The Investigators (Badge of Honor 7)

“They don’t even know who you are,” Matt said reassuringly.

“Just some bimbo you spent the night with, right?” she said, trying to make a joke of it.

“Well, I could introduce you to them as my fiancée, I suppose,” Matt said, and then had a sobering thought. “What I am going to do is introduce you as somebody else. How about ‘Patricia Walsh’? How does that sound?”

She looked at him with a blank expression.

“Just trying to cover all the bases,” Matt said.

She went into the bathroom. He followed her and watched as she combed her hair and put on her lipstick.

“I’ll call you at the office when I find out what’s going on,” Matt said.

“They have a recorder on my telephone at the office,” Susan said.

“Shit,” Matt said, furious with himself for not remembering that. “Okay. Unless something happens, meet me downstairs at noon. We’ll have lunch.”

“Not at the bank?”

“Downstairs,” he said. “Honey, I didn’t have any idea those two were going to show up here!”

She walked out of the bathroom past him and stopped by the side of the bed to slip her feet into her shoes.

Matt thought there was something delightfully graceful and feminine in the way she did that, standing on one leg at a time, and then he saw the briefcase half full of the money Bryan Chenowith had stolen from banks and had given Susan to hold for him where he’d put it, between the bedside table and the bed.

Shit!

Susan finished putting on her shoes, smiled uneasily at him, walked to the door to the sitting room, and waited for him.

He walked to her.

“I love you,” Matt said.

“Oh, God!” Susan said, and put her hand up to touch his cheek.

Matt opened the door and motioned for her to precede him through it.

“Pat,” he said. “This is Detective McFadden and Detective Martinez. This is Patricia Walsh.”

“I’m happy to meet you, Pat,” McFadden said, and smiled.

“How do you do?” Susan said.

Martinez said nothing.

Matt led Susan to the door to the corridor and opened it.

She looked up at him and then kissed him, rather chastely, on the lips.

“I’ll see you later,” Matt said.

Susan nodded and went out into the corridor. Matt closed the door after her.

“Very nice, Matt,” McFadden said. “Sorry we walked—”

“Shit,” Martinez said.

“What’s with you?” McFadden snapped.