The Woman Who Wasn't There. Marie Ferrarella

to the woman at his side.

      The words were no sooner out than the reporter swung around and saw them. Recognizing authority, her expression lit up instantly.

      There was no way he was going to hang around and be questioned, Troy thought. At least he’d had a chance to go through the dead man’s room to his own satisfaction before the vultures descended.

      “Time for me to go.” He tossed the words toward Delene even as he headed for his rental car. Delene didn’t answer, not that it surprised him. But she had fallen into step with him, keeping to his left side so that the motel was at her back. For all intents and purposes, his body hid her almost completely. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she was using him as a shield to block her from the reporter’s view.

      “You okay?” he asked.

      “Keep walking,” she ordered, her voice low, intense.

      Delene had pulled her cap down to partially obscure her face, like a celebrity in hiding. It was obvious that she definitely didn’t want the eye of the camera to find her.

      What gives? he wondered.

      He didn’t have time to speculate or wait for an answer. The reporter with her cameraman had descended on them. He never slowed his pace but kept walking toward his vehicle as if the woman wasn’t pushing a microphone toward his face.

      Undaunted, the woman pressed on. “Detective, what can you tell us about what happened here?”

      Never breaking stride, Troy gave the woman his most charming smile, gambling that it would deflect any attention the reporter might have been inclined to give Delene. “You know that we can’t talk about an ongoing investigation, even if we wanted to.”

      For a second, the woman seemed physically touched by his smile. She beamed at him in response, attempting a little charm of her own.

      “Oh, c’mon, Detective. It’ll be in all the papers by morning. Why not give me a break?” Tossing her hair over her shoulder as she nodded toward the motel room with its harsh yellow tape that proclaimed it a crime scene. “Wasn’t the victim supposed to testify against Miguel Mendoza in next month’s trial?”

      He traded his charming expression for one of pure innocence. “Looks like you know more than me, ma’am,” he told her just as he reached his car.

      Unlocking the driver’s side, he glanced up to see that instead of continuing on to her car, Delene had thrown herself into the passenger seat of his. She tugged her cap down even lower until the brim was touching her nose.

      Not exactly the last word in subtle, he thought, getting in himself.

      “Agent D’Angelo, this is so sudden,” he cracked. “Your place or mine?”

      After inserting his key in the ignition, Troy turned on the engine. The vehicle made a few strange noises, testifying that as a rental it hadn’t received the best of treatment. He hoped it would last until he got his own car back.

      “Drive.” The order emerged from beneath the khaki cap.

      “Yes, ma’am.” Once he backed up, Troy turned the car around and pulled out of the lot. Glancing back, he saw that the cameraman was still filming. A really slow news day. He looked over at the passenger seat where Delene was slouched down. “You can come up for air now.”

      She sat up, pulling the cap off her head. Delene dragged her fingers through her hair, taking away its flatness before leaning forward to stuff her cap into her back pocket.

      Troy waited to be enlightened, but in vain. “Mind telling me what that was all about?”

      Delene kept her face forward, staring straight ahead as dusk softly embraced the city streets. She let out the breath she’d been holding. That could have been disastrous, she thought.

      “I don’t like reporters.”

      No one in his family had a soft spot in their hearts for the people who made their livelihood on tragedy and disaster. “Neither do I, but I don’t fold up like a piece of origami paper when one of them approaches me with a microphone.”

      She shrugged. Her bangs fell into her eyes and she combed them back with her fingers. He caught a whiff of something soft and herbal. Clean. Probably her shampoo.

      “We all do things our own way.” Delene didn’t follow up the flippant answer by saying that she had a fear of having her picture taken or being captured on film. That she was afraid that maybe, just maybe, Russell would see the end result and realize where she was. That he’d come looking for her.

      His seeing the film clip was, of course, only a remote possibility, but she’d gone through too much to get careless now. The consequences were too huge. If she had a choice between being supercautious or supersorry, she’d pick cautious every time.

      They drove down another street. Delene hadn’t ventured a single extra word. “Any particular place you’d like me to drive to?”

      She shrugged again, as if he should already know the answer. Her agitation level had definitely gone up, he noted. What had he missed? Did she know that reporter? Or the cameraman? And why had she hidden her face like that? He didn’t know her, but she didn’t strike him as the type to hide from anyone.

      “Just around until that news truck leaves and I can go back to my car.”

      “Right.”

      On the following block, they passed several restaurants, all in a fashionable row. Italian cuisine, a steakhouse and a quaint restaurant that could have doubled as the cottage where the Seven Dwarfs lived. There was smoke coming from the chimney. He glanced toward Delene. Since she obviously wanted to kill some time, they might as well make it pleasant.

      “Buy you a cup of coffee, Agent D’Angelo?”

      “Hmm?” She looked at him as if that would help her replay his question in her head. It obviously did because she said, “No, thanks.”

      Coffee was the main ingredient that kept him and his family going, but he supposed there were those who didn’t care for the brew. “Tea?”

      She shook her head, her face averted as she glanced out the front windshield. “No.”

      Undaunted, he tried again. “Soda? A drink? A cup of air?” he finally asked when she didn’t respond to the first two choices.

      Her was expression impassive. “I don’t drink.”

      “But you do breathe.”

      A hint of a smile flirted with one of the corners of her mouth. “On occasion.”

      What did it take to make her smile? he wondered. Really smile? He felt a challenge coming on. One that he was up to.

      The light up ahead turned red. He eased down on the brake, his headlights casting beams on the back of the black SUV he was behind.

      “What about the drinking?” he asked. “Is that a religious thing or just a personal preference?”

      This had been a mistake. She should have sprinted toward her own car instead of getting into his, Delene upbraided herself—even if that would have left her exposed for a few moments. At least she would have already been on her way home by now instead of being subjected to this cross-examination.

      She could feel his eyes on her, even though he had started driving again. “Not that it’s any business of yours, but it’s personal.”

      Troy waited a beat. “How personal?”

      Eyes that could have frozen a fire in midflash turned toward him. “Very personal.”

      Her manner only served to intrigue him. “Someone in your family drink too much?”

      The man was more intuitive than she’d first thought. And this made her uneasy.

      To her further surprise, she heard herself giving a tentative answer. “Maybe.”