Free Hot Button by Kylie Logan Page B

be told, I had figured it would be our last. Fortunately, there was no murder on the menu the night of our last date. Just that movie, and we’d gone for coffee afterward, and it was… nice. Just sitting there at Starbuck’s enjoying each other’s company, filling the long silences by talking about nothing more than the details of our daily lives. Yeah, it was nice. But then, Nev has that whole cute vibe going for him, so that helps. It’s his shaggy, sandy hair, and the fact that he’s tall and lanky.
    His sense of fashion… That was another matter. At least I could be certain that sometime in the last two weeks he’d actually changed his clothes; he was wearing a different tie. This one was green-and-white stripes, and as ugly as any tie I’d ever seen.
    Apparently, he was sizing up my fashion sense, too, because his gaze traveled from the scooped neckline of my black-lace dress to the hem, which skimmed my knees, and back up again. “You look amazing,” he said. Exactly whatKaz had told me when he saw me in the lobby earlier in the evening. Only coming from Nev, the compliment was warmer and more sincere. Or at least that’s how it felt when it curled around my heart. Before I had the chance to turn completely mushy, he tempered the compliment with, “What are you doing here?”
    “At the hotel? Or here? Here in the laundry room?” I realized it didn’t matter. “Conference,” I explained. “You remember. The International Society of Antique—”
    “And Vintage Button Collectors.” He nodded. “Of course I remember. Your annual meeting is the reason you’ve been so busy, and you’ve been so busy, we haven’t had much of a chance to see each other.”
    It didn’t seem fair to lay the whole blame on me. “And you’re working nights.”
    “I would apologize if it was my fault.” The smallest of smiles relieved an expression I knew he was obliged to wear at the scene of a crime. “But I’m only on the schedule for working nights for another month, and by then, you’ll have this conference wrapped up. Maybe then…”
    I guess the way my insides warmed even further was all the proof I needed that I hoped it was more than a maybe. “Dinner at my place. If the remodeling is finished.”
    “And it looks like we’ll have plenty to talk about.” Nev’s expression twisted. He glanced over his shoulder toward the linen room. “The deceased—”
    “Is… was… my guest of honor.” I looked toward the linen room, too, but not for long. I’d seen enough blood for one evening. “Do you have any idea what happened?”
    He didn’t answer, but then, I really didn’t expect him to. Like most cops, Nev is a ducks-in-a-row kind of guy. No way he was going to say anything until he had all the facts,and plenty of time to digest them. “What can you tell me about the victim?”
    I shrugged and started with the fact I deemed most pertinent. “He’s an expert on Western buttons.”
    This bit of information might have confused a lesser cop. I guess by now, Nev had come to expect that if I was involved, buttons had to be, too. He simply scribbled a line in the notebook he was holding.
    “His name is Thad Wyant.” I should have said this first, of course. “He’s here from Santa Fe and…” I weighed the wisdom of gossiping against the sure knowledge that Nev couldn’t do his job properly if he didn’t have all the facts. “There’s been plenty of trouble since he got here.”
    He raised his flaxen eyebrows. “Trouble because of Wyant?”
    I shrugged. “It’s hard to say. I mean, not having Chase Cadell’s nametag, and misplacing my scrimshaw buttons… That kind of stuff can’t possibly have anything to do with Thad. But there have been other things. Bigger things. And I don’t know if Thad was the cause or just on the receiving end. Last night, he had a fight on the dinner cruise with a woman named Beth Howell. And this morning, one of our vendors accused Thad of stealing from his