by Maria Luis
Royally screwed.
Jade carefully picked a spot on the gazebo bench and took a seat, adopting a neutral expression. Her new position put her diagonal to Shawna Zeker. If she peered hard enough, she could make out the stress lines fanning her mouth and the dark circles beneath her eyes.
“Thanks for meeting me,” she said, choosing to ignore the other woman’s inflammatory comment. Feeding into the woman’s anger wouldn’t help her any. “I won’t take up too much of your time.”
“You cops have done that already,” Shawna clipped out icily, “when y’all threw me into jail like a common criminal.”
Perhaps this wasn’t the best time to admit that Jade was no police officer.
She subtly pushed the duffel bag against the wall of the bench, hiding her department’s logo.
“Right.” Jade coughed into a closed fist. “I asked you here today to ask you some questions.”
Shawna rolled her eyes. “No, I did not murder my husband. Did you not see the DNA report?”
Lifting a hand, palm out, Jade tried to redirect the conversation back to where she needed it. “I’m not asking about the DNA report.” From within her duffel she withdrew a sheet of paper. She held it out and waited for Shawna Zeker to take it.
Moments passed in a quiet stalemate. Then, with a huff, the other woman snapped it from Jade’s grasp and smoothed it out across her knee. Angry brown eyes jumped up to her face. “This is—”
“I need information on Miranda Smiley, who is also claiming to be ‘Mrs. Zeker,’ and who has said that you and Charlie have been divorced for three or four years now.”
The sheet of paper crumpled in Shawna’s hand. “That little bitch.”
Gracias al cielo that Jade had had the foresight to make photocopies of the marriage documents from Heavenly Met. She didn’t even bother to try and pry the sheet from the blonde’s grip.
Heart threatening to leap right out of her chest, Jade feigned a nonchalance she certainly didn’t feel. “Were you aware they’d married?”
“He couldn’t possibly have married her when he was married to me,” Shawna spat out with all the defensive air of a possible liar. “Charlie would not have done that.”
“I don’t know what Charlie would have done.” Jade said this slowly, testing the waters of just how far she could push Shawna Zeker for the truth without making her snap. “But I can tell you that the marriage license you’re holding is real, though if the two of you had divorced by then . . . ”
“We are not divorced.”
If that was the case, then Jade felt incredibly bad for the woman. But if she were right and Miranda Smiley had orchestrated the entire wedding, well, then perhaps Charlie Zeker had not been so awful of a husband.
Except for the fact that he was the father of Miranda’s three children, so clearly adultery had been a rather, erm, repetitive issue.
“Miranda Smiley said that you two have known each other for years.”
Not surprisingly, Shawna’s expression turned cold. “You could say that.”
“Would you say that the two of you were ever friends?” She paused, sucking in a deep breath. “Would you say that you knew each other well enough that she might have a key to your mother’s house?”
“A key to my mother’s house?” Shawna echoed, brows pulling low.
Jade’s heart rate doubled, it felt like, threatening to explode from her chest. “When your mother’s home was broken into, was it likely, maybe, that Miranda Smiley might have been the one to enter? Maybe she needed, or wanted, to take something that she felt belonged to her?”
Aside from the chirping birds, silence descended over the gazebo. Then, “She wouldn’t have had a key—unless she stole it, which is possible. We were mortal enemies, but there were times when she would come by, screaming and shouting, for me to leave Charlie alone. But he was my husband. I refused to go anywhere.”
It had to have hurt, tremendously. For all of John Thomas’s faults, Jade realized that she was fortunate that infidelity had never been the issue.
The issue had been that they were just two incompatible people trying to make a relationship work.
Wanting to put a hand on Shawna’s arm in comfort, Jade stifled the urge and clamped her hands together in her lap. Now wasn’t the time to feel sympathy.
Jade tightened her ponytail, and got back down to business.
“And Charlie?” she prodded gently. “What would you say about him?”
