we both know it.”
She laughed and opened the door.
He watched her walk toward the elevator and muttered an oath. Damn, but he did admire the way her hips swayed.
Alex had the feeling that all hell was about to break loose.
Chapter 2
Monday, July 14, 10:05 a.m.
Tara hadn’t figured that Alex Kirkland would give a quote on this case. He was too good a cop to let his cards show. But she had got a sense of his frustration. It did bother him that Kit’s case had never been solved.
And she couldn’t resist seeing for herself that he was truly on the mend. She’d kept tabs on him while he was in the hospital recovering from the shooting that had shocked everyone.
Kirkland had been shot during a routine investigation. He and Detective Matthew Brady had gone to the home of a wealthy doctor to ask him questions about his wife’s suspicious death. The doctor had answered the front door armed with a loaded shotgun. According to Brady, Kirkland had reacted instantly. He’d pushed Brady out of harm’s way as he’d drawn his own gun. The doctor had fired, hitting Kirkland in the chest and thigh. The buckshot had nicked the femoral artery in his leg and punctured his lung. Kirkland had fallen to the ground but had fired his own weapon. The single shot had killed the doctor.
The entire exchange had happened in a split second, but Brady recognized that Kirkland was in bad shape. He was still conscious but in terrible pain and bleeding badly. Kirkland had nearly bled out before the paramedics got him to the hospital.
Three days after Kirkland’s shooting, Tara had snuck onto the ICU floor at Boston General. She’d told the doctors she’d been checking on Kirkland’s progress for a follow-up article on the shooting. They’d allowed her to peer through the glass walls of his room.
What she saw nearly took her breath away. He’d been lying in the hospital bed, as pale as his sheets and barely conscious. There’d been so many wires hooked up to him. The sight had shocked her. She’d not had the nerve to go into his room, but had lingered several feet back. The doctor had said that the injury would have killed most.
Now, despite the July heat, the memory still had the power to send chills down Tara’s spine.
With an effort, she tried to focus on the fact that he looked good now. His tall, lean frame remained taught and muscular. Time in the sun had left his skin tanned and his newly cut brown hair a shade lighter. He looked good. Real good.
She parallel-parked her beat-up white Toyota on the exclusive, tree-lined Beacon Hill side street. This exclusive area of Boston screamed old money and privilege. And it set her nerves on edge.
She shut off the car engine. She didn’t do well with snobby, rich people. They made her feel awkward and somehow less because she didn’t have blue blood in her veins. Intellectually, she understood this was stupid, a reaction to a sad episode in her past, but no amount of inner pep talks quite erased her feeling of inferiority.
Skimming fingers over her ponytail, she reminded herself that she’d been a reporter for nine years and had interviewed some of the most powerful and dangerous people in Washington, D.C. and Boston. She’d written about politicians, murderers, arsonists and sophisticated white-collar crooks. An old rich guy living on Beacon Hill wasn’t going to throw her off her game.
Tara pocketed her keys and grabbed her briefcase, slid out of the car and closed the door. Halfway down the block her cell phone rang. She dug the phone out of her purse. Caller ID confirmed it was her editor, Miriam Spangler.
Tara flipped the phone open. “I am on my way to Landover’s as we speak, Miriam.”
“Remember, don’t piss him off.” Miriam’s voice was gruff, a product of thirty years of chain smoking. “His family is as powerful as the Kennedy clan. Rile him up and there could be hell to pay.”
That comment irritated Tara. “I can handle myself, Miriam.”
“You do have a temper, sweetie. It’s why you left D.C.”
“It’s one of the reasons I left D.C. And I’ve learned my lesson.”
As if she hadn’t spoken, Miriam said, “Don’t push this too hard. If Landover says to drop it, drop it.”
Tara’s blood shot past the boiling point in a second. “Yesterday you were salivating when I showed you the mock-up of the article and pitched the idea.”
Miriam blew smoke into the receiver. “I had all night and most of this morning to conjure a thousand devastating scenarios in my head. Most of them included me without a job or a pension. If and when this article runs, it’s going to be dicey.”
Tara muttered a few choice words. “When did you get to be so timid?”
“Since I realized I’m two years away from collecting a full pension.”
Frustration fueled Tara’s anger. “My readership has been growing steadily, and this is the kind of story that will hit home with them. Remember, you gave me the go-ahead to look into Kit Westgate Landover’s case.”
“I know. I know.”
“Think about it, Miriam. This is the stuff of Pulitzers. Network news coverage. Book deals. When I go to the top I’ll be telling everyone you were the star editor behind me. I will make you famous and position you for your own book deal.”
Miriam sighed. “We both know I didn’t want to fade quietly into retirement.”
She smiled, knowing she’d hit all Miriam’s hot buttons. “Exactly.”
“All right. Go for it. But please just be careful, Tara.”
“I will be fine.” Tara closed her cell and shoved it in her briefcase as she reached Landover’s house. Standing on the sidewalk, she stared up at the corner-lot mansion. The home had been built in the seventeen hundreds and was steeped in history. This had always been an exclusive pricey area of Boston, but in today’s market this place was worth a king’s ransom.
She climbed the stone steps to the black, lacquered front door. A pineapple brass door knocker hung in the door’s center.
Tara rapped the knocker twice against the massive door. The sound echoed inside the house. She moistened her lips and stood a little straighter.
Miriam’s and Kirkland’s words nagged her as she tried not to fidget. They were right. She had a hot head. Back in D.C., she probably shouldn’t have called that senator an idiot. But she was smart enough to learn from her mistakes. She could handle Pierce Landover if she could get in to see him.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway inside. If her luck held, she’d get Landover’s maid, or someone else who didn’t know her. She then might be able to get into the house and maybe see Landover. There’d been times in the past when she’d talked her way into situations and gotten great quotes.
But there’d also been times when she’d been tossed out and threatened with legal action.
That could be today’s scenario if Cecilia Reston, Landover’s personal assistant for the last twenty-five
