Free Murder on Lovers' Lane (Brody and Hannigan Mysteries) by Paula Graves Page A

these plates for me."  He read the number and waited, his gaze moving to the front of Hannigan's house.
    There was a light on in the living room.  He saw no sign of movement, though he spotted a faint, shadowy outline that might be a person standing a few feet from the front window.
    The night officer came back with the answer.  "Plates are registered to a Raymond James Silor."  He rattled off an address.  "No warrants, no priors."
    No priors , Brody thought, unless you count eight murders.
    "I need a back-up unit to 432 Rosedale Drive.   No lights or sirens.  Now."  He hung up the phone and got out of the car, his gaze fixed on the unmoving shadow in Hannigan's front window.  Was it her?  Or him? 
    He looked at his cell phone.  Heart pounding with restless anticipation, he pushed the speed dial for Hannigan's number and prayed this time she'd answer.
     
     
    "You smell him on me?"  Hannigan didn't know whether Silor was speaking figuratively or literally.  Could be either, she guessed, since she and Brody had certainly been tangled up intimately little more than an hour ago.
    "I know what you were doing tonight." His eyes shone with the passionate fervor of a high inquisitor.  "I was close enough to see your reckless abandon, my dear.  I could have taken a shot, had I wished."
    Her skin crawled again, but this time with seething anger.  The perverted little creep had spied on her and Brody?  Really?  And what he'd seen in that car had been egregious enough to stir him to the edge of murder?
    Hell, they hadn't even made it past first base.  Some killing offense!
    "You're a sick little man," she said recklessly, though not without purpose as well.  She stalked past where he sat on the sofa, heading toward the kitchen.  It was a brazen move, and she knew she might end up with a bullet in her back, but she needed him off guard, just for a second.
    Just long enough to slip her hand in her pocket and hit the answer button on her phone.  Her phone was in the pocket of her jeans.  It had vibrated now three times in the last five minutes, too quiet to be heard but the vibration strong enough that she felt it through the denim.
    There.  The vibration stopped on the second pulse.
    Please be Brody , she thought.
    "Stop right there."  Silor's voice held a thread of steel, reminding her, not for the first time, that a mild-mannered facade could be deeply deceiving.
    She stopped and moved back toward him, her hands once again raised.  She made sure to position herself so that the pocket holding her phone was nearest him and hoped that whoever had called— please God, let it be Brody —could hear Silor more clearly.  "I'm stopped."  She cocked her head.  "Why didn't you just shoot me?  What are you waiting for?"
    "Your partner," he answered.
    "What are you going to do, make up some excuse to lure him here?  I suppose you want me to call him?"
    "Exactly what I want."
    "What if I can't reach him?"
    Silor's smile was a leer.  "I believe you know exactly what to do to lure your partner here, don't you, Detective?"
     
     
    Brody hadn't known what to expect when he'd tried his partner's cell phone one more time.  But the sound of Silor's voice barking an order to stop or he'd shoot wasn't it.
    Son of a bitch.
    "Why didn't you just shoot me?  What are you waiting for?"  That was Hannigan's voice, muffled but strong.  Brody's heart started beating again.
    "Your partner," Silor answered. 
    "What are you going to do, make up some excuse to lure him here?  I suppose you want me to call him?" Hannigan asked. 
    "Exactly what I want."
    No need, Brody thought with a grim smile.  I called her first, you creepy little shit.
    "What if I can't reach him?"  Hannigan asked.
    Even through the filter of the jeans pocket—Hannigan always put her cell phone in her pants pocket—Brody heard the salacious tenor of Silor's reply. "I believe you know exactly what to do to lure your partner here, don't you,