Free US Marshall 01 - Cold Ridge by Carla Neggers Page B

she was here. "We both were there yesterday. I guess I just wanted to see you. I'm not having an easy time of it, and I thought-I don't know what I thought."
    His dark eyes warmed slightly. "The police want to talk to me again today. I'm cooperating. If I don't, they'll probably find a reason to throw me in jail sooner rather than later."
    "Why at all?"
    "They have to do their thing." He leaned over to refill his coffee cup from a silver service set on the low table in front of him. "You know what's good about staying at a fancy place? You can pick out the cops. They fit in about as well as I do."
    "There's a police officer here?"
    "I'm under surveillance. I think it's supposed to be covert."
    "Manny!" Carine found herself glancing around at the occupied seats, noticing an older couple, a middle-aged man reading a
Wall Street Journal,
a young woman tapping at a PalmPilot. "The woman?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "Manny, doesn't this bother you? Having the police waste their time on you, when you know you had nothing to do with Louis's death?"
    He sipped his coffee. "Getting bothered isn't going to change anything."
    "So, what're you going to do, sit here and do
nothing?
"
    "Sure, why not? Enjoy the fancy digs while I can. Rancourt hasn't told me to clear out yet. So long as he's footing the bill, I can-"
    "You can what, drink coffee out of a silver pot?"
    His eyes didn't leave her. "I have to tell you, drinking coffee out of a silver pot suits me just fine."
    She immediately regretted her words. Manny wouldn't bring it up, but he and North had been in Afghanistan and Iraq. Manny's last mission before he retired was to recover an aircrew killed in a training accident. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
    "Actually," he added with a hint of a smile, lifting his pinkie finger from the too-small handle of his cup, "I'm drinking out of a china cup, not a silver pot."
    Carine didn't know what to say. She could feel tension and frustration eating away at any calm she'd found during her walk in the Public Garden. "What can I do to help?"
    "Nothing. Go back to Cold Ridge." He looked at her over the rim of his cup, his dark eyes unrelenting. "For all you know, I could be guilty. I could have killed Louis Sanborn."
    "You had no motive."
    He was motionless for a split second. "I had motive."
    "What?" She lowered her voice, aware of the cop and her PalmPilot. "Manny, what are you talking about?"
    "Why do you suppose the police have me under surveillance but not you? Come on, Carine. You don't know what I was doing at the Rancourt house yesterday."
    She sat back, irritated with him for playing games with her. "I don't care. I don't care if you didn't think Louis was a nice guy or what you're doing in Boston, it's impossible-Manny, I'm your friend. I know you didn't kill him."
    "You're my friend's ex-fiancée. That's a little different."
    Carine's mouth snapped shut, and she stared at him. He'd obviously meant to sting her, and he'd succeeded. "All right. Why tell me Louis wasn't a nice man?"
    "Because he wasn't."
    "That's not an answer."
    "I thought it'd be enough to scare you into going home. A minute ago I thought telling you I'm under police surveillance would scare you into going home. Now I'm telling you I had a motive-"
    "Stop saying that!"
    "Listen to me, Carine." He set down his cup again. "I don't need your help."
    "You're being an ass just to get rid of me."
    He smiled faintly. "It's not working very well, is it?"
    "What about Ty? Have you talked to him? He'd help you. You know he would."
    "Ty's on a mission, not that I'd ask him for his help. He's still on active duty. He doesn't need to get mixed up in a murder investigation." Manny sat back, studying her for a moment. "That's what this is, Carine. A murder investigation. A man was killed yesterday. You need to back off."
    "Yes," she said, "I'm well aware a man was killed."
    His expression softened. "I'm sorry. I haven't forgotten you were the one who found him. How're you doing?"
    "Okay."
    "Sleep last