The Girl With No Name

Chapter Fifty-Five

Josie’s next call was to Diana Sweeney. She told her what she was looking for and waited for Diana to tell her to go to hell. Instead, Diana readily agreed to help and took down Trinity Payne’s cell phone number. After hanging up, Josie checked the text notifications that had come in while she was talking with Sweeney. The messages were from Noah. ‘Bringing Rowland in now, but you should know he was having lunch with the mayor when we picked him up.’

Josie groaned and the thumping in her head grew worse. A quick look through her desk drawer turned up some ibuprofen which she swallowed dry before heading down to the conference room. Tension knotted her shoulder blades as she emerged from the stairwell and found Tara Charleston pacing in front of the conference room door, her four-inch black heels tapping a frenzied beat on the tile. Spotting Josie, she strode over and, for just a second, Josie thought she might slap her.

“Are you out of your mind?” Tara railed, color high on her cheeks. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“I needed a word with Mr. Rowland,” Josie said, folding her arms over her chest.

“So you had him picked up like a common criminal? You sent a uniformed officer?”

“They didn’t cuff him, did they?” Josie asked.

Tara bristled. “Well, no, because Mr. Rowland is a gentleman, and he was gracious enough to go with your officers immediately. That’s not the point. You are dangerously close to being removed as chief. Dangerously close.”

“You’re going to remove me for doing my job?”

Tara poked Josie’s shoulder with one of her long fingernails. “Your job? This is how you do your job? First Eric Dunn is killed, and now you’ve had Peter Rowland dragged in here to answer questions—about what? What could you possibly need from him that you couldn’t ask him in a more discreet manner? It’s bad enough you’ve left me handling the Dunn nightmare on my own. Now this.”

“Nightmare?” Josie said.

Tara made a sound of frustration. “You don’t think having Eric Dunn killed in our city is a nightmare of epic proportions? His mother’s lawyer has already contacted me about liability.”

Josie laughed. “Liability? Please. He was on his own work site. He blatantly disregarded safety standards on the construction site, which made it easier for someone to walk onto the premises and compromise the integrity of the building. Let the city solicitor handle it.”

“Oh sure,” Tara replied. “As though it’s that easy. The press is all over this, and I’m not sure this is something I can spin.”

“Don’t you have a press liaison?” Josie asked, feeling more irritated by the second. Tara just wanted someone to complain to, and Josie really didn’t have time to be her sounding board. “Look, I need to speak to Mr. Rowland.”

“You speak to him, and you let him go, and you’d better hope that I can smooth things over with him. If I can’t, you’re finished in this town.”