SEE HER DIE Read Free Page A

interview any witnesses or suspects. Hell, he hadn’t even gotten the detectives’ reports until this morning. He hated delays. He hated screw-ups even more. One brash detective had royally screwed up by pushing Miss Young until she went on the defensive—the absolute wrong thing to do. What did they teach these guys in detective school?
    Mac folded his arms over his chest and seethed.
    Now, five days after the man’s murder, he’d finally gotten the word to proceed as lead on the case. If he could just get his hands on the damned autopsy report he’d be in business.
    Yep, he hated delays, hated not knowing all the available facts. Simple things, like whether Harrison had sex before he died or if he’d been drinking or hitting his drug of choice. The only two things he did know at this point were the approximate time of death and the apparent cause of death. Brannigan, the shoot-first-ask-questions-later detective from the NYPD working on the homicide case supposedly in cooperation with Mac, was running down the history of the dagger. Was it a part of Harrison’s personal collection? Or had the killer brought it with her or him?
    Harrison owned an extensive collection of antique swords and daggers. Too bad one of his toys may have been used against him.
    Some hobby. Mac imagined the weapons gave the guy a sense of power. He wondered how powerful he’d felt when one was jammed deep between his ribs?
    Mac hadn’t liked Ned Harrison. He liked him even less now that he was dead. It blew Mac’s ongoing case all to hell. As a member of a special task force he’d been watching Harrison for months, hoping for a break in the illegal and deviant Internet activities of a group known as the Gentlemen’s Association. Harrison was the first of the group they’d been able to pinpoint and identify. Now he was dead, leaving Mac back at square one. The Bureau wasn’t very happy about that, which only added to the maelstrom of the past five days.
    It was certainly possible Harrison’s death was a well planned and executed hit designed to look like a crime of passion. The head of the Gentlemen’s Association may have learned that Harrison had been compromised. But Mac couldn’t see how anyone could know the feds were onto Harrison. Mac had been too careful. It made more sense that it was just what it appeared to be. But before he scrapped Harrison as a lead and moved on, leaving the final mop-up details to the local homicide detectives, Mac intended to be sure there was nothing else to be garnered about this secretive Association from Harrison’s life or his death.
    Mac had collected every speck of information about the man his past offered. Harrison had risen above his humble foster child beginnings. Both he and his only sibling, a twin brother, had done well for themselves. His brother’s death four years ago had left Harrison alone in the world since he’d opted not to marry and have a family of his own. But men like Harrison were too selfish to give enough of themselves to have any sort of real family.
    “Our lady is on the move,” Duncan warned.
    Mac hauled his attention back to the present, his gaze seeking Elizabeth Young. She was working her way to the end of the row, muttering excuse-me’s to those seated between her and the aisle.
    Just where the hell was she going? Heads turned as she dashed down the aisle, past Mac and into the vestibule.
    He glanced at Duncan, giving him an unspoken command to stay put. Mac slipped quietly into the large entry hall. Young pushed up her glasses and swiped her eyes, then wrapped her arms around her middle but not before he saw the tremor in her hands. Had her heinous deed finally pinged her conscience? Or maybe she was just now realizing everything the cops had openly accused her of.
    Without making a sound, he stepped closer and offered her the crisply starched handkerchief from his coat pocket. He never could tolerate a weeping female. “Are you all right?”
    Elizabeth