Free Dirty by Debra Webb Page B

capacity as an attorney,” he returned.   “Consulting on the case might have been construed as unethical.”
    Now I was really suspicious.   Ethics had ever stopped Robert Bob Fraley before.   That he had the cajones to use that excuse on me felt a little like an insult.   “Did anyone local do the consulting?”
    Bob shook his head.   “Some hotshot team from California.”
    “But you did know the defendants?” I pushed.
    “I did.”
    I couldn’t help feeling surprised all over again at his blatant stall tactics.   “That means you remember their names?”
    That dark gaze suddenly emptied of discernible emotion leaving me wondering if he’d lost interest in playing the information game in general or if he was merely hiding something from me for some reason I couldn’t hope to fathom.   I couldn’t see the motivation for his hesitation.   It wasn’t like he’d been involved in the case, right?   He’d just said as much.   Then again, was it possible to ever be completely certain about anything?
    Did I mention that paranoia went along with this gig?
    Bob smashed out what remained of his darkly elegant cigarette.   “I’ve always admired you, Jackie,” he admitted.   “You decided what you wanted to do and you stuck it out, never once giving up.   That says a lot about a woman.”
    His gaze drifted down to my breasts and back.   Now, I’m here to tell you, my cup size is nothing to write home about.   But I supposed, to a seventy-five-year-old man, the hint at voluptuousness produced by the racy bra I wore with its state-of-the-art under wire support might prove intriguing.
    “But ambition,” he added, “can be a dangerous thing.”   A frown disrupted the folds of his cheeks.   “Why the sudden interest in ancient history?”
    I ordered my lips into a confident smile.   “Don’t worry, Bob.   I learned how to dodge trouble from the best.   As far as my interest in the case, let’s just say I have an old friend who asked me to look into it.”   So, it wasn’t exactly the truth, but it wasn’t really a lie either.
    Bob opened the gold case embossed with his initials and withdrew another thin stalk of designer tobacco.   He tapped it on the table before planting it between his lips and lighting the tip.   He took a nice long drag, then let it go.   “Brandon Masters and Peter Reagan were the two defendants named by the state.   But neither of them made it to trial.”
    “The case got dropped?”   My fingers itched to show him the photograph, but I wasn’t willing to take the risk.   Bob was a reliable contact, but he was also a man with shady connections.   I couldn’t take the chance that the identity of the man in the photograph might be a valuable trading commodity.   I wasn’t his only regular patron.
    He looked me dead in the eye and what I saw in his sent a chill coursing through me before he even spoke.   “They were gunned down three days before the trial was scheduled to begin.   The shooter was never identified.”
    My pulse skipped.   Could the man in the photo be Masters or Reagan?   That would be easy enough to determine.   Wait.   If he was one of the defendants in the trial, wouldn’t his face have popped up on Max’s search?   And if he had been a resident of Texas, wouldn’t Hobbs have found him in the DMV database by now?   Yes on both counts.   Maybe he was a member of the consulting team from California who’d worked on the case.
    I shivered when memories from that night slipped beneath my mental firewall and into my concentration.   If he wasn’t involved in the investigation or execution of the case, what did he have to do with Disposable?   He hadn’t felt like a cop or a bad guy.   He’d felt like a...man who needed desperately to connect to another human being...to me.
    “Disposable was nasty business, Jackie,” Bob offered.   “You might consider leaving the dead buried on that one.   Your friend would be best