Surprised at first, Melanie looked him up and down, but didn’t offer any resistance and let him drag her off. “Do we know each other?”
“No.”
“So what do you want with me?”
She really was skinny.
“I want to talk to you about the burglary last night.”
“I might have known it!”
Melanie grabbed a drink from a passing waiter and knocked it back in one go. It was obviously not her first.
“I wanted to question you this morning, but your father told me you were in a state of shock after what had happened.”
“Really?” She didn’t seem to give a damn.
Osborne turned to look back at the buffet: the crowd was dense and Melrose too busy to notice what they were doing.
“Do you know who the hatchet stolen last night belonged to?” he asked.
“Haven’t a clue!”
“I gather you don’t share your father’s passion for the history of this country?”
“You can say that again!” She gave a wicked laugh.
“Do you have an apartment in the city?”
“No,” she said immediately. “I still live in my parents’ house. Is that the kind of dumb question you’re going to ask me?”
She may have looked like a skeleton, but she was one tough cookie.
“And do you still have your keys?”
“What do you mean?”
“You haven’t lost them?”
“No, why?”
He was still holding her by the elbow. She tottered slightly, and caught hold of him.
“There wasn’t any sign of a break-in,” he said.
“That’s your problem, not mine,” Melanie said, grabbing another drink. Her nails were chewed down to the bone.
“You’re going to be completely drunk if you carry on like that.”
A nasty look came into her tortured eyes. “Are all cops as boring as you?”
“Yes! Anyway, you’re quite skinny, the champagne isn’t great and you’re drinking it like water. You won’t be able to keep going like this. Things are going to end badly.”
Melanie glared at him. She didn’t eat anymore, or only in order to vomit, but that was nobody’s business, especially not this man who seemed to know everything about her. With adolescent defiance, Melanie swallowed the champagne in one gulp. “Oh, yes? And what makes you think that?”
“The way your father looks at you.”
“What’s wrong with the way my father looks at me?” Only five foot two, she looked him up and down. “Do you think I’m just a little girl?”
Osborne looked down at her meager cleavage. “Follow me.” Grabbing hold of her scrawny frame, he pulled her toward the toilets.
“Where are you taking me?” she said, clinging to him. “I warn you, my father isn’t going to like this! Not one bit!”
Melanie was getting hysterical. They reached the ladies’ toilet, which fortunately was empty. Osborne pushed Melanie into one of the cubicles.
She burst out laughing. “You didn’t tell me you were a girl!”
He closed the door behind him.
Amelia was standing some distance from the buffet, a glimmer of disappointment in her pretty blue eyes. Tom had gone to get her a drink but she wasn’t thirsty, and certainly didn’t feel like drinking. From a distance, she had watched Osborne’s performance with that scraggy little whore, and when she saw him drag her to the toilets her blood had turned to bleach—an expression of her grandmother’s that usually made her laugh. Not tonight. Amelia shook herself. Was she jealous? How sad was that? The thought of it made her face turn pale under the spotlights.
“Something wrong?” came a voice from behind her.
She jumped. Gallagher was looking down at her, all six feet two of him. Although she wasn’t quite sure why, the man always sent shivers down her spine. The way he looked at you, maybe, or rather, the way he looked through you.
“No,” she replied, trying hard to appear natural. “Why?”
