Capturing Cleo. Linda Winstead Jones
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late,” Luther said, glancing around. The place was as neat and plain on the inside as it was on the outside. Very homey, very feminine. The furniture was mismatched and looked comfortable, and a few odds and ends added color. There was even a vase of red roses on an end table. Something from the boyfriend, he imagined with a frown. Whoever that might be.
While he was contemplating possible suspects for the role of Cleo Tanner’s love interest, a big dog padded up to him and sniffed uncertainly.
“Be nice, Rambo,” the redhead said, then she fixed a calculating smile on Luther. “I’m Syd Wade,” she said. “I live next door.”
“Luther Malone,” he said, offering his hand. She took it and shook, very briefly.
“I have a picture-frame shop in town. I’ve Been Framed.”
“What?”
“I’ve Been Framed. That’s the name of my shop.”
Luther nodded, figuring it would not be nice to tell her he’d never heard of the place.
“And I would love to stay until Cleo gets out of the shower, but I have an order to put together before I open at ten. Since you’re a cop, I guess it’s okay to leave you here unsupervised.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“And for your information, there’s no way Cleo killed that moron she used to be married to,” she said defensively.
He agreed with her but wasn’t ready to say so aloud, so he just nodded an acknowledgment.
“Behave yourself while you’re waiting,” she said with a smile. “Or Rambo will get you. She’s a real tiger under all that hair and those big brown eyes.”
Luther looked down at the dog, whose big, friendly eyes and wagging tail did not jibe with the name Rambo.
Syd left, and Luther sat down on Cleo’s couch. Rambo joined him, placing her chin on his knee and looking up with eyes that begged shamelessly for love and attention.
“Okay,” he said, scratching behind the dog’s ears. He was almost certain Rambo sighed in delight.
No, he didn’t think Cleo killed Jack Tempest, but she was definitely involved. The grapefruit was no accident. In fact, it was downright creepy. If he’d thought Tempest had any reason to kill himself, he’d think the man had jumped with the grapefruit in his hand, just to point the finger at Cleo. From what little he’d learned, Tempest had done his very best to make Cleo’s life difficult since the divorce.
Stealing the publishing rights to the song she’d written and recorded years ago had only been the beginning. He hadn’t exactly let her go after the divorce. He kept turning up, like the proverbial bad penny, wherever she went. She moved, and a few months later he was right behind her. He managed a few unsuccessful musical acts, and a couple that had done fairly well. Surely his business had suffered when he’d given harassing Cleo so much time and attention, but he’d managed to do okay.
He’d tried to ruin her credit by listing her name on his old unpaid debts, causing her all kinds of grief. Whenever she seemed to be doing well, Tempest turned up to throw in a monkey wrench, somehow. He’d gotten her fired from countless singing jobs. He’d harassed her for years, while being very careful not to cross any legal line.
The latest bit was, Tempest was behind a petition to get Cleo’s liquor license revoked. Something about being too close to a church, even though the church in question was three blocks away and she’d been in operation there for over two years without a single problem.
Jack Tempest had either loved his ex-wife very much, or hated her beyond all reason. Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, coming into the room and catching him daydreaming with his fingers enmeshed behind Rambo’s ears.
Cleo looked too damn good. Hair damp and curly, blue slacks and matching blouse snug, heels high—if not as audaciously high as last night—she was soft, nicely curved and feminine.
“I thought cops were like vampires and had to be invited in,” she said in a voice that was definitely not soft.
“Your neighbor, Syd, let me in.”
Cleo rolled her eyes and mumbled something obscene, and Luther forced back a smile.
“I don’t suppose you have any coffee?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I don’t drink coffee.”
“No wonder you’re not a morning person,” he said, rising slowly and pushing back the urge to find out if Cleo would growl and sigh if he rubbed behind her ears. She’d probably bite his hand off. Changing the subject seemed like a good idea.
“Why didn’t you ask who was at the door before you opened it?”
Cleo stared at him, wide-eyed and disbelieving. “I thought you were my neighbor. She often drops by in the morning before she goes to work.”
“And why in hell do you keep a key under your mailbox?”
She shook her head. “Sometimes Syd lets Rambo out when I work late, and sometimes I forget my key, and…it’s really none of your business where I keep my spare key.”
“It’s not safe,” he argued.
“Who are you,” she said. “Keeper of the city? Defender of the weak?”
“Watchdog over the stupid,” he added.
Her amber eyes narrowed. “So now I’m stupid.”
“No, but keeping your key—”
“I pushed my ex off a tall building and I’m stupid.” She did as she had last night, offering her hands to him, palms up, wrists together.
His eyes fell to the delicate veins there, to the curve of her wrists and the pale softness of her fingers.
“So cuff me, Malone. Take me in. Arrest me and get this over with.”
He leaned in, ever so slightly. Just enough to make Cleo lean back. “Don’t tempt me.”
Chapter 3
“This is not the police station,” Cleo muttered, as Malone pulled his gray sedan to the curb. “As a matter of fact, we’re not even close to the police station.”
Malone threw open his door and unfolded his long body from the driver’s seat, ignoring her statement. He rounded the car and opened her door for her, leaning slightly in. Like it or not, he took her breath away when he moved in close like this.
“The Rocket City Café has better coffee,” he said as he offered his hand to assist her from the car. She grudgingly placed her hand in his and stood. “Besides,” he added as he released her hand and closed the car door, “you’re nervous. The station would just make matters worse.”
“I am not nervous,” she retorted.
The annoying Detective Malone responded with a brief smile.
The Rocket City Café was a small restaurant with plastic red-and-white checkered tablecloths and a strange collection of patrons. Two old men sat in a corner booth and argued about local politics. A group of elderly women crowded around a table in the center of the room, and from the excited utterances about brownies and bundt cakes, it seemed they were planning a bake sale. A middle-aged waitress in a pink uniform and a white apron leaned against the counter where a No Smoking sign was prominent, and smoked as if she really enjoyed every puff. A very young short-order cook, with his long hair in a hair net, scrubbed the grill behind the counter. He was singing, and not very well.
When the waitress saw Malone she smiled and put her cigarette out in a nearby coffee cup. “Hey, Sugar,” she said, with a grin that transformed her face into a mass of wrinkles. “The usual?”
“Yeah,