ignore his call.”
“You should have called me.”
“I did,” she snapped back.
But Creighton gave no indication of having heard her. “If I’d known he was meeting with you, I would have known he was in danger.”
She flinched at the coolly delivered statement, at this confirmation of something she hadn’t wanted to consider. She’d had no idea that her brief conversation with Roger Merrick was his death sentence. How could she have known?
But as she’d stood in that room waiting for the police to arrive, staring blindly at his mutilated remains, she’d realized it was something she should have considered. She should have found some way to protect him.
“What did he tell you?” Creighton demanded. “What did he say to get you over here? What information did he have that was worth dying for?”
“He didn’t tell me anything,” she admitted, some of her anger deflating. She was too tired to stay angry, the situation too futile. “He refused to discuss anything over the phone, insisted that I meet him.”
“Someone else was equally insistent that the meeting not take place.”
She couldn’t respond. There was nothing she could say or do to change what had happened tonight. A man had died—murdered in cold blood—and she couldn’t help but feel responsible.
She’d worked murder trials before, from the defense table. She’d detached herself, forced herself to focus on the law rather than the victim, manipulated the facts to her client’s advantage. She’d never let herself think about the loss of life, the brutality of the crime. After seeing what had been done to Roger Merrick, she didn’t think she’d ever be able to think about anything else.
“Was this your first murder vic?” he asked, a little more gently.
“I’ve worked homicide cases before,” she said defensively.
“So you’ve read reports and seen photographs,” he guessed.
There was no censure in his tone, just compassion and understanding. “Nothing that prepared me for…” She didn’t know how to describe the sense of horror that had overwhelmed her when she’d walked into Roger Merrick’s apartment and saw what had been done to him.
“Nothing can,” he told her.
Natalie nodded.
“Is it safe to assume you’ve seen more than enough here?”
She could only nod again.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
Her already unsettled stomach pitched precariously. “Thanks, but I try not to drink coffee at 2:00 a.m.—it keeps me awake.”
Creighton smiled at her lame attempt at humor, and—for the second that those dimples flashed—she forgot about the gruesome scene in apartment 1D.
“You were just up close and personal with a dead guy,” he reminded her. “I don’t think you’ll be getting any more sleep tonight.”
He was right, of course. But almost as unnerving as the view of what a bullet could do to the human body was Lieutenant Creighton’s sudden hint of compassion. “Don’t you have to collect evidence or something?”
“The CSU is taking care of that,” he told her. “And the ME is ready to take possession of the body.”
“Merrick,” she said, hating the cold formalities of death that reduced the individual to a designation.
It didn’t matter to her that the victim had been an accused drug dealer with a record of arrests longer than her arm, he’d been a person. An hour or so earlier, she’d spoken to him on the phone. He’d been scared when he’d called her. She’d recognized the fear, the apprehension in his voice. Had he known, even then, that his time was running out?
She couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if she hadn’t vacillated over her decision to meet with him. “If I’d come right away—”
“You might have ended up like Merrick,” Creighton interrupted before she could complete the thought. “Whoever did this to him wouldn’t have thought twice about taking out any potential witnesses.”
Natalie shuddered. She hadn’t allowed herself to consider that possibility, hadn’t wanted to admit—even to herself—how foolhardy her actions had been in coming here tonight.
“Coffee?” he offered again.
This time, she drew a deep breath and nodded.
The sign in the window of Sam’s Diner advertised breakfast twenty-four hours a day. It was one of the reasons it was such a popular establishment with the local cops.
“Are you hungry?” Dylan asked, sliding into the vinyl booth across from the A.D.A.
Natalie started to shake her head, paused. “I shouldn’t be. But I missed dinner, and something smells really good.”
“They do a great ham-and-cheese omelet.”
“Maybe I’ll try it,” she agreed, turning over her cup as the waitress approached their table with a pot of coffee in hand.
“Good morning, Sylvia.” He greeted the waitress who was already filling their cups.
“Morning, Lieutenant. Ma’am.”
Natalie frowned; Dylan grinned. “This is Natalie Vaughn—our newest assistant district attorney,” he said.
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am. Will you be wanting breakfast or just coffee this morning?”
“Breakfast,” he answered. “Two ham-and-cheese omelets.”
“Can you make mine with egg whites only?” Natalie asked, emptying a creamer into her cup. “And whole-wheat toast, please. No butter.”
Sylvia nodded and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Dylan shook his head.
“What?” Natalie demanded.
“It’s a greasy spoon. You want to eat healthy, you should go to one of those yuppie delis that serve alfalfa sprouts on everything.”
“I like alfalfa sprouts,” she told him, sounding just a bit defensive.
“I could have guessed.”
“That must be why you’re carrying the badge.”
He laughed, pleasantly surprised by her bland touch of humor. He’d invited her for coffee because he’d wanted to get her away from Merrick’s apartment. He wasn’t happy that she’d been at the scene; he was even more unhappy about his fading prospects of apprehending Conroy.
But there was no point in remaining angry with Natalie when Merrick was
