Brazen Virtue

keep your name out of it.”

    “Thank you. You can use this door.” He gestured to the side door, then pulled his calculator forward. As far as he was concerned, he’d done his duty, and more.
    “Is it too late to file an extension?” Ben asked as he started out.
    “It’s never too late.” Markowitz began to push buttons.

Chapter 9
    G RACE WASN’T SURE WHY she’d taken Ed’s advice and waited in his house. Maybe because it was easier for her to think there, without her sister’s things around her. She needed to keep busy. Her mind always worked better when her hands were occupied. So she made herself at home while she thought through her options.
    It still seemed best to her to talk personally to the manager of Fantasy. Interviewing was one thing Grace excelled at. With a little prodding, a little pushing, she might be able to get her hands on a client list. Then she’d work down it, name by name. If her sister’s killer was on it, she’d find him.
    Then what?
    Then she’d play it by ear. That was the way she wrote. That was the way she lived. Both had been a success so far.
    Revenge was part of the motivation. She’d never felt the emotion before, but found it a satisfying one. It strengthened. To follow through meant staying in Washington. She could work here as well as anywhere. And New York would still be there when she was finished.

    If she left now, it would be like leaving a book undone and handing it to an editor. No one was going to write the last chapter but G. B. McCabe.
    It couldn’t be that hard. Grace had always felt that police work took good timing, tenacity, and thoroughness. And a pinch of luck. That’s what writing took as well. Anyone who had plotted out and solved as many murders as she had should be able to corner one killer.
    She needed the client list, the police reports, and time to think. All she had to do was get around the very sturdy frame of Detective Ed Jackson.
    Even as she was working out her strategy, she heard the front door open. He wouldn’t be easy to con, she thought as she checked her face in his bathroom mirror. And harder yet because she liked him. Rubbing a smudge off her nose, she started downstairs.
    “So you’re home.” She paused at the bottom of the steps and smiled at him. “How was your day?”
    “Okay.” He shifted a bag of groceries to his other arm. She was wearing the same snug jeans and baggy sweater she’d had on that morning, but now they were streaked with white. “What the hell have you been doing?”
    “Wallpapering your bathroom.” She moved to him and took the bag. “It looks great. You’ve got an eye for color.”
    “You wallpapered my bathroom?”
    “Don’t look stricken. I didn’t mess it up. The wallpaper, that is. The bathroom’s a wreck. I figured it was only fair you clean it up.” She gave him an easy smile. “You had half a roll left over.”
    “Yeah. Ah, Grace, I appreciate it, but wallpapering takes a certain skill.” He should know, he’d been reading up on it for a week.

    “You pop a line, you measure, you slap on the paste and go for it. You had a couple of how- to books hanging around.” She poked into the bag but didn’t see anything exciting. “Go on up and take a look. By the way, I ate the rest of your strawberries.”
    “That’s okay.” He was too busy calculating just how much the wallpaper and paste had cost him.
    “Oh, and mineral water’s okay, but you could use some sodas.”
    He started upstairs, half-afraid to look. “I don’t drink them.”
    “I do, but I had a beer instead. Oh, I almost forgot, your mother called.”
    He paused halfway up. “She did?”
    “Yeah. She’s a nice lady. And she was just delighted when I answered. I hope you don’t mind, I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I said we were lovers and that we were thinking about making it official before the baby comes.”
    Because she was smiling up at him in a way that left him uncertain whether she was stringing him along, he simply shook his head. “Thanks. Thanks a lot, Grace.”
    “Anytime. Your sister’s got a new boyfriend. He’s a lawyer. A corporate lawyer. He owns his own house and has a time-sharing condo in a place called Ocean City. It looks promising.”
    “Jesus,” was all he managed.
    “And your mother’s blood pressure is one-twenty over eighty. Want me to fix you a drink?”
    “Yeah, you do that.”
    She was humming when she walked into the kitchen. Ed really was adorable. She