A Southern Promise. Jennifer Lohmann

was much harder to make all the blood drain from your face and turn white enough that Howie had been certain Julianne’s head was going to end up in his lap—and not in a good way.

      “Letting her go that easy?” Kia tsked.

      “No. She says she doesn’t need the money, but it’s worth looking into her finances.” Money was at the base of most of the nondomestic murders Howie had investigated. “Especially how she was managing her aunt’s money. Maybe Ms. Dawson wasn’t very good at it and didn’t want anyone to notice.” The fact that it was Somerset money would make this a simple inquiry—and everything else in this investigation more of a pain in the ass than it should be.

      Kia gave him a sideways glance. “You can call her Ms. Dawson all you like, but I’m still gonna remember the way Julianne rolled off your tongue.”

      “You just wish it could roll off your tongue.” As comebacks went, it was weak, but Kia was right about how easily he’d called her Julianne.

      She was everything his mother had ever warned him about. She’d been born with a silver spoon in her mouth and fed from a silver bottle. And people like that only understood their own place in this world—they didn’t even bother looking down to see the people who made up the mountain they stood on.

      But Julianne appeared to genuinely care for her aunt—if Julianne Dawson had been telling the truth about their relationship. He hoped she was. And not just because he didn’t want Julianne to be guilty, but because he had a soft spot for Mrs. Somerset and he wanted to believe that there had been someone in her family looking out for her.

      His thoughts must have been plain on his face because Kia smirked at him again—an expression she’d perfected almost as well as her hard stare. She wouldn’t believe that he was thinking more about the dead woman on the floor than about the elegant Julianne Dawson.

      Probably because all of his thoughts related to Mrs. Somerset were now intertwined with everything he thought about Julianne Dawson.

      “What’s up with the neighbor?” Kia asked, changing the subject.

      “I told Rodriguez to escort her home and wait with her there.” Mrs. Carr had stood there the whole time, pitcher of sweet tea in one hand and the other itching to cup her ear. “I said we’d head over there when we were done here. The rest of the unit and some uniforms are canvassing the neighborhood.”

      “Anything more you want to see here before we walk over?”

      “No.” Kia was thorough and Durham’s CSI team was good. Anything he’d missed on this initial walk-through wouldn’t be found today. They would need a night’s sleep and a cup of coffee to refocus their eyes.

      When they stepped out of the cool house into the shimmering summer sun and were out of earshot of anyone else, Kia asked, “So did she smell nice?”

      Howie stopped short. “Who?”

      “Julianne,” she sang in that annoying voice she had.

      “What do you know about her smelling nice?” he asked, then winced. An indignant “I didn’t get a chance to smell her, I’m working an investigation here” would have been a better cover-up.

      Kia was a good detective, so of course she noticed. She smirked then said, “I met her at some Duke function with Tyson.”

      “And you remember that she smelled nice?”

      “I was pregnant. Stuff either smelled nice or I barfed. I didn’t barf when I met her.”

      “Yes, she smelled nice.” Clean and fresh and definitely expensive. Nice enough that her perfume had lingered in the back of his nose, battling the smell of old woman, Lysol and blood that had taken over the air in Mrs. Somerset’s dining room.

      They crossed the street with Kia humming that obnoxious “sitting in a tree” song that most people forgot as soon as they graduated from high school. Which was fine. Only one of them had to be professional today—guess it was his turn.

      Because Howie wasn’t letting Kia anywhere near the reporters who’d just showed up on the scene.

       CHAPTER FIVE

      TWO DAYS AFTER Aunt Binnie’s death, Julianne and her brother sat at the dining room table in her apartment and reviewed the plans for Bull City Starts. And as always, they argued, this time about finishing touches.

      “We’re wasting space installing the nursing room when that space could be another call room. Or small office,” Don argued. “You know the clientele is going to be mostly men.”

      “With your attitude it will. With mine, we will need a nursing room.” She slid a folder full of articles about diversity in the tech world over the wood table. With the pain of her aunt’s murder still heavy on her soul and fresh tears lingering at the corners of her eyes, her heart wasn’t really into this argument. She and Don had been having it, in one form or another, since Julianne had asked her brother to be a part of her big dream. Eventually Julianne would have to use the power of the purse to overrule him, but she hated the idea of saying, “Because I said so and I write the checks.”

      Don shrugged away her argument. “You know the guys will reserve that room for meetings anyway when all the other spaces are full. The Wall Street Journal can write all the articles it wants on diversity and women in technology, but the reality is men will need to use the space and won’t care that the door says ‘nursing room.’”

      She was listening to her brother’s arguments—she had been through this entire process. After all, Bull City Starts was supposed to be a partnership between them and they were supposed to bring equal gifts to the project. But so far her brother had been...well, a disappointment. And with each passing deadline Julianne was scrambling to meet because Don hadn’t, she was less and less willing to hear him out.

      His seeming lack of grief over their aunt’s death hadn’t helped her patience.

      “Bull City Starts isn’t about what technology looks like in the now,” she said, twining her hands so she didn’t reach over and shake sense into Don. “It’s about what technology will look like in the future. And in the future it will have women, and women need nursing rooms.” And it will have African-Americans and Hispanics—if she had her way, the offices of Bull City Starts would reflect the makeup of the entire city of Durham. It would probably be years before she could achieve that goal, but either she dreamed big or she didn’t dream at all.

      She smoothed her hands against her linen slacks, pushing out wrinkles that weren’t there. “And this isn’t just about the future of technology.” She waved her hand at the color board lying on top of the architect’s plans. “This is about the future of Durham. About Somersets being as much a part of its future as they were of its past.”

      Julianne cared about the Somerset name in Durham, too, just not in the same way that her mother did.

      Her brother held up his hands. “I know, I know. I’ve heard this speech a million times since you moved back.”

      Don had been one of the first people she’d given the speech to and initially he’d been helpful. He’d suggested other tech incubators to tour and shared a couple contacts at the larger Silicon Valley tech companies for possible partnerships. So when he’d been laid off, taking their mother’s suggestion and making himself a full partner on the project had seemed like a natural step. After all, their mother had been right—Julianne had a lack of experience in business and technology. But she hadn’t been right about Don’s eagerness to be a part of the project.

      Signing on as a partner had been the end of Don’s commitment. He’d been promising to transfer funds to Bull City Starts since they’d settled on the architect, but so far it was only her money in the bank. When her sister-in-law had mentioned that they were living mostly off her inheritance since Don had lost his job, Julianne had assumed that was because Don’s funds were