by Tami Hoag
“Yeah, well, it's none of your business.”
Elizabeth arched a brow. “Isn't it? Seems to me that folks in these parts are just a little too tight-assed to vote for a man who's diddling his ex-wife every chance he gets.”
His color deepened and his brows pulled a little lower over his eyes. “Don't threaten me,” he warned. “Jolynn won't blow the whistle on me. We mean too much to each other.”
A whoop of laughter burst out of Elizabeth before she could even think to contain it. Not that she would have tried. If the man thought he could slide past her with a line like that, he was an even bigger jerk than she'd pegged him for from the beginning. She laughed until her eyes teared up while Rich stood glaring at her.
“Oh, that's the worst joke I've heard in a long time, sugar,” she said, her voice still hoarse with laughter. “You'd better bone up before you hit the campaign trail.”
Rich choked down his temper and retreated a step toward the door. “Have her call me when she gets in.”
“Shoring up your alibi for the night ol' Jarrold bought the farm?” She tapped a forefinger to her temple and nodded sagely. “Good thinking.”
He went still, eyes narrowing. “Are you saying you think I'm a suspect?”
“No, but now that you mention it, you had a lot to gain. Little Susie gets herself a big chunk of the cheesecake, I imagine.”
“We've got enough money.”
Elizabeth laughed again, slapping a hand against the counter. “Lord have mercy! Nobody ever has enough money. Then again, maybe you just wanted the business to yourself. Or maybe Jarrold had something on you in that little black book of his.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw and his color heightened another notch, making him look as though his necktie was strangling him. He held himself rigid, fists clenching at his sides until he hid them in the pockets of his charcoal slacks. “I'm running for public office, Ms. Stuart,” he said tightly. “It wouldn't be very smart of me to kill the man who was backing me.”
A wicked smile curled up one corner of Elizabeth's mouth. “Whoever said you were smart?”
He made a sound in his throat as he took an aggressive step forward—the leash of his restraint choking him as he strained against it. “You know, you've got a real attitude problem,” he said, pulling his hand out of his pocket to point a thick, blunt-tipped finger at her again. Rage shuddered just beneath the surface of his voice. “People around here don't like strangers bulling their way in, shooting their mouths off. You aren't going to make yourself many friends.”
“I wouldn't want you for a friend.”
Nothing but meanness and petulance was in his eyes now, and in the set of his mouth. His gaze held hers just long enough to set off a tingle of nerves at the base of her neck. “You wouldn't want me for an enemy either,” he said darkly.
The door swung open, a breath of morning air sweeping in and cutting across the hot, stagnant tension that had built up like a wall between them. Dane walked in and Elizabeth caught herself letting out a sigh of relief. Lord, as if she'd ever thought she'd be glad to see him.
“Morning, Sheriff.” She flashed him a smile that was entirely too bright.
“Miss Stuart.” His gaze slid from her to Cannon. Rich looked mad as a bull. His face was red and his eyes were watery. It was the same way he'd looked back in their high school basketball days when a call had gone against him—whether he'd been guilty of the foul or not. Only the cause this time wasn't a referee, it was Elizabeth. She certainly had a way with people.
“Dane.” Rich tipped his chin up to a cocky angle that was more challenge than acknowledgment.
Cannon had seen him as a rival twenty years ago and had never quite been able to let go of that high school mentality. When Dane had returned home at the end of his professional football career, Rich had picked up right where they'd left off—always trying to prove something, to one-up him, to be richer, more important, more popular. Once a jerk, always a jerk.
“Rich. I need to have you stop by today for a little chat about Jarrold.”
Cannon gave a snort of disbelief. “Christ, Dane, I'm not a suspect, am I?”
Dane shrugged. “It's just routine. We're charting everything he did on the day of the murder. Where he went, who he talked to. And we need fingerprints from everyone who might have been in the Lincoln recently—so we can eliminate friends and family and zero in on the killer.”
“I thought everybody knew the killer was Carney Fox.”
