Tina Whittle_Tai Randall Mystery 01 by The Dangerous Edge of Things Page A

anyway.”
    “So you heard his story?”
    “I got the basics. Something else, though. She’d been roughed up a bit—bruises on the arms and wrists, chest, back of the neck. ME said probably forty-eight hours or so before she died.”
    Forty-eight hours. Tuesday night. When Eric was still in town and they’d been at the Mardi Gras ball together.
    I picked at what remained of the mushrooms. “So how bad is Eric looking?”
    Garrity chewed vigorously. “Hard to say. I’m sure he knew he shouldn’t have been meeting some young, single girl under such strange circumstances.”
    “I can’t believe that makes him ‘a person of suspicion.’”
    “You are, too, you know.”
    “That’s beginning to dawn on me.”
    “Don’t take it personally. Everybody’s guilty of something, it’s a cop’s job to find out what. Your job is to be prepared.”
    Trey spoke up. “Landon has approved counsel for Eric. I could talk to him about what might be available for Tai, but—”
    “But,” I interjected, “since Landon has a bug up his ass about my hanging around, I don’t think I’m going to be getting any favors from him.”
    Trey nodded. “Marisa is more amenable, however.”
    He’d brewed another cup of hot tea for himself and was sipping it at his station at the window. His eyes didn’t have that blue flash to them, and every now and then, he tilted his head back against the wall and stared at the ceiling, taking long slow blinks.
    I leaned closer to Garrity. “Is Trey okay? He looks kind of…”
    Garrity waved off my concern. “He’s fine, just tired. A good night’s rest and he’ll be back to normal. Or whatever.”
    “So what do we do now?”
    “We finish this pizza. Then I’m taking you back to the Ritz.”
    “But I left my car at Phoenix.”
    “You can get it tomorrow.” He turned his cop eyes on me. “Looks like bodyguard duty falls to me this evening.”
    Garrity had granite in his gaze. Could I see him killing somebody? Oh yes. Up close and efficient. But he’d have to have a good reason to do it.
    “Personal protection,” I corrected.
    ***
    Garrity went to bring his car around front, leaving Trey to make the arrangements. He talked to several people on the phone, then handed me a piece of paper with names and numbers on it.
    “If you have trouble, any of these people can help you. I’d prefer if you called me first, however.”
    I tucked the list into my bag. Up close, he looked exhausted, but he was still being polite, attentive even. He kept his arms crossed, though, and stayed farther away from me than personal space dictated.
    “I appreciate everything you did today,” I said. “The ride, the pizza, letting me hang out here.”
    He nodded.
    “You’ve been very considerate,” I said.
    He nodded again.
    I wanted him to say something. But he just stood there, arms folded, his body slanted away from mine.
    “This has been the damn strangest forty-eight hours of my life,” I said.
    “There’s always tomorrow.”
    “What does that mean?”
    He shrugged. “I have no idea. It’s what people say.”
    I searched his eyes for the joke. There wasn’t one.

Chapter 16
    Garrity proved to be a swift instinctive driver. The nighttime sky loomed gunmetal and dense, like the inside of a helmet, and the view through the windshield of his sedan was dotted with the streaky blur of oncoming headlights. Only a few blocks over, the raucous Buckhead party crowd was grinding into high gear, roaming like drunken gypsies from Pharr Road to East Paces Ferry.
    But not me. No, I was cruising with the APD. And the APD was not in a good mood. In fact, the APD was shooting me serious cop looks, and I was starting to regret ever getting in the car with him.
    “You’re mad,” I said.
    “I’m not mad.”
    “Then you’re not telling me something, I can tell. You’re all squinchy around the mouth. That’s either holding back or mad.”
    Garrity kept his eyes on the road.
    “What is it, something about