It was nearly a half hour later when Jack pulled into the parking lot of Clive’s Joint. With the painted plywood siding and tar paper roof, Clive’s Dive would have been a better name for it. It certainly didn’t look like the type of place a successful doctor would frequent. And it didn’t look like the kind of place where a professional man would go unnoticed, either.
If Whittemore had been here Friday night, someone would remember.
The inside of the dark restaurant smelled of smoke and mildew. Just below those scents was the yeasty scent of spilled beer.
The clack of pool balls competed with that of two televisions, one tuned to a football game and the other to a NASCAR race. There were just over a dozen customers—three at the bar, six at a table near the kitchen and four shooting pool. Most of them looked as if they considered Clive’s their home away from home.
Jack chose a seat at the bar and in front of the beer taps. Back in college, when he’d had the hots for a good-looking female bartender, he had learned the trick of parking himself in front of the taps. It was easier to strike up a conversation with someone when he or she was forced to be face-to-face with you while drawing beer.
The bartender, a man in his early sixties or late fifties, wore a leather vest over a dingy white T-shirt. He’d pulled his gray hair back into a single braid that hung to a point several inches below his belt. Jack figured that the navy-blue bandanna hid a receding hairline. The forest drew all kinds, the ones who wanted to be surrounded by nature and those who just wanted society to leave them alone. The bartender was the latter.
“What can I get you?” he asked. Several bikers walked in. The bartender nodded at them as they filed past where Jack was sitting, and took seats at the opposite end of the bar. Jack nodded at the new arrivals. It never hurt to be friendly, and the greeting also furthered the illusion that he was just out for a Sunday afternoon ride.
The bartender placed a napkin on the bar top. “What’s it going to be?”
“The coldest beer you have.”
The bartender plopped a mug down, poured a bottle of domestic beer into it, and then set it in front of Jack, almost immediately turning away. Sipping the beer, Jack pretended to be interested in the stock car race. The bikers discussed an upcoming charity ride.
The heaviest of the four men looked up and, catching Jack glancing in their direction, motioned toward the front door. “That your vintage bike out there, surfer boy?”
Jack smiled. Because of his blond hair and blue eyes, the easy smile, people occasionally called him by the moniker. And at the same time underestimated him. He normally saw no reason to correct the assumption. The ability to appear laid-back even during the most stressful of times had been one of the reasons he’d managed to last as long as he had undercover. Jack lowered the beer. “Yeah. She’s mine.”
“You do the restoration?”
“Yeah.”
As the bartender returned to draw a couple of beers, Jack drained his. “This is my first time through here. A friend of mine recommended I stop. Said the beer was cold and the food was good.”
For a second the bartender studied him, his expression far from friendly, but then he asked, “Beer’s sure enough cold and the food won’t kill you. Who’s your friend?”
“Fleming. Fleming Whittemore.”
The bartender nodded. “He comes in once or twice a week during good weather, less often when it’s not.”
“You probably haven’t seen him in a while, then?”
“That’s right. Been two or three weeks maybe.”
Jack looked around. “You the owner?”
“Yeah, that’s me. Owner, bartender, cook.”
“Been around these parts long?”
The bartender turned off the tap. “Long enough to know a cop when I see one. And smart enough to keep my mouth shut about other people’s business.”
MONDAY MORNINGS WERE always the pits, Lexie noted.
Given the way her life was going, why would she expect this one to be any different?
Holding it awkwardly in the hand with the cast, Lexie stared numbly at the plus sign on the home pregnancy test strip. The kit was a leftover from when she’d been trying to get pregnant with Lindy. She scanned the outside of the box, looking for an expiration date. Maybe the thing was past its prime. Maybe the result was just a false positive.
Unable to find any date on the box, she checked the instructions again. As she did so, she pressed a hand over her left breast. The test might be wrong, but her body wasn’t. She just hadn’t been paying attention to it recently. The nausea that she’d attributed to coffee. The too-tight jeans and her recent mood swings. The fact that she was tired and found concentrating difficult…
And last, but certainly not least, tender breasts.
The fear in her middle expanded upward, taking over her chest, too. A baby? How was she going to handle that along with everything else?
With her eyes filled with tears, Lexie swept the packaging from the kit into the trash, where it landed on top of the shirt of Dan’s that she’d worn home Friday night.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thought about the night with Jack often as she’d laid in bed alone, remembering his hard body, his deep thrusts. But because they’d used protection, not even once had she considered the possibility of a child. She knew darn well that he hadn’t, either.
What was she going to do? Lexie raised her eyes to the mirror above the sink. Tell Jack? She couldn’t tell him she was carrying his child. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how he would react to the news. Especially given the current situation.
She rested her bottom against the vanity as she stared down at the strip.
Pregnant.
Her left hand stole lower, running over her abdomen. She looked down at her still-flat stomach. A life was growing inside her. A child. Her child.
To bring into this world.
