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“We’re a full-service police department now.”

Was that a joke? Maybe I was staring at him like he’d grown tentacles, because he raised a cynical brow at me.

“I can take a minute out of my yard consultation if you want to make a confession, though,” he said.

“Haven’t found any of those elusive clues yet?” I asked.

His eyes were Spanish dark, but his hair, highlighted by the late evening sun, showed reddish tints. His lips twisted slightly, as though he found me mildly amusing. “I have
you
,” he said, “looking disheveled and available at the scene of the crime.”

“Motive?”

He shrugged. “Jealousy.”

“Of what?”

“You tell me.”

“Listen, there are ten million people in this city. Go talk to one of them. Or read his diary, or—”

He stopped me before I could say something that might make me wish I’d never been born. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that,” he said. “What makes you think there was a diary?”

I considered a half dozen smart-ass answers, but wisely decided on maturity. It was highly possible I hadn’t shown enough of that recently. “Mr. Bomstad made numerous references to a journal. He started it years ago and told me of several entries.”

“During your . . .” He tilted his head slightly as if struggling for the proper word. “Time together?”

“Yes. During our sessions.” I gritted my teeth. He was intentionally baiting me. Knowing that didn’t make it any less tempting to spit in his eye. “I’m a psychologist, Mr. Rover. Remember?”

“Didn’t you think it rather odd that a tight end for the Lions would keep a diary, Ms. McMullen?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Because he was such a sensitive soul?”

I pursed my lips and counted to ten. “I had no reason to believe he was anything other than what he said.”

“Do you consider yourself naïve, Ms. McMullen?”

“Listen.” My temper was rising again, which sucked, because El Charro was way across town and I always craved Mexican when my ire was up. “I’m not a criminal. Neither am I customarily in the company of criminals.” I gave him the evil eye I’d inherited from my mother and honed in a cheap-ass bar four blocks from where I grew up. “He hired me as his psychoanalyst. I psychoanalyzed. Second-guessing his every sentence would have made it impossible to help him.”

“Maybe if you had questioned his statements instead of believing every half-assed lie, he’d still be alive instead of having his brains sucked out of his nose as we speak.”

The image made me feel a little queasy, but since that was probably his intent, I continued on. “Projecting responsibility, Raver?”

“What’s that?”

“The tendency to place your shortcomings on someone else. We call it projecting responsibility.”

He leaned closer. I could feel the heat of his body. “Just what shortcomings are you referring to, Ms. McMullen?”

The oxygen was being sucked slowly out of my lungs. I leaned back. “I just meant—”

“Where’s the damned diary?”

And suddenly everything was clear. I cocked my head to the side, granting myself a better view of his dark features. This was a moment I’d want to enjoy later, possibly while my cell mate etched her name into my biceps. “Let me get this straight,” I said, savoring the words. “Did you come here to ask for my help?”

He shifted his gaze away from me for a moment, then looked back and smiled. “You have a rich imagination, Ms. McMullen.”

“Ask nice,” I suggested.

“I came here,” he said, eyeing me cockily, “to find out if you have any kind of
logical
reason to believe there is a diary.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. And for a moment I actually wondered if he might reach out and throttle me. “Am I correct in assuming,
Lieutenant
, that despite your best efforts, you have been unable to locate Mr. Bomstad’s journal?”

“If there was a damned journal, we would have found it by now.”

“Oh, there’s a journal,” I assured him.

“What makes you think so?”

“Because I’m a professional.” And I had seen Bomstad’s face when he spoke about it. He’d kept a diary, but I was beginning to believe it might not be filled with the kind of heart-wrenchingly sensitive prose I had originally expected.

“A professional,” Rivera said and laughed. The sound made me want to shove a tube sock up his nose. It also made me hope to hell I was right. I turned away.

He caught my arm just above the elbow and I froze. I’d like to say I was affronted by his rudeness. But I hadn’t been touched by a man since Dr. David’s hug some days before, and the idea that my favorite mentor was engaged to Princess Di was still wearing at me a little.

Our eyes met. Something like lightning stroked my belly. I knew better than to fall for another cretin, but Rivera was looking at me with those smoldering eyes, and if I was the kind of girl to believe in chemistry, I’d have said there were enough sparks to explode the damned laboratory just about then. He was made of that lean, tight material that made my saliva glands go all goofy. But then he spoke.