“Technicalities,” Dane said, baring his teeth. One of the good things about being a cop in a small town was that everybody knew everything that was going on. It was also one of the drawbacks of being a cop in a small town.
“Yeah, sure, I'll stop in,” Rich said, working up another of his cocky grins. “Just for the record, I have an alibi. I was with Jolynn.” He flashed Elizabeth a hard-eyed look as he turned up the obnoxious factor of his smile a notch. “We were working on publicity ideas for my campaign.”
“Right,” Dane said flatly, knowing exactly what Rich had been working on. He pinched the bridge of his nose and fought off a yawn. “Catch you later, Rich.”
Cannon backed out of the office, looking as smug as a kid who'd gotten out of detention by telling the principal a whopping lie.
Dane shook his head and leaned back against the counter. “I don't know who he thinks he's fooling. Everyone in town knows he's screwing Jolynn on the side.”
“I suppose you think that makes him some kind of stud,” Elizabeth said defensively, more than ready to go to bat for her friend again. She didn't condone the affair, but she'd be damned if she let anyone else run Jolynn down.
He tossed her a look over his shoulder. “I think it makes him a two-timing son of a bitch.”
“Well,” she said grudgingly, “it's nice to see you have some standards.”
Dane ignored the barb. He turned toward her, laying both arms on the counter as his gaze drifted over her figure. She looked almost prim in her long skirt and lace-trimmed blouse, her hair caught back at the sides with a pair of tortoiseshell combs.
“Oh, I have standards, Miss Stuart. And you meet some of the more interesting ones.”
She met every requirement regarding sex, and he had decided that was all right as long as he didn't think of her any other way.
“I am so flattered,” she drawled. “But if you think flattery is going to get you anywhere, you'd better think again, cowboy. I'm not interested.”
She started to draw back from the counter. She should have been able to make a clean getaway, but he caught her by the wrist before she could do more than shift her weight backward.
“You were interested last night,” he murmured, stroking her where her pulse was jumping in her veins.
“I think you've got me confused with your hormones, sugar,” she said, her bravado diluted by breathlessness.
He leaned a little closer, drew her a little closer to him by exerting the slightest pressure on her wrist. “If there's one thing that seldom gets confusing in this life, it's hormones,” he said. “Trust me, Liz, ours are speaking the same language.”
Damn him for a dog, but he was right. She cursed her body for having no shame, no pride, no intelligence when it came to picking men. But she had no intention of giving in, not with a man who thought so little of her as this one.
“Well, how about the rest of you?” she asked. “Do your ears understand a plain old American no, or do I need to send for an interpreter? I'm not interested.”
He released her and gave her an inch of breathing room, straightening his shoulders. “We'll see,” he murmured, watching her, the gleam in his eye turning speculative.
“We'll see donkeys fly,” Elizabeth snapped, sassier now that he wasn't touching her.
Dane laughed, genuine humor easing the lines of stress from his face. “Christ, you're something else. Do they raise all the women in Texas like you—bodies built for sin and mouths that shoot like six-guns?”
Elizabeth couldn't help but smile. The threat of intimacy was gone, replaced by the threat of liking him. He had a certain charm about him when he wasn't being a jackass.
“Naw,” she drawled. “'Course, all good Texas girls are bred to be beauty queens. My luck, I got my daddy's gift of gab. Made me a washout for pageants.”
“I'll bet.” He chuckled a little over the idea of Elizabeth smarting off to some old judge who liked her a little too well in her bathing suit. As much as she had irritated him with her brash talk, he had to admit it was refreshing. The lady spoke her mind, which seemed infinitely preferable to coy game-playing as far as Dane was concerned. There was plenty about her he was determined not to like, but her impertinence wasn't on the list.
“Me, now, I was cut out to be a rodeo queen,” she said.
“Is that a fact?”
“It is. I was Miss Bardette Barrel Racing two years running, which is tougher than any old beauty pageant because a girl has to look good, ride hard, and dance the Cotton-eyed Joe—all the while fending off cowboys left and right. I'd like to see Miss Prissy America manage that.”
