Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #2: Books 5-8 (A Dead Cold Box Set) Blake Banner (read out loud books txt) 📖

but for the first time since we’d been partners I found myself holding back. Instead I glanced at her and said, “You okay, Dehan?”

She turned and gave me a once-over. “Sure, why?”

“I don’t know. You don’t seem yourself for the last couple of days.”

She shrugged and shook her head. “I’m myself. Who else would I be? Don’t worry about it.”

Only I did worry about it. I tried to ignore it and focus on Jackson Lee and David Thorndike’s article, but instead all I could see and hear in my head was Shelly staring at me and saying, “That girl is hopelessly in love with you!”

We drove on in vaguely uncomfortable silence until we came to Jericho. There we turned left and north and I said, “Okay, we make this real simple. You break down outside his house, blocking his drive. You go in and ask for help. Can you please make a call and wait inside out of the rain.”

“What if Lee doesn’t show? What if his secretary tells me to take a hike?”

“Trust me, Lee will show, and Hollis won’t send you packing.”

“How can you be so sure?”

I was sure because even in a ridiculous Australian hat and drenched to her skin, she looked like a million bucks wrapped for Christmas and no red-blooded man would turn her away from his door. I was about to say that, but instead I said, “Just look helpless, lay it on thick, I guarantee Lee will show.”

“If you say so. So what do I do when he shows?”

“Make sure it’s him and call me. Then we confront him.”

“And he tells us to get the hell off his property.”

“Okay, here is where we have to be smart. Don’t lie to him. We are here legitimately looking for Jackson Lee. We got lost and broke down, and through pure luck, happened to break down outside his house.”

“Luck…”

“And you don’t identify yourself as a cop straight away, because you don’t realize it’s his house.”

She grunted. I turned off Sandy Hill Road onto Blair Road and for a couple of minutes wound through leafy lanes among secluded mansions. After a moment, she said, “I still don’t get why you think he’s going to show and talk to me…”

I felt a sudden stab of impatience and snapped, “Because you’re hot, Dehan! You’re not the kind of woman a man turns away!”

I scowled at her and saw she was grinning. She slid down in her seat and pulled her hat over her eyes. “Jeez, boss. I thought you’d never say it.”

“Good grief!” We turned into Cove Road and I slowed. “Okay, it’s that one up ahead.” I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. “I’ll wait in the shelter of the trees by the gate. You pull up in front of his gate, kill the engine, and lift the hood. Then go in.”

“Okay, you got it.” She took off her hat and handed it to me. “Here, keep your head dry. I’m going for the ‘sexy fresh out of the shower’ look.”

I smiled. “Thanks.”

I climbed out, planted the hat on my head and took shelter under the trees by the gate. Dehan slid across into the driving seat, drove the twenty yards to the gate, killed the engine and rolled into his drive, blocking the entrance. I watched her get out and within a few seconds she was drenched through—and she was right, soaked to the skin she looked both helpless and very sexy.

She lifted the hood and peered into the engine. She made a few helpless gestures for the benefit of anyone who might be watching, then turned and ran toward the house. I smiled to myself. She was one in a million.

I approached the gate and settled against the fence to wait, with the rain spattering on the blacktop a few feet away, and tapping coldly on the canopy of leaves above my head. Vaguely, over the sounds of the water, I heard a door open, a man’s voice, an exchange of words and some laughter. Then the door closed again.

I waited ten cold, uncomfortable, wet minutes with my feet getting numb, and then my cell rang. It was Dehan.

“Hey, where are you?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh, good. Listen, your car broke down, you should really consider getting something that isn’t sixty years old. But as luck would have it, it broke down right in Jackson Lee’s driveway. Can you beat that? Just keep walking down the road till you see your car. He’s a real nice guy. He made me coffee and everything.”

“You’re funny. Did you know that?”

“No, nobody ever told me that. See you in a minute.”

I hung up and walked around the fence into the driveway feeling cold, wet, and sour. I hammered on the door and after a moment a pretty Filipino girl in a French maid’s uniform opened the door.

I smiled without much humor. “I’m Detective Stone…”

“Yuh, they are expecting you.” She reached out. “Let me take your coat and your hat.”

She hung them up and led me across a broad hall with parquet floors to a large set of doors. She pushed them open and said, “Detective Stone here, Mr. Lee.”

I stepped into a long room with two sets of French windows overlooking a waterlogged lawn framed by pines, oaks, and tall cypress trees. The room was elaborately elegant, with a large, marble fireplace set between the French windows, a heavy, beige Wilton carpet, ornate sofas and armchairs with exposed, tooled wood, and English fox hunting prints on the walls in thin, black frames. Lee was standing by the fire and Dehan was sitting in an armchair, holding a cup of coffee. She looked freshly toweled. They were both watching me. Lee was tall, maybe six-two, and like his room,