.”
“Is that like having a golden lasso?”
“Naw, I don’t look so good in blue shorts with stars.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know.” But he did. He couldn’t explain it to Lucy, not yet—he wasn’t sure he could explain it to himself. But Sean despised bullies, and Roger Morton had been a bully. Whoever killed him was a bigger bully, and that person was a potential threat to people Sean cared about: his partner, his business, and Lucy. The entire Kincaid family had treated Sean like one of their own, from Jack to Patrick to the brothers and sisters he’d met when he went to San Diego to help Patrick with a project last summer. Sean had a large family, but they weren’t like the Kincaids. His family was spread all over the world—Kane in South America, Duke in California, Liam and Eden in Europe.
He couldn’t help but wonder wistfully if his parents hadn’t died in a plane crash, would his brothers and sister have ended up in the same places they were today, or would they have been as close knit as the Kincaids? Probably not. All of them, from his parents down to him, had wanderlust. Only Duke had stayed at home, and that was largely because he’d taken on the responsibility of raising Sean, then a teenager, after the crash.
“Sean?” Lucy said, breaking him from his melancholy thoughts.
“There’s one more thing,” he said reluctantly. “One of the contacts I was trying to make is dead. Ralston. They haven’t narrowed the time of death, but he missed a flight last Sunday. I’ll figure out how it’s connected.”
“But—”
“Tonight, let’s just put it aside, okay?”
She sighed. “Okay.”
He didn’t think she’d be able to banish all thoughts of the situation from her mind, but at least he could work double time to distract her.
“Sean, thank you. I appreciate your attention.”
It took Sean a second to realize she wasn’t talking about his personal attention, but his professional interest in Morton’s death. He didn’t want Lucy to think of him only in a business context. He was good at reading women in general, but he was having a harder time knowing what Lucy was thinking. She kept a large part of herself closed off, and he needed to find a way to get her to open up to him.
At the Omni Shoreham Hotel, Sean bypassed the valet parking and parked his GT himself.
“Is no one allowed to touch your car?” Lucy asked as he opened her door.
“Especially not valets.”
Lucy glanced at Sean and her anxiety about the new information about another dead body faded. Sean winked at her and took her hand as she stepped from the car. Lucy felt that not-so-subtle tingle she’d had earlier when she first opened her door and saw Sean in the tailored dark-gray pinstripe suit, the cerulean tie nearly matching the blue of his eyes. He was breathtaking, and she wasn’t used to physical attraction. She admired good-looking men in an intellectual, “Yes, he’s attractive,” kind of way. But with Sean Rogan, her body reacted before her mind, responding to his voice, his touch, the way he looked at her, before her thoughts could catch up that maybe he was flirting. And that maybe she liked it.