Free BATON ROUGE by Carla Cassidy - Scene of the Crime 09 - BATON ROUGE Page B

of emotion inside him. “The weather is sultry, I can’t remember the last movie I saw and I’m reading Michelle Davison’s book.”
    “And that begs the questions that lead right back to talking about the case,” he replied with an answering grin. “So, learning anything new about the missing agents?”
    “Actually, I didn’t know that Jackson’s father was a criminal,” she replied.
    A shaft of pain shot through him at thoughts of his friend. “It was Jackson’s biggest shame. His father was a con man who married wealthy older women and then drained their savings and divorced them or arranged for accidents to happen to them. Jackson helped put his father in prison, but when he got out, he wanted Jackson to pay. When Jackson was in Kansas City, he had a showdown with his father, who was shot to death by another agent.”
    “That part of it wasn’t in the book,” she said as they reached her car.
    “It only happened a couple of days before Jackson came back here. Michelle wouldn’t have known about it when she wrote the book. She was focused solely on Jackson’s role in the Twilight Killer case.”
    “Well, I guess I’ll see you at seven in the morning,” she said as she clicked her key fob to unlock her doors.
    He grabbed her arm and turned her back to face him before she could open her car door. She looked up at him curiously. “Georgina, I just want to warn you not to let him get inside your head.”
    Unable to help himself, he reached up and stroked two fingers down her delicate jawline, stopping when he reached her chin. It was an old habit, one that had always ended before with him tipping her head back so he could take total possession of her lips.
    He wanted to kiss her, he desperately wanted to wrap his arms around her and kiss her until her head spun and her brain was filled with nothing but him.
    To his surprise, without him urging her chin upward, she dropped her head back slightly, as if inviting him to finish the old routine.
    He didn’t hesitate. He lowered his mouth to hers, tentatively at first and when she didn’t protest he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close and deepened the kiss.
    She tasted like coffee and heat. The kiss evoked old memories. She tasted like home. He wanted to kiss her forever, but before he could make a fool of himself, he reluctantly ended the kiss and released her from his arms.
    She stared at him for a long moment and raised a finger to rub across her full lower lip. “You know we can’t go back, Alex,” she said softly.
    “I know,” he replied. “But if that creep starts to mess with your mind, if he gets too far into your head, I want you to think about me, about kissing me and hopefully that will keep you grounded.”
    “You have a lot of confidence in the power of your kiss,” she said with a wry smile.
    He laughed. “You used to tell me that when I kissed you, you couldn’t think about anything else. Maybe some of that old magic still exists...at least enough to keep you mentally stable against a killer.”
    “We’ll see,” she replied and then got into her car. With a wave of her hand, she started the engine and pulled out.
    He watched her taillights until they disappeared from view and only then did he walk to his own car. He sat behind the steering wheel and leaned his head back.
    The truth was that he wanted to go back in time. He wanted a do-over with Georgina. He’d never understood why she’d walked out on him in the first place.
    She’d been by his side when he’d gone through the worst of his depression, and when things seemed to finally be back on track, when he’d eventually gotten his head back on straight, she’d decided she needed out and he had been left with questions that had never been answered.
    He hoped by the time they solved this crime he’d have some of those questions answered and maybe, just maybe, he and Georgina would be back together where he believed they belonged.

Chapter Six
    That kiss.
    That