Who was it and why was he just parked there? Was he waiting for everyone in the neighborhood to go to sleep, waiting for her to be in the depths of slumber before sneaking into the house?
Remembering that she’d seen a pair of binoculars on a shelf in Miranda’s bedroom closet, she relocked the door, raced into the bedroom and grabbed them from the shelf.
She returned to the front door and focused them on the driver of the car. A small sigh of surprise escaped her.
Matt.
Her first, gut reaction was anger. What in the hell did he think he was doing sitting out there in the middle of the night?
But the anger flashed quick and hot, then died and instead a lump of emotion rose up in her throat.
He was doing something nobody had ever really done for her in her entire life. He was protecting her, that’s what he was doing. Because he cared. She squeezed her eyes closed against a sudden sting of tears and realized if she wasn’t careful, she’d care back.
IT WAS SEVEN-THIRTY the next morning when Matt knocked on Jenna’s door. He’d spent the endlessly long night in his car keeping an eye on the place, then at six-thirty had raced to his office, showered and changed clothes, and returned.
He didn’t want her to know that he’d been on watch duty through the night and hoped his exhaustion didn’t show on his face.
When she opened the door her smile energized him. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a blue t-shirt that stretched across her full breasts and did amazing things to her eyes.
“Good morning,” he said. “Ready?”
“Ready,” she replied and stepped out of the house. She pulled the door shut, then checked to make sure it had locked. “Did you sleep well?” she asked as they walked to his patrol car.
“Like a log,” he lied. “What about you?”
“It took me a while to get to sleep, but once I did, I slept fine,” she replied. “What are the plans for today?”
“I thought maybe you could spend the day coordinating in the conference room and I’m going to hit the streets once again to talk to people we might have missed in our preliminary round of interviews.”
“So you intend to shove me into the conference room and lock the door. I don’t think so, Matt,” she exclaimed.
“Then you can come with me to do some interviewing,” he said grudgingly.
“That’s better.” She flashed him one of her cheeky grins and his heart did a little somersault.
It was odd. He’d dated Natalie for four years before he’d finally proposed to her. Theirs had been a relationship that had built slowly, starting with friendship and then blossoming into something deeper and lasting.
He’d known Jenna less than a week and yet she stirred something deep inside him. The need to protect, a desire to make her smile, a yearning to be somebody she knew she could depend on, those things were all there inside of him, along with a primal desire for her.
He’d never felt such a sharp connection so quickly with anyone in his life and he knew when the time came to tell her goodbye it was going to be extremely difficult.
“You’re quiet,” she said, pulling him from his thoughts.
“Just mulling things over in my head,” he replied as he parked in front of the office. It was going to be a long day with no sleep the night before and he definitely needed to assign one of his deputies to sit in front of her house tonight. He did not want that house to be without protection, especially through the dark hours of the night, but he knew if he tried to stay awake all night again he’d crash and burn.
They were met by Joey at the door. “Sheriff, I just got a call from Glen Talbot. He says his wife has been murdered and we need to get over there right away.”
“Get Abe and Jerry to meet us there,” Matt said and then he and Jenna ran back to his car, Matt silently cursing beneath his breath. He started his car and slammed it into gear, then took off in the direction of the Talbot home on the edge of town.
“The bastard fooled us,” Jenna exclaimed. She leaned forward and slammed her palm against the dashboard. “It was supposed to be me. Damn it, he was supposed to come after me.” She leaned back and looked at him. “Tell me about the Talbots.”
“Glen and Marianne Talbot. He farms and she is a stay-at-home wife. They’re in their thirties and Marianne has brown hair. I’m not sure about the color of her eyes.” Matt wanted to punch something. Who was this killer? How many more women would wind up dead before the monster was caught?
“If this is our man, then he’s broken his pattern,” Jenna said, her tone troubled. “This is the first married woman he’s gone after. If she got the roses, I wonder how she explained them to her husband?”
“We’ll know soon enough,” Matt replied as he turned onto the lane that led to the Talbot farmhouse. The early morning light cast a golden glow on the neat home with its expansive front yard.
The scene would have been peaceful had it not been for the man standing in the middle of the yard, his shirt covered with blood.
“God, I’m tired of this job,” Jenna murmured.
As Matt pulled his car to a halt, Glen Talbot staggered forward, releasing deep, wrenching sobs as he approached their vehicle.
“She’s dead,” he cried as Matt and Jenna got out of the car. The scene was so reminiscent of what they had just gone through at Carolyn Cox’s place.
“Oh, God, somebody killed her,” Glen screamed. “I shouldn’t have left the house. I should have been here.” He collapsed to the ground.
At that moment Abe and Jerry pulled up. “Abe, take care of Glen. Jenna and I are going inside.”
He glanced at her and saw a look of dread coupled with fierce determination on her face. He opened his trunk and withdrew booties and gloves and then together they approached the front door.
They’d asked no questions of Glen, but Matt assumed that Marianne would be in the bedroom like the other two victims.
