Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4)(77)

CHAPTER FORTY


With the Thomas Paige investigation closed, and both T.J. Nelson and Luke Carlton headed for trial, John Winston had taken on a few new cases, digging into another complicated homicide that demanded his attention.

With a crack-of-dawn run behind him, he headed into the office before seven, ready to tackle the workload.

But as he studied the evidence folder at his desk and downed his cup of coffee, something nagged at the back of his mind. A little detail that he couldn’t quite fit into a neat box. Not from the new case, but from the old one.

Something didn’t entirely add up. As he hunted for his case file, his phone rang.

“Detective John Winston here,” he answered.

“Hey, Winston. This is Special Agent Laura K. Reiss with the FBI, Las Vegas division. We’ve got a case we’re working that might have hooks into one of yours.”

John returned to his chair, spun around, and said, “Tell me more.”

*

“I’m betting this place has amazing breakfast potatoes because the fries I had a few weeks ago were out of this world,” Michael said as he held open the door to the diner where he’d met Morris recently. It seemed almost a lifetime ago.

“Can’t wait. I’m famished,” Annalise said after she told the hostess they needed a table for two. The woman in the pink dress showed them to a booth, and Annalise ordered a coffee.

After the waitress vanished, Annalise flashed him a smile. She was radiant this morning—freshly showered, barely any makeup on, and her hair swept into a clip on her head. Then she yawned. “Jet lag.”

He nodded. “I think we’ll both be dealing with that a lot these days.”

“We definitely will.”

Even though he wished it were possible to see her more, he would take what he could get. He would live off the little morsels of time they were able to carve out. Maybe someday they could find a way to be in the same city more regularly. For now, he at least had faith in the two of them, and that was a beautiful thing.

“So what brought you here a few weeks ago?” she asked, after they ordered eggs and the waitress brought coffee. “This diner isn’t exactly down the block from your home.”

“The private detective I hired wanted to meet here to share some leads. The info about the piano shop that helped break the case open.”

“Ah,” she said with a nod, reaching for her mug.

He picked up the tea he’d ordered. “And you were amazing in helping us put the final pieces together.”

She shook her head, as if it were no big deal what she’d remembered. “It was nothing. Just a tiny bit of memory. But I want to hear more about how it all went down. We didn’t talk much about it in Paris. I sensed you didn’t want to get into the details then, but you know me. I’m always curious.”

He smiled. “I do know that about you.”

And so he started the story.

*

As Michael spoke about the night of the last arrest, a memory tugged at the back of her mind. It was of her last conversation with his father.

The morning before she left Las Vegas, she’d gone out to breakfast with Michael and his dad. They’d discussed plans for how the two of them could see each other again. She’d always loved that about his father. He was so supportive of their young love. They’d ordered eggs and toast—standard diner fare. She didn’t remember the name of the diner, but it wasn’t this one.

It was so odd that a little more than twenty-four hours later, he was gone.

She shook her head briefly, chasing away the memory.

“And one of the gang members they’d already nabbed had tipped off the cops about where T.J. had been seen,” Michael said, when a faint buzz sounded from his side of the booth.

“Is that your phone?”

He glanced downward, patting his back pocket. “Yeah. I’ll get back to whoever it is,” he said, then continued the tale, and she tried her best to focus on what he was saying, but her mind kept tripping back to that day in the past.

Conversation with Thomas had been easy, even when Michael went out to the car to grab an umbrella. Rain had started to fall, and he said he didn’t want her to get soaked when they left the restaurant after breakfast.

“He’s so chivalrous,” Annalise said to his father. “He takes after you.”

Thomas smiled. “He’s a gentleman. Makes me proud.”

“How is everything going at work? Were you ever able to sort out the missing details you were looking into?”

He scratched his chin and shifted his hand like a seesaw. “Sort of. It seemed I was getting closer, and I was really hoping it would help me get the job, especially since the company was worried about being audited.”

“What happened then?” she asked, catching sight of Michael yanking open the car door in the parking lot.

His phone buzzed again at the table.

Grabbing it from his back pocket, he hit ignore without looking at the screen. Worry prickled at the back of Annalise’s neck. “What if it’s important?”

He inhaled deeply and shot her a small smile. “I’m sure whatever it is can wait five more minutes,” he said as the waitress returned with their plates.

“Eggs, and our famous breakfast potatoes,” she said, depositing their meals as a bearded man in a black windbreaker passed behind her. When the waitress left, Michael finished his story. “So they set up a trap, basically, at the club. The gentlemen’s club we do the security for.”