Screwing her eyes shut, Shawna muttered, “He was a lying, cheating scumbag but I loved him so much.”
“Enough to stay with him despite the fact that he was having children with another woman?”
Shawna slid her an icy glare. “I’m still not convinced that Miranda’s kids are his, but she always refused to do a paternity test.”
Interesting. “Any supporting evidence to show that they aren’t his?”
The blond woman’s shoulders slumped. “None, just a hunch. A woman’s intuition type of thing.”
“And the marriage document you’re holding,” Jade said, reaching out to tap the crumpled paper, “your intuition is telling you that it’s not real.”
“It’s not. I know it’s not. I think I would remember getting divorced. We never even discussed it.”
Jade arched a disbelieving brow. “Never?”
“Okay,” Shawna breathed out, “fine, but it was just once or twice. We never went through with it.”
Between the two women’s differing sides of the story, Jade felt a whole lot like a ping-pong ball being bounced back and forth across a net. One said the divorce was real; the other said it wasn’t. One claimed the marriage was a sham; the other said it was real and there was documentation to prove it.
What Jade needed was a bubble bath and a glass of red wine.
But not yet.
“I need you to take a look at that paper and tell me why you think it’s not real. I can tell you that I personally photocopied it from a wedding chapel’s database, and I certainly didn’t fake it.”
With a push of her fingertips, Shawna Zeker unfolded the crumpled sheet across her knee again. For a moment, she said nothing as her gaze skimmed the printed text. Then, she spoke, and validated everything Jade had already thought.
“It’s not Charlie’s signature.”
Bingo.
Jade clamped her arms by her sides to keep from fist-bumping the air. “Are you sure of this?” she asked.
Shawna sent her an are-you-serious glare. “He was my husband. I know what his signature looked like.”
Do not get your hopes up, girl. Rein it in. A fraud signature didn’t exactly mean that Miranda Smiley had murdered Charlie Zeker, but it was certainly a step in the right direction to figuring it out. And the fact that Miranda had been known to cause a frenzy at Ms. Hansen’s house?
She couldn’t wait to tell Nathan about this.
Doing her best to sound unaffected, Jade asked, “Do you have a copy of his signature anywhere? On a bill, maybe, or a contract?”
In succinct, sharp motions, Shawna folded the sheet in half and then doubled it again into a square. “Will getting you Charlie’s signature show that I’m no suspect in his murder, once and for all?”
Jade didn’t have an answer for that. “It can’t hurt,” she hedged uneasily, going for a vague, in-between sort of answer. “It would certainly help to show that you’re aiding the case.”
Shawna released a heavy sigh. “All right, okay. I didn’t do it. I know that my mother said that I—” She cut off abruptly and coughed into her hand, sparking Jade’s interest.
“What was that?” Jade leaned forward.
Glancing away, the other woman fisted the paper in her hands. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Anyway, I have a copy of Charlie’s signature at my house. I mean, my mom’s house. I’m staying there for now.”
Jade so wanted to pry for more information. Let it happen naturally. “Can you bring me to your mom’s house now? The sooner the better.”
“No, I can’t today,” Shawna said, shaking her head. “Tomorrow, maybe.”
Maybe?
“Shawna,” Jade started, “tomorrow might be too late. If we can get a match of his signature today, then this could all be solved by tomorrow, don’t you see?”
“Not today.”
Shawna straightened off the bench, a clear-as-a-bell signal that she was about to head out. Jade scrambled to her feet, hooking her duffel over her head and across her chest in one smooth move. She stepped in the other woman’s way, blocking her exit point from the gazebo.
“Shawna,” she began again, “you providing your husband’s signature could end this. Your name could be forever cleared—isn’t that what you want?”
“What I want,” was the short reply, “is for my husband to be alive, Detective Harper. I want Miranda Smiley”—the name was ground out—“to understand that my husband loved me. She was nothing but a sidepiece. I’ll text you with the time that you can come by tomorrow or the next day and collect what you need.”
