Grace Anne - By Kathi S. Barton Page 0,75

to help me escape when Verrie came back. The house…I was getting out of the house when she hit me with the door. I was trying to get out and get back to you, but she hit me with… Oh, Michael, the things she said she’d done, the things she said she was going to do.”

And that was what the police wanted to talk to her about. They’d been to the empty apartment building that Guinevere had been staying at. So far they’d found four bodies. They’d been mutilated almost beyond knowing what sex they were. It seemed that at least one of the women had an MO that was going to make it easy to close a great many cases.

“They won’t tell me what happened, only that you and Sin came into the house like some sort of avenging angels and saved the day.” She shifted so that her hand was on his chest and her chin resting on it. “Did you and Sin come in with your weapons drawn, ready to be my saviors?”

He leaned up and kissed her briefly on the mouth. When she moaned he cupped the back of her head and brought her to his mouth again. He decided she was the best sort of drug and found he didn’t want to stop kissing her. She pulled back only because the door opened.

“I’m sorry, Miss Waite, but we really need to get some questions answered. Your lawyer is right outside and he said that if you want him here he is ready, and if you didn’t then, as your brother, he was coming in. Either way, he was ready.” The agent looked back at the door before he spoke again. “You have a very protective family. That big man said if I made you upset he was going to castrate me and make me…well, as a doctor I thought it was his duty to help people, not harm them.”

Michael laughed and started to get up, but Grace tightening her body to his had him staying. He glanced over at his mom when he heard her stirring. He wasn’t sure what she wanted to know or not so he gently said her name until she woke.

“Oh my, I’m so sorry. I’ve been…oh, the police.” His mother looked over at them before speaking. “I need to know. I know I have no right to ask you, but…well, Thomas was my stepson and I want to know if he…did he…” Michael got up then and went to her. “He didn’t hurt her, did he?” she asked him softly.

“I don’t think so. I’ll find out and let you know. Why don’t you—”

“He didn’t. He wasn’t helping me, but he didn’t hurt me. I think they might have promised him things that he thought…I don’t believe it was necessary what they did to him, but if it’s any comfort at all he was gone before he was thrown from the car.”

Michael looked at Grace as she spoke to his mom. He didn’t know how, but he absolutely knew she was lying. And he loved her all the more because of it.

Joey moved to the bed and hugged Grace. They were both crying when his mom left, and it took a few minutes for Grace to get herself back under control. Michael doubted that very many things bothered her and knowing that her feelings for his mom were this deep made him feel very good.

The agent, Jeffery Roy Weber, and he did use his full name, asked if he could sit down. “It’s been a real long day. I doubt that I sat down for more’n five minutes all day.”

He stretched out his legs and made a production of getting settled. Michael had used the same “good old boy” routine many times before. Both in business and in the service. He was about to point out that he could cut the crap, but Grace beat him to it.

“Agent Weber, let’s call an apple and apple here and cut to the chase. I’m a New Yorker. Not born and bred, mind you, but pretty close. So how about you ask what you want and I’ll answer to the best of my knowledge.” She looked over at him. “In case it escaped your notice, this man and I were into some serious necking when you walked in and I, for one, would like to get back to it.”

Michael looked at the agent’s face and thought maybe if there was a more shocked-looking face