Fair Game Read Online Free Page B

from asking the questions that would open the line of discussion that was sure to end in one of them decking the other. Instead, he slapped the folder on the table. “Great. Shall we get started?”
    “Let’s.” Tucker yanked out the chair on his side of the table.
    Elliot sat again and opened the file. That was for show. No way could he sit here calmly reading while Tucker did his best to raze him to ashes with those blue laser beams.
    He made a pretense of turning pages, though, not least because he knew it was pissing Tucker off.
    The ironic part was that Tucker seemed to believe he had cause for anger. As though he were somehow the wronged party.
    After about forty seconds of scraping pages, Tucker said in that same too-even tone, “So Montgomery set this up?”
    “‘Set this up?’” Elliot repeated, some of his own hostility slipping through despite his efforts. “You’re the special agent in charge of the case and I’m the consultant the family has brought in. Is there some reason you’d decline to cooperate with me?”
    Like he didn’t know.
    “I don’t like working with outsiders.”
    The brutality of that caught Elliot on the raw, but he managed to say pleasantly, “Still the same loveable asshole, I see.”
    There might have been a faint tinge of red in Tucker’s face, though it was hard to tell beneath the freckles. He repositioned his chair and without further ado brought Elliot up to speed on the case. It was a brisk and concise accounting.
    Elliot listened without interrupting.
    The facts of the case boiled down to depressingly little. On the night of October 1, Terry Baker had been studying in Kingman Library on the PSU campus. He had checked out a book on Renaissance philosophy at eleven-thirty, left the library and hadn’t been seen since. Somewhere between the library and his dorm, Baker had vanished. His car had never left the student parking lot. There was no sign of foul play. No one, other than the librarian who had checked his book out, even remembered seeing him. According to his roommate, Baker had seemed “like always.”
    “What was ‘like always’?” Elliot questioned, glancing up to find Tucker staring at him.
    “Quiet. Serious. Polite. He was liked well enough, but I wasn’t able to identify anyone who considered him a close friend.”
    “That seems to support what his mother said. Baker was gay. Were you aware of that?”
    Tucker’s gaze sharpened. “I had my suspicions. We didn’t turn up anything conclusive.”
    “He came out last summer. Tom Baker had major problems with it. He and Pauline chose to keep that piece of information to themselves.”
    “That supports our theory that the kid walked.”
    “Literally,” Elliot retorted. “I think if he’d left voluntarily, he’d at least take his car.”
    “Maybe someone else drove.”
    “I don’t think s—”
    “ You don’t think so?” Tucker’s tone was edged with barely restrained hostility. “You’ve been on the case for five fucking minutes. What do you think happened? He was kidnapped? I know it’s been a while, but even you should remember how rarely adult males are kidnapped from college campuses.”
    Elliot flicked him a cool glance. “I was thinking more along the lines that he might have capped himself.”
    Tucker sat back in his chair. “Maybe. If I had to spend a semester reading Renaissance philosophy, I’d cap myself. But where’s the body?”
    Elliot drummed his fingers on the table, thinking. He shook his head.
    “Yeah, that’s the problem.” Tucker added grudgingly, “Baker Senior’s disapproval does change the dynamic, I’ll give you that.”
    “There’s a boyfriend. That adds another suspect to the mix. And a potential motive in addition to the father’s disapproval.”
    “A boyfriend?” Tucker expelled an impatient breath. “Fucking A. That’s two weeks’ worth of investigation—” He caught himself.
    “Yeah,” Elliot said neutrally. He understood and he did