Free Blood Relations by Michelle McGriff Page B

way to get a young man to follow you to a cabin in the middle of nowhere.”
    Hap stammered slightly before getting his question out. “Where will you be?”
    â€œI’ve got some unfinished business to tend to before I join you all.”
    â€œI thought you said you would be there before us,” Hap screeched. “I’m not in this to babysit!”
    â€œI’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to do what Craven is no longer alive to do. I’ll be there within a day or two ... no worries.”
    â€œNone of this sets well. Not at all. You act as though Craven’s murder is not going to be noticed at all.”
    â€œWell that’s your problem, Hap, since you’re the one who acted foolishly, not dotting all your ‘i’s and crossing all your ‘t’s. As far as anyone knows, you were the last person to see her alive, and her autopsy will show you were the last person to ‘visit her’—can’t believe you had sex with her without a condom. Are you crazy?” Roman shook his head in disgust. “Me, on the other hand ... No one will ever know how deep our love went ...” Now Roman was laughing.
    â€œWhat the hell do you mean?”
    Allen Roman smacked his lips and shook his head. “You’re the one who decided to rough her up and rape her within hours of her death—which, at the moment, no one suspects is murder, but don’t count on them being in the dark for long. I have reason to believe that your little tumble won’t go unnoticed by forensics. However, if you do your job you won’t go to jail for murder.”
    Hap took in a full chest of air as if clearing his head of the information he’d just been given. “I don’t intend to go to jail.”
    â€œThen I guess you better watch your step,” Roman said, draping his jacket over his arm and heading for the door. Hap, as if suddenly realizing the full impact of what he’d gotten into, felt his blood chill, to an icy temperature.

Chapter 15
    Back at the station, Ovan reviewed the morning’s events as well as the court file he’d managed to get his hands on, among other things.
    The file reviewed in detail the state’s position on the civil and criminal cases involving the “get ass” epidemic. That was what they had named the date rape drug that Blain Tollome and his team of campus security cops peddled around the school. Many girls up and down the peninsula had been raped as a result of ingesting the drug. Juanita Duncan’s name had come up in several instances, but one stood out: Yvette Furhman. She had been murdered after the discovery that she had become pregnant by one of security cops working for Blain Tollome. Notes from the therapist, Juanita Duncan, indicated that she suspected Allen Roman (who was addicted to the exotic island drug to alleviate pain he suffered due to bad kidneys and a failing liver) of murdering the young girl, although all evidence pointed to Blain Tollome. Juanita Duncan had been one of the University’s therapists during that time, along with Allen Roman. “So they were colleagues.
    Interesting,” Ovan mumbled. Yes, this Dr. Duncan is probably a good place to go for some inside information on Roman, Ovan thought.
    Although the file did not connect the dots to Allen Roman as directly as he had first imagined it would, there was a lot of information concerning the hypno/psychotherapist Juanita Duncan that demanded his further, detailed investigation. That was his justification for borrowing the file that morning from the DA’s office. It wasn’t the “borrowing” of the file, however, that had him in a rush to leave. He also had found himself in a precarious situation with the deputy DA that made lingering around awkward.
    That deputy DA was a hot blonde. Feisty and full of, apparently, pent-up, raging hormones. It always amazed him what a heightened yet underused