Withholding Evidence Read Online Free PDF

clarity of purpose. She wasn’t going to flirt with him, hoping he’d melt under her feminine wiles. Good call on her part, because no matter how sexy she was, no matter how far things between them went, he’d never, ever talk about Somalia. Not with her. Not with anyone.
    Trina approached Dr. Hill, but her eyes were on the man by his side. Polished and slick, the man hung next to the host with an air of pompous importance. Or maybe Keith just felt that way because Trina had made a beeline for him after turning him down cold. And she looked at the guy like he was dinner.
    He was probably highly educated, like her. If he hung out with Hill, he must be some sort of scientist. Shit. That guy was her type in a way Keith would never be.

    P ERRY C ARLSON WAS a pompous bore. How had she never noticed that before?
    It might be because the last time they’d chatted, he’d sipped only a single glass of champagne, but today he’d had quite a bit more to drink, and while he appeared composed, his tongue was clearly loosened by alcohol, exposing his braggart tendencies.
    Then there was the fact that perhaps she had seen only what she wanted to see. And the person she wanted him to be had nothing to do with the reality of who Perry Carlson was.
    But finally, and perhaps most interesting to Trina, was that a man who caused her neck to tingle and was anything but a bore had just told her he was interested, and now she found it hard to muster even the shallow attraction she’d harbored for Perry Carlson.
    Shit. She should have taken Keith up on the dinner invitation. She could be with him right now in the dark corner of a romantic restaurant, eating bread dredged in herbs, oil, and vinegar and listening to his SEAL training stories. But no. She was stuck, cornered behind a ridiculous cherub fountain and topiary mermaid.
    Seriously, a mermaid?
    What was it with underwater explorers and their fascination with breasts and fins? The mermaid’s mammary glands were huge —not exactly streamlined like, say, a fish’s body. And don’t get her started on the fact that having breasts meant she’d be a mammal with a need to breathe air, like her dolphin and whale counterparts.
    And everyone knew mermaids didn’t breathe air, ergo mermaids didn’t have double-D breasts.
    She’d give anything to extract herself from this hidden corner. Unfortunately, Perry wasn’t getting the hint. He leaned into her, hints of his quiet inebriation in his bloodshot eyes and whiskey breath. “I’m giving a lecture at the American History Museum next weekend. If you’re interested in coming, I could arrange for you to receive a private tour of the collections in storage.” He reached out and took the end of her braid and twirled it between his fingers, making her wish she’d chosen to wear it up.
    “Thank you, that’s very kind, but I interned at the Smithsonian in several different departments when I was in graduate school. I’ve not only seen the storage, I’ve cataloged and conserved various items.”
    “Right. I forgot you studied history.”
    What the hell? They’d met through her work. As an historian . She searched for a response but was more than a little taken aback. Finally, she said, “What’s the topic of your lecture?”
    “The role of cartographers in World War II.” That made sense, given that the mission of Hill’s Institute was exploration and mapping—and not just underwater. Perry launched into his subject. “In this day of GPS, many people don’t know how important mapmakers were during World War II. You probably don’t know some of our most important spies were cartographers.”
    She must have entered some sort of alternate dimension. What had she ever seen in this guy? “Actually, I did know that.”
    “Really? Are you interested in military history?”
    She took a step back. Was this party being held in Alice’s rabbit hole? Drunk or not, his words didn’t make sense. “You could say that. I do have a PhD in