She unzipped her jeans and pulled them open so that she could place her palm against bare skin, closer to the baby. The realization that she was going to be a mother washed over her. The panic in her middle eased, replaced with the low hum of excitement. What was wrong with her? Wasn’t this what she wanted? More than anything else? To be a mother?
Her hesitant smile grew stronger, then wavered. What if something happened again? What if her injuries had left her incapable of carrying a baby to term? Just because Fleming had assured her there wouldn’t be a problem…
Closing her eyes, Lexie drew a deep breath. It would be okay. She wouldn’t let this one down. She was strong, physically fit. She would bring the baby into this world. She would love it and nurture it. Most of all, she would protect it.
For the first time in days, she was feeling something that was almost like hope. How long had it been since she’d felt it? The day nearly two years ago, when she’d discovered she was pregnant, had been filled with the kind of elation that had made her feel invincible. Then there was that very first introduction to her daughter during the sonogram. Lindy’s first kick. There’d been so many firsts after that, and yet there hadn’t been quite enough of them. No first smile. No first tooth. No first step.
This time, though, would be different.
Lexie lifted her right hand, intending to rest it over her belly, too. Only when she saw the cast did she think about the pain medication she’d taken that first night, the aspirin she’d consumed once or twice since. What if she’d already done something to hurt the baby? What then? Forcing a deep breath, letting it out slowly, she thought of calling Fleming, but quickly decided against it. They’d spoken only once since Friday night. She’d made the call, catching him as he was picking up Dan’s parents at the airport. Out of necessity, the conversation had been stilted and short. He’d promised to call when he was alone, but he hadn’t. She suspected it was because he didn’t really know what to say to her. And to be honest, she was almost relieved that he hadn’t contacted her. Because she didn’t know what to say, either.
And given
the current situation, calling him about the possible impact of class three narcotics on a fetus would be the same as announcing her pregnancy.
When the knock landed at the front door, Lexie zipped her jeans and smoothed her hair. But didn’t make any move to answer it. Two reporters had ambushed her as she came home last night, appearing out of nowhere, cameras flashing, microphones shoved in her face. It had been all she could do just to get in the door.
When they gave up and left, she’d driven to the end of the gravel lane and stretched the chain with the No Trespassing sign across. In the way of deterrents, it wasn’t much.
When the knocking came again several minutes later, she walked out into the hallway, but still made no move to answer the door.
Would whoever was there just go away if she didn’t? Even with her car in the drive?
When the pounding became more emphatic, she decided that she was going to have to answer it. The autopsy had taken place this morning. There was a good chance that it was the police. That she was on her way to jail for a crime she hadn’t committed.
Yeah. Mondays were the pits. And this Monday most of all.
JACK TRIED TO TELL himself that he didn’t have a choice, but he knew better. There was always a choice to be made. Evidently, he’d made his. Didn’t mean he was completely comfortable with it yet.
It was nearly ten o’clock on Monday morning when he opened the screen door of Lexie’s house and knocked on the front door. Even when she didn’t answer after a reasonable length of time, he assumed, since there had been a chain with a No Trespassing sign hanging across the drive and the white Taurus was still in the drive, that she was home. He’d give it a minute and try again.
Shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Jack scanned the front of the house, focusing on details that he hadn’t seen the night he’d brought her home.
The structure was low-slung and built mostly of logs, except for one wing that was frame construction with cypress siding. The front door and shutters were red, as were the flowers in the pots next to the door. Not fancy like the Thornton Park house, but homey.
As he turned to check out the surrounding woods, he realized there was a stillness, a peacefulness to the morning, and having just come from the medical examiner’s office, Jack welcomed it. But even as he inhaled the cool, fresh air, the scents of death and Vicks VapoRub lingered in his nostrils. Of all the senses, the olfactory carried the longest “memory,” and even now, if he closed his eyes, he’d be standing over the body again. Listening to Dr. Silas Ecker as he dictated his findings, as he answered questions. As he described the last minutes of a man’s life.
This morning’s autopsy was the first Jack had attended since taking the job as police chief. Several times, as the gazes of Fitz and Shepherd had met his over the body, he could see them wondering just how involved he was with Lexie.
He suspected his brother’s answer to that question would be “too involved.”
Maybe he was. In the past, when he’d been working undercover and dealing mostly with prostitutes and drug dealers, he’d been careful not to let himself get too close or too mixed up with a suspect or an informant. It hadn’t always been easy, especially when it was a woman and the situation was a bad one.
Pounding on the door this time, Jack stared inside. Maybe she thought he’d give up and go away. If she did, she obviously didn’t know him.
Jack let the screen door swing shut again. He’d give it a few minutes and try yet again.
The house sat on the bank of Deep Water Run, the surrounding deck acting almost like a dock linking house to water. Jack walked to the railing and rested his elbows on it. In spite of the fast moving current, the surface barely rippled. The water was perhaps ten feet deep but looked shallower because of the river’s clarity and white sand bottom.
