Free Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) by Lyndee Walker Page A

convincing me to ask Mel out. She’s…” He shrugged, flashing a grin with more lovesick than star power behind it. “She’s turned my life upside-down. And I love it.”
    I grinned back. I’d spent years dismissing Parker—an almost-major-league pitcher who looked like an underwear model—as an egotistical jerk who’d gotten his cushy star-columnist job on account of his baseball fame. But he really was a good guy, and a damned fine writer.  I didn’t often dip a toe into matchmaking, but the better I got to know him, the more I saw that my friend Melanie at the city desk was the perfect balance to his personality. She was smart, serious, and pretty in a non-beer-commercial way. I’d pitched it to him as trying something different than his notch-on-the-bedpost approach to dating, and they’d been fairly inseparable since.
    “The kid I did the story on, the one whose brother was the murdered drug dealer from June?” I set the bottle on the counter. “Do you remember any of this?”
    “The drug dealer you thought I killed?”
    I nodded. “That’s the one. His kid brother is a National Merit Finalist and wants to study broadcast sports journalism. And he thinks you’re a celebrity. So I sort of told him that maybe you’d let him shadow you for a day. He’s a really great kid.”
    “I am a celebrity.” Parker flashed the grin that made the female population of the greater Richmond area call for smelling salts. “But I like you because you don’t seem to realize that. When does he want to come in?”
    “Monday?”
    “Nothing like giving a guy a heads up, Clarke.” He dropped three quarters into the soda machine. “But sure. I’ll show him around. I can take him out to the park for practice, and to the game, too, if he wants. It’s the second to last one of the year.”
    “Thanks, Parker.”
    “It’s cool. I like kids.” He stepped aside when I moved toward the door. “Just get me the address and tell him I’ll be there to get him at about ten.”
    “I will.” I patted his arm as I passed him. “I have a ton of stuff to do, but I’ll see you around. And really, thank you.”
    “You bet. Have a good weekend, Clarke.”
    “Thanks. You and Mel doing something fun?”
    “Dinner. Movie. I think we might take a picnic out to the country tomorrow. We’re getting boring. It’s fantastic.”
    “The great Grant Parker has been domesticated.” His happiness was positively infectious, and knowing I was responsible for it gave me warm-fuzzies.
    I scrolled through police reports until I found the one on the break-in I’d overheard Detective Frustrated talking about that morning. I clicked to another screen and typed the address into Google Maps.
    “Holy square footage, Batman,” I said, looking at the satellite view of a roof that was easily five times the size of mine. It sat right on Monument, too. A house that big, in that part of town, meant one of two things: old money, or new power. I snatched up the phone and dialed the police department, waiting impatiently for Aaron to pick up.
    Voicemail. Damn.
    “Hey Aaron, it’s Nichelle,” I said after the beep. “I’m sorry to be a pain in your ass, but you know you love me anyway. I have a couple of questions about this break-in in the Fan last night, and I’m pushing deadline so hard it’s about to push back. Pretty please, could you give me a call as soon as you have a second?”
    I cradled the handset and turned to the computer, searching the city tax records for the property address. Maybe I should have bugged Aaron about it at the jewelry store. But with nothing to ask specific questions about, I wouldn’t have gotten much, anyway.
    The tax record loaded.
    “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I breathed, sitting back in the chair. No wonder Detective Frustrated had been so apologetic, and Aaron was dodging my calls.
    The latest house on the cat burglar’s route belonged to one Theodore Grayson, United States Senator for the