Keep the job separate. Focus on the job.
"Fine," he said.
He came around his desk and sat on the corner, so that he looked casual and friendly and still topped her by a couple of feet. Yeah. Like subliminal intimidation would work with Tess.
"But we do have a problem."
She crossed her legs. "Who's this 'we,' kemo sabe?"
He narrowed his eyes. "Do you want me to call your editor and request another reporter?"
Tess grinned. "Sorry, sorry," she said, not looking sorry at all. "What's the problem?"
He hated that what he was about to tell her would wipe that smile right off her face. He hated what he had to tell her, period.
"A local woman was on her way home last night when an unmarked car with a red emergency light signaled her to pull over."
"Who was it?"
"You know I can't tell you that." Just as he knew it was only a matter of time before Tess found out.
"How is she?"
"Fortunately she had read your motorist safety piece in the paper. She knew what happened to Carolyn Logan. She did what you suggested—flashed her lights and drove here, to the police station. The car followed her to the parking lot entrance and then drove off."
"You were here?"
"I came in." Bud Sweet, eager to pay Jarek back for his warning, had been only too happy to call him shortly after midnight to report this latest attempt. Jarek had insisted on taking the woman's statement himself. "She was okay. Shaken. Angry."
Tess nodded. "The whole town will feel the same. Folks in Eden don't like to think something like this can happen here. Especially not to one of our own."
Jarek didn't like to think it could happen, either. But he said, "Human nature doesn't stop at the city limits. Your mayor understood that when she hired me. Hatred, greed, revenge…the motives behind most crimes are the same wherever you live."
"The motives may be. But up until now, crime in Eden has been pretty tame."
"The one good thing is that this attempt makes it unlikely that the driver of the car was a member of my department."
"Why? Oh. Because a police officer could have followed her into the parking lot and pretended this was a routine stop."
Jarek nodded, impressed by her perception. "Unless he didn't want to call attention to himself."
Tess tapped one red fingernail against his desk. "Of course, if this was a copycat attempt, then your officers would still be under suspicion for the first assault."
Of course, too much perception could be a bad thing, too. "Which is why," Jarek said, "I am personally checking all of their alibis for that night."
Tess's golden eyes widened. "Ooh, I bet that's making you popular."
"It sure as hell isn't doing a lot for morale, let me tell you."
"It's not just police morale you have to worry about. The people who live here are going to be upset."
He knew that. This latest attempt, following less than two weeks after the attack on the Logan girl, could be a public relations nightmare for his department. His officers were bound to blame him for the fall out.
"That's why I called you. I don't want a panic or a witch hunt on my hands. And I can't afford to have my officers' time taken up by every outraged Joe Public calling about what he thinks he heard in the checkout line or at last night's church committee meeting. I want an official statement in the paper before the rumors start."
Tess hefted her bag onto her lap. Her dark hair swung forward as she rummaged inside. "We go to press tonight."
"Can you get something written in time?"
She brandished her notebook at him. "That depends on what you give me."
He smiled in appreciation. "Nothing that will fuel the gossip. The intended victim was driving on north Front Street at approximately eleven-thirty on Tuesday night when a police impersonator signaled her to pull over. The Eden Police Department is issuing a warning to motorists. Thanks to a similar warning in last week's Gazette and the woman's own quick thinking, she was not harmed."
"Gee, a compliment for the press. My editor will like that," Tess remarked.
"That's what I'm counting on." He hesitated. Concentrate on the job, Denko. "There's something else you need to know."
"It gets better?" she asked dryly.
"It gets worse. The victim didn't go straight home after work. After her shift ended at eleven o'clock, she stopped at the Blue Moon for a drink."
Tess's mobile face froze. But her shrug was quick and casual. "What's so bad about that?"
Jarek watched her, compassion stirring inside him. "Your brother served it to her. He was the last person the victim talked with before she drove home."
Chapter 9
Tess met Jarek's cool, gray gaze, her throat closing in disappointment. She never learned.
News flash, DeLucca. He's not letting you in. He's using you.
She swallowed hard. "Did you call me figuring I'd downplay the story because my brother is your prime suspect?"
"No," Jarek said. "I don't have a prime suspect. The investigation hasn't singled out anyone yet."
She curled her nails into her palms. "Or ruled out anyone, either, right?"
"The police are currently pursuing all leads. You can print that in your paper."
He was so calm. So careful. She felt like throwing things. "I'm a reporter. Not the police department's mouthpiece."
One eyebrow raised. "Are you saying this isn't news?"
"I'm saying, I won't write anything but the truth," she said doggedly.
"That's what I'm counting on."
She glared at him, unsure if she'd been complimented or insulted. Uncertain what his cooperation meant for Mark.
He smiled at her, and some of her hostility faded like fog on a windshield. "Come on, Tess," he coaxed. "Write the story. Don't let everybody get their news from Ed Miller at the barbershop."
And they would, she acknowledged. Talk of the attack would sweep through town like fire, crackling with self-interest and fueled by prejudice.
You know about that girl attacked on her way home from the Blue Moon?
Heard the police questioned the bartender.
And, most damning of all, Well, what did you expect from a DeLucca?