This couldn’t wait for tomorrow or the next day.
“Mrs. Zeker—”
A flash of the woman’s palm cut off Jade. “I know how this works by now. If you want to enter my mother’s house, you’ll need a search warrant. I’m cooperating with what you want but just not today. Tomorrow.”
Maybe, if Jade had been a cop, she could have slapped some handcuffs on Shawna Zeker to keep her from walking away. But she wasn’t a cop. She worked in Central Evidence Processing, and she was so far outside the normal scope of her job that she felt very much like a fish out of water.
As Shawna Zeker’s figure grew smaller as she left Audubon Park, Jade realized that she needed a plan.
No, what she needed was Nathan Danvers.
27
Carrollton, New Orleans
“How’s the problem going over there?”
Since Jade hadn’t told her older sister anything about the Zeker case, she had to assume Rita was referring to Nathan.
She shuffled her cell phone from one ear to the other as she let up on the gas to pass through a yield sign. “Who told you?”
“Mom,” Rita chirped in her ear, “who heard about him from Sammie.”
Jade snorted. “Of course she did. Why would Sammie ever to think to keep this to herself?”
“Because we’re family.”
“Then how come Mom doesn’t know about your pool boy over there in Cali?” Jade said, referring to the young twenty-something who took care of Rita’s massive pool. And, if one were being super honest, took care of Rita too, in other ways.
Rita made a hissing sound, then laughed heartily. Because that was Margarita Harper to a T—why get mad at the truth? “We aren’t seeing each other anymore.”
Oops. “I’m not sure if I should be offering my condolences right now.”
“No need, I’ve moved on, mi hermana.” There was a wistful note in Rita’s voice, as though she were imagining a very special . . . someone. Probably in bed. “He’s fantastic, by the way. A movie director.”
Jade crossed over the streetcar tracks and cut a right into her neighborhood. “Sounds fancy.”
“He is, and he’s got a great package.”
“Are we talking about his manhood or his finances?”
There was a pause on the line. “Who says ‘manhood’ anymore?”
“I do.” Actually, she didn’t, but Jade had never been as free with the sex talk like her older sister. She hadn’t even felt too comfortable with the act of sex itself until Nathan, which brought her to the fact that she desperately needed to speak with him. Before hopping on the line with Rita, she’d rung his phone twice only for it to go to voicemail.
They needed to do something about getting those signature copies from Shawna Zeker, and it had to be done soon.
Rita’s voice turned soft. “You okay, jeva? What’s wrong?”
Her hands gripped the steering wheel, hard. Sometimes she forgot amidst all the Hollywood talk about how much Rita cared. But when she called her “jeva,” the Cuban nickname for “girl,” it was a reminder that Rita always looked out for her younger siblings.
“Just stress,” she said, running a hand through her hair. She pulled into her apartment’s designated parking area and chose a spot on the far side of the lot. “I’m just . . . stressed.”
“Does it have anything to do with this problem of yours?” Rita said this quietly, but her tone was no nonsense. “Do I need to fly to Louisiana and kick his butt?”
Jade gave a warbled laugh, the kind that preceded exhausted tears. “No offense, but I think you’d have better luck if you went after him with a pair of your hair clippers.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Another pause, as though Rita were internally debating on something. “Really, jeva, do I need to come down there?”
“No! No, everything is fine. If anything, Nathan is the one thing in my life right now that seems steady.”
“That’s good. Mom wants to meet him.”
Groaning, Jade threw open the driver’s side door and grabbed her work duffel by the strap. “Mom just wants to see if he matches up to John Thomas.”
“Does he?” Rita sounded curious.
“Yes.” A thousand times more so, she added silently. “He’s great. Funny. My age. Not your type at all.”
“Ha-ha,” came her sister’s dry response, followed almost immediately by, “The movie director is older than me.”
“How old are we talking? Like, so old he needs a walking stick?”
