Free Deadly Fall by Ann Bruce Page B

a stall tactic, but he played along.
     
    “Taking care of our leak.”
     
    Ethan’s head shot up. “Leak? Who?”
     
    “Woodman,” Nick answered, his voice tight. “I asked him to look into Augusta’s finances and report back with any strange transactions.”
     
    Ethan leaned back in his chair. “But he didn’t find anything.”
     
    “No, he didn’t. But that doesn’t make good copy.”
     
    His partner lifted a questioning brow. “He talked to a reporter?”
     
    “Worse. He’s sleeping with one.”
     
    “Shit. How did you find out?”
     
    “I tracked down the reporter who wrote the story. She had a picture of them together on her desk.”
     
    “Is he stupid?” Ethan didn’t wait for a response. “Have you told the lieutenant?”
     
    Nick’s smile was grim. “Woodman’s no longer assisting on the case. In fact, I’d be surprised if he ever gets to work on another case. You know how the lieutenant’s wary of lawsuits. Augusta and her lawyer have a strong case for libel.”
     
    “She won’t pursue that.”
     
    “No.” Nick looked down into his black coffee. “Augusta doesn’t want to draw any more attention. She just wants everything to go away.”
     
    Ethan rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Nick.”
     
    There was enough dread in the sound of the voice of the man across from him that Nick paused, his coffee cup frozen in midair. Prudently, he set the cup on his desk, amid tall, precarious stacks of files. “What is it?”
     
    “I just got off the phone with a detective on the San Francisco PD.”
     
    The back of Nick’s neck prickled. “Why were you talking to them?” He already knew he didn’t want to hear the rest of what Ethan had to tell him. The answer was there in the bleak expression in his partner’s eyes.
     
    “I was doing a further background check on Augusta Langan. There’s so little on her here, I thought there might so something more on the West Coast.” Ethan paused. “She has a juvenile record.”
     
    “Those files are sealed tighter than Fort Knox,” Nick remarked, his lips barely moving.
     
    “I couldn’t get to the files, but the detective I talked to recognized her name. He was an officer at the time and heard the talk.”
     
    “He could be thinking of another someone else with the same name.”
     
    “He described her to me perfectly. Apparently, she hasn’t changed much in looks over the years.”
     
    “It’s a juvenile record. So she made a mistake when she was younger. A good majority of the population does,” Nick said, sounding as dismissive and nonchalant as he could manage, but the stranglehold he had on the arms of his chair betrayed him. “What was it? Petty theft? Criminal mischief? Disturbing the peace?”
     
    “Attempted murder.”
     
    * * * * *
     
    She’d seen the lights on in Nick’s windows as she drove up to the condo building, so she was expecting him as she pushed the door of the loft open. In her head, she rehearsed what she would say to him about her brief outing. Out of a sense of self-preservation, she knew her trip to the penthouse would have to be kept to herself.
     
    At first glance inside, she couldn’t see him. “Nick?” she called out, closing the door behind her and locking it automatically with a twist of her wrist. She put the brown paper grocery bag on the side table.
     
    “Here.”
     
    His voice came from the armchair facing the windows in the living room and was tight and edged with something that made her pause in the act of shrugging off her jacket. Perhaps he was angry because she had been missing from the loft when he got in. She hadn’t thought to leave him a note, but she didn’t think he would return before she did.
     
    She took her time placing her jacket over the back of a chair. “When did you get in?” she asked, determinedly unruffled, even as she hefted the grocery bag in her arm and went into the kitchen. Wood creaked, and she knew he had followed her. She