"How am I supposed to resist that?" she muttered crossly.
How was she supposed to resist him? He knew her weaknesses too well.
"I hope you won't," Jarek said, standing.
His knee brushed her thigh. Even through two layers of fabric, his warmth reached out to her. He looked good in uniform, disciplined strength in starched navy-blue.
She tightened her hold on her pen and reached for her professionalism. "So, are the police assuming this attempt was perpetrated by the same person responsible for last week's assault?"
He watched her for a moment, amusement and something else in his eyes. "'Perpetrated' is good. You read a lot of those true crime stories?"
She didn't want him to make her laugh. She didn't want him to make her hot. She tapped her pen against the page.
Jarek sighed. "I don't assume anything. Once something like this gets reported in the paper, there's frequently a rash of copycat crimes. But given the similarities—deserted road, time of night, red light on the visor of the car—we certainly have to consider that the incidents involve the same person."
"You're not giving me much."
"I don't have much." Frustration edged his tone.
She felt an instant's sympathy for him, which she squashed. "Can I talk to the victim?"
"You know I have to protect her identity."
She knew. And respected him for it. "You can't blame a girl for trying."
"I don't."
She could almost believe him. It was a heady feeling. She wasn't used to believing in anybody. "Well." She stood, which brought her eyes level with his chin, her breasts within inches of his starched shirt and muscled chest. "Guess I'll go home and get to work. Can I call you? If I have follow-up questions, I me
an," she added hastily.
"I'll be in and out, but sure. Or I could stop by your apartment. Later."
Memories of the last time he stopped by heated her face and thickened her blood.
"Maybe that's not such a good idea. I've got to, uh—"
"Work on your story," he suggested.
"Yes."
"Wash your hair."
"Well, I—"
"Organize your sock drawer."
No way was she confessing she'd spent the morning cleaning her apartment. She lifted her chin. "Feed my cat."
His laughter was a warm breath against her lips. "You don't have a cat."
What the hell, she thought. "I do now."
"What kind of cat?" he asked indulgently. He didn't believe her.
"No kind," Tess said. "It's a stray."
He drew back, his light, clear eyes studying her face. "You're serious," he said on a note of discovery.
Panic set in. "Not very. I haven't decided to keep it yet."
"How did you find it?"
"It found me," she explained. "This morning, when I was taking out the garbage. I just haven't had time to call animal control yet."
"That's my department. I can let Gail know. Although…" Jarek looked thoughtful. "Maybe Allie would like a kitten."
Another kind of panic stirred. Along with a sense of attachment? Kinship? Feelings she didn't want to examine but found hard to ignore. "It's more like a cat. And not a very pretty cat," she said.
Jarek shrugged. "I can take a look at it anyway. No sense sending it to the pound without a trial."
She wasn't sending it to the pound, Tess thought suddenly, fiercely. It was her cat. Hers.
Which was stupid, because she didn't have room in her life for a pet.
"I guess you could stop by," she said grudgingly.
"Fine. Eight o'clock?" Jarek said, so smoothly that she wondered if she'd been set up.
"Eight," she agreed.
"Do I remember who I served last night?" Her brother looked up from the knot he was tying along the boom or the beam or whatever that arm thing on a sailboat was called. The wind ruffled his dark hair, making him look young and piratical. "What the hell kind of question is that?"
Tess squirmed. "It's for a story I'm working on," she said.
She hated keeping things from Mark. But knowing too much when the police came to question him could be more dangerous for her brother than knowing too little.
"Right." Mark finished with the rope and ducked under the swinging arm. "This isn't about the attack on Sherry Biddleman last night, is it?"
"No, it's—Sherry?" Tess blurted, genuinely shaken.
He cocked an eyebrow. "You didn't know?"
"Jarek didn't say—" She stopped.
Mark was shaking his head. "God, you're easy, you know that? Is that why you're here? You running errands for the police chief now?"
"No. He called me to give me a statement for the paper."
"What's the headline? Bad Mark DeLucca Suspect in Sexual Assaults. See Lynching, page five?"
She shivered. "Don't talk like that."
Mark stared at her with black, bleak eyes, and then his face softened. He touched her cheek in a rare caress. "It's okay," he told her. "I didn't do it."
Tears stung her eyes. "I know that," she snapped. "But you served Sherry drinks last night."
"I took her order. One rum and Tab. And she spent most of the night complaining to Tim Brown how her husband doesn't like her working the late shift."
"That's it?" Tess pushed, eager to believe him.
His gaze shifted left. "That's it."
Her heart broke a little. Because she knew the signs. She had raised Mark. She'd forced his confession when he was nine and ran his bike through the Tompkins's rosebushes. She'd cracked his alibi when he was fourteen and blew off school to go swimming at the quarry. He'd lied to her then, and he was lying to her now.
"Mark," she warned, in the same tone of voice she'd used for all their lives.
"Don't worry about it Tess."
"How can I stop worrying about it if I don't even know what it is I'm not supposed to worry about?"
"Did you understand that sentence?" Mark asked. "Because I sure didn't." He searched his sister's face and then sighed. "Okay. Sherry and I— I saw her earlier yesterday at the hospital."
