Page 13 of Luck of the Devil

“Are you gonna tell her you suspect your mother was murdered?”

“No.” I drew in a breath. “I’m still struggling to believe someone killed her.”

“Why?”

I turned to face him. My cold detective facade slipped, allowing my grief to rush in, coming out in the form of anger. “Because, if I accept that she was killed, I have to wonder if she was murdered because of me!” I shouted. “What if I turned up something in Hugo Burton’s case that made people worried enough to try and stop me?”

“You thinkin’ they murdered your mother to interfere with your investigation?” he asked in disbelief.

“It wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened,” I insisted.

Sympathy filled his eyes as he shook his head. “Harper, we already determined it didn’t have anything to do with Burton. You hadn’t even started investigatin’.”

Right. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to get my shit together.

His reaction only made me even angrier, or at least that was what I told myself. Because what else could I be pissed about? “She seemed anxious when I talked to her last Tuesday afternoon.” I ran my hand through my hair, trying to remember how the conversation had gone down. “She was upset that I wasn’t taking her to her historical society luncheon.” I shook my head. “Dammit, why can’t I remember what she said? Why did I just blow her off?”

He studied me for a moment. “Take a moment, and let’s?—”

“Fuck you, Malcolm!” I shouted, then pointed my finger at him. “Don’t you fucking try to placate me!”

“Placate you?” he scoffed. “You’re hysterical, and I’m trying to get you to calm down and think rationally.”

“Hysterical?” I screamed, realizing that I was hysterical, but I was also past the point of caring.

He took a step back and gave me a patronizing look.

“Fuck you!”

“You already said that.”

“Arg!” I shouted into the air.

“There you go again, losing control. I thought you were some kind of hot-shot detective,” he sneered. “When you were in Little Rock and things didn’t go your way on an investigation, did you just shout at your partner and throw fits?”

“It’s my fucking mother, Malcolm!” I shouted. “My mother was murdered!” I said, choking on the word, and then the anger was replaced with an overwhelming grief that stole my breath and made me dizzy.

I stared up at him, whispering, “Someone murdered my mother.”

“I know,” he said, lowering his voice as his face softened.

I’d spent the past five days trying to accept that she was gone. That it was over.

But it wasn’t over. It had only just begun.

I took a deep breath, subduing my grief, and shoving it back into the box where it belonged. Grief had no place in an investigation. I needed to be cold and calculated, and the truth was, I was very good at both.

“I’m going to find out who did this,” I said, my voice as hard as steel.

Malcolm’s eyes darkened. “Then let’s get started.”

Chapter 5

I shot him a dark glare. “You plan to work this case with me?”

Disgust flashed across his face. “I thought that much was obvious by now.”

“Why?” I demanded. “Why are you so interested in this?”