The Taken. Vicki Pettersson

has street corners?”

      Kit shook her head, remembering. “You should have seen this message, Pauly. It was full-on text-ese. Whoever this girl was, she should’ve been giggling over school dances, not sexting strangers.”

      “Underage?”

      “That was our impression.”

      Paul leaned back, crossing his arms. “Maybe she’s illiterate. Or just playing the juvie for extra dough.”

      “We considered both. But then she sent us this.” Kit drew a printout from the handbag at her side.

      His eyes widened at the names on the list. He’d probably been hobnobbing with half of them just hours before.

      “And that’s just some of them,” Kit said, pleased she’d managed to surprise him. “She promised more if we met in person, but she wanted to verify we were legit first. After that, she swore to give us names that would make fat-cat heads roll.”

      Paul sighed, and shot a glance at the girls straining to hear the conversation. They immediately burst into an uncontrolled fit of giggles. “Do you really have to talk like that?”

      “Like what?”

      “Like that,” he said, straightening his jacket like it’d straighten Kit out as well.

      “Embarrassing you in front of your groupies?” she asked, tilting her head. “Shall I revert to syllables they can sound out?”

      “I’m talking about all of it.” He let his gaze scan her body. “Your June Cleaver dress, Bettie Page bangs. The Hayworth face paint. The stupid car.”

      Kit narrowed her eyes. “Watch your mouth, dear. That’s a Duetto.”

      He scoffed and flexed. Giggles rose around the room like startled pigeons. “See, that’s what I mean. You weren’t born mid-century, Kit. Get over it. At your age, playing dress-up should be reserved for the bedroom.”

      “This isn’t dress-up, Paul.”

      “This” was her lifestyle … one that clashed violently with his post-yuppie materialistic drive.

      “Makes it hard to take you seriously,” he mumbled, looking pointedly at her peep-toed heels.

      “People are going to take me seriously, all right. The whole damned country will take me seriously when I bust this case wide open, vet every name on that list, and find out who killed my best friend!”

      He shook his head and huffed out a dry laugh, no longer looking handsome. Again, the girls across from them didn’t notice. “Kit, the men on this list could own you a thousand times over.”

      Kit clenched her teeth at the dig. She came from money, a fortune Paul once thought would marry perfectly with his ambitions, and he’d married her before realizing the entire inheritance had been poured back into her family’s newspaper. He’d even encouraged her to sell once he realized newspapers were worth less in the Internet age than the paper used for printing, but there was no way she’d ever do that.

      “I’m a newsperson, Paul,” she’d told him. “It’s who I am as much as what I do.”

      “Then go down with your ship,” he’d replied. “But you’re not taking me with you.”

      And he’d taken himself right out of her life.

      “Being rich doesn’t make a person immune to the law,” she said now, another familiar argument.

      “There’s no proof that anyone on this list has broken the law,” Paul pointed out.

      She knew that. And it would take considerable resources—time, energy, favors, and yes, money—to prove otherwise. For now, Kit had her reporter’s instincts. “I saw something.”

      “Tonight?” He leaned in again when she nodded. “What?”

      “A man … or his silhouette, at least. He was in the room with Nic. He pulled aside the curtain that overlooked the parking lot. It was like he was looking right at me.”

      “Did you see his face?”

      Kit shook her head. “No. Only his silhouette. But he was wearing a hat—not just a hat, but a stingy brim, like Sinatra—”

      Paul leaned back, letting his hands drop. “Gimme a break.”

      “I know the style, Paul,” Kit said, irritated. “Maybe he knew I was there, or just knows of my lifestyle, and he was taunting me.”

      “Please don’t repeat that to anyone. I can see the sordid headlines now: Rockabilly Murderer Targets Street Whores.”

      “Bravo,” Kit snapped. “You just insulted my life and my profession in one breath.”

      “Voice,” Paul reminded her, gaze wandering. The girls across from him straightened, but his expression remained smooth as it traveled the rest of the room.

      Kit pulled out her gold cigarette case, mumbling, fighting not to whack it against his pretty head.

      “You can’t smoke in here.”

      Kit blew a stream of smoke directly into his face, running her tongue along her top lip when he coughed. The girls gave her a nasty look.

      “These are vintage Gauloises.”

      “Trolling eBay again?”

      She shook her head. “Some old coot was storing them in a backwoods cabin for the past fifty years.”

      Shaking his head, Paul stood. “I gotta go.”

      “Wait.” She put a hand on his arm, panicked but unable to help it. “You’re gonna help me, right?”

      His jaw clenched as he looked away. He was either considering it or posing for a profile shot. “You got anything else?” he finally asked.

      “In my notebook, but I gave that to Nic.” She cursed the impulse now. There was little chance of recovering it as it’d surely been admitted into evidence.

      Paul opened his mouth to answer, but stopped and jerked his chin at an approaching detective. “Here comes Dennis. He’ll look after you. You don’t need me tonight.”

      Kit stared up at him, wondering at what point he thought she’d have ever needed him, if not tonight.

      Glancing back down, Paul caught her expression and his jaw clenched. “Look, I’ll read the reports. Ask around, see what I hear.”

      He paused, waiting for a thank-you, but Kit merely took a drag on her stick. He was right, she didn’t need him.

      Shaking his head, he turned.

      “You know, Nicole was once your friend, too,” Kit said loudly, just as Dennis reached her side. “She was killed because someone was hiding something big.”

      Paul turned slowly, and waited, knowing there was really nothing he could do if she was determined to make a scene. It was just another thing he couldn’t control about her—like her hair and clothes, like her lifestyle. Like her emotions.

      “I’m going to find out who did it,” she told him, chin wobbling but gaze hard. “I’m going to find out what they were hiding. And I’m going to bring them to justice.”

      “Still the intrepid girl reporter,” he said, but the bite had left his voice, and his gaze had softened. It was what he’d called her in the beginning, back when she, too, had gazed at him like those girls across the room. Tears, already close to the surface, welled.

      “Give me a couple of days,” Paul finally sighed, returning, one hand outstretched for the papers. “I’ll look into it in my spare time.”

      “Thank you,” she replied, even though he’d said it like there wouldn’t be a lot of it.

      Leaning