“I have a few more questions about the man who attacked you,” he said instead.
The flash of disappointment in her blue eyes was unmistakable. As was the glint of determination that followed. She wouldn’t be letting the subject of the locket go without a fight. “Okay.” She was back to stroking the little dog. “Go ahead.”
“Did he have any physical characteristics that stand out in your mind? Any scars that were visible through the nylon, perhaps?”
She shook her head. “No. None that I could see.”
“What about on his body? Any markings? Tattoos?”
Her brow arched. “Tattoos? Not that I saw. I didn’t see any of his skin. He wore a padded jacket. Like a ski jacket. It must have been open at the throat because I was able to reach the chain around his neck.” She stared at the hand that petted the dog and frowned, running her thumb over the pads of her fingers. “I didn’t feel any chest hair when I touched him. When I scratched him.”
Gideon hoped she’d hurt him. Badly. He hoped the skin they’d scraped from under her nails led to a DNA match. He hoped that the man’s balls still ached all these hours later.
“Did your father teach you to fight like that?” he asked, startling himself because it wasn’t the question he’d intended to ask.
She looked up at him, blinked once, then nodded. “He’ll be annoyed that I didn’t take the bastard to his knees. When he finds out.” She looked at Rafe. “I don’t suppose your mother can keep that secret from him. Can she?” she added hopefully.
Rafe ruefully shook his head. “I think she called him on her way to the ER.”
“So he’ll be here tomorrow,” she said with a sigh. “Fabulous.”
Erin Rhee had gone still. The woman was normally quiet, although she could move incredibly fast when she needed to, according to Rafe. But most of the time she had this unflappable calm that was kind of eerie. At this moment, though, she was ominously still.
“What will he do when he gets here?” she asked Daisy, and her subtext was loud and clear even though he’d had to strain to hear her voice.
Daisy must have heard it, too, because she turned to Erin with a smile. “Nothing bad. He never, ever physically hurt us. Ever. He’ll just . . . fuss over me. And then he’ll insist I move to Maryland to live near him. And when I refuse, he’ll hire Jacob to follow me again.”
Erin nodded once. “All right. I just needed to make sure.”
“And I appreciate it,” Daisy said, reaching over to pat the detective’s arm. “I really do. But you don’t need to worry about my father. Or me.”
Erin’s smile was wry. “Considering that you’re here, we do have to worry about you, wouldn’t you say?”
Daisy frowned. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” She turned to Gideon, that curious glint back in her eye, and he knew she was about to ask him about the locket again.
So he deflected. “We’ll need Jacob’s last name and phone number so that we can verify where he was tonight, since he’s followed you in the past.”
“His last name is Fogarty and his number’s in my phone. Last time I saw him, he was headed back to his parents’ ranch up past Weaverville. That was months ago, though.”
Gideon nodded. “What about work? Any issues there?”
He’d expected her to say no. He hadn’t expected her to drop her gaze back to the dog. He hadn’t expected her to draw a breath before looking up at Rafe, a guilty expression on her face.
“I didn’t think it was important,” she whispered.
Rafe’s confused gaze flicked from Gideon to Erin, then back to Daisy. “You didn’t think what was important?” he asked carefully.
Daisy was stroking the dog so fiercely it was a wonder the poor thing had any hair left. “I’ve gotten a few calls,” she admitted. “And e-mails. Tad said to ignore them. That he gets stuff like that all the time. I was handling it.”
“Who is Tad?” Gideon asked.
“And what kind of stuff?” Erin added.
“Tad is my cohost,” Daisy said. “At the radio station. KZAU. I work the morning show—you know, The Big Bang with TNT. That’s Tad.”
Oh. Now Gideon remembered where he’d heard her voice. He listened to The Big Bang with TNT on his way to work every morning. Mostly because of their new DJ. Which would be Daisy. Except she didn’t go by that name on the air. “You’re Poppy Frederick.”
“That would be me,” she said. “My father’s name is Frederick. His pet name for my mom was Poppy.”
That made sense. Rafe’s father, Karl, owned a number of businesses, most of them making money hand over fist. The radio station was the exception. Gideon knew it was perpetually in the red because Irina was always chiding Karl to sell it. Then the two would smile at each other because they knew Karl never would. It had been his first business and where he’d met Irina.
KZAU held sentimental value, pure and simple. That Daisy worked there was no surprise. Irina had told Gideon this when she’d first started singing him the praises of the “cute little blonde,” the daughter of one of Karl’s oldest friends.
Karl gave jobs to a lot of people starting out. Gideon’s first paycheck had come from Karl Sokolov’s radio station, as a matter of fact, and for that he’d always be grateful. That Daisy worked the morning show was a bit of a surprise, however.
“I thought you did sales,” Gideon said, because that was what Irina had told him.
“I did at first. But . . .” She shrugged. “Right place, right time.”
“Not true,” Rafe said. “Daisy was doing the vocals for some of the ads and the station manager liked what he heard. The old cohost had to take emergency sick leave about three months ago and Daisy’s been filling in. Ratings have never been higher.”
He didn’t doubt it. He’d tuned in just to hear her more mornings than he cared to admit. Her husky, sexy voice was perfect for radio. That she’d garnered unwanted attention was an unpleasant corollary.
“What kind of calls and e-mails?” Gideon asked.
Another shrug. “Just the normal, I guess. ‘You make me hot. You sound so sexy. Let me take you home with me. Meet me for drinks.’” She rattled them off quickly, her cheeks growing flushed. “Some were a bit more explicit.”
Gideon had to bite his tongue against a sudden surge of fury. He had no reason to be so angry on her behalf. She was nothing to him, just an acquaintance. Still, no one deserved to be the recipient of sexual harassment. Daisy had not initiated any of it. The morning show was not sexual in any way. It was drive-time morning banter, family friendly. Karl insisted on it.