Free A Plague of Secrets by John Lescroart

I’m the legal owner. If somebody trips and falls there, I’m the one who gets sued.”
    Hardy sat back, put an ankle on a knee, and took another sip of his wine. “That’s not the same situation. Nobody’s suffering recoverable harm because they bought marijuana at your place. Who’s going to sue you?”
    But she shook her head again. “I’m not so worried, really, about getting sued. I’m worried about-about the police coming to talk to me again.”
    Against all of his training, and possibly because of the casual nature of Harlen’s request that Hardy have a chat with his sister, Hardy was tempted for a moment to come right out and ask her if she had in fact killed her manager. Though he didn’t for a minute think that this was likely, it was a question you normally didn’t ask, an unspoken rule of the defense business. Because if you, the lawyer, didn’t know, you would always be acting in technical good faith in your client’s defense. And, of course, in theory it wasn’t supposed to matter anyway. You argued the evidence that could be proved in court. Not necessarily the facts.
    So, instead, he said, “I’m guessing you really don’t have anything to worry about.”
    “I don’t know if that’s true.” She saw her wine sitting there on her lap and brought the glass to her lips. “Why would that be true?”
    “Because your inspector, Bracco, used to be Harlen’s partner in homicide. Did you know that?”
    “Okay, but what does that mean?”
    “Well, the first thing it means in the real world is that Bracco’s going to find out you’re Harlen’s sister. Knowing Harlen’s inherent shyness,” he said with irony, “he might even know by now. So unless Bracco’s got something close to a smoking gun in your hand, he’s going to be inclined to cut you some slack to begin with. You’re the one who’s lost your manager, so you’ve been victimized by this murder too. Plus, your connection to the mayor isn’t going to make Darrel Bracco want to cause you any problems. Was he a little hard on you?”
    “A little bit.” She hesitated. “He seemed to think that there was something weird about how much I paid Dylan, or something about our relationship, I don’t know what. But it just made me uncomfortable.”
    “It’s supposed to. It’s one of the things cops do when they interrogate people. They find a soft spot and go at it.”
    “But why did he think it was a soft spot?”
    “I don’t know. How much did you pay him? Dylan?”
    When he heard the number, Hardy kept his face straight and took a quick breath to hide his surprise. “That’s a real salary.”
    “I know. But he did a real job. He was good with the customers. I hardly ever had to be there. If ever. I felt he was worth it.”
    “Well, then, who’s to argue? You own the place.”
    “Right. But Inspector Bracco, he wanted to know if we socialized together, Dylan and I.”
    “And?”
    “And I told him no, which is true. But he seemed to think that was weird somehow. In spite of the fact that Dylan and Jansey had their own life and it’s nothing like mine and Joel’s.”
    “Lots of business owners don’t socialize with their employees,” Hardy said. “I don’t see why Bracco would think it’s strange that you don’t.”
    “Maybe because I told him Dylan and I had been friends in college. This was before he did his time in prison, of course.”
    Hardy took a beat to let that settle. “I don’t believe I’ve heard about that yet.”
    She shook her head. “It was a misunderstanding, a stupid juvenile mistake, call it what you will. He got involved somehow in a robbery and got caught. But long story short, when he got out, I was hoping to get the store up and going and… anyway, he started working for me.”
    “So you were close friends in college?”
    Hesitating, she tightened her mouth, checked out the windows behind Hardy. “We weren’t intimate, if that’s what you’re asking. We were friends.”
    Hardy