It sounded to Alec as though the teacher and Regan Madison had worked together to save the kid’s ass.
“Are you still living with that family?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
There was a set of double glass doors directly ahead. “That’s my office,” Henry said, pride radiating in his voice. “Miss Madison’s office is behind mine.”
“So anyone wanting to see her has to go through you.”
“That’s right. Except when I’m in class. Then she fends for herself. We do okay.”
“What is it you do for her?”
“Oh, just about everything.”
“Okay. And what is it she does?”
Henry flashed a smile. “She gives money away.” Then he laughed, a deep belly laugh. “I love saying that.”
“Yeah?”
“And it’s true. She really does give money away. Miss Madison runs the family’s charitable foundation.”
Alec opened the door and motioned for Henry to go first. The kid rushed ahead to stand behind his desk. “This is my work area, my domain,” he said proudly. “It’s kind of a mess now. I was reorganizing.”
There were papers strewn all over the top of the desk. Henry pushed one stack aside and picked up a clipping from the newspaper.
“Here’s a photo of the Madisons,” he said. “I cut this out of the newspaper a while back, and I was going to frame it.”
He continued to hold onto the clipping as he said, “It was taken at a dedication of Conrad Park. You know where that is?” He didn’t wait for a response but continued. “The Madisons donated all the land and paid for a new jogging trail. Well, actually, it was an old trail that they repaved and expanded,” he said. “They also paid for a beautiful playground with all sorts of equipment for the little kids to climb on. Like it says in the article, Miss Madison used to go running there all the time, rain or shine, but now that the hotel has a track upstairs, she doesn’t have to leave the building.” He nodded toward the article and photo and said, “It was a nice profile of the brothers. I’m saving it because it’s kind of rare for all of them to be together.”
Alec barely glanced at the article. The fact that the Madisons were do-gooders wasn’t relevant now.
There was another set of French doors about fifteen feet behind Henry’s desk. Alec could see a young woman through the glass. She was on the phone, her back to the door. She ended the call and turned around, then hurriedly walked toward him.
Son of a gun, he thought. He recognized those long, gorgeous legs. She opened the door and stood there, the worry evident in her amazing eyes, her face flushed. Oh, yes. Same beautiful woman, all right.
Henry made the introductions as Regan walked forward and offered her hand. Her handshake was firm, no-nonsense, her smile disarming. He smiled back. Might as well start out charming, he decided. If she was a nutcase, which, after meeting Henry, he sincerely doubted, then being charming might make the difference in her continued cooperation. Noah Clayborne, a family friend also involved in law enforcement, once said that you could catch more crazies with sugar than vinegar. Of course, Noah, a true bull in a china store, had never bothered to test that theory. Like Alec, he much preferred clobbering male suspects who gave him trouble to chatting it up with them.
Apparently Regan didn’t remember him. Alec thought about it and decided not to mention the fact that he’d nearly run her down on the street last week. If she had remembered the incident, she surely would have said something. He obviously wasn’t memorable; she definitely was.
“You probably don’t recall, Detective, but we ran into each other last week just outside the police station.”
What do you know? She did remember.
“You know him?” Henry asked Regan.
“Sort of,” she answered. “We did run into each other, and if he hadn’t caught me, I would have been splattered on the sidewalk.”
Alec grinned. “I remember trying to roll over you. You laughed. I remember that too.”
“Yes,” she said. “You reminded me of…”
“Yes?”
She blushed slightly. “The zoo. You reminded me of the zoo.”
“The zoo?”
“You smell much better today.”
He laughed. “I hope so.”
Henry had a speculative glint in his eyes as he watched his boss. Regan turned to him and asked, “Did you explain to Detective Buchanan…”
“I thought I’d let you explain. I wasn’t sure what to say.”
Alec’s stare was locked on Regan. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Before she could answer, Henry blurted out, “We don’t know anything about that detective. Isn’t that right, Miss Madison?”
“What’s with the ‘Miss Madison’?” she asked.
Henry looked embarrassed. “I didn’t think I should call you Regan in front of the police.”
“How about you sit at your desk while I talk to your employer?” Alec said.
“But I was hoping…”
“Yes?” Alec asked impatiently.
“I was hoping I could stay until you look at the photo and tell us if it’s real or computer-generated. I think it’s phony, but Regan thinks it might be real.”
Alec didn’t know what the kid was rambling on about. “Go sit,” he repeated. “Now, Miss Madison-”
“Please, call me Regan.”
“Yeah, okay. Regan, how about you start explaining?”
“I was checking my e-mails,” she said as she walked back to her computer. The screen was dark until she moved the mouse on the pad. “And this came up.”
She quickly moved aside so she wouldn’t block his view. Alec inwardly winced. The photo wasn’t a pretty sight. Regan leaned against the credenza, her back to the computer so she wouldn’t have to look at the screen again.
“I wasn’t sure how to proceed,” she said. “I was afraid to save it or forward it because I was concerned that whoever sent it might have built in some kind of virus that would destroy it, so I just left it alone.”
“Good decision.”
“What do you think, Detective? Is it real or fake?”
“Real,” he said. “Definitely real.” There wasn’t any hesitation or doubt in his voice.
“You don’t seem very surprised or… shocked.”
“I’ve worked with the violent crime unit. I’ve seen a dead body before,” he said as he moved closer to the monitor to inspect the picture.
“Yes, of course you have, but…” She pointed to the screen. His casual attitude had rattled her, and she was trying to recover. “But he was also a detective, one of your own, a…” Her voice trailed off.
“Yes, he was.”
From what Alec had heard about Sweeney, he was also a nasty son of a bitch who walked around most days in an alcoholic daze. Everyone knew he was on the take and that it was only a matter of time before he got caught.
“Did you know him well?” she asked.
“No.”
She hoped that explained why he seemed so casual about Detective Sweeney’s demise. If not, then Detective Buchanan had about as much compassion as a fish. She suddenly felt nervous standing so close to him. She was trapped between the desk and the credenza, and unless she wanted to hike up her skirt and vault over the top, she was going to have to wait until he moved. He did smell a lot better today. In fact he smelled great, like the clean outdoors.
He stepped back from the computer, “Why do you think it was sent to you?”
“I don’t know,” she said wearily. She rubbed her arms as she thought about it. “If you scroll back up, it shows it came from Henry’s computer, but of course it didn’t. Someone has both our e-mail addresses. I’ve been racking my brain trying to make sense out of this. So far, no luck. What is the procedure now?”