“Yep. It’s not him.” Ford watched as she shut the car door. “And I think you left your jaw on the steps back there.”
“Oh, was he attractive?” she asked faux innocently. “I hadn’t noticed.”
He grunted as they drove off, muttering something about her walking to Peter Sutter Number Two’s house.
It was their final stop of the evening, a garden-level condo in Lakeview. Victoria waited at the front door, ringing the bell three times for good measure, and then finally gave up.
Still, both she and Ford were in a good mood as they headed back to their building, having narrowed down the field of contenders to eight. “Do you plan to circle back to the three guys we missed today?”
He nodded. “At least for the two no-shows. I’m thinking we wait until Saturday—maybe we’ll have better luck on the weekend.”
“‘We’ll’?” she repeated. “As in, you and me?”
“Yes, you and me.” He looked over while driving. “Come on. Tell me you aren’t curious to find this guy. I see the gleam in your eye every time we pull up in front of a new place.”
Okay, fine. So she’d gotten sucked into the Mystery of the Missing Baby-Daddy. “Maybe I am a little curious. It’s a different kind of case for me. Normally, I see families as they’re falling apart. I’ve never had the chance to bring one together before.”
“Wow. That is an unexpectedly beautiful way to describe what we’re doing here, Victoria.”
“Go away.”
He laughed, then cocked his head. “I couldn’t do what you do. Seeing families fall apart, as you put it. It’s too depressing.”
“Divorce isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, a lot of times, it’s the end of a bad thing. Besides, it’s not like your job is all sunshine and rainbows. That piece you wrote, about the teenage girl who was killed by that guy on parole? That was depressing.”
He shot her a sly look. “You’ve been reading my stuff.”
“I read the Tribune. Your stuff happens to be in there.”
“Hmm.” He pulled to a stop at a red light and looked over. “Have you had dinner? I was going to order a pizza, if you want to join me.”
She could say no, obviously. She could go home to her empty loft, the same as she did every night, pour herself a glass of wine, and settle in with her book and her bath and have a nice, quiet evening.
Or she could choose door number two, an evening with the irritating-but-occasionally-funny-and-not-entirely-intolerable man who’d actually made her moan on her doorstep the other night from just a kiss.
“My treat, for helping me out today,” he added, with a smile.
Well, a girl did have to eat.
* * *
A SHORT WHILE later, Victoria sat with one leg tucked underneath her at Ford’s reclaimed-wood table, eating pizza and drinking a double-oaked bourbon on the rocks.
“So I’ve been thinking about those five Peter Sutters who live in condos and apartments without an exterior front door,” she said.
“You really are getting into the Mystery of the Missing Baby-Daddy. Is this a ‘Victoria Slade always gets her man’ kind of thing?”
She smiled. “Exactly.”
“Not even going to pretend to be modest there, are you?”
“Anyway, after today, I was thinking that we don’t necessarily have to get their photographs on the first pass. There are bound to be other guys, like Peter Sutter Numbers Six and Eleven, who don’t even meet the general description we have. Why don’t I just try the package-delivery ruse with them, too? I could say I live in the building, and that the envelope was delivered to the wrong floor. Sure, you won’t be able to snap a photo right there in the hallway, but maybe we can eliminate a couple of these guys on our own, just on sight.”
He grabbed another slice of pizza. “I’d been thinking along those same lines. But the problem is, those types of buildings are likely to have a doorman or a security desk—and if that’s the case, we wouldn’t get past the first floor. Not to mention, in a large condo building, there’s usually a mailroom or someplace where the residents go to pick up their packages.”
She sat back, discouraged. “That’s true.”
“But, I was thinking I could try to bribe a doorman. Slip him fifty bucks and tell him that I’m a reporter from the Trib trying to track down a Peter Sutter for a story. Then I ask if he can at least tell me whether the Sutter who lives there is Caucasian with brown hair.” He flashed her a wicked grin. “You’re welcome to tag along. Maybe watching me flash my press ID will inspire a few more of those hot-reporter fantasies of yours.”
“Been waiting for a chance to sneak that in again, have you?”
“A whole week.”
Her lips curved up when she saw him studying her with those keen reporter eyes. “You’re about to be nosy again, aren’t you?”
“Did you know in law school that you wanted to be a family lawyer?”
“I had a pretty good idea that’s what I wanted to do, yes.”
“Because of your parents’ divorce?”
“Because I knew I’d be good at it.”
His knowing look said he hadn’t missed the fact that she’d dodged that question. “How old were you when they got divorced?”
“You know, I’ve taken depositions that didn’t involve this many questions.” She took a sip of her bourbon. “I was ten.”
“Was it just you and your parents?”
“At the time it was just me. Now I have two half sisters, the older of whom was born seven months after my parents separated.”
“Ah. So that’s why . . . ?”
“Yep, that’s why. My father had an affair, then married the other woman when she got pregnant.”
“Are you close to your half sisters?”
She felt a pang of something that stung, but quickly covered it. “Actually, I’ve never even met them. After my parents got divorced, my dad moved his new family to Miami, where he’d grown up. My grandfather and several of my aunts and uncles on my father’s side are very active in the Cuban political community. I think my dad had wanted to get back there for years.”
Ford cocked his head. “Slade doesn’t strike me as a particularly Cuban name.”