“I am thinking about it,” he said. “I’d have to talk to my family. I’m not sure how involved they want to be. This is my obsession. Not theirs.”
She hooked her hand around his thick biceps, flexed her fingers and shifted closer. No. Getting too close wouldn’t do either of them any good. She let go of him and instantly mourned the loss. “We can always ask the sheriff.”
He shrugged and stared back out the window. “That’d work, I guess. We’d both get what we need.”
Had he ever had a day when he’d completely gotten what he needed? Somehow Jenna didn’t think so. Not as long as his mother’s killer was free.
Boosting off the wall, he faced her, gesturing to the photos and the file she’d left on the floor. “Anything jump out at you?”
For now, she’d let him drop the subject. Emotionally, she was strung out. His exhaustion would be triple hers. So she’d give him what he wanted and return to the puzzle that was his mother’s death. As twisted as it seemed, that was apparently Brent’s comfort zone.
“I still need to run through all the timelines and talk to that druggie guy you said lived across town. So far, everything your family has told me is consistent with what you’ve said. And the reports. The druggie is the only one I can’t verify a timeline on. Well, and your dad, but Jamie said she saw when your dad pulled in that night and he went crazy. I don’t know why I feel this, but I don’t think he did it. Can’t rule him out, though. I’ll need to talk to him.”
Brent let out a long breath. “I know. I can give you the last number I had for him, but it’s been years. He could be in the wind again.”
“I’ll find him. For now, let’s find this druggie. We’ll ask the sheriff to pull any reports of home-invasion incidents from that time. Particularly in surrounding areas. You never know. Something could be related.”
“I did that.”
“And?”
“Dead end. But I have copies of all the reports at my place. I can give them to you. Fresh eyes, remember?”
She smiled. “I remember. Never hurts to look. I’d also like to meet with some crime-scene people I know and show them the photos. We need to identify the murder weapon. Or at least get an idea of what it could have been. It might lead us somewhere.”
Jenna had helped on a case the prior year where their defendant was accused of killing his brother. He denied it, but their defendant was an avid bowler with plenty of tournament wins. Unfortunately for Penny, that victory wound up going to the prosecution when they found DNA on the base of one of the defendant’s trophies—the murder weapon.
Heels clomped against the porch boards and Jenna angled back to find Brent’s aunt in the doorway. Sylvie’s mouth dropped open. “What on earth is she doing on crutches?”
“She sprained her ankle,” Brent said.
“The crutches are a precaution. Your nephew is quite stubborn when he wants to be.”
“Oh, honey,” Sylvie said, “I could have told you that.”
“Aunt Sylvie, don’t start. The crutches are a good idea.”
Jenna grinned up at him. He simply refused to back down. This was probably the thing that had kept him going on his mother’s case all these years.
He tweaked her nose. A nice thing after the blowup they’d just had. At least he didn’t hold on to arguments.
“Stop looking at me like that.” He smiled down at her. “You all set here? I can run you home in your car and get a lift back with Camille and her husband when they drive out for dinner tonight. I’ll drive my car home later.”
Right. The family dinner his aunt had guilted him into. But she was not going to have him spending half his day running back and forth.
“That’s crazy. My driving foot is fine.”
“I know, but it’s a long drive. I’d rather take you.”
Again they were going to fight? Jenna closed her eyes. A nap would do her some good. “No.”
“Yes.”
“Or,” his aunt said, “the two of you could stop this nonsense and Jenna will stay for dinner. Then you drive her car home, Camille drives yours and Doug drives theirs. Problem solved. We’re done here.”
This bossy thing must be a family trait. “I don’t want to intrude.”
“You’re not intruding,” Brent and his aunt both said. He looked at Sylvie and laughed. “Good one.”
“Besides,” his aunt said, “it’s almost three o’clock. By the time he drives you home and they get back here—because, let’s face it, Camille has never been on time a day in her life—my dinner will be ruined. If you stay, I’ll get extra time with Brent. I love that idea.” Not giving Jenna an inch to argue, the older woman spun to the door. “It’s all settled. I’ll go to church in the morning, so just pop over to the house when you’re done here.”
After his aunt left, Jenna flopped out her bottom lip. “Wow.”
“Welcome to my life, babe.”
“She’s downright scary.”
He laughed. “Sometimes. But here we are and we’ve got time to kill. Let’s run through your timelines.”
* * *
JENNA WAS GONE.
The dinner dishes had been cleared and the aroma of his aunt’s high-octane coffee drifted into the nook of a dining room where Brent sat with Camille and Jamie discussing everyone’s plans for the holidays. Camille and Doug would be gone for Thanksgiving but home for Christmas. Brent, as usual, would either be working—he liked to give the married guys the holidays off—or at his aunt’s. No big mystery. Jamie would spend Thanksgiving with her husband’s family downstate. Her kids didn’t get to see the other set of grandparents often, so they spent the long weekend with them. They’d be back for Christmas, though.
Nope, the only mystery right now was where Jenna had disappeared to. Brent stood and tapped the table. “Be right back.”