What made a woman choose to live way out here? It seemed an odd choice. Jack straightened. Perhaps it had been an easy spot for her to run to when she lost the baby and her marriage broke up. He was still having a hard time seeing Lexie as an abused wife. Not because he doubted it was true, but because she seemed too strong to have put up with any type of abuse.
Jack stared down into the water. The night they’d met, she had been very upset about something. He had assumed it was the breakup of the marriage. He now suspected that the loss of the baby was more likely the cause behind her emotional state.
He felt regret for what had happened the night they’d met. He’d been surprised when she sat down next to him at the bar where he’d been nursing a beer. She ordered a martini straight up and had downed it immediately. The next one pretty much went the way of the first. It didn’t take keen investigative skills to detect that she was a woman eager to forget something. When she ordered a third, he’d made the decision to drive her home. The decision to take her to bed wasn’t so easy to nail down, though. He wasn’t even sure it had been his, and yet he’d been the one who was stone-cold sober that night. Looking back, he realized that he should have stopped at her front door.
Hearing the screen door whine open behind him, Jack turned and saw her standing there, wearing jeans, a bulky black sweater and a wary expression.
She didn’t say anything, just met his gaze. He realized that she did that a lot. Waited for other people to take the lead in conversation. Which seemed out of character in some way, since she obviously wasn’t a follower. She wore her thick hair up, anchored by some type of clip. And because loose strands clung damply to her neck, he decided the reason she hadn’t answered the door sooner was because she’d been in the shower.
As he closed the distance between them, she glanced toward the drive, almost as if she expected him not to be alone.
“I’m here just to talk.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
When she started to close the door, Jack’s hand shot out and grabbed the wood frame just above hers. “You could use a friend, Lexie. Especially now.”
Her fingers tightened on the doorknob. “Why especially now?”
“I just came from the autopsy.”
The look on her face said that she’d already guessed the medical examiner’s ruling. Though she didn’t offer a verbal invitation, Lexie stepped back.
As he slipped past her, Jack checked out the living room. It wasn’t all that surprising that he didn’t remember the space. It had been dark the last time he’d been inside her home, and his mind had been on other things. His body tightened at the memory of the night, of how it had been between them. He actually dreamed about her some nights, and when he did he’d awaken aroused. He hadn’t jerked off since high school, but there had been a time or two recently when he’d wondered if it would come to that.
Was it the same for her? Did she ever think about that night? Did she ever want the way he did?
Probably not. If she had, she wouldn’t have turned him down when he’d called.
Because it was safer, Jack refocused on his surroundings. A stacked-stone fireplace covered the largest of the interior walls, a fire filling the grate. The furniture ap peared comfortable but not stylish, the kind that invited rough use. Several faded rugs covered the stone floors. There was little artwork, but then, even if there had been more, it would have rarely been noticed because of the view outside the French doors. Once again, as he looked out across the river to the opposite bank and beyond that to the thick woods of pines and oaks, he was struck with the remoteness.
When he turned back, he caught her watching him.
“I didn’t make any coffee.” She locked the door, her movements awkward because of the cast. “But I can offer you a cup of tea or a glass of water. If you haven’t already had breakfast, I was just about to make myself some toast.”
“Tea sounds good.” He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d had hot tea. Perhaps when he’d had the flu as a kid and his mother had forced a doctored version on him.
He followed Lexie toward the kitchen. “How’s the hand?”
&
nbsp; “Okay,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s just a fracture.”
Like the living room, one wall of the kitchen was all windows. A small television on the counter was tuned to the morning news. The fact that it was worried Jack. Typically, a victim’s family tended to isolate themselves from the outside world. They didn’t want to see or hear their personal tragedy dissected by strangers. In his experience, the only time that didn’t hold true was when a family member needed to keep tabs on the progress being made by law enforcement—because he or she was the one who had committed the crime.
As Lexie poured water from the kettle into two mugs and added tea bags, he checked out the room a bit more. A pot rack loaded with cookware hung over the table in the center. A small wall next to the back door held a dozen or so pho tographs, some recent, others appearing to be very dated. They were obviously family shots centered on the outdoor activities that would have taken place during stays in the cabin. Fishing and picnics, and even some hunting shots. One of them showed a much younger Lexie with a man that Jack assumed was her grandfather.
“I don’t suppose I need to ask how the medical examiner ruled this morning.” The slight elevation of her tone revealed just how nervous she was, just how much she wanted the answer, but at the same time dreaded it.
“Homicide,” he said as he faced her.
Her pupils constricted, her eyes going from dark gray to nearly silver. She turned away and took a deep breath. Obviously, she hadn’t been nearly as prepared as she had thought. Had she held out hope that her ex-husband’s death would be ruled a suicide?
“Did you contact an attorney?”
Her back still to him, Lexie nodded. “Garland Ramsey has agreed to represent me.” Arms folded in front of her, she faced Jack with a grim expression. “Would it be better if I turned myself in?”
The question surprised him. Even to ask it took courage. “No. Just make yourself available.”
“In other words, wait for them to come for me?”
Secret Alibi Page 8