“So old he needs the little blue pill.”
“Mom is going to be thrilled.”
“I’m kidding,” Rita said, “He’s forty. Perfect age for somebody who’s closing in on thirty-three.”
A little smile curled Jade’s mouth. “Watch out, you’re almost becoming respectable.”
Whatever else her sister would have said faded the moment Jade took the steps to her second floor apartment, turned the corner to her front door, and spotted Nathan leaning against the wall.
He was dressed in his standard work attire of black pants and a black polo. His thick hair, always combed back neatly, was sexily mussed like he’d shoved his fingers through the lengths repeatedly.
Her heart gave an unsteady thump as he kicked off the wall and sauntered toward her, his gray eyes alert and focused. He had the look of a starved man, one who knew what he wanted and would stop at nothing until he owned it, mind, body, and soul.
Did he want her?
“Jade?” her sister asked curiously, and Jade belatedly realized she still held her cell phone up to her ear.
“I’ll call you back later, Rita,” she said, hitting the red telephone button with her thumb before her sister could ask what was wrong. She set the phone on Do Not Disturb, just in case Rita called in reinforcements in the form of Lucia Margarita Harper.
She offered Nathan a bright grin. He didn’t return it, and Jade felt some of her enthusiasm die as unease settled in instead. She held her phone up. “That was just Rita checking in. Apparently Sammie told the entire family about you.”
His gray eyes, normally so expressive, were an inscrutable mask. “Your dad included?”
He sounded angry, bitter. Jade had no idea what to make of it.
Seeking a moment to gather her composure, she shouldered past the wall of man in front of her and unlocked her apartment door. “I haven’t heard from my dad”—to be fair, Kevin Harper wasn’t one for phones or social media—“but I’m sure Sammie told him, too.”
She heard his heavy boots enter the apartment behind her. From her periphery, she watched him toe off his shoes before entering the living room, just like always. She’d never told him before about her penchant for a clean house, but he knew anyway.
When it came to her, he seemed to pick up on the unspoken clues she left behind and readjusted to them accordingly.
It was one of the things she loved most about him.
Jade paused
as the word settled in her brain. Love. So obscure, so vague—what had Sammie told her before? That she’d know love instantaneously because she’d spent years with John Thomas secretly wanting it but never knowing it firsthand?
Swallowing, she turned to face Nathan full-on. He’d moved into the kitchen, grabbing two glasses from her cabinets and filling them with filtered tap water from the fridge. He looked right at home, and, Díos mío, she liked him here. With her.
She loved him.
Jade accepted the glass of water with a shaky hand. “Thanks,” she said, taking a quick sip before cupping her hands around the glass. “I actually called you earlier. I know it wasn’t exactly my place, but I met with—”
“How’s your mom feel about me?”
Jade lifted her gaze to his face. She tried to read his expression, but aside from the hard line of his mouth, he gave nothing away. She bought herself time with another sip of cold water. “I haven’t really talked to her.”
“So you aren’t sure?”
“Aren’t sure of what?” she asked, more sharply than she’d intended. She put the glass on the counter and turned to him with her arms crossed over her chest. “What’s wrong with you? I know you were worried about my dad, but I’m telling you that there’s nothing to stress about. I’m sure they’ll both love you.”
He set his glass next to hers on the counter. When he faced her, it was with an intensity that left her reeling. “Maybe I should ask this differently,” he said in a deceptively soft voice. “Are you sure they’ll like anyone more than your ex-fiancé?”
Jade flinched.
It was her gut reaction.
She wanted to tell him how she and John Thomas had never been engaged, not really, but the words stuck in her throat.
Hard gray eyes lowered from her face to her feet, then inched their way back up again. “Guess I wasn’t supposed to know about him,” Nathan drawled, “because I was never going to be more to you than a hookup. Am I right?”
Past the growing lump, she whispered, “It wasn’t like I purposely hid my relationship with him from you.”