When the Bough Breaks (Rose Gardner Investigations #6) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,62
though you’re due to have a baby at any time?”
“Sure am,” I said. “I allow myself one cup a day and I haven’t had one yet. Plus, I have some leftover cinnamon rolls.”
“I’ll be at your place in fifteen minutes.”
Smiling to myself, I headed back to the house and washed my hands before getting the coffee going. I kept looking at my feet, expecting to see Muffy around me. My chest hurt, the fact that she was critically ill hitting me all over again. She’d make it. Muffy was a fighter. Just like me.
I had to believe that about both of us.
I was warming two of the cinnamon rolls when Dermot showed up at my back door. He knocked once as he peered through the window, then walked in.
“Word has it your niece and nephew are missin’,” he said, heading straight to the coffee pot and picking up the mug I’d left out for him.
“Yeah,” I said as I stood in front of the microwave. “I was wonderin’ if you had any insight into that.”
“Seems like we should ease our way into this conversation,” he said with a grim smile. “You mentioned cinnamon rolls?”
I couldn’t help but smile back.
Tim Dermot and I had known each other for less than a year. But I’d grown to trust him more than any other criminal in the county, even more than I’d trusted James when we’d been together, so that was saying something. He’d helped me bolster my neutral position in the crime world, and I’d accidently helped him take over his own organization. As I pulled the cinnamon rolls out of the microwave, I realized I should have called Dermot days ago.
I set his plate in front of him and sat down opposite him with mine. I’d already set down my coffee. “Did you ever hear anything about my brother-in-law, Mike, havin’ something to do with Hardshaw?”
Dermot, whose concentration had been fixed on the gooey baked good in front of him, looked up with raised brows. “Hardshaw? What makes you presume there’s a connection between them?”
“Why didn’t we presume it earlier?” I asked. “Seems like we were all bein’ shortsighted with that one.”
A grim look covered his face.
“I saw Skeeter Malcolm last night and he confirmed it.”
He shifted his gaze back to his cinnamon roll as he sawed off a piece. “I wondered how long that would take.”
“Are we talking about Mike bein’ with Hardshaw or me seeing James?”
“Malcolm. I wondered how long it would be before he tried to win you back.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded, dropping the fork I’d just raised. “I really don’t need this from you, Dermot.”
He met my eyes again, his unreadable gaze holding mine. “I saw the way that man looked at you. Acted around you. I never thought he’d let you go so easily.”
“Well, I went to him, not the other way around, make no mistake about that. And I only did it because of the kids. I wanted to find out what he knew about them, Mike, and the break-in at Violet’s attorney’s office.”
“You’re just now askin’ him about that?” He finished off the cinnamon roll and glanced over at mine. “You gonna eat that?”
I shoved it over to him. “Consider it a bribe. I’m not discussin’ my personal life with you.”
He chuckled. “And who said we were?” His fork sliced through the cinnamon roll. “Look, Rose. Whether you like it or not, you dipped your toe into this world with that man holdin’ your hand. He thinks he created you, and he’s not gonna let you go as easy as it’s seemed so far. He’s just bidin’ his time, waitin’ to use you again.”
Just like Denny Carmichael, and now I might have to approach him again too.
“Well, James didn’t seem like he was fixin’ to use me for anything anytime soon,” I grumbled. “He wouldn’t tell me crap. Except…” I took a breath and pushed it out. “He suggested that Mike might be tied to Denny Carmichael.”
That caught Dermot by surprise. “Carmichael? He’s flat-out against Hardshaw movin’ in. So if Mike’s workin’ for Hardshaw, I can’t imagine what he’d be doin’ for Carmichael. Unless he was sellin’ information to him.”
My stomach roiled. Carmichael was not a man to get mixed up with.
“I need to talk to Denny,” I said.
Dermot held up his hand. “Now hold on a minute. There’s no call to be hasty.”
“My six-year-old niece and three-year-old nephew are missin’, Dermot. Hasty sounds pretty good to me right about now.”