For a moment she remained seated at the table, waiting for the sensation to pass, wondering if she was just imagining things. But an overactive imagination wasn’t one of Jenna’s flaws and the sensation wasn’t passing; instead it was growing stronger.
Soundlessly, she eased back from the table and stood, the bang of her own heartbeat almost deafening in her ears. Silently she moved to a row of kitchen drawers, seeking a weapon she could use to defend herself.
The first drawer was filled with colorful dish towels and hot pads. The second contained simple dinnerware. It was the third drawer she pulled open that gave her what she needed, a long stainless steel butcher knife that gleamed with sharpness.
She gripped it tightly in her hand and then moved quietly out of the kitchen. The living room looked just as it had when she’d entered the house, nothing out of place, nothing to indicate that anyone had come inside.
Had it been nothing more than her imagination? Were these murders getting to her in a way that none had before? She’d been thinking about the killer moments before. Was it attempting to enter the mind of the murderer that caused this crazy feeling?
As she glanced toward the front door, she saw that it was slightly ajar. An intense chill washed over her. Had she left it open when she’d carried in her suitcase? She couldn’t remember.
Or had somebody come in after her?
Glancing down the hallway, her stomach clenched with nerves. Was somebody in one of the rooms? Perhaps the killer returned to the scene of the crime?
Was he waiting for her? Intending to get her before she could get him? She remembered standing outside her motel room and feeling as if somebody was watching her. Was the same person inside the house now?
She checked the bathroom first and found it empty, then slid into the guest bedroom and immediately grabbed the gun from her purse. With its solid weight in her hands she immediately felt a little bit better. She slid open the closet in that room and checked to make sure it was empty.
With the gun in one hand and the knife in the other, she stared at the closed door to the master bedroom. Her hands were slightly sweaty as nerves jangled inside her.
She could have sworn she felt the displacement of air, as if a door or window had suddenly been opened. Was somebody in the room of death, unaware that she was in the house? How could he have not known she was here? Her rental car was parked in the driveway.
Maybe it was some kind of an ambush. He was just on the other side of the door, waiting for her to enter, waiting to take her out.
Setting the knife down against the wall just outside the door, she reached out a trembling hand and grabbed the doorknob.
She held her breath as she twisted the knob and shoved the door open. Instantly she went into a shooter stance, the gun held in both hands in front of her.
She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath until it whooshed out of her. There was nobody in the room, but the window was open and the screen was missing. If there had been anyone in the room he wasn’t there now.
With her heart still pounding with elevated adrenaline, she raced into the hallway and out the front door. She skirted the side of the house with her gun at the ready and went around to the back.
Nobody.
There was nobody running away, no sign of anyone in the general vicinity. The adrenaline that had flooded through her slowly ebbed away as she checked the area around the open window.
The ground was too hard and the grass too short and dry to show any footprints. She checked her watch. It was almost time for her to meet Matt at the café. She’d tell him about this and get somebody over to fingerprint the windowsill, but she doubted they’d be able to lift any prints.
She returned to the house and closed the window and locked it, then grabbed her purse and left the house. As she drove toward the café another chill whispered through her.
Who had been inside the house? Was he coming after her next?
Chapter Six
Matt sat at a table in the back of the café, waiting for Jenna to arrive. Apparently Leroy’s story about working twelve hours a day hadn’t exactly been true because Sally the waitress had told him neither Michael, the owner, nor Leroy were working the dinner shift that night.
It had been a day of frustration. He and his deputies had interviewed anyone who might have personal information pertaining to Carolyn Cox. Just as with Miranda, none of her friends or family could imagine anyone wanting to hurt Carolyn.
According to those family members and friends, George had been a loving, devoted boyfriend and there had been no issues between them.
Two women who apparently had no enemies were dead and he was no closer to finding their killer than he’d been the day before.
He felt slightly guilty, taking time out to eat when there was a murderer walking the streets, but the truth of the matter was he’d skipped lunch and needed to take a few minutes to not only nourish his body, but also rest his overworked mind.
He hadn’t slept well the night before. Bloody red roses and dead women’s faces had haunted his dreams. Tonight he had a feeling his dreams would be haunted by much different images—like that hot kiss he’d shared with Jenna.
In the moments throughout the day when his head hadn’t been filled with death, it had definitely been overflowing with lust.
At that moment the object of his lust walked through the door and spotted him. As she approached he noticed that she walked with a no-nonsense stride, like a woman with a purpose, but her gaze slid left and right as if checking out everyone who was in her immediate world.
He was surprised that the mere sight of her lifted his spirits. Funny how quickly she’d gone from a pain in his butt to somebody he wanted to know better.
She sat in the chair opposite him and cast him a quick smile. “You might want to get somebody over to Miranda’s house to fingerprint the back bedroom window.”
“Why?”
“I think somebody came in to visit while I was there today,” she replied.
