Free No Hero by Mallory Kane Page A

was talking. He clenched his jaw and concentrated on what she was saying.
    “—promise I won’t compromise your case, Detective,” she said evenly.
    He looked at her long and hard. His mouth twisted wryly. “That is a damn guarantee.”
    …
    At the crime scene, Reghan stood on the sidelines near Dev’s car while he talked with Detective Givens. She didn’t understand a lot about police procedure, but she did know that Givens, a detective in the Eighth District, wouldn’t have been called to a crime scene out on Chef Menteur unless it was pretty definite that the body was connected with one of his cases.
    The scene was like watching a rerun of last night’s events. She even thought she saw some of the same people in the crowd. And yet, Chef Menteur was miles away from the Port of New Orleans.
    She squinted at a couple of young men hanging back in the shadows. Had she seen them before? Her eyes burned, and her head hurt. She was obviously too tired to see, or to think. Hunching her shoulders and burying her hands in the pockets of her WACT windbreaker, she leaned against Dev’s ancient Chevy and waited.
    It was more than an hour before he returned to the car. He was quiet and grim. After wrenching open the passenger door for her and then shutting it after she was inside, he climbed in on the driver’s side. He sat there for a minute, then arched his neck and cleared his throat.
    “Who was it? One of the kids from the center?”
    He sent her a look designed to quell any more questions. “Can we still get into your office to get that disk?” he asked.
    So that was how he was going to play it. He had no reason to answer her. She was only there because he hadn’t wanted to waste the time to take her home. She knew how much he resented her. She’d felt the cutting edge of his contempt often enough. Still, when he’d first gotten into the car and let his head fall back against the headrest, she’d had the urge to reach out to him. It had been an odd feeling, odd and uncomfortable.
    What self-sabotaging impulse had motivated her to want to comfort him? If she tried, he’d probably level her with a sarcastic comment or worse, laugh at her.
    “Of course,” she answered, looking at her watch. “I can get into the building any time. The night guard knows me. I work late a lot.”
    He cranked the car and pulled out onto the street, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, his jaw set and his eyes dark as the night.
    She was becoming an unwilling expert on Devereux Gautier’s body language. She’d seen the grief in his slumped shoulders as he’d bent down to get a good look at the latest victim’s face. She’d recognized the same anger in his clenched fists that she’d seen the night before, when he’d been examining Darnell.
    Dread and regret settled like a heavy weight on her breastbone. Why hadn’t she taken the time to give Stevens the disk? Why hadn’t she taken a few minutes at lunchtime to run the copy of Fontenot’s DVD from her office to the Eighth District building? Now she had another young man’s blood on her hands. “If this body is another one of your kids—”
    “I’m done talking with you about this,” he said, his ragged voice dripping with scorn. “I’m sick of seeing you sensationalize people’s tragedies on your show.”
    She’d deserved that, she supposed. She accepted the glancing blow, not even resenting him. It was obvious he was so exhausted that he wasn’t editing himself at all. She couldn’t blame him. This was the third of his kids in a week and a half to be found dead—the second in less than twenty-four hours.
    So she ignored his insult. “I came to you with the information about Fontenot. Why would I compromise your investigation by revealing confidential information on my show?”
    He sent her a sidelong look. He didn’t say a word, but he didn’t have to. She heard his thoughts as clearly as if he’d spoken. You had no trouble compromising my life. My