Reunited With The P.i.. Anna J. Stewart

need an investigator I can trust.”

      For an instant, the desire for a beer overtook his power of speech. He shook his head and shifted his attention to the bar, keeping the memories—and the nightmares—at bay. “I’m out of that business.”

      The brief flash of sympathy that crossed her face had him gnashing his teeth. Of course she knew what had happened. Everyone in the whole valley knew what happened.

      “I heard about the Walker case. That you’d taken a break after...” Her soft voice hit his heart like a sledgehammer. “I didn’t realize you’d decided to make it permanent.”

      “Now you know.” Vince had made it permanent because it was the only way to save his sanity. A man could only witness the sickening things people did to one another for so long before he started to expect the worst. Not that anything would change the endless nights he spent wondering if he’d missed something, if anything he could have done might have stopped a young girl’s murder. If he’d been a day, hours, even minutes faster. “This is my focus now.” He indicated the polished wood paneling and brass fixtures, the tables he’d refinished himself. “The building’s mine free and clear. I’ve got a steady clientele, one that doesn’t expect anything other than a topped-up glass and a full plate. Best of all? I don’t answer to anyone other than myself and my employees.”

      “I really don’t want to be difficult about this,” Simone said.

      “Since when?”

      “I can’t take no for an answer, Vince.”

      He smirked. “Want to bet?”

      “Oh, for...”

      She scrubbed a hand across her forehead and only then did he notice the tired, dark circles under her eyes. He’d always worried that her job would eventually get to her. Clearly he’d been right.

      “If this is about Jason—” she began.

      “It’s not.”

      Her eyebrow arched so high it almost disappeared into her hairline.

      “It’s not just about Jason, Simone. But since you brought it up.” He rested his arms on the table and leaned toward her. “You sent my brother to prison.” It took all his effort to keep his voice down. “Without a second thought. You never once allowed yourself to consider the extenuating circumstances that happened during that robbery. To top it all off, you and I were barely back from our honeymoon when you advised the prosecuting attorney to throw the book at him, at a kid who’d gotten in with the wrong crowd.”

      “First.” Simone leaned far enough in that he could feel the warmth of her breath on his face. “Jason always ran with the wrong crowd. Second, I can’t believe you’re still blaming me for doing my job. And, not to repeat myself, but at the time I had no idea what specific case they were asking about. I read the notes and gave them my opinion. I didn’t realize they’d use the strategy I came up with to prosecute your brother.”

      “Nor did you step in and try to stop it when they did. He’s family, Simone. He was your family.”

      “I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation.” She pressed her fingers into her temple and squeezed her eyes shut. She was trying to hide it under all that fancy makeup, but she looked as if she was doing more than burning the candle at both ends. It looked like she’d torched an entire candle shop. She took a deep breath and released it. “There was more to the case against Jason and you know it. He could have taken the deal he was offered and testified. And I’m sorry, but you’ve never been objective where your brother is concerned. You know this. You’ve told me so yourself.”

      “The line between good and bad gets blurred when your father beats the crap out of you and your mother lets it happen.”

      “And yet you turned out fine. It all comes down to choices. You made good ones. Jason didn’t. Funny how you’re all about consequences except in this scenario.”

      That Simone was right—had always been right about his kid brother—never did sit well with him. It didn’t matter how many times he’d gone to bat for Jason, tried to help him, detour him or get him a job, the kid was a wreck. If he didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. Part of Vince had begun to believe he had to choose: his brother or his wife. And the more he dwelled on it, the more he resented it. And her. That the press had dubbed her an avenging angel hadn’t surprised him. What had taken them so long? “Okay, fine, but I’m making another choice now. Find yourself another investigator, Simone. I’m not your man.”

      He hadn’t meant to sound taunting, or cold, but he’d always seemed to say the wrong thing around his former wife.

      “Are you so determined to punish me for something that happened years ago you won’t even hear me out?”

      “You should have asked whose file it was.” And here he thought he’d set the resentment aside when he’d filed for divorce. He braced himself as she looked at him in silence. “You should have paid closer attention to whose life you were about to destroy.”

      “You’re right.” She drank the rest of her wine and cringed as if the admission burned. “I should have. If I’d known it was Jason, maybe I would have done things differently.” She hesitated. “If that’s worth anything now.”

      “It’s not,” he lied. Her personal learning curve was one of the qualities he admired most about her. Simone wasn’t one to make the same mistake twice. But she’d made one that put his brother behind bars for ten years for a crime he hadn’t technically committed, and it wasn’t something Vince would get past anytime soon.

      “Good to know you’ve moved beyond it.” She toasted him with her empty glass. “At least let me tell you about this case before you shut me down. Please.”

      “Nothing you say will change my mind.”

      “So long as you’re keeping an open mind.”

      There it was. The sarcasm. The passive aggressive mind games she excelled at. “Why me?” He sat back and kept a steady gaze on hers. “Those expensive investigators at the DA’s office not cutting it? You need to slum it with us mere mortals?”

      “If you must know I’m having some trust issues with the people I work with, and by the way, I never thought of you as a mere anything, Vince. Not once.”

      If she meant the statement as a peace offering, it was a pretty good one. Hating himself, fighting that stomach-clenching dread that his world was about to open up under his feet again, he gave in to her. “I assume this has something to do with Paul Denton?”

      Her brow furrowed. “You’ve been following things?”

      More like he’d been following her. Just because he’d ended it between them didn’t mean he wasn’t proud of Simone’s accomplishments. He knew she’d blown through college and law school in record time, landed at the DA’s office weeks after graduation and won her first case a month after that. Her ambition and determination were what had attracted him to her in the first place. Until he’d realized that same ambition and dedication to the letter of the law didn’t leave much room for him.

      “It’s been difficult not to,” Vince told her. “Front page headlines for the past few weeks. Corporate kickbacks, shell companies, money laundering. Sexy stuff.”

      “I’m convinced it’s the tip of an iceberg,” Simone added as she pulled out a file folder and set it on the table. She flipped it open to show a small photograph stapled to the top of a report. A pretty, dark-haired young woman. Green eyes. Green eyes... Vince forced himself to look. Did they always have to have green eyes?

      “Mara Orlov was fresh out of college when she started in Paul Denton’s private office as his record keeper,” Simone continued. “She’s smart, Vince. Like supersmart, with an eidetic memory, and she picks up on everything. So when she came across a pattern in his books, she dug deeper and uncovered Denton’s fraud.