Power Read Online Free PDF Page B

Mayakovsky.”
    Completely unmoved by his logic or his authority, it seemed, Jess popped her chin up even higher in barefaced defiance. “It wasn’t an accident, Dan.”
    At least she’d called him by his first name. Maybe there was hope she would get over being mad as blazes at him. Why that continued to matter more than whether she paid the proper respect to his position defied all reason.
    “The shoes alone aren’t sufficient evidence, Jess. That said”—he held up his hands stop-sign fashion when she would have interrupted—“you don’t know Chief Black or the others here like I do. I can assure you that he will give this case due diligence. He’s meeting with Chandler’s attorney right now to see if he’ll share any thoughts on his client’s frame of mind or any suggestions of violence she may have shared relevant to her husband.”
    “Good luck with that,” Jess grumbled. “Zacharias Whitman didn’t get to be Birmingham’s most notorious attorney by advocating the team spirit. He’s not going to give up anything unless there’s something to be gained and if the victim’s parents tell him to keep his mouth shut, he will. Money talks and”—she flashed Dan a bogus smile—“you know the rest.”
    “I will remind Chief Black that you are anxious to support his efforts in whatever capacity he needs.”
    She laughed in that rich earthy quality that made him think of the other primal sounds he’d plied from her this weekend. “I won’t hold my breath,” she let him know. “I spent all morning searching for briefings because no one invited me to their party. And since SPU doesn’t have any cases, Prescott, Harper, and I ran out of things to talk about fifteen minutes into ours.”
    “I’m certain none of the briefings were relocated or canceled because of you, Jess.” As frustrated as she made him, there were the moments like this when she confessed to feeling left out and misunderstood and he wanted to hug the hell out of her and promise her it wouldn’t happen again. How she went from livid to vulnerable in three beats he would never know. “Maybe when you completed the SPU briefing you should have gone to that appointment with Dr. Oden. I got my appointment out of the way first thing this morning.”
    “I told you it slipped my mind. Then I got the call about Chandler and I had more important things to think about. Like how a woman with perfect balance falls over a railing in her own home. And why the shoes she was wearing ended up set aside just so before the fall.”
    Same old Jess. As much as he wanted to be at his wit’s end with her methods, he never ceased to be amazed by her view of the cases, the victims, and life in general. Unorthodox didn’t begin to describe her blunt, overbearing tactics. She bemoaned her lack of friends and the idea that the others guarded their territory with rabid ferocity around her, when the truth was that those who knew her respected her immensely. Those who didn’t were terrified of landing on her radar.
    “I can call you tomorrow morning and remind you about the appointment.”
    She retrieved her cell phone so she could wave it at him. “I set a reminder. I’ll be there.”
    “And”—he leaned forward and picked up the folder on his desk—“I have a case for SPU.”
    She sank into the chair in front of his desk, equal measures of surprise and suspicion vying for top billing as her petulance faded. “What kind of case? Why didn’t you tell me that already instead of badgering me about Black and respect?” As she dug for her reading glasses, her attention settled on the red folder in his hand.
    Badgering?
He wasn’t even going there. “DeShawn Simmons. Nineteen. African American. Volunteer of the year with Hands on Birmingham. He’s supposed to start Jeff State next month. The first ever in his family to achieve that goal. The bad news is he left home for work on Friday afternoon and no one has seen him since.”
    Jess accepted the