The Ex. BEVERLY BARTON

her throat. “Bad news about Lulu?”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      “Has she been in an accident? Is she badly hurt?”

      “I hate to be the one to tell you, but…your cousin Lulu is dead.”

      Annabelle’s stomach knotted painfully. “Lulu’s dead? How? When?”

      “Tonight,” Sheriff Brody said. “She was found dead in her bedroom. The Memphis police are treating her death as a homicide.”

      “Are you saying someone murdered Lulu?”

      “It appears so. I’m terribly sorry, Ms. Vanderley. You can contact the Memphis PD, if you’d like, either tonight or in the morning. The lead detective on the case is Lieutenant Norton.”

      Annabelle shook hands with the sheriff and thanked him for coming personally to give her the terrible news about her cousin. As she turned and asked Hiram, who’d been waiting in the hallway, to escort the sheriff out, all Annabelle could think about was how on earth she was going to break the news to her uncle. Lulu was—had been—the apple of Uncle Louis’s eye. He doted on his younger child, who’d been born when he was fifty. With his health already so precarious, learning that the little girl he’d spoiled rotten and loved to distraction was now dead might easily kill him.

       Chapter 2

      Sitting alone in a quiet tenth-floor office of the Criminal Justice Center on Poplar Avenue, drinking a cup of coffee and waiting for his lawyer, Quinn Cortez kept telling himself that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. After all, the police hadn’t arrested him. He hadn’t been charged with Lulu’s murder. Not yet.

      Not yet? Not ever. You didn’t kill her. There is absolutely no evidence that you did. If the detectives suspect you—and they probably do—there is no way in hell they can prove you murdered Lulu.

      Yeah, but there’s no way you can prove you didn’t.

      Quinn’s head pounded as if a couple of giant hammers were being repeatedly thumped against each temple. He leaned his head back against the wall and using his forefingers, massaged the pressure points.

      When he had awakened from the nap he’d taken when he’d pulled off the road on his trip from Nashville to Memphis, his head had been throbbing; and downing a couple of aspirins hadn’t helped. Finding Lulu dead and then dealing with the police had only increased the tension, which had reached migraine proportions. He’d been healthy as a horse all his life, but during the past eight or nine months he’d had several really bad headaches. First came the extreme grogginess that led to an odd blackout spell. The headaches came after he awakened, lasted for a while and then went away. He probably should have seen a doctor, but he’d kept putting it off, thinking each headache would be the last. After all, there hadn’t been all that many spells—only three, counting the one tonight.

      Although he’d defended countless clients accused of murder, he’d never been on this end of a murder case. Never been a suspect. And he’d never discovered a dead body.

      Poor Lulu. God in heaven, who could have killed her? And why? She might have been practically worthless as a human being, having never worked a day in her life or gone out of her way to help another living soul, but she certainly had never intentionally harmed anyone. She’d been a free spirit, living life for the sheer pleasure of it. She was a good-time girl, fun to be around, and a damn good lay.

      Quinn winced. That’s no way to think of the dead, he reminded himself, then huffed out a pained chuckle. Who was he kidding? Lulu would love being described as a damn good lay. She prided herself on her sexual prowess. The woman had been a tiger in the bedroom.

      I don’t know who killed you, honey, or why, but if the police can’t find your murderer, I will.

      The door opened and Sergeant George poked his head in and said, “Your lawyer’s here.”

      George had been a real pain in the ass, but Lieutenant Norton had conducted himself like the old pro he was. And it wasn’t a matter of good cop/bad cop. It was a basic difference in men.

      Quinn eased his fingers down over his cheekbones, then let his hands drop to the tops of his thighs as he glanced up at the cocky, young policeman. His gut instincts told him that no matter what the circumstances were under which he might have met Chad George, he wouldn’t have liked the guy.

      “We haven’t charged you with anything. And we weren’t interrogating you, just asking you a few questions,” the sergeant said. “You really didn’t need to call in a lawyer.”

      “Oh yeah, I think I did.” Quinn rose to his full six-one height and looked the policeman in the eyes. George wasn’t a large man. Five ten, one sixty-five. And too damn pretty to be a man. Bet he got plenty of ribbing from the other officers about being so movie-star handsome. Like a young, redheaded Brat Pitt.

      George’s lips lifted in a hint of a smile, then he stepped backward and out of the way as Kendall Wells charged past him. She ignored the sergeant as if he were invisible. And when she closed the door behind her, Quinn grinned, imagining the guy’s indignant reaction to not only being ignored, but also having the door practically slammed in his face. Bet Chad George wasn’t accustomed to women treating him that way. But then, Kendall was no ordinary woman.

      “I hope you’ve kept your mouth shut,” Kendall said as she approached Quinn, her three-inch black heels tapping against the floor.

      Quinn inspected his lawyer from head to toe. Ms. Wells was a looker. Tall, slender, leggy and though not classically pretty, attractive nonetheless. She dressed in the best her money could buy. Tailored suits. Simple gold jewelry. Her bright red, sculptured nails made a statement that said although she was feminine, she could also be dangerous, possibly lethal.

      He’d known Kendall for a number of years. They’d worked together on one of her first cases after she joined Hamilton, Jeffreys and Lloyd, which was now Hamilton, Jeffreys, Lloyd and Wells. At forty-four, she didn’t look a day over thirty-five. By keeping her body toned and the gray in her hair covered with a dark rinse, she managed to fool those who didn’t know her true age. But Quinn knew. He knew a lot about Kendall. They’d been lovers briefly and she liked to talk— mostly about herself—in the afterglow of lovemaking. Even though he hadn’t seen her in nearly five years, she’d been the first person he’d thought of when he decided he needed a top-notch Memphis lawyer right away.

      “You’re looking good,” Quinn said.

      Kendall smiled. “You look like hell.”

      He rubbed his head. “I’ve got a killer headache.”

      “Discovering a lover’s dead body would give anybody a headache.”

      Quinn narrowed his gaze and looked directly at Kendall. “I didn’t kill Lulu.”

      “That’s good to know.”

      Inclining his head toward the closed door, Quinn asked, “Do they think I did it?”

      “Probably. The boyfriend or the husband is always a suspect. You know that.”

      “I told them the basic facts of my having a late date with Lulu, driving in from Nashville, showing up at her house and finding her dead in her bedroom. But when Sergeant George starting implying I might have had a reason to want to kill Lulu, I called a halt to the questioning.”

      “And telephoned me. Smart boy.”

      “Mrs. Cortez didn’t raise no fools.”

      “Did you have a reason to want to see Lulu Vanderley dead?”

      Quinn lifted his brows and glowered at his lawyer. “Playing devil’s advocate a little early in the game, aren’t you, counselor?”

      Kendall shrugged. “They’ll