“Withholding evidence is a federal offense, Ms. McMullen.”

I gritted a smile and remembered why I hated him. “I don’t know where Mr. Bomstad kept his diary,” I said, “but then, I don’t have a task force and access to his living quarters, do I?”

He tightened his grip on my arm. “And if you did?”

“Then I’d have the advantage.”

He dropped his hand and nodded toward the street with a terse jerk of his head. “Who’s the geek?”

I looked over his shoulder, remembering Solberg for the first time. “Just an . . . acquaintance.”

One brow rose fractionally. If he mentioned the dearth again, I was going to skip this month’s mortgage and take out a contract on his pitiful life. “What’s he doing?”

“I’m having a little trouble with my garage door . . . opener. Listen, Rivera, I don’t know where the diary is,” I said, and stepping quickly back, I closed the door. Or rather, I
tried
to close the door, but he stuck a foot in and pushed it back open.

“Did Bomstad have a safety-deposit box?”

I stared at him in some amazement. “Mr. Reeper,” I said, “you believe we were ardent lovers; I maintain that our relationship was purely professional. Either way, it seems unlikely that the existence of a safety-deposit box would arise in our everyday conversation.”

“Too busy with other things?”

“Yes,” I said, and found I didn’t really care what kind of idiotic suppositions he arrived at. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“Did he have any relatives he was close to?”

I eased the door open a few inches. “Surely, with the full force of the Los Angeles Police Department at your disposal, you could ascertain that information on your own.”

“I’m just utilizing your . . . expert opinion. You must have spoken about his family on occasion. A mother complex or some such crap.”

His phraseology fascinated me. “What kind of relationship do you have with your mother?”

“You thinking she beat me with a garden hose, therefore making me the hard-ass I am today?”

I gave only passing consideration to his hard ass. Really. “Actually, I thought she might be more imaginative. Use a vacuum cleaner attachment.”

He gave me a smirk and leaned closer. “Maybe we should stick to the subject, Ms. McMullen.”

“The subject being . . .” I really couldn’t remember. He smelled strangely erotic for a hard-ass.

“Andrew the Bomb,” he said. “And his relationship with his family.”

Oh, yeah. According to Bomstad, he’d been a chronic bed wetter. He was eleven years old when his mother had stopped hanging diapers on the line for the benefit of his hee-hawing friends. “Once again, I’m afraid I’ll have to remind you of a little thing called confidentiality.” Maybe I really cared about the confidentiality thing, or maybe I just wanted to piss Rivera off. Either way, I was good.

“Ever considered making life easy for yourself, Ms. McMullen?”

What the hell was he talking about? I was Catholic. But I just shrugged, cool under fire. “I’m just doing my job,” I said and tried to shut the door.

He blocked it . . . again.

“Hey!”

I can’t say who was more surprised by the sound of Solberg’s voice. We turned in unison. J.D. stood some thirty feet away, shuffling his feet on my sunken walkway. The garage door whatchamadingy bobbled in his hand. “What’s going on?”

We both stared.

Solberg cleared his throat and pushed his glasses up with his middle finger. “He bothering you, Chrissy?” he asked.

Okay, as knights went, he was a little short, had a notable lack of shining armor, and was severely myopic, but still, I have to say, in my heart of love-starved hearts I was kind of touched by the fact that he had actually scrambled out of his Beetle to come to my rescue. And though he took a cautious step backward when Rivera lowered his brows, he didn’t launch himself into his waiting vehicle like I had expected.

“LAPD,” the lieutenant said, and flipped open his badge. “Who are you?”

Solberg took another step back. His eyes darted to mine, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he was thinking about that sexual harassment charge I had mentioned. His mouth moved, but nothing came out.

“This is J.D. Solberg,” I said. “A . . . friend of mine.”

Rivera shifted his dark eyes toward me. His lips twisted just the slightest degree, suggesting thoughts best left unspoken. But I could see the word “dearth” tumbling around amidst his haphazard thoughts.

If I hadn’t been so refined I would have voiced a few of the words zipping through my own head.

