Got Your Number

to her."
    She nodded. "Angora was a small-town beauty queen and carried herself as if she were better than everyone else. If truth be told, though, she was one of the most insecure people I ever met."
    "But capable of running down a girl who was tormenting her?"
    She sighed. "Maybe. Angora has a way of blocking out things—I guess that's her coping mechanism. You talked to her mother, I'm sure you can imagine what her childhood was like."
    He nodded.
    "Anyway, I remember the night we went to Tammy's memorial service. Everyone was upset, but Angora was inconsolable. We were living together in a dorm at the time, and I was worried about her state of mind."
    "Did she ever talk about the accident?"
    "Not then. I didn't know the Paulen girl was hassling her. But the night we spent at my father's she made some curious comments about the incident, and the other day she told me that Tammy knew she was a virgin and wanted to give Angora to her brother as a birthday gift."
    He grimaced.
    "Sick, huh? Anyway, then Angora said something about Tammy 'getting hers,' and she had this strange, faraway expression. She just zones out sometimes."
    "So that was what you were holding back at the station?"
    "You could tell?"
    "I knew something was bothering you. What was your cousin's relationship with Seger?"
    She closed her eyes briefly— was , as in past tense. "She was infatuated with him, like everyone else, although I didn't realize it. After being jilted at the altar, she was hell-bent on losing her virginity. I guess she picked Carl."
    He lifted his eyebrow. "She's a virgin?"
    A tiny sliver of jealousy cut through her at the tone of his voice. She remembered the way he'd looked at Angora. "Yes."
    He pursed his mouth. "Does that particular characteristic run in the family, too?"
    "You are so out of line."
    One side of his mouth climbed. "Oh, so Miss Principled and Uptight is human, after all."
    Roxann spoke through clenched teeth. "Just when I think you might be tolerable, you blow it by opening your mouth."
    "I have to grow on a person."
    "Like fungus?" She stood and stalked over to the receptionist's desk. "Can you give me an update on Angora Ryder, please?"
    The moon-faced woman looked at her suspiciously. "Is she the lady the police brought in?"
    "Yes, but she's not under arrest."
    "Just a moment." The woman picked up the phone and lazily punched in a number, punctuating every movement with a sigh. Roxann wanted to strangle her, then quickly amended her thought in light of the circumstances. Poor Carl. God, what a mess they'd stepped into—maybe even created, although she couldn't quite get her mind around the idea of Angora murdering Carl. Still, his handprints were on her neck, so even if he hadn't planned to hurt her, he might have triggered a violent response in her.
    She'd give anything to have stayed in Biloxi after the break-in, maybe hid out in a hotel. Instead, she'd allowed that message on her computer to unleash old worries that had hovered just under the surface for years. What was the saying about liars—their punishment was not that they couldn't be believed, but that they couldn't believe anyone else. The deception that she and Angora had created years ago had affected them both more than they could ever have imagined, shaping relationships with people they should have been close to, but couldn't be.
    Roxann turned her head and looked at Capistrano, jammed into a space half his size. A little girl with sagging pigtails walked over and handed him a doll. He smiled and pretended to have a conversation with the doll before handing it back to her. The child gave him a shy grin and galloped off.
    His smile lingered even after he made eye contact with Roxann across the room. She expected him to be embarrassed that she'd caught him in such an unguarded moment, but he didn't look away. In fact, his gaze traveled down her body in a leisurely fashion, combing over the clothes he'd loaned her to replace the ones the police sealed in a plastic bag. Beneath the huge white dress shirt and cavernous sweatpants, her skin tingled, as if she had donned his clothes the morning after a night of scrupulous lovemaking.
    It was the stress, the proximity, and the deprivation. Why else would she be experiencing a sudden physical attraction to a hulking detective who was only hanging around because he expected her to eventually betray the whereabouts of his witness? He completed his inspection of her assets and met her gaze again in