More Than a Hero. Marilyn Pappano

long it had been since she’d experienced the pure tactile pleasure of touching a man even in so casual a way. If she wanted to touch a man, she could find plenty of volunteers—men who didn’t care who her father was, who didn’t have an agenda, who weren’t her adversary. Who weren’t so complicated. So handsome. So sexy.

      “Who has the damn file?” he demanded.

      She glanced at Derek, pretending disinterest. “We’ll talk outside.”

      He glanced that way, too, then grudgingly nodded. They’d reached the door before Derek pushed away from the wall, and had gone down the half dozen steps before he opened the door. Kylie turned to face him. “Don’t follow me.”

      “I’m not following you.”

      “Don’t follow him while he’s with me.”

      “But—” Derek’s gaze shifted from her to Norris, then back again. Comprehension dawned, though he tried to hide it. “Oh. Okay. Not a problem.” With a nod, he returned inside the building.

      Kylie exhaled as she glanced around. They could go to her office or take a seat on a bench in the square. Instead she gestured toward the street. “Let’s walk.”

      They’d made it to the corner before Norris asked, “Are you going to report back to Chief Roberts on everything I say?”

      “Apparently Derek thinks so.”

      “That doesn’t answer my question.”

      They crossed the street and started down the next block. “I don’t report to Chief Roberts.”

      “No, you report to the senator, who shares information with the chief, the judge and the lawyer.”

      She kept her gaze on the storefronts they passed, each smaller and shabbier the farther they got from the square. “I don’t tell the senator everything,” she said at last.

      “But you told him about me.”

      “He called this morning to warn me that you were in town. I told him we’d met.”

      “And he told you…to stay away from me? Or to stay close enough to be able to track my activities?”

      She tilted her head to one side to look up at him, and Jake forgot his question. She was so damn pretty—delicate in a strong sort of way. Her brown eyes were flecked with bits of gold, and she smelled of spices with just a hint of sweetness. If he’d met her at any other time in any other place…

      She would still be Senator Riordan’s daughter. He would still be the enemy.

      Sunlight glinted off the diamond studs in her lobes as she returned her gaze to the sidewalk ahead. She wore heels again today, but there was nothing low or sensible about them. They brought the top of her head close to his, close enough that if they stopped walking and he turned her to face him, it would take only an inch or two for his mouth to reach hers.

      Prove it, one part of him challenged.

      Don’t be a fool, another advised.

      “The trial transcript was checked out by Judge Markham,” she said.

      Jake knew it must have been one of the four. “He’s retired. Why is he still allowed to check out files?” He would have been allowed to look at it there in the court clerk’s office or to have a copy made, but he wouldn’t have been able to take it from the room. Lawyers could take them out, Martha had explained to him before she’d known which file in particular he wanted, but only for a few days.

      “As long as his law license is active, he still has that privilege. As the senator’s assistant, I occasionally check out records for him. We can take them for forty-eight hours.”

      “And Judge Markham’s had this file for…?”

      She sighed. “It was due back last Friday.”

      Jake’s smile was thin. He’d tried to set up an interview with the judge the previous Wednesday. The old goat had turned him down, then gotten possession of the transcript. And it was the only copy the court had. Martha had told him that, too.

      “Maybe he wanted to refresh his memory before he talked to you. Surely you want to interview him as well as the senator.”

      “Maybe. Except that he turned me down when I called him last week. Said he had nothing to say on the matter and hung up on me.”

      “So that’s why you just showed up at the senator’s office,” Kylie murmured.

      Jake kicked an acorn and sent it tumbling into the yellowing grass alongside the sidewalk. “Do you ever call him Dad?”

      Kylie blinked.

      “Most people call their fathers Dad or Pop or Father or even by their first names. What do you call yours besides ‘the senator’?”

      “Sir,” she answered.

      He would have laughed if she hadn’t been serious. That was some kind of warm, loving relationship they shared. What inspired her loyalty to him? It had to be more than just a paycheck.

      “So…if I want to see the transcript, I’ve got to get it from Markham.”

      She cleared her throat delicately. “It might be best if you let me get it.”

      “Why would you do that?”

      “Because it’s a matter of public record. He doesn’t have the right to—to hide it.” She swallowed hard, obviously aware that she was implying wrongdoing on the judge’s behalf and not liking it.

      And what if Markham was hiding the transcript on her father’s say-so? Riordan might be out of town, but he was obviously in touch. Someone was keeping him informed…and, possibly, taking orders from him.

      “I’ll stop by Judge Markham’s house later today,” she went on. “I’ll—I’ll let you know if I get it.”

      They came to a stop at an intersection. They’d left the businesses behind and were in a neighborhood of moderately priced houses. Most of them were old, a few with their original wood siding, the rest updated to aluminum. The yards were roomy, the trees mature, their leaves turning shades of yellow, red and purple. The best friend he’d had in his months there had lived in the middle of the block. Back then, Jake had envied his house, his bike, his roots…but now he couldn’t even remember his name.

      “Does it bother you that everyone says this is an open-and-shut case,” he began conversationally, “and yet no one wants to talk about it?”

      “A lot people believe the past belongs in the past.” Kylie started across the street to their left, and he followed. On the other side, she turned back in the direction they’d just come.

      “Especially people running for governor.”

      She gave him a sharp look but didn’t comment. “Just because you’re interested in what happened to Charley Baker doesn’t mean anyone else is.”

      “My agent is. My editor. My publisher. I’m already under contract. I’m going to write the book regardless of what your father and his cronies want.”

      “What about Therese Franklin? Doesn’t what she wants count?”

      He called to mind Therese’s image as she’d been that September—three years old, a girlie girl, looking like an angel with silky brown curls, huge blue eyes, a Cupid’s-bow mouth. She’d been left alone with her parents’ lifeless bodies for at least twelve hours. When they were discovered the next morning, she was sitting next to her mother, blood staining her white nightgown, eyes red from crying.

      Did she remember anything from that night? Probably not. Three was mercifully young. But it had changed her life forever. He knew her grandfather had died, knew the grandmother—the last family she had left in the world—had Alzheimer’s and was also dying. This wasn’t the best time to bring her parents’ murders back into the limelight…but