Read Online To Die For by Linda Howard - Free Book Online Page A

killer, I don’t think he could justify that to a judge. So why had he even told me not to leave town? And why was he telling me this when the most obvious, most intelligent response would be to get the hell out of Dodge?
    He ignored my comment on his edict. “The odds are you’re right, and the reason Ms. Goodwin was murdered was a personal one. With luck we’ll have this wrapped up in a day or two.”
    “A day or two,” I repeated. A lot could happen in a day or two. For one thing, I could get dead. No way was I going to hang around for that to happen. Despite what Lieutenant Bloodsworth had told me, I was leaving town. To hell with his permission, which I was fairly certain I didn’t need anyway; by the time he found out I was gone, it would be too late. I would tell Siana to get in touch with him and tell him that if he needed me, he could contact Siana, because of course I’d tell my family where I was. Great Bods would be closed for a day or so anyway, so I might as well take a short vacation. I hadn’t indulged my inner beach bunny in a couple of years; she was due.
    When I got home I’d grab a couple of hours’ sleep, if I could. If I couldn’t, I’d pack. I’d be ready to go whenever my car was delivered to me.
    “I can’t spare any patrolmen for guard duty, and I couldn’t justify it anyway in the absence of a credible threat—not to mention you aren’t exactly a witness, since you can’t identify anyone.” He leaned back in his chair and gave me a brooding look. “I’ll issue a statement to the press that ‘unnamed witnesses’ saw a man leaving the scene. That should take any focus off of you.”
    “Hey, that’ll work!” I said, cheering up. If there was more than one witness, then killing me wouldn’t serve any purpose, right? Not that I intended to hang around to find out. Now that I’d thought of it, a few nice, lazy days at the beach sounded great. I had this great turquoise bikini I’d bought last year and hadn’t had a chance to wear. Tiffany—my inner beach bunny—was practically purring in anticipation.
    I stood up, picked up the notepad before he could stop me, and ripped off the top page. Like I was going to forget his list of transgressions, right? As I neatly folded the page I said, “I’m ready to go home now. Really, Lieutenant Bloodsworth, you could have told me all this at Great Bods, you know. You didn’t have to manhandle me in front of everyone and drag me down here just to prove you’re a big macho cop.” I made grunting noises like Tim Allen, which I probably shouldn’t have.
    He just looked amused, and motioned with his fingers. “Hand it over.”
    I snorted. “Get real. Even if you tore it up, do you think I wouldn’t remember what’s on the list?”
    “That isn’t the point. Hand it over.”
    Instead I tucked the list into my bag and zipped it. “Then what
is
the point, because I’m missing something here.”
    He got to his feet with a smooth, powerful grace that reminded me what an athlete he was. “The point,” he said as he came around the desk and calmly took my bag away from me, “is that the men in your life probably let you get away with murder—figuratively speaking—because you’re so damned cute, but I’m not going to go down that road. You’re in my territory and I said hand over the list, so if you don’t do it, I’ll have to take it away from you.
That’s
the point.”
    I watched as he unzipped my bag and took out the list, which he slipped into his pants pocket. I could have gone for another undignified struggle, but even if I’d won—which wasn’t likely—retrieving the list would have meant putting my hand in his pocket and I wasn’t born yesterday. This was one battle I’d be smarter not to fight. Instead I shrugged. “So I’ll write one when I get home, where, by the way, I would like to have been an hour ago. You should also really work on this problem you have of making everything personal, Lieutenant