Camille glanced up, her blue eyes so big and round that it instantly brought him back to childhood and, worse, the teenage years when he’d spent too much time scaring off horny boys. With his father checked out, all of it had fallen on Brent. Someone had to protect Camille, and Brent had never minded watching out for his little sister. Still didn’t.
As his sister matured, her looks had changed. Her cheekbones had sharpened and she’d cut her normally long light brown hair to chin length. When she’d done that, her resemblance to their mother had knocked Brent sideways. He couldn’t tell Camille, but every time he looked at her, he thought of their mother.
“Where are you going?” Camille asked.
“Kitchen. Our guest has gone AWOL.”
“You’re trying to steal cookies.”
He cracked a smile. “Since I’m in the kitchen...”
“Check the cabinet,” Jamie said. “I dropped off the pies and a batch of your favorites this morning.”
“The chocolate chip? With the macadamias?”
“Yep.”
“I love you.”
“I know you do, cuz.”
He snapped his fingers and spun back in Jamie’s direction. “Hey, when you left this morning, did you see anyone?”
“Where?”
“By the house.”
She drew in her eyebrows. “Well, there were a few cars on the road, but it’s Saturday. People were heading into town. Why?”
“Just curious.”
But from the looks of Jamie’s hard stare, she wasn’t buying it. “Brent, what are you up to?”
Time to bolt. “Nothing. I was curious.”
Making his getaway, he strode into the size-impaired kitchen and squeezed between the table and cabinets where his aunt unwrapped two pies.
Brent went straight for the cookie cabinet.
“They’re on the table.” Aunt Sylvie pointed over her shoulder. “I took them out for you.”
There they sat, a good two dozen of his favorite cookies that Aunt Sylvie had taught Jamie how to make. He bent low, kissed his aunt’s cheek. “You two are the best.”
One thing about his cousin and his aun
t, when he was around, they made his favorite foods. How he’d have gotten through his adolescence without their female nurturing and guidance, he’d thankfully never have to know.
“Did you see Jenna?”
“Your uncle said something about a fire. Check out back.”
Again with the fire pit? “He’s obsessed with that thing.”
She sighed. “Don’t I know it? He’s been this way for years. Did you see he rebuilt it?”
This would be no less than the third time. “Get out.”
“He changed out the bricks. Got some fancy ones he picked up in Kentucky.”
His uncle was a long-haul trucker who picked up all sorts of junk while on the road. One year he’d come home with enough fireworks to last three years. Another time it had been folding chairs that he’d bought at wholesale prices and resold to townspeople, making a nice profit along the way. When it came to his family, his uncle always made ends meet. No matter what, his family came first.
Brent grabbed three cookies off the plate. “I’m checking out the fire pit.”
“Two cookies, Brent. Save room for pie.”
“Whoops. Already touched the third one. Have to take it now.” Knowing her kill zone, he grinned. “Isn’t that what you always told me?”
“Don’t sass me.” She shooed him from the cookies. “Go.”
He gave her a backward wave, pushed open the storm door and found his uncle sitting across from a blanket-wrapped Jenna in front of a roaring fire. A cool wind blew the smell of burning timber toward him and he breathed in. Nice. In the two hours he’d been inside, the temperature had dropped a good ten degrees. The cooler air smacked at his cheeks. He’d left his jacket inside so his long-sleeved T-shirt would have to do. “Hey, nice fire pit.”
“Picked up the bricks a couple of weeks ago. Home improvement store going out of business. Helluva deal.”
To Brent, they just looked like bricks. He grabbed one of the aluminum patio chairs and, hoping to hell the thing would hold him, set it next to Jenna’s. She’d propped her foot up on a cinder block that had been sitting in the yard for ten years.
“How’s the ankle?”
“It’s okay. Better now that it’s propped up.”
“That cinder block is good for something at least.”
“Don’t make fun of my cinder block,” Uncle Herb shot back. “She’s got her foot up on it, doesn’t she?”
Jenna made a hissing sound. “Got you there, big boy.”
At that, Brent made the mistake of looking at her and—pow—there it was again, that crazy feeling he got in his chest every time she came within five feet of him. And with the heat from the fire, the flames lighting up her face and shining off her long dark hair, she was nothing short of movie-star stunning. Their gazes held and, well, truth of it was, they stunk at this no-flirting thing. He knew it, his erection knew it and apparently his uncle also knew it, because Herb cleared his throat and made some lame excuse to go inside.
Brent watched him go, suddenly not sad to be alone with Jenna in front of a fire. “Coffee is almost ready. Then we’ll head out.”
“No rush.”
“Camille likes to get out fast.” He broke the amazing eye contact and studied the conjoined yards where all the open space had provided plenty of running room when he was a kid. “She’s never said it, but being here throws her.”
“It’s understandable. I’m not family and knowing what happened next door throws me.”
A hunk of wood in the fire snapped and they sat in silence while it crackled and broke apart. Jenna set her foot on the ground and shifted to him. “Can you get me the contact information for that other suspect? I’d like to check him out tomorrow.”
