Read Online Deception with Murder (A Rilynne Evans Mystery, Book Two) by Jenn Vakey - Free Book Online

larger as they spread out.
    A cell tower, she thought as she opened her eyes.
    “Enjoy your night out, Evans?” She jumped off the table when she heard Detective Wilcome’s voice behind her.
    “Yeah,” she replied. “I can’t complain.”
    “So the food was good? And the company?” He was probing, and not subtly. She considered letting him fish around for a while, but thought it best to finish the conversation before anyone else could join in. As the only woman in the unit, she knew it was something she would never hear the end of if it got around.
    She folded her arms and leaned back against the table. “I swear you’re like a gossiping teenager,” she said, struggling to keep her uneasiness from showing. “Ben helped me move, so I owed him dinner. And yes, the steak was amazing.” She wasn’t lying. The steak had, in fact, been one of the best steaks she had ever had. The baked potato accompanying it had over two inches of toppings piled on, with a salted, crispy skin.
    “So to say thank you, you picked the most romantic restaurant in Addison Valley?” She could hear the skepticism in his voice.
    “I…” she stammered. “I didn’t pick the restaurant.” She knew it wasn’t a strong leg to stand on, but she didn’t know what else to say. The more she struggled to think of something, though, the hotter she felt her face growing.
    “You do know there are no longer any ramifications from fraternization,” he said, raising a bemused eyebrow. “You don’t have to hide a relationship.”
    “And I wouldn’t if I were in a relationship,” she said, putting a great deal on emphasis on if. “But I’m not. Ben and I are just friends, and that’s all we’ll ever be.”
    He looked at her suspiciously before apparently giving up. “So where are we on the case?” The excitement that had been in his voice was now gone.
    “We should be getting the results of the unknown substance in around noon today. I was also thinking we should try to have all of Villarreal’s calls over the last few months traced. If we could find out where he has been, we might have a better idea of where to start looking for his journal,” she explained.
    “Good. Let me know if you get anything,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep Villarreal’s identity under wraps. We need to try to get this closed before it gets out.”
    She nodded and followed him back into the office. Matthews walked in just as Rilynne sat down at her desk.
    “We need to run a trace on all of Villarreal’s cell phone calls,” she told him.
    “That should give us a list of locations he frequented,” Matthews replied. “That could lead us right to where he would have hidden his journal.”
    One of the reasons Rilynne enjoyed working with Detective Matthews was that they seemed to always be on the same page. She never had to explain things to him, or try to make up stories about why they should follow her ‘hunches.’ He was also one of the few detectives she had worked with who did not scoff at the field of profiling.
    “What happened to you?” he asked, motioning toward the scrape on her jaw. “Nothing,” she replied quickly. She had tried to cover it as best as she could before leaving the house, but had obviously not done the best job. “Just scraped it while running.”
    “Yeah, I have heard that running is a very dangerous sport,” he joked. “That’s why I do my exercising in the couch. Switching between those sports channels really builds the muscles.” He flexed his arm a few times before leaning back and smiling.
    Rilynne chuckled as she picked up the phone. “This is Detective Evans in homicide. I need a trace run on the phone that was logged into evidence. I need to know the location of all the calls that were made or received within the last two months.”
    After hanging up, she turned back to Matthews.
    “Did you hear back from the lab about the unknown substance that was on Villarreal’s hair and