He went there first, hoping that maybe Glen was wrong, that there was still breath in Marianne, that somehow they weren’t too late to save her.
He didn’t even have to walk into the room to know that, indeed, it was too late for Marianne. She lay in the center of the king-sized bed, a knife protruding from her chest and her eyes frozen open in death.
He closed his eyes, for a moment overwhelmed with guilt. He was the sheriff and he wasn’t keeping the women in his town safe.
It was Jenna’s hand touching his shoulder that pulled him from that dark place. He gave her a grateful look and then stepped closer to the victim.
“This isn’t the work of our man,” Jenna said.
He knew exactly what had prompted her words. There was no rose on Marianne’s chest. “Maybe he got in a hurry, didn’t have time to do it the way he wanted,” Matt offered.
Jenna frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think so, but maybe.” She moved closer to the bed. “There also don’t appear to be any ligature marks around her wrists. That’s different from our other victims, too.”
“I’ll get Abe and Jerry in here to collect whatever they can find and call for the coroner and you and I can talk to Glen and see what he can tell us.”
Before they went outside they walked through the house to the kitchen. Dirty dishes were in the sink and a small paper bag set on the counter, but there was no vase holding five roses.
“Maybe she threw them out or hid them from Glen,” Matt said more to himself than to Jenna.
“That wouldn’t explain why he didn’t leave one on her body,” she replied.
When they went back outside Glen was seated on the ground as if in a stupor. Matt instructed his deputies and called for the coroner, then approached the man.
“Glen, I know this is tough, but we need to find out what happened here this morning,” Matt said.
Glen looked up at Matt, his features twisted. “I know what happened this morning. I left the house and that serial killer got inside and murdered my wife.” He buried his face in his hands.
/> Matt laid a hand on Glen’s shoulder. “What time did you leave the house this morning and where did you go?”
The July sun was growing hotter by the minute, but Matt scarcely noticed as he tried to get information from the grieving husband.
Once again Glen raised his head and then wearily got to his feet to face Matt and Jenna. “I got up about two and packed up my fishing gear. It was probably close to three when I left the house and went down to the pond to do some fishing.”
“Do you do that often? Get up in the middle of the night to go to the pond?” Jenna asked.
Glen shrugged. “Maybe once or twice a week. I sometimes have trouble sleeping and it always seems senseless just to stay in bed.”
He looked back at Matt and once again his features contorted in a mask of grief. “You’ve got to catch him, Matt. You have to catch the man who killed my Marianne.”
“I’m working on it,” he replied. “What time did you come back here to the house?” He needed to keep Glen focused on the facts while everything was still fresh in his mind.
“I was out on the pond until about six and then realized I’d left the lunch I’d packed on the kitchen counter, so I decided to come back and grab my lunch sack. That’s when I found her.”
“Was your wife awake when you left the house at three?” Jenna asked.
“Nah, Marianne didn’t like to get out of bed until near noon,” he replied.
And on it went, questions and answers and investigation. Photos were taken, evidence collected and the coroner arrived. The deputies left to interview neighbors, although Matt had little hope that they would be able to add any information. The nearest neighbor to the Talbot farm was nearly a mile down the road.
It was after five when all that could be done had been done. Matt was beyond exhausted, functioning solely on adrenaline and Jenna looked just as weary.
“Food is the first order of business,” he said once they were in his car.
“Sounds good to me,” she agreed.
“We’ll order from the café and they can deliver to the office. I can write up my reports and go over everything we have so far.”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “I feel so damn helpless. Young women are dying and I can’t stop it from happening.”
“I’m fairly certain that Marianne wasn’t killed by our man. I think her husband killed her and tried to take advantage of the fact that there is a killer working in town,” Jenna said. “The roses were missing from the scene and that’s the one thing you’ve managed to keep from the general public.”
“I keep thinking maybe if she got them she tossed them, knowing they didn’t come from Glen,” he replied.
“The missing roses aren’t the only reason I’d bet on Glen. He didn’t cry.”
Matt glanced at her in surprise. “He sobbed and wailed,” he protested.
“Without tears,” she replied. “And when he said that Marianne often slept until noon, there was a faint edge of scorn in his voice. I’ll bet you that if you dig into that marriage you’ll find it wasn’t a happy one and that this is a domestic crime, not the work of our serial killer.”
“I’ll take that bet,” he said after a moment’s consideration.
It was just after six when they sat in the conference room to eat the meals that had been delivered by Leroy. Matt had ordered the special of a hot roast beef sandwich and a piece of Michael’s lemon meringue pie and Jenna had opted for a burger and fries.
“Talk to me about something other than murders,” Jenna said as she plunged her straw up and down in her soda glass.
“Like what? What do you want to talk about?” he asked.
“Anything. What do you do when you aren’t sheriffing, what kind of movies do you like, what’s your favorite food?”
“I like taking drives in the country and tinkering with a car I’ve been restoring. I don’t watch many movies and my favorite food is whatever is in front of me at the time,” he replied. “What about you? What do you do when you aren’t FBIing?”
