Ыоуве Been Warned   ::   Patterson James

“The morning I first saw you outside the Fálcon Hotel, why were you taking so many pictures?” he asks, basically ignoring what I just said to him.

“I’m into photography.”

“Is it your profession?”

“Hopefully, one day. I’m up for an important gallery showing. I have an agent. You could talk to her if you want. Maybe tomorrow. ”

He peers over my shoulder. “Is that your darkroom?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I take a look?” Delmonico says, and he takes a step forward.

I shift my feet to block the way. “Actually, I do.”

He smirks. “Are you hiding something from me? Maybe the pictures you took at the hotel? Or is it something else you don’t want me to see?”

“No. My photographs are personal, that’s all.”

“Duly noted,” he says.

Then Delmonico pushes past me.

Right into my darkroom.



Chapter 73



“HEY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? How dare you!”

Delmonico stops in the middle of my darkroom, staring left and right. My pictures are everywhere. They’re like wallpaper. He seems either impressed or overwhelmed by what he sees. “My, my, my,” he mutters. “Such a busy, busy girl.”

“I didn’t give you permission to be in here!” I snap.

He turns to me, his dark eyes boring into my head. “If you’d like, I can come back with a search warrant and turn this entire apartment upside down. Do you want that? Or I could forget about the search warrant and toss your place anyway. You know that good cop-bad cop routine? I’m the bad cop, Kristin.”

“You’re saying I’m a murder suspect?”

“What I’m saying is that you’re not cooperating with a murder investigation.”

“You can’t be serious.”

He takes a step toward me. He’s nearly twice my size. “In case you conveniently forgot, Ms. Burns, people died that morning. Four of them.”

“I know that. I was there.”

“And you were acting rather strange, as I recall.”

“I was upset.” I still am, buster!

“Yet you said you didn’t know any of them.”

“I was upset. I told you that. They were sitting out there on the sidewalk,dead. ”

“But you thought one of them was still alive. That’s what you told me, anyway.”

“No, what I thought was… I mean, yes, but I didn’t actually… uh…”

The more I hesitate, the harder the detective looks at me. I know I’m not making total sense. Worse, I’m digging a deep hole for myself.

“Which is it?” he asks.