Page 38 of Her Frozen Cry (Detective Amanda Steele)

“As I said, good luck.”

“You had secrets from Kevin?” His brows raised.

Whoa! The personal question slammed her with guilt. Tony. She’d never told Kevin that just after they’d started dating, she’d kissed Tony. But why would she? It was a moment of weakness, brief, fleeting. Tony had professed his love for her and dared her to deny her feelings. When she fell speechless, he’d pulled her in. The kiss happened. They lingered in each other’s arms. But the timing was unfair. There was Kevin and Claudia to consider, though Tony had insisted he wasn’t entirely sure about his future with Claudia. They were on a “break” at the time. The fact remained, though, that the two of them had a child together. Amanda didn’t want to interfere with that, and she had a sense of loyalty toward Kevin. She put an end to whatever could have started between her and Tony then and there.

“Amanda?”

“No.” She could justify that answer, right? She’d held back because nothing good would have come from her confessing the kiss to Kevin. It just would have hurt him for no reason. After all, Amanda had chosen him.

Trent smiled at her. “See? Those women do exist.”

She broke eye contact. “Pull a background on Rossi,” she said, hoping desperately the course of their conversation was permanently detoured.

“One second…” Trent proceeded to do just that. “He owns a contracting company for new builds… Oh.”

She leaned over. “I see it. Seth Rossi has a history of assault. Goes back the better part of eleven years. Looks like a bar fight. Other than that, there’s not much detail on file. He served six months.”

“Still proves he has a temper. He may like to settle things with physical violence.”

Amanda thought of the shared custody arrangement. With Alicia’s plans to sell the business, was she going to pursue full custody of Leo? “Let’s go pay Rossi a visit, find out why he called Alicia and what kept their conversation so short.”