Angels (Nevada James #3) (Nevada James Mysteries) Read Free Page A

navy blue suit. I decided
not to mention that to him.
    “You
want to tell me your side of this?” he asked.
    “There’s
not much to tell. I saw him twice in one day. He was taking pictures of me. I
thought it might be the Laughing Man, or maybe someone that worked for him. It
never really occurred to me that he might be the paparazzi.”
    “Paparazzo,”
Dan said.
    I
snapped my fingers and pointed at him. “That’s right! I was testing you! Good
testing!” He didn’t laugh. Damn it. I’d thought that was hilarious. “Anyway,
you know the Laughing Man keeps tabs on me. Always seems to know where I am.”
    “He’s
quite committed to that,” Dan said.
    “So my
theory wasn’t an unreasonable one. It was just wrong. But I had to be sure.”
    Dan
nodded slowly. “That was more or less what I thought. His story checked out,
though.”
    “Oh,” I
said. “So you talked to him?”
    “Where
the hell do you think I’ve been all this time?” he asked. “Of course I talked
to him. I talked to him at some length, Nevada. We confirmed everything he
said, though. He sells his trash to the Sneaker and a couple other
garbage rags on the Internet. Real shitbag stuff. But he’s got nothing to do
with the Laughing Man. So we let him go.”
    “No
charges filed?”
    “He’s
not pressing charges, no. And he’s not suing you, either.”
    “I meant
charges against him , really, but I guess all that’s good, too.” I
squinted at him. “Wait. How do you know he’s not suing me?”
    “I
explained to him that it would be a bad idea.”
    “Oh,
dear,” I said. “You threatened a…” I waited for him to finish the sentence.
    “Fuck you,
Nevada.”
    “Come
on, Dan. Say it. You threatened a…” I put a finger to the side of my forehead
like I was struggling with a thought. “Now was it paparazzi or paparazzo ?
I can’t remember. Show me what you’ve learned, Dan.”
    “I
didn’t threaten anyone. I’m a goddamn captain, Nevada. I don’t make threats. I
explained my position to him in simple terms. I can’t help it if I’m…” he
trailed off and I thought he might look vaguely guilty.
    “Terrifyingly
large?” I guessed.
    “Blame
my parents.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you are going to have to pay for the
window you broke. Which…” He stopped and I watched something strange happen to
his face. For a moment I couldn’t identify it, and then I realized he was
trying to keep himself under control. Whether he’d been about to start crying
or start screaming at me I didn’t know, but I didn’t really want to see either
thing happen. “You jumped through a second-story window,” he said, his voice
unusually quiet. “You just jumped right through it.”
    It
wasn’t a question, but I answered it anyway. “Yeah.”
    “Nevada…”
He stopped again.
    I
decided to angle for the short version of this conversation. “It was extremely
dangerous and I wasn’t thinking, okay? I just had in my head go and so I
went. That’s what I do.” He glared at me. “I’m not defending it, but it’s who I
am. I’m sorry, though. I know after everything I’ve done the last couple of
years you’d really like to stop worrying about me, and I don’t make that easy.
So next time I’ll try to take the stairs, instead.”
    Dan
shook his head. “You just can’t do anything the easy way, Nevada. You never
could. God knows I’ve tried to…”
    “Let’s
be serious here for a minute,” I interrupted. “I’ve never had the option of
doing things the easy way. Not even before this shit with the Laughing Man
started. Not when I was a kid. Not when I was a woman coming up in a department
dominated by men who used to tell me to get them coffee when I was a better
detective than all of them put together. Not when you gave me the worst cases
we got in…”
    “You
wanted those cases. You insisted on them. And you closed them.”
    “Yeah.
And I didn’t do any of that because I was worrying about dotting i’s