“What?” He looked at her in alarm.
As she explained what had happened, a new uneasiness swept through Matt. Had the killer returned to the scene of the crime and been surprised by Jenna’s presence there? But how was that possible with her car parked in front of the house?
“I guess it’s possible somebody came in sometime yesterday,” she continued. “I mean, I didn’t hear anyone before I discovered the open window. I just got the sensation that I wasn’t alone in the house, but it might have been my imagination working overtime.” She picked up her water glass and took a sip.
“Do you suffer from an overactive imagination normally?” he asked.
She smiled wryly. “Never.”
Matt frowned and stared at her. “Both of our victims were brunettes with blue eyes, just like you.”
“Could be the beginning of a pattern or it could just be coincidence that the two women looked a lot alike,” she noted. “Besides, I’m not worried. I’m an FBI agent with both a keen sense of forewarning and a gun. It’s possible some teenager or curious lookie-loo decided to break in and gawk at a real murder scene.”
“Maybe,” he replied grudgingly.
At that moment Sally arrived at the table to take their orders. As they waited for their meals Matt filled her in on what he’d done throughout the day. “It all adds up to a big fat nothing,” he said with a touch of frustration.
“Welcome to my world,” she said drily. “At least we now know that Bud Carlson had contact with both women in the week before their deaths. He fits the initial profile, too.”
“Initial profile?” Matt looked at her curiously.
“Generally speaking, serial killers kill within their race, so we know we’re probably looking for a white male between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five. Because he appears to be organized we can surmise that he’s above average in intelligence.”
“That might kick Bud off our suspect list,” Matt said with a small grin.
Michael Brown came through the front door and waved at Matt and Jenna. Matt offered the big man a smile as he approached their table.
“You two are quickly becoming my best customers,” he said.
“I’ve always been one of your best customers,” Matt replied. “I not only hate to cook, but I also hate to eat alone and I can always find a friend or neighbor in here.”
“Everyone in town eventually sits at one of my tables,” Michael exclaimed. “Is Sally taking care of both of you?”
Matt nodded. “We’re good. Thanks.”
“What’s his story?” Jenna asked as Michael disappeared back into the kitchen.
“Homegrown, thought he was going to have a career as a professional football player but didn’t make the cut. He bought this place a couple of years ago and makes the best pies I’ve ever tasted.”
“Married?”
“No. I don’t even remember him dating much.”
“And Leroy, what do you know about him?”
Matt shook his head. “Not much. He’s Michael’s sister’s kid. She moved to Chicago right out of high school and met and married her husband there. According to Michael, Leroy was having some financial trouble and so he invited him out here to take some stress off his sister.”
“You might want to run a background check on him, find out if he had any other kind of trouble before coming here.”
He nodded. “Already in the process.”
“What have you learned about Doc Johnson? Did he have any real connection to Carolyn Cox?”
“Nothing that I have been able to substantiate, but one of Carolyn’s friends said she was thinking about getting a dog.”
“Which means she might have talked to the local vet about it,” Jenna replied.
At that moment Sally arrived with their orders. “That’s enough shoptalk for the moment,” Matt said. “Talking about murder while I eat always gives me indigestion.”
“I’m not sure I’m good at talking about much of anything else,” she replied.
“You mentioned that the Harris family fostered you. What happened to your parents?” he asked.
She picked up her fork and raced the tines through a mound of mashed potatoes. “I never knew my father and Erika, my mother, had the maternal instincts of a rock.” She paused and took a bite of the potatoes.
“I was about six when I realized we didn’t live like other people did,” she continued after taking a drink of her water. “Erika was a dope dealer and our little rental house was the local shooting gallery and flophouse. I was seven when I started to sleep with a knife under my pillow and I was twelve when she was arrested and sent to prison. I got lucky with the Harris family.”
Although she’d told her story with little inflection, as if it were no more important than a weather forecast, Matt was appalled and could only imagine what she’d been through as a young child.
“It must have been a little tough, making the transition from that kind of lifestyle to a normal, supportive one,” he said.
She gave a humorless laugh. “You can take the kid off the street, but it takes a long time to take the street off the kid. On the first night that they brought me into their home, I sneaked into the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife to keep under my pillow. Each week Emma Harris would change the sheets on my bed and slip the knife back under my pillow. She never asked me about it, never tried to take it away from me.”
“How long did you keep it there?” he asked. His heart ached for her, but he instinctively knew that if she sensed any pity from him, she’d shut down and wouldn’t share anything else.
“Six months.” She cut her chicken fried steak into bite-size pieces, for a moment breaking eye contact with him.
He wondered where her thoughts were taking her at the moment and suspected it wasn’t a good place, but when she looked back at him her eyes were clear and untroubled.
