“Comes from helping to raise Kevin,” Tessa smiled, referring to her much-younger half brother. “Teenagers act like they want independence and responsibility, but when things get tough they’re happy to find a way out of being in charge of their own lives while still saving face.”
Ed smiled briefly, then grew serious as he thought of what he had to do next.
“Kelly’s lying, you know. She’s got a pretty, well-rehearsed story, but you could grind it up and use it as fertilizer,” he said.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I do agree there’s something, er, fishy-smelling about her story,” Tessa responded. “Still, someone could be intimidating her, and that’s why she’s afraid to tell us the truth. We need to get her into a safe environment, then she’ll begin to trust us.”
“You can’t build a legal case on a foundation of lies.”
“She’s not lying about being raped,” Tessa insisted.
Ed looked over her head at Kelly, who was watching people pass by the front windows—as if she were looking for someone and afraid to see him at the same time. “Something happened to her, there’s no question. And I don’t like the bruises on her face. Slipped on the pool deck, my ass.”
“So you agree that she needs our support right now, not a bunch of questions that imply we don’t believe her?” Tessa asked.
“You have to stop making excuses for the child, Tessie. Try to understand what she’s lying about and why she’s doing it, and I bet you’ll uncover the truth about what happened to her.”
“I know. I was thinking that we could have her take a polygraph test. That way we’ll know what to focus on and be able to weed out the unimportant stuff. And you’ll know for a fact that she’s nothing more than a scared teenager who needs our help.”
“Hell, I can see that right now. But I worry about how to figure out the rest of it,” Ed said.
“I know. But can we do it my way?” Tessa reached out and laid her hand on Ed’s forearm. “Please. It’s important to me that we do this right—and slowly. I think it’s even more important to Kelly.”
Ed looked down into hopeful blue-gray eyes and felt it happening—felt himself being sucked in against his better judgment.
What the hell.
At least he’d be there to watch over Tessa if things started spinning out of control. He wouldn’t let her throw away her career on this case.
“I’ll call and set up a polygraph for this afternoon, off the record. Then we should talk to Sledge Aiken,” he said, checking his watch.
“I’d love to,” Tessa replied. “He’s been traveling with his team for off-season appearances, according to his agent.”
“Ah, but I checked the official web page of the Waves before leaving this morning. The team returned to LA last night.”
“So while you are monitoring the polygraph with Kelly, I’ll find a place for her to stay. Then we can go see Aiken,” Tessa said.
“Where are you going to put her?” Ed asked.
“Well, she can’t stay with me. I don’t want any accusations of conflict of interest or malicious prosecution. I think I’ll talk to TSS—Three Sisters Shelter. They take in battered women and children, and they have a residency program for at-risk patients who have graduated from their drug rehabilitation programs. The security there is decent, and they have good supervision. Kelly might even meet some girls her age.”
“Okay. But first, we’d better get that girl some breakfast before she starts eating the place mats,” Ed said as he steered Tessa back to the table. “Poor kid probably hasn’t eaten in days.”
About the Author
Elizabeth Lowell has over thirty million books in print, including the Rareties Unlimited ROMANCE-SUSPENSE series (each featuring a different set of characters): Moving Target, Running Scared, Die in Plain Sight and The Color of Death. Her other novels published by HarperCollins e-books are: CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES: This Time Love; Desert Rain; To the Ends of the Earth; Remember Summer; Where the Heart Is; Forget Me Not; Lover in the Rough; A Woman without Lies; Beautiful Dreamer; Eden Burning. The DONOVAN novels—Amber Beach, Jade Island, Pearl Cove, and Midnight in Ruby Bayou—were instant New York Times bestsellers. Elizabeth Lowell’s HISTORICAL ROMANCES of the American West are Only His; Only Mine; Only You; Only Love. Please visit www.elizabethlowell.com.
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By Elizabeth Lowell
Amber Beach
Jade Island
Pearl Cove
Midnight in Ruby Bayou
Moving Target
Running Scared
Die in Plain Sight
The Color of Death
Credits
Jacket design by Richard Aquan
Jacket photograph © by Jack Hollingsworth/CORBIS
This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE COLOR OF DEATH. Copyright © 2004 by Two of a Kind, Inc. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Excerpt from No Escape by Heather Lowell Copyright © 2004 by Two of a Kind, Inc.
ePub edition May 2004 eISBN 9780061740572
FIRST EDITION
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Elizabeth Lowell, The Color of Death
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