She frowned, the gesture doing nothing to detract from her prettiness. “It seems like I’m working all the time. My friend Sam says that I’m obsessed with work so I don’t have to deal with the fact that I have no personal life. He’s one to talk, he’s just like me.”
Matt leaned back in his chair and looked at her thoughtfully. “So why don’t you have a personal life? What do you see for yourself in the future? What plans and dreams do you have?”
She shook her head. “I never think about the future. I just live for each day and if I make it to another one, then it’s all good. I also don’t have any plans or dreams.” She broke eye contact with him and picked up another fry. “Even when I was a kid, the only thing important was getting through the day. Now, tell me about your wife.”
She broke his heart more than just a little bit. How could there be life without hopes and dreams? He knew she’d changed the subject so that they wouldn’t be talking about her.
“Natalie liked to laugh and go for long walks. She believed in helping others and charitable causes. She loved dogs and kids and me.”
“You saved a lot of people that day,” Jenna said as if to temper the cost of his loss.
“I know. I’ve thought about it a million times, wondering if I should have done anything different, but realized I did what I thought was best at the time. It took a while, but I’ve made peace with it. Now tell me something else about Jenna Taylor, something that nobody else knows.”
She smiled and for a moment in the warmth of that smile he saw the woman she could be, the woman she was meant to be. “When I was nine I hid a dog in my bedroom for almost a month. It was one of the few times we lived in a rental house where I had my own room. The dog was a stray, a mutt that stank to high heaven, but I didn’t care. Every night I let that stinking, slobbering dog into my bed where he cuddled up against me and licked my cheek with his stinky breath.”
“What did you call him?” Matt asked, entranced by the sparkle in her eyes as she spoke of the dog.
“Rover, of course. Rover was my best friend, the first thing I think I ever really loved.”
“Your mother didn’t know he was there?”
She released a dry laugh. “Most of the time my mother didn’t know I was there. I’d sneak him in and out before and after school when she was usually passed out and I never heard him make a sound whenever I was in the room with him.”
“What happened to him?” Matt asked.
Instantly the warmth in her eyes disappeared, making him sorry he’d asked the question. She stared at the whiteboard behind him and drew a deep sigh.
“I guess I got too confident and thought Rover understood the danger of making noise. This particular morning I left him in my room when I went to school. I made sure he had food and water and put newspapers down for him to do his business. I thought I’d left him everything he needed to be without me for the day, but he must have barked or something. I got home from school and he was gone. My mother’s boyfriend at the time told me he’d been taken to the pound and they were going to put him to sleep.”
His heart ached for the little girl who’d had nothing to love but a stray dog who would be taken away from her. “I’m sorry, Jenna. I’m so damn sorry that you had to live your childhood. I wish you could have had mine.”
She looked back at him and there was a softness in her eyes. “You’re a nice man, Matt. It’s been a true pleasure getting to know you. Now let’s finish eating and see what order we can make of this mess.” She’d effectively closed the door on sharing anything else personal.
For the next four hours they sat and worked on the murder file for their newest victim. Throughout those hours Matt’s deputies checked in with what information they had gleaned by speaking with friends and family members.
It was just after ten when Matt scooted back from the table, too exhausted to do anything further. “I’ve got to call it a night.”
“Me, too
,” Jenna agreed.
They didn’t speak as they got into the car and drove to Miranda’s place. Matt was just too exhausted to attempt to make small talk.
He’d made arrangements for Tom Willard, one of his deputies who worked the night shift, to sit in front of Miranda’s house for the night. At least he would sleep well knowing she was protected.
He pulled up in front of the house with a weary sigh. “I want to check it out before I leave you here alone,” he said as they got out of the car.
He stood just behind her as she unlocked the door, able to smell the faint scent of her lingering perfume in the hot, humid air.
“How about you check the kitchen and living room and I’ll check the bedrooms,” she said as they stepped into the foyer. She pulled her gun as he drew his.
They parted ways and Matt headed for the kitchen while she disappeared down the hallway. There was no indication that any of the windows or doors had been messed with, nothing to make him worry that somebody had gotten into the house.
He checked the pantry and any place else big enough for a grown man to hide. “I’m clear, Jenna. What about you?” he yelled down the hallway.
There was no reply.
“Jenna?” he called again.
When there was still no answer his heart banged hard against his ribs. With his gun gripped firmly in both hands, he made his way down the hallway.
He checked the bathroom as he passed, then sighed in relief as he saw her standing just inside the guest room. “Jenna, why didn’t you answer me?” he asked as his heart slowed to a more normal pace.
As he stepped into the room he realized what had made her freeze in her tracks. In the center of the bed was a single long-stem red rose.
Even though he knew it was coming, the sight of it in this house they’d believed was secured, on the bed where she slept, shocked him. “Jenna,” he said as he turned to look at her.
Before he could continue, she nodded. “I’ll pack my bags.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. He had no idea what had made her change her mind. Yesterday she’d been adamant that she would stay here until the killer came with the final rose.
Scene of the Crime: Bridgewater, Texas Page 10