LITMIR.BIZ

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kitchen to finish up with the steaks, and…” She trailed off.

      The dog, Raphael remembered. Then when she’d finally gone back after that, McGaffney had been dead. “So he was killed between the time you went to pick up the salad plates and the time you took the entrees out.”

      Kate was subdued. “Yes.”

      “If we could nail down just how many minutes passed—”

      “We can. I served the steaks medium to medium rare, at McGaffney’s request. They were two inches thick. Twelve and a half minutes in the broiler for the first set, then the dog did her thing, and it took me twelve and a half minutes to do two more steaks.”

      “Twenty-five minutes.” He didn’t know whether to be irritated with her again or amazed.

      “Actually, less than that. I do most courses ten minutes apart. So I went to get the salad plates when the first steaks had been in the broiler for two and a half minutes.”

      Raphael stared at her, figuring out the time of death. She’d called 911 at eight-eighteen. Therefore, McGaffney had still been alive, by her calculations, at approximately seven fifty-five. Give or take thirty seconds.

      She was a very dangerous woman to have left alive.

      “Other than that, I was in the kitchen the whole time,” she said. “I try to remain as unobtrusive as possible. So all I can tell you for sure is that the killer didn’t come in through the back door.” She frowned. “Are we done?”

      For the first time, Raphael saw violet smudges beneath her eyes. He was reasonably sure they hadn’t been there half an hour ago. “We’re done. For now.”

      “Good.” She looked at the mantel clock as she got up and headed for the kitchen. “I have to get up in five hours.”

      He didn’t like the sound of that. In fact, it sounded a lot like an alarm was going to go off somewhere in this apartment at roughly six o’clock in the morning. Raphael followed her with his eyes. “What for?”

      “I work at the diner from seven to eleven. The breakfast rush.”

      “Not tomorrow, you don’t.”

      He should have recognized the warning signs by now. The way her shoulder blades shifted. The way she turned to him and stared.

      “I can’t call in on a morning shift. They won’t have time to get anyone to replace me.”

      Raphael came off the love seat. “What if you were sick?”

      “I don’t get sick.”

      “What, you’re Superwoman?”

      She sniffed again. “No. I’m just reliable.”

      “Well, get over it.”

      She took a step toward him. “I will not. I have a life!”

      “Not for the foreseeable future, you don’t.”

      “I work!”

      “So do I.” He was getting angry again. “You make fifteen hundred dollars a week! What the hell do you need a diner job for?”

      “I don’t make fifteen hundred a week! I told you, there are costs. I’ve got employees to pay!”

      That still left her clearing probably eight or nine hundred a week. This was insane.

      “And I’ve got an obligation,” she added.

      “You work a second job you don’t need because of an obligation?”

      “Yes. No. Well, not entirely.”

      She made that sound again. It wasn’t a sniff, not exactly. It was more a sharp intake of breath.

      “I work two jobs to save money for my restaurant.” And it galled her to say so, to let him in on…well, her dream. But his expression turned thoughtful, and he surprised her.

      “Honey, my guess is that you might be better off just doing what you’re doing.”

      The thought had occurred to her, too, just recently, since business had picked up so radically. Dinner For Two had been intended as a means to an end. But then, she’d never really expected it to take off the way it had.

      She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of agreeing with him.

      Kate turned off the light in the kitchen, then went and sat on the sofa near the pile of blankets and pillows she’d put out for him earlier. He sat beside her. Not too close, she noticed with that achy stirring in the area of her chest again. Well, she was used to that.

      She looked at him out of the corner of her eye in the thin darkness. His eyes made something curl in the pit of her stomach. He was gazing thoughtfully at nothing, seeming to see only his own thoughts. But they were good eyes, she thought grudgingly, even when they hardened, like now.

      Kate pulled her gaze away. “Just tell the press I didn’t see anything. Then it won’t be necessary for you to watch over me. These…these mobsters will read about it in the paper, then you can go on your way and I’ll go mine.”

      Raphael laughed. “Sure. That’ll work.”

      She drew herself up indignantly. “I fail to see why not. It’s the truth.”

      “You think these guys are of a mind to say, well, if the cops say it’s so, then it must be so?”

      Put that way, it sounded ridiculous. “I don’t want you here! I don’t want you underfoot. You’re going to…to complicate everything!”

      “That’s me, honey, one big complication.” Raphael got to his feet again, feeling absurdly burned, just as he’d begun to feel sorry for her again. “All right, let me tell you how this is going to be. In five hours, you’re going to call the diner. You’re going to tell them you’re not going to be in for a while, days at least. Take an unplanned vacation.”

      Kate opened her mouth to argue, then she closed it again prudently.

      “Then you’re going to stay figuratively handcuffed to me while I work this case, while I figure this out. Because that’s about the only way you’re going to get your precious life back. At the moment, I’m the only prayer you’ve got.”

      It made her stomach roll over queasily. But Kate rallied. “Your job is to watch over me, correct? Isn’t that what Mr. Plattsmier said? That means you follow me. So I suggest you get some sleep so you’ll be on your toes in order to do that. I’m a busy woman.”

      Kate stood from the sofa and walked toward the hallway. She tried not to hurry, as if she wanted to escape his reaction. As she passed the sideboard and the little lamp, she reached and flicked it out, plunging him into darkness.

      “Good night.” Then she went to her bedroom and slammed the door shut behind her. Purely for the satisfaction of it, she threw the lock just as hard.

      Chapter 4

      The exclamation of Kate’s bedroom door shot through Raphael’s head like a bullet. His accommodations sent his mood spiraling downward even more.

      He bunked down on the sofa to find that there was a popped spring in the middle of her center cushion. In the thin darkness, it took on the proportions of the tire of a truck. The darkness was incomplete because a yellow neon sign pulsed right outside her living room window and wouldn’t let shadows gather. Raphael considered closing the blinds but the August breeze was like the breath of an aging dowager—warm, fitful and without substance. Scant as it was, if he blocked it, he would suffocate.

      Kate Mulhern didn’t seem to own an air conditioner. Or if she did, she was hogging it for herself in her ramparted bedroom.

      Raphael rolled, putting his back to the window, and punched his fist into the pillow. Then his cell phone rang. He sat up, grabbed it from the coffee table and snarled into it.

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