Alec sprinkled the onions over the top of the pizza. “The fact that she’s beautiful and comes from a good background won’t help either, because, if the prosecution gets its way, there won’t be many of Lexie’s peers sitting on that jury. There won’t be a lot of college graduates.” Alec opened a can of anchovies, but left them sitting on the table. “What there will be is a bunch of armchair criminalists. Folks who watch CSI seven nights a week and who believe that blood evidence, photos of crime scenes, ballistic experts all add up to guilt.”
Alec added black olives. “By the way I didn’t spot anyone in the courtroom today who looked particularly suspicious.” They had been working on the theory that the killer might be compelled to see Lexie arraigned.
Jack handed him the basil, oregano and red pepper. His brother looked at the containers and then at Jack, one brow climbing. “Watching the food channel lately?”
“Yeah. When I can’t sleep.” Jack flipped a chair around and straddled it.
They talked about the evidence in general terms for several minutes before focusing in on any one aspect as Alec slid the pizza into the oven. “It appears as if the killer either knew the door would be unlocked or that they would be let in.”
Jack nodded. “I keep coming back to the fact that the bullet entered behind the condyle and that there were no signs of a struggle, suggesting he knew his killer.”
“Tox report complete?” Alec asked.
“Not yet.”
“Until it is, I’d have to go along with your position that it was a female offender, then. An organized one. From what I’ve seen so far the only loose end is the missing twenty-five automatic.” Alec flicked the towel back onto his shoulder. “Was he seeing anyone?”
“One of his employees, but she works part-time over at the hospital and was on the critical care unit until midnight. A patient went code blue that night—one of hers—so there’s no possibility that she managed to slip away.”
“Okay. Then is there any possibility that she wasn’t the only one he was seeing?”
“I suppose the fact that Shepherd didn’t turn up a second girlfriend may have been because he didn’t dig quite deep enough.”
“Then that’s where I’ll get started tomorrow,” Alec said.
Jack took a sip of his wine. He’d asked for his brother’s opinion, but he hadn’t asked for any help beyond that, so was surprised by Alec’s announcement.
“Are you sure you can spare the time?”
“I was planning to stick closer to home for the next few weeks, so yeah, I have plenty of time.” Alec tossed down the towel and reached for his wineglass. “Where were you that night, Jack?”
Jack knew why Alec had waited until that moment to ask. Because he had hoped to catch Jack off guard. He hadn’t.
“The surf was up. I decided to drive over to the beach.” Frowning, Jack downed the last of the wine in his glass. He needed to change the subject, not let his brother dwell on his answer too long. “I think we can safely agree that the only way Lexie’s going to avoid prison is if the real killer is found.”
LEXIE STOOD IN THE hallway, her back pressed to the wall as Alec’s and Jack’s words rolled through her head. Prison. She was heading for prison unless they managed to find Dan’s killer. It wouldn’t be a matter of proving herself innocent. There was no way she was going to be able to refute the evidence…
Hearing a noise, she looked up and saw Jack standing five feet from her. He’d stepped into the hallway and out of the light coming from the kitchen, so she couldn’t see his face.
She straightened immediately.
“I’m sorry you overheard that.”
“Don’t be,” she said as she closed the distance between them. “I can manage the truth easier than I can deal with wondering what you’re hiding from me because you don’t think I can handle it.”
His mouth tightened. “I’ll remember that in the future.”
Lexie stepped into her kitchen, already nervous about spending time in the same room with Jack’s brother. She wasn’t surprised by his offer to help. His reasons for doing so, though, didn’t have anything to do with her, she knew.
“Whatever you’re making smells delicious.”
“Pizza,” Jack said as he tried to hand a glass of wine to her.
She wanted it. There was no denying that. But she shook her head. “I can’t. I took a pain pill a few minutes ago.” She hadn’t, but it was the only reason she could think of for turning down the wine.
As she was getting a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, the phone rang and Lexie automatically picked it up.
“You murdering bitch!” an unfamiliar female voice said.
Jack tugged the handset out of Lexie’s hand, listened briefly before saying, “You have a good evening, too, ma’am.”
Lexie tried to open the bottled water, but her hands were shaking too badly. She knew both men were watching her, waiting to see if she would fall apart.
She would have given anything just to be alone for a few minutes.
At her continued struggles, Alec held out a hand for the water. Passing it to him, she turned to Jack. He obviously knew what was going through her head.
“Your ex-husband’s patient, most likely,” Jack said. “It will probably continue for a few days. People typically give up after that.”
While Alec and Jack ate pizza chased with a good Chianti, Lexie accompanied hers with the water. The conversation was anything but what was normally carried on during a meal. Both men asked her endless questions about her marriage, about Dan’s habits, and hers, too.
It was nearly an hour later when, taking his plate with him, Alec got up from the table. “It’s getting late and Lexie especially needs a good night’s sleep.”
She was surprised by those words, as she was when he held out his hand to her. Given the way he’d questioned her, it seemed an odd parting gesture.
As the men moved toward the front door, Alec having said goodbye, Lexie cleared the remaining plates. There was no automatic dishwasher, so she filled one side of the double sink with water and added soap and the dishes, stacking them neatly using her one good hand. What was being said at that moment in the foyer?