“I just woke up one morning and knew I didn’t need the knife anymore. When I’d been with them a year they wanted to adopt me, but my mother, who we knew wasn’t going to get out of prison for a very long time, refused to sign away her rights. It would have been the only loving thing she could have done for me and she refused to do it. She died in prison when I turned eighteen.”
It was no wonder she’d indicated she didn’t do personal relationships. The person who should have taught her about love, about trust had definitely failed at the job.
“What happened to your foster parents?” he asked.
“Miranda and I had just graduated from college when they were killed by a drunk driver.”
There was a lightness in her tone that Matt thought hid a wealth of pain. Although as far as he knew she’d only grieved briefly for Miranda, he now understood more clearly the depth of her loss.
“I’m sorry,” he said, knowing the words were inadequate.
She shrugged. “Stuff happens. I’ll bet you had a great childhood and I’d also bet that you aren’t an only child.”
He looked at her in surprise. “You’re right, but how would you know that? I haven’t mentioned any of my siblings.”
She smiled. “You mentioned that you hate to eat alone. I would guess that comes from many nights of family meals around a big table with lots of lively conversations.”
“Maybe there is something to this profiling stuff,” he said with a grin. “I have two sisters, both younger than me and both of them no longer living here in town. My parents moved into a retirement community in Florida two years ago. And yes, I had a good childhood.”
“How did you get your scar?”
He raised a hand and touched the ridge of skin that raced down the side of his face. “Long story for another time,” he said. “We’d better finish eating, then I’ll go back to Miranda’s with you and take a look at that window.”
For the next twenty minutes they focused on their meal and small talked. Sitting across from her and watching her eat, Matt found himself remembering the kiss they had shared.
He wanted a repeat. Hearing about her past had only stirred a renewed desire for her. He wanted to fill her eyes with pleasure, hold her like she’d never been held before. He knew there was no happily-ever-after here, but for the first time in years he wanted a happily-for-a-while.
When the meal was finished, he got into his car and followed hers back to Miranda’s house. As she unlocked the front door, he walked around to the back to check out the area around the window.
The screen leaned against the side of the house, one edge bent as if it had been pried off. Why would anyone take the risk of entering the house with Miranda’s car parked in the driveway? With her inside the house?
He didn’t understand it and what he didn’t understand concerned him. Was it the work of kids, maybe entering the house on a dare? Or was it something more insidious? Had the killer returned with a new victim in his sight, Jenna with the lush brown hair and shining blue eyes?
WHILE MATT WAS OUTSIDE attempting to lift prints off the window sill, Jenna stood in the bedroom where Miranda had been murdered and looked around to see if anything in the room had been disturbed.
It didn’t appear that anything had been moved or touched and if it hadn’t been for the open window and removed screen, Jenna would have chalked her feeling up to a crazy burst of uncharacteristic wild imagination.
She left the bedroom and went into the kitchen where she put on a pot of coffee. It had just finished brewing when Matt came into the kitchen.
“Whoever was out there didn’t leave behind any prints,” he said as he pulled out a chair and sat at the table. “I suppose it’s possible that the intruder approached the house f
rom the back and didn’t see your car in the driveway, didn’t know you were inside.”
“That makes as much sense as anything,” she replied. “Want a cup of coffee?”
“Sure, sounds good.” He pointed to the notebook on the table. “That reminds me, I’ve got copies of everything we have related to Miranda and Carolyn’s murders in my car. Why don’t I run out and get them.”
“Thanks, I’d appreciate it.”
It took him only minutes and when he was once again seated at the table she set a mug of coffee in front of him, then joined him with a mug of her own. “I think maybe tomorrow I’ll meander into the local vet’s office and have a little chat with the doctor.”
He frowned in obvious displeasure, but before he could say anything she continued. “Matt, we have only three viable suspects right now. Leroy, Bud and Doc Johnson. To be honest, I’m not sure Leroy is bright enough to have committed these crimes and I won’t be satisfied until I personally talk to both Bud and Dr. Johnson.”
“Then I’d like to go with you,” he replied.
She shook her head. “That would be counterproductive. It’s been my experience that people are more open to chatting with women. They might tell me something that they’d never tell you.”
“I don’t like you putting yourself out there like that.”
“Matt, I don’t just sit at a desk and read reports in my duties as a special agent for the FBI. I do fieldwork. I interview suspects, I get my hands dirty. I’m perfectly capable of interviewing a couple of suspects without putting myself in danger.”
He took a sip of his coffee, his gaze not leaving her. He lowered his cup and offered her a small smile. “I guess it’s not fair of me to ask for your help and then limit your movements in the investigation.”
“You’re right. That wouldn’t be fair.” That smile of his warmed her, made her want him.
She wasn’t one to fall into the sack with a man indiscriminately, but she definitely wanted Matt Buchannan like she couldn’t remember wanting a man for a very long time.
Scene of the Crime: Bridgewater, Texas Page 6