had to clench her fingers into fists to keep from reaching out to touch him.
“What if someone does want to speak to CJ?” Decker asked suddenly, and when they all turned to him in question, said, “It’s possible anyone who wants to speak to her might not be comfortable with all of us sitting here at the table.”
“They couldn’t even sit at the table,” Bricker pointed out.
“Oh, yeah,” CJ said with a frown, and glanced around the diner. While all the tables and booths were still taken, there were now a couple of stools empty at the counter.
“We’ll sit at the counter,” Decker announced suddenly, noting where she was looking. “Let the waitress know where we are when she brings the drinks.”
“Thank you. I will,” CJ assured him as he followed Bricker out of the booth.
The moment the two men were up and crossing the restaurant to the counter, Mac turned to her, smiled, and announced, “I’d like nothing better in this world than to lay you out naked on this table and feast on you.”
CJ’s jaw dropped open, snapped closed, and then she leaned toward him, only to catch herself and pull back.
“You’re an evil man, Mac Argeneau,” she said finally. “Now I’m going to be thinking of that all day.”
“Only fair, since I will too,” he said with a slow smile, his gaze moving down her body as if he could see through her clothes.
CJ shivered, her nipples going erect, and then blinked. “Your eyes.”
Mac stiffened, and then his head turned the slightest bit and his eyes narrowed warily. “What about them?”
CJ was about to tell him that his silver-blue eyes had gone more silver than blue, but even as she opened her mouth, she realized that the silver had receded with the slight movement and narrowing. Now they were back to looking like normal and she ended up saying, “Nothing. It must have been a trick of the light.”
It was what she’d told herself last night in her room. There had been several times then when his eyes had seemed to have turned a metallic silver, as if mercury had filled his irises, but she’d been too distracted to do much more than decide it must be a trick of the light. And of course, that had to be the answer. Unless the man was some kind of robot or something. Normal people’s eyes did not go silver.
“Here we are.”
CJ looked up to see that their waitress had returned.
“I saw your friends at the counter, so left their drinks and menus there with them,” the woman announced as she set a tall glass full of ice, clear brown liquid, and lemons in front of each of them and then tugged the menus out from under her arm and set one before each of them too.
“Thank you,” CJ murmured, and started to open her menu, only to pause when she realized the waitress hadn’t left them, but was now sliding onto the opposite bench seat to join them. Closing the menu, she smiled at the woman and waited as she got herself situated in the center of the bench and set her clasped hands on the tabletop.
“I heard you say last night you’d be here for anyone who has information about the Keith Kaye case,” she announced.
“Yes.” CJ nodded encouragingly at the waitress, whose name tag read Laurie, before asking, “Is it all right if Mac stays? Or would you be more comfortable if he joined the boys?”
“Oh, no, he’s fine,” Laurie said quickly. “And I won’t take up much of your time, I promise.”
“That’s fine. Take all the time you need,” CJ said in her most soothing interviewing voice before asking, “And is it okay if I record our conversation?”
Laurie looked surprised by the question, and then a bit uncomfortable, but nodded reluctantly.
CJ quickly dug out the small recorder she always kept in her purse, switched it on, and set it on the table, then nodded at Laurie. “What did you want to tell me, Laurie?”
The waitress’s eyes flicked up from the recorder to her face and anger settled on her expression. “I wanted to tell you that that asshole Jefferson is lying his face off about what happened the night Keith was beat up. Jefferson says he pulled Keith over because one of his back lights was out, but the lights were just fine.”
“It was his father’s car, wasn’t it?” CJ asked, remembering what Keith had told her in their phone interview.
“Yes, it was, and I