And then she realized that she really didn’t care.
“You okay?” Jack asked, coming up behind her.
Was it her imagination that she could feel him reaching out to touch her? She waited heavy seconds for the contact, uncertain what she would do if it ever came. Welcome it? Retreat from it?
A slight trembling started low inside her and spread upward until it controlled even her lungs. Her breath became shallow and slightly labored. She needed to tell him about the baby, but didn’t know how.
“Lexie?” His fingers fiddled with the ends of her hair. He probably didn’t even realize that she could feel the contact, but it served to lessen her apprehension.
Turning, she lifted her eyes to his face. Handsome was too tame a word to describe this man. Jack’s brother was handsome. Polished. Jack wasn’t. But it was rough edges that set him apart, the slightly longer hair that, when he lifted his chin, slipped beneath his collar, and the hard, broad shoulders. The blue eyes that could go nearly black when he was inside a woman.
Courage suddenly abandoned her. “What if I asked you to stay tonight?”
He remained silent, his eyes not giving away anything of what he was thinking.
She lowered her gaze. “I don’t want to end up like Dan. I don’t want to be the next victim.”
Jack reached out and rested his hand alongside her neck. He lifted her chin with his thumb. “I wasn’t planning to leave you tonight, Lexie.”
IT WAS PAST 3:00 a.m. when Jack awoke suddenly. He’d heard something outside, but sat there unmoving, waiting for the sound to repeat.
After his brother had left, Jack and Lexie had spent some time cleaning things up a bit. When Lexie turned in, Jack had settled on the couch, his weapon, a 9 mm, within easy reach. He hadn’t been able
to sleep, though, his thoughts so anchored on the woman in the next room.
He needed to watch himself around her. If he didn’t, he’d touch her as he had in the kitchen earlier. Her hair first, and when that wasn’t enough, a single hand stroking the side of her neck. And when that wasn’t enough… His imagination took him places he couldn’t allow his hands to go.
If he’d had to name what it was about her that got under his skin, it wouldn’t have been her looks, which were sexy as hell. It would have been her strength. And her vulnerability.
He’d nearly decided that he’d imagined the sound when he heard careful footsteps out on the decking. Definitely not an animal.
Jack slipped off the couch and, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, moved to a position next to the closest French door.
Flipping off the automatic’s safety, he waited. More sounds of movement. Because of Jack’s location and the way the house was laid out, he couldn’t get a good visual, but with the next sound it became apparent that, whoever it was, they used the deck to circle to the back of the house.
He moved quickly to Lexie’s bedroom door. After knocking softly, he opened it. She was already sitting up.
“We have a visitor. Might just be someone out to harass you.” She climbed off the bed. She wore what looked to be white boxer shorts and the same color T-shirt.
He waited for her to reach him. “I’m going out the front way. I need you to lock it behind me. Bring your cell phone and keep it handy.”
She followed him, her expression worried. “Maybe you should stay inside.”
He understood her fear. She didn’t like the idea of being left alone. Dropping down, he retrieved the thirty-two from his ankle holster. He passed it to her there in the dark silence of the entryway, his fingers slipping off cold metal to reach the warmth of her skin. “You won’t be able to operate the safety with your left hand, so take it off as soon as you hear anything.”
They both knew that he didn’t need to give her instructions, that she was well versed in the handling of a weapon.
She looked up at him just before he slipped out. “Be careful.”
“If I’m not back in five minutes, call 9-1-1 and then Alec. The number is on the refrigerator.”
Once outside, he waited until he heard the lock click into place behind him, then followed the same track their visitor had.
The night had cooled into the low forties. As he slipped past the first French door, he glanced inside. Where was Lexie? Still by the front door, or concealed in one of the living room’s shadows?
He didn’t really believe it was someone out to hassle Lexie. If that had been their goal, there would have been no reason to risk getting this close. A rock lobbed through a window or graffiti sprayed on her car would have been just as effective and far safer for the perp.
Reaching the corner of the house, he waited again for the subtle sounds of movement.
But what would Dan’s killer gain by showing up? If the goal had been to kill Lexie’s ex and frame her, why not just sit back and watch the show? At least until there were signs that the court wasn’t going to handle things to your satisfaction?
The breeze that had been blocked by the house reached him, the scent of the nearby woods forced to mingle with that of the river. He leaned out just far enough to look down the length of the home, but immediately flattened himself again.
A bend in Deep Water Run meant the river pretty much wrapped two sides of the house. What wasn’t enclosed by water was bordered by trees. Perhaps not closely, but the forest still presented cover for anyone’s arrival or departure.
Jack scanned the area between the house and the woods. Instead of aiding him, the moonlight created shadows in the tall grasses that could easily hide a man. Was someone out there staring back? Perhaps using night-vision equipment? Something made Jack glance down at the deck he stood on. Or had they ducked underneath?
He crossed to the railing and dropped over the side. As soon as his shoes connected with the soft, slick ground, he crouched. He’d had to put his hand out to maintain his balance, and it was now coated with mud.
