Free Swift Justice by Laura DiSilverio Page A

into it, I decided, as Melissa Lloyd ripped out a large check and handed it to me.
    “And hurry. I really, really need this settled before Ian comes home. He just wouldn’t understand.”
    What, that she’d gotten pregnant as a teenager? Or that she’d lied to him for years on end? Call me cynical, but I figured chances were good he had something murky in his own past he hadn’t fessed up to. Experience—those divorce cases again—taught me, though, that two wrongs didn’t add up to long-lasting marital harmony. They more frequently added up to large sums for attorneys and PIs.
    And who was I to complain about that?

     
    I returned to the office shortly after five to find it dark and locked like I’d left it when I’d gone to see Melissa Lloyd. However, I’d reluctantly given Gigi keys, so maybe she’d returned but then left again. I unlocked it and crossed to my desk to make the phone call I’d been dreading since Montgomery confirmed Elizabeth Sprouse’s identity. Tears choking her voice to a whisper, Aurora Newcastle thanked me for letting her know. I felt like shit: When she’d asked me to hurry up and find Elizabeth, this wasn’t what Aurora had in mind. I’d debated not calling her, figuring it might be merciful to let herpass on without knowing Elizabeth was dead, a homicide victim, but she hadn’t struck me as the sort who wanted life sugar-coated.
    “That poor baby,” she said.
    I didn’t know if she meant Elizabeth or Olivia.
    “I’d really like to meet her,” she added after a long silence, and I found myself promising to try to arrange for her to meet Olivia.
    “No guarantees, though.” I couldn’t see Melissa Lloyd interrupting her schedule to do a baby show-and-tell in Denver.
    “I understand, and thank you.” Aurora sounded considerably weaker as we hung up than she had only that morning, and I hoped the news of Elizabeth’s death wouldn’t hasten her own end. Sometimes this job sucked. I sat for a few quiet minutes before relocking the office and walking down to Albertine’s for my free drink. Creole spices, shrimp, and beer scented the cozy room decorated with Mardi Gras masks and beads and populated with a few early diners and Happy Hour hopefuls. My spirits lifted. Sitting alone on a barstool with a Heineken—Albertine was subbing in the kitchen for a chef who hadn’t shown up for his shift—I called Montgomery and told him I had some information pertaining to his case. Hearing the bar noises in the background, he told me he was just coming off shift and would stop by and get it in person.
    He arrived twenty minutes later, as I was ordering my second beer. Just over six feet tall with broad shoulders and the edgy allure of Clive Owen with silver flecks in his dark hair, Montgomery turned female heads as he threaded his way through the tables to where I sat. He leaned over to kiss my cheek, and the hopeful women turned back to their friendsand cosmopolitans, disgruntled. The rasp of his five o’clock shadow against my cheek and the spicy scent of his aftershave stirred something inside me, but I squelched it. Gorgeous men who like to live on the edge are a bad bet. I knew: My ex-husband, the fighter jock, was Exhibit A. As if that weren’t enough, I figured, premature gray notwithstanding, he was at least five years younger than me. So I controlled my breathing, passed him the phone number Melissa had supplied, and explained that Elizabeth Sprouse had worked for her as Lizzy Jones.
    He thanked me for it, then added, “You’re remembering this is a police case, right? You’re not poking around in a homicide investigation.” His dark eyes met mine as he lifted the bottle to his lips.
    The last was an order, not a question. “Of course not,” I said. “You have such a suspicious mind, Montgomery.” I gave him my wide-eyed Miss Innocent look that hasn’t worked on anyone since I was five.
    “I’ve known you a long time, Swift. You’re not passing along that number