She tried to help you. You have nothing against her,” he said.
Raina expected MacDonald to launch into the fact she’d known the exact location of the victim’s body.
He didn’t get a chance.
Axel had risen.
“Robert, Raina is entirely free to go. But I’ve asked for her help.”
“Axel!” Robert said with surprise.
Raina looked at the two. They knew one another.
“I’m really not up to speed here,” Robert said, addressing Axel. “I came because Raina called. Another body in the Everglades?”
Axel nodded.
“And Raina can help?”
“Only if she’s willing.”
No.
No, no, no. She wasn’t willing.
But then she remembered why she had called in the first place. Someone had been cruelly murdered. And she was annoyed that Axel’s quoting Edmund Burke had gotten into her head. If she did nothing... Was she helping evil? Turning her back on the poor woman she’d seen in the mirror?
“Raina,” Axel said quietly. “Please. We could really use your help.”
She looked at her brother.
“Kiddo, your call. But he’s one of the good guys.”
MacDonald let out a snort and left the room.
“You two know each other?” she asked. Axel was five or six years older than she was; her brother only had her by three.
“We’ve worked a case together before,” Robert said. “He found some evidence it seemed no one else could.”
Great. If not in awe of the man, her brother greatly admired him.
“Are you scheduled with clients today?” Axel asked politely.
She was frowning again. She needed to say she was busy—already late for a training session.
She wasn’t. She tried not to frown. She had purposely kept the day clear, thinking she was going to work with Titan, her Belgian shepherd, for the little show they’d be doing at the fundraiser. But it wouldn’t have been much work. Titan was an amazing dog. He seemed to understand when they were doing something important and he loved children. He’d be at his best.
And she had till Friday night.
But the dress!
He wanted her to put it back on. He wanted to buy the damned thing. Fine, then. They’d buy it. She’d put it on, and then she’d burn it!
She lifted her hands, tempted to touch her face and smooth out the wrinkles she had surely put there permanently.
“You’ll come with me?” Axel asked.
Again, she looked at Robert.
Some protector!
He seemed all for it.
“Um, I guess,” she said softly.
Robert looked at Axel. “I’ll leave her in your hands, then.”
That was it. She stood. “Robert, I don’t need to be left in anyone’s hands, thank you. I’ll do what I can to help. But please, that was—”
“Sorry! Sorry!” Robert said. “It’s just, well, I have to get back to work. I was worried—”
“Thank you. And I’m fine.”
Her brother grinned. “Love you, sis! I’m out of here.”
He was gone, and suddenly she was alone with Axel again.
“Come on,” he said.
“We just walk out of here?”
“We just walk out of here.”
She nodded. He waited, holding the door open for her. She walked out the door, and then through the station, anxious to be outside, afraid someone was going to stop them, that robotic or alien arms would reach out and drag her back.
Some of the officers did watch them as they left.
But they stepped outside at last. It was summer and the sun was high overhead, so bright she blinked against it. She hadn’t known how cold she had been until she felt the warmth of it on her skin.
A hot summer’s day. Humid. The kind they often whined about.
And it was perfect and beautiful.
“I’m across in the lot,” Axel said, indicating where he was parked.
They walked together. And then, when they reached the car, she turned around to stare at him.
“I don’t get it. No one believed me. The more I tried to explain, the more I doubted myself. The more ridiculous I sounded. But you believed me. Why?”
He’d put sunglasses on and she couldn’t see his eyes.
But she did see the slight twist to his lips.
“Because you saw it,” he offered. “Because you saw the pirate ship, sailing over our great river of grass.”
Two
“Is that it?” Axel asked.
The friendly clerk in the dress store greeted Raina politely, probably assuming she had returned for the dress, unaware of Raina’s reasons for abandoning it earlier. When she had seen what she had seen, she must not have screamed or done anything that alerted anyone to the fact something else might be going on.
She’d gotten out of the dress—and out of the store.
Now, watching her, Axel was certain she was hoping the dress had been sold, or it had