Jack trained the 9 mm on the darkened area beneath the boards. The moonlight, penetrating the spaces between, striped the ground and the water, but didn’t reach the foundation.
The headroom was about four feet, tall enough for a man to move around. Which meant that Jack was going to have to get even dirtier than he already was. But five feet in, he came face-to-face with an opossum and realized there was no need to go any farther. The animal would have been long gone if anyone had crawled beneath the deck ahead of him.
He circled the house a second time, his gaze trained on the woods now. Maybe he was overreacting. Perhaps their visitor had nothing to do with Dan Dawson’s murder. Most of the residences in the area were weekend retreats and would normally be unoccupied on a Tuesday night. Maybe it had just been someone looking for an easy house to break into.
But Jack didn’t think so.
Chapter Eight
“Did you see anything?”
Lexie jerked open the door before Jack even had a chance to knock. She’d been tracking his movements the whole time, and she had watched him turn away from the door suddenly several minutes earlier, as if he had seen or heard something.
Jack closed the door behind him and locked it.
“Jack?”
He looked unsettled. “Maybe it was just a reporter. I don’t really know.” The hand he ran through his hair hesitated at the back of his neck, and then dropped away. “We’ll stay here tonight, but we’ll move to my place tomorrow.”
THE FOLLOWING DAY Lexie and Jack arrived at Fleming Whittemore’s office just after eight o’clock. The sun was barely peeking above the trees and the morning chill still lingered.
The brick-and-stucco building, built only three years earlier by Dan Dawson and Fleming Whittemore, was located on a quiet street adjacent to one of the older residential areas in Deep Water. The homes may have been smaller than those in Thornton Park, but the lots were just as large, as were the oaks draped in Spanish moss and the Formosa azaleas.
“You okay with this?” Jack asked as they headed up the wide sidewalk.
“I’ll be fine.” She wouldn’t be, of course. She would have preferred to be just about anywhere else this morning. Besides jail. Even if the reason for the visit hadn’t been to confront Fleming, just entering her dead ex-husband’s office and facing members of his staff would have been difficult enough. How many of them actually thought she’d killed Dan?
Innocent until proven guilty sounded good in theory, but from Lexie’s recent experience, that’s not how it really worked. People loved to believe the worst about other people. Because it made them feel better about their own lives.
Jack held the door, and Lexie stepped into the overly cool reception area, where the aromas of antiseptic and fresh-brewed coffee seemed to coexist comfortably.
Because of the early hour, there wasn’t a receptionist at the desk, but a nurse stood just outside the file room, her arms full of charts. She looked up as they entered, and her expression became troubled.
“I’m not sure you should be here,” the woman said.
“We need to speak with Dr. Whittemore,” Jack stated.
The nurse looked uncertain. “Please have a seat. I’ll see if Dr. Whittemore can take the time away from his patients.”
Instead of sitting in the reception area as she had suggested, Jack chose to wait next to the desk. Lexie felt too conspicuous just standing there, though, so she paced nervously. The room was mostly glass, the view outside one of expansive lawn and century oaks. Slickly framed photographs of babies filled the limited wall space. Advertisements. She’d always thought it was a bit cheesy, like an automotive repair shop hanging photos of race cars.
One of the photos had recently been removed. In its place, someone was creating a collage from snapshots of babies. Glass protected the work-in-progress. As she scanned the faces, Lexie
thought of all the happy mothers who had donated them. And couldn’t help but think about the baby she’d lost, and the one she carried.
Jack touched her on the arm. She flinched at the unexpected contact.
“Come on.” He nodded to the nurse, who now waited for them.
The nurse who showed them into Fleming’s office didn’t close the door when she left, so Lexie did. For no other reason than she didn’t want to feel as if she was on display to patients and staff when they walked past.
“Nice building,” Jack commented as he checked out the framed medical diploma and board certification. “Did you have a hand in it?”
“Only financially.”
He glanced in her direction. “Pharmaceutical reps make that kind of money?”
“No. My grandparents left me that kind of money.”
“What about Dan? Did he have money?”
“Recently licensed doctors don’t have money. They have sleep deprivation and debt.”
She saw the speculation in Jack’s eyes. Had Dan married her for the money? To be honest, there were times when she wasn’t so certain that he hadn’t.
“Dan received the office in the property settlement and I was to have retained the Thornton Park house and Riverhouse.”
“Alimony?”
“No. My attorney wanted to push for it, but I wouldn’t let him. It would have only served to exasperate the animosity, and I just wanted to put the marriage behind me.”
She rubbed her arms. She didn’t know if it was the room temperature or the conversation that had left her feeling chilled.
As if he sensed that she didn’t want to continue the discussion, Jack checked out the alcove with the large window. They’d stopped by his place so that he could shower and change. And to leave the suitcase she’d packed in the center of his bed. She’d felt awkward sitting in his living room, listening to the shower run, and when it stopped, seeing him casually walk across the hall to his bedroom with a towel draped around his waist.
Jack was obviously very comfortable in his skin. Competent. Confident. She was none of those things anymore. Perhaps that was why she had been so drawn to him that night, and remained drawn to him even now.
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