Bannon Brothers by Janet Dailey Page A

seems obvious.” She waited next to him while his coffee was poured. “Are you back on duty?”
    â€œNot yet. Which is probably just as well since they’d more than likely restrict me to desk duty and I’d hate it.” With his coffee delivered, he gestured to an empty table. “Do you have time to sit and drink that?”
    After the smallest of hesitations, she smiled easily. “I can steal a few minutes.”
    â€œGood.” He guided her to the table.
    Once seated, she ran a thoughtful look over his face. “I don’t know if anyone told you or not, but I went to the hospital to see you a day or two after the shooting. But at the time, they were only allowing immediate family members in to see you. I stopped again a week or so later, and you’d already been released.”
    â€œI’m sure someone mentioned it to me, but as drugged as I was, I don’t even remember my family being there.”
    â€œI understand. I’m just glad that you’ve fully recovered—or almost.”
    She meant that. Bannon could tell. And he also believed that she had come to see him back then out of genuine concern for his wellbeing. But he also knew she’d probably been hoping she could talk him into an exclusive interview.
    While wasting a couple of minutes on idle chitchat, Bannon acknowledged to himself that she was still beautiful, intelligent, and very easy to talk to—all things that had originally drawn him to ask her out those many months ago. But when he compared her with Erin, even though he had just met her, Kelly came up lacking on many levels. It was an observation he wanted to explore. Then he caught her glance at her wristwatch and knew he was running out of time.
    â€œSo, what story are you heading off to track down this morning?” he asked, then held up a silencing hand. “I’ll bet you’re going to try to dig up a fresh angle on the Montgomery case.”
    â€œMontgomery. You mean—Hugh Montgomery?”
    He could almost see all her antennae go out, and worked to hide a satisfied smile. “The one and only.”
    â€œOh. Right. Just to be sure we’re on the same page, which case are you talking about? His name’s been mentioned in a couple of financial investigations that didn’t go anywhere.” She was careful to show only a mild interest.
    â€œHis daughter’s abduction. Either this week or next, it will be twenty-odd years ago that it happened. I just assumed your station would run a feature on it to mark the occasion. After all, it has all the hooks—a wealthy old Virginia family, beautiful little daughter missing, a two-million-dollar reward for her safe return.”
    â€œOf course. You know we will,” Kelly assured him. “A juicy cold case report always boosts the ratings. We run them on our website for days sometimes.” She paused—deliberately, Bannon thought. “It was before my time, but we recycle a lot of stories. I’m trying to remember.” A thoughtful little crease marred her smooth forehead. “The police never had much to go on, did they? No blood-soaked little dress or anything like that?”
    â€œNot that I know about.”
    â€œToo bad. I know it sounds sick, but our viewers seem to like those gory visuals.”
    â€œNot surprising when you consider the popularity of horror movies. Anyway—” Bannon gave a small shrug. “I’m sure you can dig up a ton of still pictures of the little girl and old footage out of the station’s image bank. Combine that with a computer-generated picture of what the girl might look like today, and you’d have a good feature.”
    â€œMmmm.” She made a vaguely agreeing sound that sounded far from happy. “But that wouldn’t be much different from any other station. Unless—” She stared at him for a long second. “I have an idea. Excuse me, I need to make a quick