Tempting the Devil Read Online Free PDF Page A

chief said, regaining his place at the microphone.
    â€œWhat can you tell us?” The last exasperated question came from still another television reporter.
    â€œThat we’ve formed a task force and we’ll find the people who did this.”
    Bored with the expected answers, Robin glanced around. Her gaze caught a man standing about ten feet behind her. He didn’t have the casual wear of most print reporters, nor the professional finish of television ones. Instead, he wore a pair of slacks and a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. But it was his face that captured her interest. She certainly would have remembered it if she’d seen it before.
    She’d read of hawk faces but had never seen one before. A true definition of features: a lean, sharply angled face and profile. His hair was dark and well cut except for a cowlick that defied control and fell on his forehead. His eyes were deep-set and dark as navy coffee but it was the intensity in them that drew her attention. For a second it seemed as if her perusal drew his own. His gaze riveted on her face, and the intensity in it was so strong she fancied the ground shook. She felt an unwelcome surge of heat in her cheeks and hoped he didn’t notice it as well. Then she thought she saw a flash of contempt in his eyes before he shifted his gaze away.
    She felt judged without knowing why, but her gaze lingered on him as she wondered whether that impression had been her imagination. He was lean but not thin, and his foot tapped with an impatience that, like that cowlick, she sensed he couldn’t quite control. A reporter? She knew she hadn’t seen him before. She certainly would have remembered his face. But then she’d been away for nearly a year and had been out of the press mainstream since her return. She simply had not had the energy to socialize as she had before, not with the brace and crutches …
    â€œThere will be press conferences daily.” The police chief’s words jerked her attention back to him. He was obviously winding things up.
    She glanced back toward the speaker, heard the fruitless additional questions that echoed former ones, then turned back to where the dark-haired man had stood.
    He was gone.
    She turned to the reporter next to her. She knew him from the Press Club.
    â€œThat dark-haired guy who was standing in the back …”
    The reporter turned, then shrugged. “I don’t see anyone.”
    â€œHe must have just left. I just wondered if you noticed him. Dark-haired. Lean. In a blue shirt and dark slacks.”
    The reporter’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”
    â€œI just hadn’t seen him here before.”
    â€œSorry. Didn’t notice anyone.” He turned his attention back to the sheriff and police chief, who were going into the courthouse.
    â€œDamned useless,” the reporter muttered.
    She nodded in sympathy, then smiled a good-bye. “I have to file my story.”
    The reporter moved away. She waited a few moments, then limped inside the courthouse when she felt no attention was on her. The image of the stranger went with her. He had been in back of the others, but she’d had a strong image of a man alone, that he had nothing in common with the others who’d stood poised with their pencils and recorders and cameras.
    So why was he there?
    Only an onlooker? Maybe an attorney from one of the many small law firms that surrounded the courthouse. But then why the intensity she’d felt even at a distance?
    Had anyone else felt it? Or just her?
    Or was her curiosity running away with her? She pushed the image away and strode down the hall of the courthouse to the justice of the peace’s office. She would go over to the police department later and try to get some officers to tell her more about the three dead officers. But right now she wanted to talk to Graham Godwin, the courthouse historian and gossip.
    Godwin was ancient. He admitted to being