by Beth Andrews
“Why should I tell you anything? You’ll just twist whatever I say to suit your own needs.”
His eyes flashed but his voice remained unaffected as he said, “I want to hear your side of things. You want to help your brother. That’s understandable. Commendable. But loyalty only goes so far—”
“Not where I’m standing it doesn’t.”
“And the best thing you can do for Ward is to talk him into coming clean. If he did hit Shannon, if things got out of hand or out of his control, the jury will take that into consideration.” His voice was calm, low and soothing. It made her want to tear her hair out. Or better yet, tear his hair out. Strand by short, dark strand.
“You really are a cop, aren’t you?” She could overlook him thinking the worst of her, for believing she’d come over to sway him into going easy on Dillon.
What she couldn’t overlook was him trying to get her to think, even briefly, that he could possibly be different. That maybe she could trust him.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “I want to help you.”
“You want to help yourself.”
“I don’t want to see you messed up in this. If your brother is dangerous—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, tossing her hands in the air. “I know my brother, okay? He didn’t kill that woman and he isn’t dangerous.”
“He did time in prison,” he said flatly, “for murder.”
As if she needed reminding of that. “He was convicted of manslaughter. And there were extenuating circumstances.”
“There always are,” he said.
“Dillon didn’t mean to kill Glenn—”
“Glenn? Was that your stepfather?”
She curled her fingers into her palms, her short nails digging into her flesh. “Glenn Hopkins was the jerk my mother married, yes.”
Memories of that awful night assaulted her. Dragged her back through time. The sight of Glenn looming over her, his pale, fleshy face inches from her own. His brown eyes glassy and filled with so much hatred, so much violence that even though she knew he was long dead and buried, even though she was safe and he could never hurt her again, Kelsey shivered.
She rubbed her hands over her chilled arms and viciously pushed aside the memories. “The only reason Dillon fought with Glenn that night was to protect me.”
His gaze sharpened. “I thought your brother pleaded guilty.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter—”
“Wait a minute,” he said and held up a hand as if the gesture could stop time along with her words. “Let me get this straight. You say Ward killed your stepfather to protect you?”
“That’s right.”
“But that information was never introduced in court or during his plea agreement?”
She shrugged and, because she couldn’t stand there a moment longer with Jack’s disbelief boring into her head, got up from the table and crossed to the counter. The distance made it easier. “The public defender said it wouldn’t change anything.”
“Seems to me his attorney could’ve used it to go to trial.”
“Yeah, well, he didn’t think I would make a good witness.”
“Why not?”
Dillon’s cynical public defender had been part of the good-old boy’s network in their small town. He’d told Kelsey she would be a hindrance to the case. That the prosecutor would rip her testimony and her already torn reputation to shreds.
He’d also made it clear he wouldn’t be able to get a jury to believe her story when he didn’t believe it himself.
“Does it matter? Dillon did plead guilty and, instead of the easy sentence his attorney promised, the judge threw the book at him.”
“His sentence didn’t seem unfair to me.”
“How can you say that? You checked into Dillon’s past. He wasn’t violent. He didn’t have any priors. He was straight as an arrow.”
God, how her brother’s Boy Scout tendencies used to drive her nuts. Now she’d give anything to see even the merest hint of the old Dillon.
“You think I don’t know what’s going on here?” she continued. “It’s the same thing that happened to him before. He can’t win.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It hadn’t helped matters that Glenn wasn’t just an ordinary abusive stepfather and husband. He was also a cop. Or, at the time, an ex-cop. But he still had friends on the force. Still had people who would turn the other way while he kicked the crap out of my mother and Dillon.”
Oh, the local cops would come to the house—hard not to when the neighbors complained of the noise and fighting. But all the cops did was pull Glenn off of whichever one of them he was pummeling and take him somewhere to sober up.
Jack crushed his soda can and threw it into the recycling bin with more force than necessary. “He ever hit you?”
“Only if I was slow enough to let him catch me—which wasn’t often. Besides, Dillon looked out for me.”
He’d looked out for her and she’d let him down. And in the process cost him his freedom, and his future.
She lifted her head and her eyes locked with Jack’s. She read his compassion, curiosity and something…deeper.
His compassion got her back up. The curiosity she could evade. But her body responded to the something deeper. She wanted to cross the tiny room, slide into his arms and just…be held. Comforted. She wanted to ease the constant ache in her heart, if only for a minute or two.
What she wanted was standing before her, strong and competent and honorable. What she wanted was Jack.
Man, she was in such deep trouble here.
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “I understand why you think your brother got the shaft, but—”
“Forget it,” she said hollowly. “It’s obvious you don’t believe me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. I can see it on your face.”
“Damn it, Kelsey, I—”
“Daddy…” Emma whined loudly from upstairs. “Where are you?”
“You’d better go,” Kelsey said, glad for the interruption.
“I’m coming, Emma,” he called and then pinned Kelsey to the spot with his intense gaze. “I won’t be long and when I’m done, we can finish this discussion.”