“Mr. Solberg,” Rivera stepped past my dying arborvitae, “how long have you known Ms. McMullen?”

“Listen . . .” J.D. glanced fleetingly at his Beetle as if hoping to draw it kinetically toward him. “I didn’t mean any harm. Maybe I had a little too much to drink is all.”

I swear I could feel Rivera’s damned brow rise with interest, even though he was turned away.

“How much
did
you have to drink, Mr. Solberg?”

J.D. tried a smile, first at me, then at Rivera. It looked a little green around the edges. At that point I maybe would have gotten him off the hook if I could have, but I didn’t know what the hell to do. It wasn’t as if my record was pearly white.

“Couple shots of vodka. A few martinis. But I didn’t get behind the wheel. She drove me home.” He gave me a nod, quirking his scrawny neck in my direction.

“Really?” Rivera turned, deadpan, toward me. “When was this, Ms. McMullen?”

I gritted my teeth. “Listen—”

“I wouldn’t have made a move on her if I hadn’t been drunk.”

It was the closest thing to a real smile I’d ever seen on Rivera’s face.

“Just for the record,” Rivera said, sober as a monk again, “the two of you were on a date—”

“I wouldn’t call it a date,” I said.

He ignored me. “Would you call it a date, Mr. Solberg?”

J.D.’s loopy grin made me forget the fact that he had disembarked from his battered steed to come to my rescue. “She wore a little black skirt.”

They shared a manly moment during which I considered pelting them both with dirt clods. “So you were on a date,” Rivera said. “You overimbibed and made some advances.”

Solberg nodded, seeming to think he had found a comrade.

“Which you wouldn’t have done had you not been inebriated,” Rivera finished.

“Absolutely not.” Solberg shook his head vigorously.

Rivera turned toward me. His eyes seemed overly bright. I can honestly say I have never hated anyone more in my life. “Do you corroborate that story, Ms. McMullen?”

I considered telling him to take a long vacation someplace warm, but I cranked up a smile instead. “Mr. Solberg and I had a business engagement.”

“To which you wore a miniskirt.”

In the Catholic faith, we believe all sins are pretty much created equal.
In which case I might just as well kill him,
I thought, logic working overtime.

“Is it your habit to spend so much time considering a woman’s wardrobe?” I asked.

The lip curled again, but he turned back to his new best friend. “What did you talk about on your date, Mr. Solberg?”

I tensed, but perhaps J.D.’s methods of obtaining information hadn’t quite been on the up and up, because he lied, and fairly well, I discovered, for a lecherous little weasel. “She’s been considering investing in some stocks.”

“Stocks?” Rivera repeated.

“I’m senior executive for NeoTech Enterprises.”

Rivera’s gaze skimmed to the Beetle, and I tensed. “Make a decent income there?” he asked.

Solberg shrugged and puffed out his chest a little. “Got me a house in La Canada and an ’04 turbo Cabriolet.”

Rivera continued to stare.

“Oh . . .” Solberg jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the mistreated Beetle. “You mean the car. She—” He shifted his eyes toward me. I gave him a glare that I hoped spoke of dire consequences and possible dismemberment. “She, the Porsche, that is . . .” There were five beads of sweat above his upper lip. “Is in the shop. This is just a temporary ride. Till things get straightened out.”

Rivera nodded, friendly to the end. “And what exactly are you doing here right now?”

I felt my stomach lurch. “I don’t believe it’s any of your concern if a friend helps me with my garage door problems,” I said.

Rivera shook his head. “Of course not,” he agreed, but turned back to Solberg again. “How long have you two known each other?”

“February 1993,” he said.

Okay, the idea that he kept that fact in his head was beyond creepy.

“She was wearing a little checkered top and cutoff overalls.” The words spilled from him like bile.

“A pig farmer, Ms. McMullen?” Rivera asked.

“Cocktail waitress,” I managed through gritted teeth.

Rivera’s eyes were shining. “Ahh, that’s right. And you followed her all the way out here to L.A., Mr. Solberg?

My teeth were beginning to hurt.

“I was here first,” he said. “Come out most of four years ago to work for Neo.”

“So I guess that means she followed you, then?”

Solberg was grinning like an idiot. I was tempted almost beyond control to strike their heads together like melons to see if they were hollow.