“I have it at home. If you can wait until afternoon, I’ll drive you. He lives about an hour from here.”
“Do you have time for that?”
“Yeah. It’s Sunday. Unless something comes up, I’m off. I’ve got a game with a bunch of guys in the morning, but we’re usually done by eleven.”
“That sounds fun.”
“It is fun. I miss football.”
“Maybe I’ll come watch. Then we can go right from there. Unless it’s a guy thing.”
“Not at all. Some of the guys bring their kids. You can be my plus one.”
Jenna sighed. “I hate that plus-one thing. And right now it feels like everyone is getting married or having some kind of function, and I keep getting these invitations with Jenna Hayward and guest.”
He knew that feeling. “Annoying, isn’t it?”
“Thank you! I know people are being nice, in case there’s someone I want to bring, but it’s like a pressure thing. I know I’m crazy, but that’s how it feels.”
“It’s not crazy.” He jerked his thumb at the door. “I get it all the time from the crew inside. When are you getting married? Who are you dating? I met a nice girl at the market. It never ends.”
Between his hours on the job and his mom’s case, he didn’t have time to date. All he had were two hours on Sunday when he played football to work off the damned stress of his life. He considered that a mental-health necessity. Football was the release valve. Well, sex too, but since he wasn’t getting too much of that lately, football would have to do.
“I never get that from my family. I have four brothers, though, and a father who cleans his gun when I bring dates around.”
Brent laughed. “That’ll be me one day.”
“I think my father and brothers would be happy if I joined a convent. They’ve hated all my boyfriends.”
“They hate them because they love you. I hated Doug, too. And he’s the nicest guy I know. I just didn’t want him having sex with my sister. Hell, they’re married and I still don’t want him having sex with her. Ew.”
Jenna reached over and poked him, her long nail digging into his arm before she backed away again. “See, I love that about you, but I hate it about my family.”
“It’s what brothers do. I’ve always taken care of Camille. She lost her mom.”
“So did you.”
“Yeah, but she’s a girl and girls need a mom.”
“So do boys.”
He waggled his hand at her. Enough said on that front. “Tomorrow, I’ll pick you up about 8:30 a.m. We’ll go to my game and then head out to see one Terrence Jeffries. I’ll need a shower before, but I’ll buy you lunch while you wait.”
“It’ll give me time to study your notes. Do you think there’s anything there?”
If there was, he couldn’t find it. “Jeffries says he was home alone that night.”
“What’s your gut saying?”
“My gut says it’s not him. I can’t go by that, though. This is my mother. I second-guess everything.”
“You’re too close to it.”
“That’s why I have you.”
Again, she leaned over, but this time touched his knee. “I’ll do whatever I have to. I wanted this before, but after spending time with you and your family, my reasons are different. You all need closure. I want to help you get it.”
He stared down at her hand on his knee and his pulse went ballistic. Off-the-charts ballistic. Not to mention the erection he was sporting. Female friends casually touched him all the time. This, right here, the way his body responded? It had been months since he’d felt that. Damn, he needed sex. And suddenly, his typical one-nighters that got the job done—the means to an end—wouldn’t do.
He’d been thinking about Jenna Hayward in a less than gentlemanly way since the day he’d met her. And something told him if he pursued it, they’d both be willing participants.
But they’d agreed no funny stuff.
At least until her work on his mother’s case was over.
Have to wait. For now. He grabbed her hand, gave it a gentle squeeze, then stood. “We should head inside.”
Scooping her crutches off the ground, he held them with one hand and extended his other to help her up.
“Thank you.”
>
He set the crutches in front of her. “You good here?”
“Yep.”
He waved her ahead of him, but she stopped. “What?”
“You’re always taking care of people. Makes me wonder who takes care of you.”
Once again. Pow. Right in the chest. She hobbled to the door and waited for him to open it while he tried to string together a sentence. He got there, set his hand on the knob, but didn’t open it. “I don’t think about it.”
“I know. Maybe, when this is over, we can change that.”
Chapter Six
The next morning, after watching Brent and his over-amped friends nearly kill each other on a football field, Jenna rode shotgun to pay a surprise visit to Terrence Jeffries. Who knew if he’d be home, but she couldn’t worry about that. One thing she didn’t want was to alert him that they were coming so he could take off. If he wound up not being home, they’d wait. And wait a little more until he arrived.
Brent merged his SUV onto the tollway and hit the gas. Traffic was light and apparently that worked for Brent because he set the cruise control and let his fingers do the driving.
Jenna turned sideways to face him. “So, you maniacs play that hard every Sunday and no one winds up in a hospital?”
“Sometimes. But that’s football.”
“I mean, when you said football, I was thinking flag or touch. You boys were in full pads.”
“Yeah. We’re all ex college or high-school players who miss the adrenaline rush.”
“That’s insanity.”
He made a pffting sound. “That’s stress relief.”
Oh, brilliant. “Of course. You look at the guy across from you and then slam him to the ground. And then, for kicks, he does it back.”
He glanced at her and grinned. “What’s your point?”
“I guess I don’t have one.”
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