He didn’t move. She didn’t know what he was waiting for, so she nodded. Then, as soon as she heard him climbing the stairs, she grabbed her purse and ran like hell.
JACK MANAGED TO GET THROUGH the nightly ritual of tucking Emma into bed—complete with prayers and kisses—in record time. It seemed like mere moments after leaving Kelsey in his kitchen, he was racing back down the stairs.
Jack shook his head as he descended. Emma had included Kelsey in her prayers. He hoped Emma wasn’t getting her hopes up that there was even the slightest chance of Kelsey being a part of their lives.Kelsey was still holding back from him. But he planned on getting the truth out of her tonight. He whipped the apron over his head, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it in a corner. After running a hand over his hair and taking a deep breath, he walked into the kitchen.
The empty kitchen.
He thumped his fist repeatedly against his thigh. Damn it. He should’ve handcuffed her to the refrigerator.
He pulled a beer out of the fridge, twisted off the top and sat down heavily at the kitchen table. Reaching behind him, he grabbed two cookies off the counter. The taste of chocolate melted on his tongue and he leaned back and grabbed two more.
He shouldn’t be surprised she’d taken off. She obviously didn’t want him asking too many more questions about the night Ward killed her stepfather.
But why? he wondered, wiping a hand on his jeans and washing away the sweetness of the cookies with a swallow of beer. Because she was telling the truth and it was still too painful to talk about? Or because she was lying?
If she was telling the truth, it sure as hell explained her blatant animosity toward cops. Compassion stirred in him for the child Kelsey had been, for wh
at she’d gone through. And he could only imagine what her stepfather had tried to do to her. What had pushed her brother to kill another man in order to save her.
Jack wasn’t stupid. He knew there were officers out there who abused their power, and that the code of silence protected them. Wearing a badge didn’t automatically make someone honorable or trustworthy.
He drank another swallow of beer and leaned back, balancing his weight on the chair’s rear legs. Did it even make a difference? So far, the evidence pointed to her brother being guilty of another murder. Whether or not Ward killed his stepfather to protect Kelsey shouldn’t figure into the here and now.
And it didn’t, but it also didn’t stop Jack from wanting to know what really happened that night. From wanting Kelsey to tell him what happened.
He rotated his head from side to side, rolled his shoulders back. He doubted that would ever happen. Kelsey obviously wasn’t going to volunteer the information and he wasn’t going to spend any more time trying to pry it out of her. He wasn’t going to spend any more time with her at all unless it was in a professional capacity.
So what if he wanted her? It was just lust. He absently rubbed a hand over his stomach. He could fight his body’s reaction to her.
The coroner’s report should be ready tomorrow, Tuesday at the latest. And while he wouldn’t have the DNA reports for at least a month, he hoped he’d have enough evidence to make an arrest within the next two weeks.
An arrest that would put a murderer behind bars and send Kelsey back to New York where she belonged.
CHAPTER NINE
A COLD, DRIZZLING RAIN came down as Jack made his way to The Summit’s door the next day. He stepped inside and ran a hand through his damp hair. He spotted Allie in the back corner scrubbing a table as if soap and elbow grease could wash away forty-odd years of grime and smoke residue.
“It’s bad enough you befriended Ward—the only convicted felon in the tricounty area,” he said as he headed toward her. “Now you’re letting his sister stay upstairs?”“Hello to you, too,” she said.
“Hello.” He stopped next to her. “Now, about Kelsey—”
“My relationship with Dillon is none of your concern, and Kelsey got kicked out of The Bee Hive. Was I supposed to let her sleep on the street?”
Jack pressed his fingers against his gritty eyes. “It used to be cute when you brought home all those unwanted cats and dogs,” he said on a long sigh. “And the time you found that bullfrog and insisted he needed to see the vet because he sounded hoarse was a riot. But aren’t you too old to collect strays?”
She straightened and sent him an arch look. “A word of advice. If you want to live a long, healthy, relatively pain-free life, don’t ever tell a woman she’s too old.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll make a note of that.”
“Good.” She picked the bucket up off the floor. Dirty water sloshed over the side and onto Jack’s already wet shoe. “Kelsey will only be here until this misunderstanding with Dillon is straightened out.”
He shook the beaded water off his foot. “You know this is more than just a misunderstanding.”
She skirted around him and began scrubbing the next table. “Any new developments?”
“Are you asking as my sister? Or as Ward’s attorney?”
“I’m asking as your sister and Dillon’s friend.”
“In that case, no. Nothing new.”
The coroner’s report he’d received that morning had simply reiterated what Jack had already guessed. Estimated time of death; between 11:30 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. Cause of death: massive brain hemorrhage caused by two blows to the head with a blunt object. The second, a stronger blow, had killed her. And while it was discovered that Shannon had engaged in sexual activity that night, nothing indicated it was anything but consensual.
Allie stomped to another table, her bucket swinging wildly in her hand. Seemed he’d made her mad. No surprise. He’d spent the entire day making people angry, starting with the men and women in his department when he’d attempted to get to the bottom of who’d leaked the story to Dora Wilkins over the weekend.
