Better Than Gold by Mary Brady Page B

than she had when he’d arrived in answer to Chief Montcalm’s summons and then she gave Mia a look that Mia reacted to by pursing her lips and shaking her head.
    Daniel thought he might like the people of this town.
    Florescent light fixtures lined the dingy ceiling of the basement hallway. The walls were an institutional shade of green tiles. Scuffed black and old white linoleum covered the floor.
    “Thanks, Melissa,” Mia said as she inserted a key into the lock of a door labeled No Admittance and reached in to turn on the lights.
    Melissa craned around Mia to see into the room and was clearly disappointed by what she saw. The twelve-by-ten-foot room had the same green walls and black-and-white tile as the hallway, though the room’s floor tiles were brighter.
    One small table with two chairs sat to the right of the door. On the table were two pads of paper, a pair of sharpened pencils, a magnifying glass and two boxes of gloves, one large and one small, and a gooseneck lamp. A floor lamp stood across the room near several stacked plastic boxes. “We can take it from here, Melissa, and thank you,” Daniel said to the lingering secretary.
    Melissa’s smile drooped but she tossed her red hair and sauntered away. He got the feeling people often acquiesced to what she wanted.
    “Would it bother you if we closed the door?” Daniel asked, even though being closed in a room with Mia Parker might not be the best idea.
    “She’ll find a reason to come back, you know, and she’ll probably tell everyone we’re down here. Fairly soon we can expect a parade of the curious.” Mia stepped around him, looked directly at him, a challenge he thought, as she closed the door and turned the lock.
    Her expression made him suspect this woman was keeping her fires banked and waiting in case she needed to run ahead of a storm, whatever storm these records could bring. The chief seemed to know her well, to trust her.
    She continued to study his face, as if trying to figure him out. He let his gaze wander. The way her wavy, light brown hair fell on her shoulders, it seemed to beg to be picked up by the handful and pushed back away from her face, so her jaw, her ear, her neck could be kissed.
    “How much does the chief know about me by now?” he asked to make his mind go someplace besides kissing Mia Parker.
    She nodded and smiled. “You’re very quick, Dr. MacCarey. You are right to think he knows. He knows everything from public sources, private sources and a few sources you won’t even think of. Scary, huh?”
    “A bit intimidating.”
    “He does what he needs to do to help keep the citizens of the town safe, like having us examine these records even though they are his and his alone.” She moved over to the table and chairs. “I suspect he chose you and me because we have a stake in not blabbing what we find to anyone who will listen.”
    “I promise not to blab.”
    She grinned with the tip of her pink tongue between her white teeth and he wondered if she knew what that did to him.
    “Mock me if you must,” she said, “but the chief knows everything. Though, he won’t share his information—unless necessary.”
    “I’m reassured.”
    She made him want to smile. This made it even worse that he had to tell her his boss had ordered more limitations on the site. “Before we start, I need to say something.”
    “Will it make me ecstatically happy?”
    “No.”
    “Do I need to know it right now?”
    “Also no.”
    “Would you be so kind as to tell me later?”
    When he nodded, she asked, “Do you have any preferences on how we do these records?”
    As she spoke, she removed her coat and placed it on the back of a chair. The dark blue, long-sleeved T-shirt she wore clung to her thin shoulders and small waist, and her jeans snugged against her hips. The gold chain lay against her neck and he had to force himself not to step forward and touch her where it lay.
    Now he wondered if he needed to open the door no matter