“Deal.”
An hour turned into two and Brodey wasn’t done. He squatted in the laundry room, ran his free hand over a chipped edge of grout. Without the actual case file outlining the details of the crime scene, he couldn’t form any solid opinions.
He was flying blind. In the dark. Although, if he was flying blind, it would already be dark.
And, hell no, he would not get sucked into this. He’d give an opinion. That was it. Unfortunately, giving an opinion required a basic understanding of the case.
“I need the case file,” he said to Jenna.
His sister stood in the doorway, leaning against the door frame. “I don’t have that.”
“I still need it.”
Maybe he could cash in on a couple of favors. Or his father could. Being a retired detective, the old man had more contacts in the department. And it would keep Brodey off the radar.
Alexis strode into the kitchen, her sky-high heels clicking on the tile. “How’s it going?”
Even on those heels, he looked down at her. Judging by his six-foot-one size, he’d put her at around five-four. Five-five if he wanted to be generous.
Alexis Vanderbilt.
Vanderbilt.
Her name stank of money. Seriously, how many women walked around in five-inch heels, a pair of tight-fitting black pants that made a man’s mind go wild and a blazer over—get this—a leather halter-top-looking thing. Who did that?
Nobody Brodey knew. That was for sure.
But he kinda liked it. From a purely male point of view.
“It’s not going,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I need to talk to your client.”
Jenna stepped farther into the room to make way for Alexis. “I could have Mr. Hennings contact her.”
Alexis dragged her phone from her jacket pocket. “I’ll call her.”
Maybe the sexy decorator wasn’t so bad after all. Brodey grinned. “Thank you.”
She gave him a sarcastic, bunchy-cheeks grin. “It has nothing to do with your enormous charm. It’ll be faster if I call her. By the time Jenna tracks down her boss and he calls my client, you could be on your way over there. I’m all for efficiency.”
That made two of them. And when efficiency looked like Alexis Vanderbilt, preferably a naked Alexis Vanderbilt because yeah, he was wondering what that looked like, he’d welcome it any day, any time without a doubt. Professionalism aside, he was still a guy who liked action. Plenty of it.
“Brenda?” Alexis said into her phone. “Hi. It’s Lexi Vanderbilt...yes...I’m fine.”
Lexi. He liked that. It fit with her sassy attitude. She bobbed her head while going through the pleasantries with her client and Brodey surmised that, like him, she had issues being idle. For any length of time.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m at the house now. There are two investigators here from Hennings & Solomon.”
Technically, Brodey wasn’t from Hennings & Solomon, but he’d let that go. Not worth the hassle.
“They got here a couple of hours ago,” Lexi continued, “and they have questions for you. Would you be able to speak with them?”
Three seconds passed. Then she handed Brodey the phone. He immediately looked at his sister, waggling the phone at her to make sure she didn’t want to take the lead. She shook her head.
Excellent answer. Not that he would have minded her taking the call, but when the phone hit his hand he got that familiar push of adrenaline, that spark that came with a fresh case and the possibility of leads. At the age of thirty-two, he hadn’t been a detective long enough to turn jaded. The older guys on the squad liked to call him Greenhorn. Being the youngest—and newest—detective to join his squad, he still viewed every case as an opportunity to make a difference while the old guys hoped to retire with their sanity. Twenty years of working homicides on the streets of Chicago would emotionally annihilate even the toughest of the tough. Brodey hoped to retire long before annihilation occurred and already had a start on a healthy nest egg.
He held the phone to his ear. “Mrs. Williams, this is Brodey Hayward. Thank you for taking my call.”
There was a short pause and Brodey checked the screen to make sure the call hadn’t dropped. Nope. Still there. “Hello?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m here. I needed to step into the other room. My youngest is playing and I didn’t want her to hear.”
The youngest, according to Jenna, had been three when her father died. So, she’d be five now and Brodey tried to imagine that, tried to imagine growing up without his own father, without the memories of ball games and amusement parks and beach visits. All of it a dead loss. Poor kids. A squeeze in his chest ambushed him and he held his breath a second, waited for the pressure to ease before exhaling and clearing his throat.
Stay focused. Forget the kids. That was what he needed to do. “No problem. Are you able to answer some questions for me? I could drop by.”
Because really, what he wanted to see was her. Study her body language and responses. Call him cynical, even as a rookie detective, but the spouse—particularly an estranged one—always got a solid look.
“Now?”
“Yes, ma’am. If it’s convenient.”
“I need to pick up my son from school and then take him to basketball practice at four-thirty. Lexi is coming by at four with samples. I can’t imagine that will take long. I could meet with you then, also. Would that work?”
He wasn’t sure how Lexi would feel about that, but in his mind, murder trumped decorating, so he’d make an executive decision. “I’ll make it work, ma’am. Thank you.”
Brodey disconnected and handed Lexi the phone. “We’re riding shotgun on your four o’clock.”
“Say again?”
“She said you were meeting with her at four and we could meet with her then, too. She’s busy running kids around. We need to maximize our time.”
“She only gave me thirty minutes.”
“She’s now splitting that thirty minutes between us. You’ll need to shorten your list.”
* * *
SHORTEN HER LIST? Brodey Hayward had a serious superiority complex if he thought she’d let him dictate how to do her job. First he horned in
