St Kilda Consulting 01 - Always Time to Die

flee. “Now who’s sneaking up?”
    Carly froze at the foot of the stairs and told herself she wouldn’t back up no matter how fierce Dan looked. “Sorry. The door up there was open because they needed paper and Gus told me you were in the archives so I thought it would be all right if I went through more microfilm.”
    Dan sorted through the tumble of words. “Go ahead. Is Winifred feeling better?”
    “I guess so.”
    “Haven’t you seen her today?”
    “Yes. This morning.” Carly hesitated. She wanted to talk to someone about Governor Quintrell’s threat—promise, actually—but didn’t know if Dan was the one.
    Then there was the phone call. She didn’t want to talk about that. Her stomach pitched even thinking about it.
    “What’s wrong?” Dan said, coming toward her quickly. “Another dead rat?”
    “What? Oh. Um, no, not exactly.” A screaming phone call isn’t a dead rat, is it?
    “How close to exactly was it?” he asked.
    She grimaced. “Someone called in the middle of the night.”
    Dan went still. “And?”
    “Breathing, screaming, sobbing, and an invitation to get out of town before I joined the chorus.”
    “Not good. Male or female?”
    She shrugged. “Whispers and screams and sobs aren’t real gender-specific.”
    “Why didn’t you call me?”
    “To whisper, sob, and scream?” Her smile was as pale as her skin. She didn’t like remembering the screams. She really didn’t like to think about what might have caused them.
    “That room doesn’t have a lock on it,” he said grimly. “You should have called.”
    “I shoved a chair under the door.”
    He let out a breath. “Well, you aren’t entirely naïve.”
    “Gee, thanks, but if getting used to threats and gory rats passes for sophistication in your circles, then I’ll be as naïve as I can for as long as I can.”
    He smiled slightly and touched the strand of hair she was winding around her index finger. “Did you get the number of your admirer?”
    She let go of her hair as if it had burned her. “Automatically recording an incoming number isn’t on that phone’s agenda. It doesn’t even have numbers on it. Incoming calls only.”
    He shook his head. “Keep your cell phone handy.”
    “I always do.” Her hand crept back up to the strand of hair and started winding it again.
    “What else happened?”
    She blinked. “Am I that transparent?”
    Dan didn’t want a conversation about how he arrived at conclusions when other people were still wondering what hit them, so he just waited.
    “Can you think of any reason Governor Quintrell wouldn’t want a family history published?” Carly asked after a few moments.
    Dan laughed without humor. “Oh, yeah. I can think of a few beauts.”
    “Are we talking statute of limitations here, legal issues?”
    “Best estimate? Yes.”
    “The Senator?”
    “His life was a scandalmonger’s dream, but that’s old news. He’s dead.”
    “That’s what I was wondering,” she admitted. “You can’t, uh, slander or libel a dead man, can you? Even a public figure?”
    “Nope. Especially a public figure.”
    “What about a living public figure?”
    “That’s a lot trickier.”
    “I was afraid of that. Well, damn. ”
    Dan waited for Carly to tell him what was wrong. Instead, she stopped twisting the strand of hair, went to the microfilm files, selected a roll, and walked to the reader. As much as he enjoyed watching the sway of her denim-clad hips beneath the hem of her Chimayo jacket, he’d rather she kept talking.
    He knew trouble was coming down on one Carolina May. He just didn’t know what or where or when.
    And sometime during his long, restless night, he’d realized that he wasn’t going to let her face it alone. When it started raining shit, he’d be there to help her. He didn’t like that fact, but he knew himself well enough to stop struggling and make the best of a situation he’d never asked for.
    The temptation of finally doing some of the things with her that he’d stayed awake thinking about had helped make up his mind to aid her. Or at least sweetened the prospects quite a bit. Which meant a change of tactics was in order.
    “So the governor told you to back off,” Dan said.
    Her head snapped up. “How did you know?”
    “Your questions and body language, the combination of anger and worry in those beautiful, smoky gold eyes.”
    Carly wondered if her chin hit the desk or if it just felt like it. The words and the caressing tone