LITMIR.BIZ

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and pretentious.

      Dex was about as down-to-earth and unpretentious as they came, which was one reason he and Nick got along so well. Nick hated pretension. He had no patience for the old guard who hadn’t yet realized the Civil War was over and the grand and glorious days of plantation owners were mere textbook footnotes.

      Coming from a white trash Georgia family in a small town in the northwest corner of the state, he’d never realized the elitist culture still existed elsewhere. Sure, Joyful had been full of the haves and the have-nots, like every other town—the Walkers definitely being on the have-not list. But until he’d started working to solve some of the crimes targeting the upper crust of this old, proud city, he hadn’t realized how far in the past some people seemed to live.

      That was how Dex had met Rosemary. Somebody had robbed a pricey house she had listed with her real-estate agency.

      “I told Rosemary you’d meet the woman today at ten.” After naming the location, Dex added, “You’ll know her by her red hat.”

      Nick didn’t respond right away, merely studying his friend, watching for a shift of the eyes or a tiny grin that would say he was being had. He saw neither. Just stalwart, calm Dex. The nice, stoic, friendly side of their good-cop, bad-cop routine.

      “Why, exactly, did Rosemary decide I was the person who had to meet with this mystery woman? Why not you?”

      “She apparently doesn’t like Northerners.”

      The explanation wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense in a lot of other places. But this was Savannah. Dex, who hailed from Pennsylvania, had never lost the clipped tone or flat accent that pegged him as someone from above the Mason-Dixon line. This wouldn’t be the first time he’d been eyed with suspicion by some spoiled wannabe Southern belle.

      Nick disliked the woman already.

      He gave it one more shot. “Last I checked, Rosemary didn’t exactly admire my tact with women.”

      A half smile appeared on Dex’s face. “Only because you told that reporter doing a story on Rosie’s real-estate business that you’d rather go to bed with a cross-dressing, three-armed circus freak than ever go out with her again.”

      He remembered.

      “I think Rosemary’s changed her mind,” Dex said. “She never liked Angie Jacobs anyway and didn’t much care that Angie dropped the story once she found out you were a friend of ours.”

      Just as well, because Angie was a piranha.

      “Rosemary now thinks you might just have great instincts.”

      “Until the next time she decides I’m a cretin because you have a beer with me instead of meeting her at some party where they serve bait on crackers and call it gourmet cook-in’.”

      “Careful, your moonshiner background is showing.”

      Rolling his eyes, Nick rose to his feet and tossed a file at Dex. “Make yourself useful while I’m chasing your girlfriend’s boogeymen. See if you can find anything on this plate. Could be connected to the break-in on Wright Square.”

      He hadn’t really expected Dex to complain, and he didn’t. Instead, he gave Nick a relieved smile. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

      “You owe me many, especially for having to drive the P.O.S. during the Miller stakeout. But who’s counting?”

      “Hey, we got him, didn’t we?”

      That they had. They’d gotten him and the scumbag wouldn’t be putting his filth onto the streets of Savannah anytime soon.

      Muttering under his breath about spoiled society brats with conspiracy complexes, Nick left the precinct and drove the short distance to the café. He could have walked the few blocks, but it was too hot and he was too irritated.

      Dex had to have named the location for the meeting, which was the one good thing about this whole mess. Because this place sure knew how to serve biscuits and gravy.

      “Red hat,” he reminded himself, shaking his head as he walked in the front door. “Just what I need, a red-hat lady.”

      Once inside, he remembered another good thing about this restaurant. The air-conditioning worked a darn sight better than it did at the precinct. Or in his city-issued car.

      Standing in the doorway and taking in a resigned breath, he looked around the place, which was decades old but still popular with locals and tourists. He kept his eye out for a red hat and blue hair. Because, really, if the woman was one of those red-hat ladies, she had to be at least one hundred and four.

      No red hat. No big red feathers, or jewels or lace, like he’d seen on the more flamboyant headgear sold at the boutiques around here, which catered to the rich and to the tourists. Definitely not his shopping grounds. He felt much more at home at the Wal-Mart near his west Chatham apartment.

      A few late-morning customers chatted at a couple of the tables in the front room, occasionally beckoning to a harried-looking waitress who carried a steaming pot of coffee. Two men sat at the counter, and another was paying at the cash register.

      Skirting the edge of the place, he walked into the second room, where a dozen more tables took up nearly all the available floor space. Several of the tables were occupied, but only one had a person sitting completely alone. And that person, he realized, was wearing a baseball cap. A red baseball cap.

      So maybe she’s only ninety.

      Unfortunately, the woman sat below a stained-glass window depicting the most overutilized image in all of Savannah—the Bird Girl statue that’d been on the cover of The Book…Midnight In The Garden of Good And Evil. Nick could happily live the rest of his life without seeing another book, window, magnet, bookmark, T-shirt, mug, poster or postcard with that particular picture. But it’d never happen, not unless he moved away from Savannah. It was as intrinsic to this city as the Gordon Low house, where giddy, giggling Girl Scouts flocked by the thousands to worship their founder.

      Pulling his attention off the window, he peered around the few customers and waitresses, staring at the woman in the cap. He noted a pair of tanned shoulders, exposed by the sleeveless blue tank top the woman wore. And, of course, the cap, with a short, dark-colored ponytail sticking out the opening in the back, looking too damn bouncy and jaunty in this wilting heat.

      Reminding himself that Dex would never send him on a wild-goose chase when they were working a case, he made his way down the narrow aisle, nodding to the waitress. The busy woman paused to stare back and give him a once-over.

      Nick didn’t necessarily like the attention he got from women—particularly because of the bullshit he caught about it from the other guys in the squad. But, on occasion, it came in handy. Like now. Because with one quick smile and a hand gesture, he had the woman promising to be right over with a fresh pot. If history was any indication, he’d have a cup of coffee within twenty seconds of sitting down.

      Moving toward the woman he was to meet, he continued to study her without her knowledge. Each step that brought him closer to his target seemed slower than the one before. Because the more he saw, the more suspicious he became.

      Her shoulders weren’t merely tanned and soft looking against the pale blue shirt. They were also toned. Curved. Leading to long, slim arms. Definitely young looking.

      She moved one of those arms, reaching to adjust her ball cap. Her movements were graceful. Fluid. They drew his eyes to the thick dark hair, a rich, reddish-brown. A familiar reddish-brown. “My, oh my,” he whispered.

      It was her. He knew it as sure as he knew the way the sun winked orange and purple as it went down over the horizon. Sitting in front of him was the woman he’d helped a few weeks ago. The one who’d fallen on the mattress the day he’d nailed Manny Miller, the drug trafficker.

      Nick’s heartbeat kicked up a notch as a nearly unfamiliar sensation crawled through his veins. Interest. It was as unexpected as it was exciting, and for some reason the quiet, stale morning

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