Tess squinted against the glare coming off the water. "Why?"
"I had a training class."
"No, I mean what difference does it make if she saw you or not?"
Mark shrugged and tightened a line in the pointy part of the boat. "We kind of had words. I stopped by to check on Carolyn Logan, and Sherry wouldn't let me back to see her."
Misgiving clutched Tess's stomach. She took a step along the dock. "Oh, Mark. Jarek already knows Sherry was at the Blue Moon last night. If he finds out—"
"Relax. You're wasting your breath and your time. Your boyfriend was already out to see me."
Jarek's words came back to her: The investigation hasn't singled out anyone yet.
And her own reply: Or ruled out anyone either, right?
"He's not my boyfriend," Tess said.
"Good. What is he?"
"He— We— What did you tell him?"
Mark lifted his face to the wind and grinned a wolfs grin. "As little as I could get away with."
"Be careful," she said. "Jarek isn't stupid, but there's a lot of pressure on him to arrest somebody."
"Don't worry about me. I'm not the one who needs to watch out for this guy."
Tess squirmed. "What are you talking about?"
"He's taking advantage of you, the way everybody takes advantage of you. Using you to get his little public service message out."
She didn't want to believe Mark. But hadn't she suspected the same thing? Jarek already assumed she'd written her profile to win some kind of special consideration for Mark. Maybe Jarek figured she would put some spin on this story, too, as part of the same strategy.
"He could have gone to my editor," she said.
"Maybe he did. Or maybe he figured he didn't need to."
She felt slightly sick.
"I don't think that's it. He—"
Kissed me, she thought.
"—fixed my toilet," she said.
Mark grunted. "That only proves he wants something."
Tess tried to make a joke. "Maybe it's just sex."
Her brother's eyes narrowed. "Oh, that makes me feel better."
"Yeah," Tess said gloomily. "It doesn't do a heck of a lot for me, either."
Mark straightened. Water slapped the sides of the boat as it rocked under his shifting weight. "Wait a minute. It's not like you're looking for a long-term relationship, right?"
Heat rolled up her face. "Thank you. Now I feel really cheap."
He shook his head impatiently. "I just meant you know better than to get all knotted up over casual sex with some overage cop."
Jarek's voice reverberated along her bones. If I do it right, there won't be anything casual about it.
Tess shivered. "He's not that old," she said.
Mark raised an eyebrow.
"Forty," she said defensively. "Anyway, what does it matter?"
"That's what I'd like to know. You don't need somebody else in your life to take care of, Tess."
"I think Jarek Denko can take care of himself," she said honestly. That steely-eyed competence was one of the things that made him so attractive. And so dangerous. The balance of power was all on his side.
"Fine. And while Denko's looking out for number one, who's going to look after you?"
Uncertainty made her snap. "I don't need a baby-sitter, baby brother."
"How about a warden?"
"Very funny."
Mark jerked at the end of a line. "Yeah, it'll be a scream if he locks both of us up."
She stared at him, stricken.
Mark sighed. "Okay, maybe not. Are you going to write this article for him?"
Her hands cu
rled into fists. "I'm going to write the article. That's my job."
"He's using you."
Her fingernails pressed the inside of her palms. "Maybe. Better me than some other reporter."
"Better for him."
"Better for us," she insisted. "I get a lead story, and you avoid that lynching headline."
Some of the tension left Mark's lean face. He reached across the narrow gap of dark water and flicked her nose gently with his finger.
"DeLuccas forever, huh?"
It was their childhood pledge, their schoolyard battle cry. Affection for her brother burned like tears at the back of Tess's throat. No unreliable and unproven attraction to the town's new police chief could be allowed to matter compared to that old loyalty.
Ignoring the whisper of her heart, Tess gulped and smiled weakly. "DeLuccas forever," she promised.
"I'm late," Jarek said to the shadowed curve of Tess's face. He couldn't read her expression through the crack in her door. But he could see his watch just fine.
It was after nine o'clock.
Late went with the job. Jarek had given up explaining it or apologizing it away. His ex-wife, Linda, had claimed his explanations bored her, and his apologies had stopped making a difference after the first rocky year of their marriage.
Tonight he'd shoveled through a stack of case reports only to be caught on his way out the door by a concerned phone call from Eden's mayor. Jarek accepted the necessity of dealing with both.
But faced with Tess's half-closed door, he felt as disadvantaged as a teenage stud rolling up for a date in his mama's mini van.
Tess shrugged. "I didn't have plans tonight, anyway. I had a deadline, remember?" She swung the door wider. "Watch the cat."
He looked down at the cat, and then up at Tess. She may not have made plans, but she was armored for a date in stiff dark jeans that showcased her amazing legs and a militantly red blouse with hidden buttons.
He got the message. Look, don't touch.
If her cat was in the same pissy mood, he'd wasted a trip. His daughter Allie needed warmth. Fun. Affection. All the things, Jarek reflected with a twinge of guilt, her father hadn't been around to supply.
He nodded toward the cat, regarding him disdainfully from its post by Tess's feet. "It doesn't look in any hurry to run away."
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