“I’m happy to buy it.”
“I’ve actually sold enough copies that I can afford to give you one. Honest.”
He let out a breath, lowered his head and shook it. When he looked up, his eyes were filled with humor and he was smiling. She was startled to realize just how good-looking he was.
Personality. It was in the eyes, she thought.
And he had a lot of other assets to go with that personality.
“Miss O’Brien, may I start over? I’m Dallas Samson. Pleased to make your acquaintance. And I’ll try not to be so obnoxiously rude in the future.”
He offered her his hand. She took it. Naturally, his hand was large, and his fingers were very long. She could sense real power in his handshake.
“Lovely to meet you, Mr.—sorry, Agent—Samson. I’m sure the pleasure is mine. And I’ll try not to—”
She broke off, suddenly feeling guilty for being so cavalier when a man had died so close to her home.
I’ll try not to stumble on any more bodies, she thought.
“Hey,” he said, and to her surprise he touched her chin lightly. “It’s all right. Jose would want us to get along—and he’d want you to be safe.”
How had he known what she was thinking?
She felt oddly as if they were talking about someone who had been a friend to them both. Maybe, in a way, he had been.
Or still was.
She suddenly felt as if they were sharing a moment that was almost intimate. How ridiculous! She stepped back.
“So, where shall we eat?” she asked.
“You choose.”
“I’ve been here forever, you’ve just come back, so what would you like to have?” she asked.
They turned the corner and decided on a restaurant in a beautiful Victorian house on Duval just down from Caroline Street. Neither of them knew their waitress, a pretty young girl who told them she was from Russia. They ordered drinks and the house special, mahimahi almandine.
When their drinks were served and the waitress had gone on to place their orders, Hannah realized she still hadn’t spoken to Liam and she really needed to. He wasn’t quite as adept at seeing the dead as she was, but in both his personal life and his work he’d experienced enough to believe what she told him—or to at least accept that she might really have received reliable information from a source that most people couldn’t see or hear.
She excused herself and went to the ladies’ room where she put a call through to him, but she only reached his voice mail. She left him a message and returned to the table.
Dallas stood to pull out her chair for her.
She thanked him and asked, “So what’s your next move?”
“Liam had Katie work with a police artist, so we’ll get those sketches out and look for the people Jose was with last night before he was killed.”
“They didn’t kill him,” Hannah said.
“What?”
“Uh, I...I don’t believe one of them killed him,” she said hastily. “I think they ran like rats when he was attacked. Maybe they knew someone was coming, though. They might have set him up.”
“Well, it’s important for us to find them, no matter what. Even if they didn’t kill him, maybe they can lead us to the person who did.”
“Do you think that will happen?” Hannah asked. “I thought the fate of a rat within Los Lobos was far worse than anything the law could deal out.”
“We have witness protection, and we have ways to threaten, bribe and interrogate that can be quite effective,” he told her. “Maybe others have failed, but we won’t. We’re also waiting on lab reports. We’re testing every tiny drop we could find. We could be extraordinarily lucky and discover we have the killer’s blood and his DNA is in the system.”
“I suppose I know all that, it’s just that...”
“That what?” he asked.
She shrugged. “You were so...geared to move,” she said. “And now we’re just sitting here having dinner.”
He didn’t reply for a moment. She felt a sense of unease trickle down her spine.
“You are working, aren’t you?” she asked. “You really do think I’m in danger.”
He raised his shoulders slightly in a noncommittal manner. “We just don’t know,” he said.
“You sure know how to make a girl feel safe, Agent Samson,” she murmured.
“I’m not sure you should feel safe right now.”
“Hey, haven’t you heard? I have an FBI agent staying in my house.”
“There you go.”
He fell quiet as their waitress brought their food. When she’d left he asked Hannah, “Does the word cur mean anything to you?”
“Cur?” she repeated.
“Cur, yes. C-U-R.”
“Well, it’s a nasty dog, as far as I know,” she said.
“Yes. I just wonder what else it might mean or refer to.”
“Why?”
His eyes were level and unfathomable as he stared at her across the table. “He wrote it,” he told her. “Jose wrote it on the ground—in his own blood.”