Naturally, no one had stepped forward and taken the blame.
Then the overworked technician at the state lab had bitten Jack’s head off when he’d called to see if there was any possible way to put a rush on his evidence—especially the mud samples. Add two irate phone calls from city council members, and he was having one hell of a day.
“Coroner’s finished with the autopsy,” he said, extending an olive branch to Allie. “Shannon’s body has been released to Mark. The funeral will be on Wednesday.”
“Good.”
“Back to Ward’s sister—”
“Save it, Jack.” Allie moved on to the next table. “She’s here and she’s staying. Besides, I like her. She’s been a godsend around here, and now that Tina’s quit—”
“When did that happen?”
“This morning. She’s moving back to Buffalo. She and her ex-husband are going to try and work things out. So Kelsey’s going to cover her shift for the time being.”
That calm and reasonable lawyer-tone she used made his back teeth ache. “Now she’s got you hiring her?”
“She didn’t get me to hire her. I needed a bartender and she’s filling in. What’s the big deal?”
“Other than the fact that her brother is a murder suspect?”
“You still here?”
Jack turned to find Kelsey walking toward them from the kitchen.
She strode past him with no more than a cursory glance, her attention on Allie. “I thought you had an appointment at three.”
Allie ran the back of her hand over her forehead. “I do. Why? What time is it?”
“Quarter till.”
Allie cursed and dropped her cleaning rag on the table. “I have to go.” She raced out of the room and into the kitchen. When she came back, she was slipping on a tan blazer and had a large, brown purse in her hand. “I’ll be back in about an hour.” She took the time to pin Jack with a threatening look. “Behave.”
The door shut behind Allie, and Jack shoved his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t in the mood to get into yet another argument. Although, to be honest, Kelsey didn’t seem too inclined to argue with him. Hell, she didn’t seem too inclined to even talk to him. She’d barely looked his way since coming into the room and was now studiously ignoring him.
Which suited him just fine. He had better things to do than stand there and watch her pretend he didn’t exist. He turned to leave when she began pushing one of the tables across the floor.
The sight of her bent over, her round ass sticking up…He even took a step forward, his hand out to touch her, before catching himself. He fisted his fingers but couldn’t tear his gaze away. Which she must’ve sensed because she stopped and swung her head around.
And dear, sweet God, the sight of her looking back at him over her shoulder turned him rock hard.
“Enjoying the view?”
A denial sprang to his lips but he bit it back. He might be perverted but he wasn’t a liar.
“Yes, actually,” he said as he held her gaze. “I am enjoying looking at you. Very much.”
KELSEY REARED UP and faced Jack. Gooseflesh rose on her arms. He walked toward her, his inscrutable eyes locked on hers. Abruptly she turned back to the table.
“Allie will probably be gone awhile,” she blurted out in an attempt to change the subject. The subject she had idiotically brought up. “You might not want to wait.”“Where did she take off to?”
Was that humor in his voice? Could he tell she was flustered? Damn it, she never got flustered.
Not until she’d met Jack.
“She, uh, had a meeting with the head of advertising at the radio station. She wants to record an ad for the bar.”
He came up behind her. She felt him, felt his body heat, smelled his musky scent. “Was that your idea?”
She swallowed. “Advertising the bar? No. That’s all
your sister’s doing.”
Desperate to put some much needed distance between them, she bent her head and resumed pushing the table.
“Let me help with that.” He strode to the other side, stopping her from going any farther. “Where do you want it?” He lifted his end with an ease that got on her nerves.
“I can handle this. I only have a few more to go.”
He glanced at the four tables behind her. “You still have all the chairs to put back. If I pitch in, you’ll get done that much faster.”
She huffed out a breath. “Aren’t you working?”
“I’m always working.”
Wasn’t that the truth? And something she’d be wise to remember.
Today, the fact he was all cop was brought home by the sight of him in his uniform for the first time. Black cargo-style pants, a drab-green button up shirt and a shiny badge pinned to his chest.
She’d never before been turned on by a man in uniform. There was a first time for everything.
“I’m sure you have better things to do than rearrange tables.”
“Not at the moment. And I’m officially off-duty in ten minutes.” He scratched his jaw. Her own fingers itched to touch the hard planes of his face, feel the roughness of his shadowed beard. “If you want, you could consider it payback for the cookies. Since I never thanked you in person.”
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t stick around all night,” she mumbled, warmth spreading across her neck and face.
She wasn’t sure which was more humiliating. The fact that she’d run from him last night, or the fact that he knew it.
She shrugged. “We’re going to start by the pool table—” she jerked her head toward it “—and work our way out diagonally.”
Jack walked backward. “Quiet here today. Isn’t Ward working?”
Though she tried to fight it, she couldn’t help but be disappointed. “Is this going to be one of your not-so-subtle attempts to interrogate me about my brother? Because if it is—”
“It was a simple question.”
“None of your questions are simple.” They set the table down. “If you’re doing this—” she gestured to the table “—as some sort of ploy—”