“I can't imagine you doing that,” Dane said, straightfaced.
“What? Riding barrel horses?”
“Fending off cowboys.”
Elizabeth scowled at him, not about to admit that she hadn't fended off Bobby Lee Breland and that she had a son to prove it. “Did you come in here for a reason, Sheriff Jantzen? Other than to insult me and ogle my cleavage?”
He had walked in because he'd glanced in the window and seen fire in her eyes as she snapped at Rich Cannon, but Dane didn't see any reason to tell her that. He had reacted instantly, instinctively, to the idea of Cannon sniffing around her, but he didn't care to examine that motive too closely, and he didn't care to have Elizabeth examine it at all. He wanted to keep things simple between them—chemistry and sex.
“I was wondering if everything went all right last night,” he said smoothly. He lifted a round glass paperweight from the counter and rolled it idly from hand to hand, setting off a blizzard of imitation snow inside the decorative ball.
“Like what?” Elizabeth asked suspiciously.
“No odd phone calls? No late-night visitors?”
Uneasiness rippled down her spine, and she sobered. “You think the killer might be watching me?”
“It's common knowledge you were the first person on the scene, and we haven't exactly made it clear whether you saw anything incriminating or not.”
“You're telling me I'm a sitting duck?” she said, anger creeping up the back of her throat to mingle bitterly with the taste of fear.
“No. I'm telling you to be careful,” Dane said. “I'm telling you not to go off half cocked, ‘investigating' on your own.” He set down the paperweight, letting the miniature snowstorm subside, and reached across the counter to flick a forefinger down the slope of her nose. “Stick that pretty nose of yours in the wrong foxhole and it could get bitten off. While you're stumbling around trying to root out conspiracies, the real killer's loose out there.”
“Somebody around here has to investigate,” Elizabeth said irritably. “I don't see you doing it.”
“You're not supposed to see me, sweetheart.”
“Oh, don't try to make me think you're actually doing your job,” she challenged him, crossing her arms. “We both know how dedicated you are to digging up dirt in this town. Loan-sharking by a prominent businessman. Half the male population running around with their pants down around their knees, bopping every female in sight. You just turn a blind eye and let it slide on past, Mr. Bigshot Hometown Hero.”
“Don't try to tell me I'm not doing my job,” Dane said tightly. His temper snapped at its leash, his tolerance wearing thin on three hours sleep. “I spent half the night watching a pathologist fillet Jarrold Jarvis, got home in time to kiss my daughter good-night, then spent a few hours on horseback doing my job.”
He didn't give her the satisfaction of telling her she was the reason he'd been in the saddle half the night. He had taken it upon himself to keep watch over her, just in case Fox decided to pay a visit. He had saddled up his gelding and ridden across the field that separated his land from hers, parking himself just inside the woods behind her house, hidden, silent, and spent the night chiding himself for caring whether she got her throat cut or not.
“Jarvis wasn't a loan shark,” he said. “And adultery isn't against the law. You, of all people, should know that.” The shot hit its mark. He actually saw her flinch and told himself he was glad. All things considered, it was probably best if they stayed pissed off at each other. He tipped his head in mock deference as he pushed open the door. “Watch your back, Miss Stuart.”
“ ‘CAUSE OF DEATH: MASSIVE BLOOD LOSS. PROBABLE weapon: a thin sharp blade.' There's a surprise,” Yeager drawled sarcastically.
He sat with his battered Top-Siders propped on the edge of Dane's desk, reading Dane's notes from the autopsy aloud. He wore a tie because there were interviews to be conducted and ties were de rigueur for agents, but the strip of fabric was too short and he had a feeling part of his collar was caught under it at the back of his neck. He didn't really care. He never had his back to anyone when he was conducting an interview anyway.
“There anything of interest in here, or can I save myself the trouble?” he asked, fanning through the pages on the yellow legal pad.
“Nothing you didn't see for yourself,” Dane said, stepping over the prone body of Boozer the Wonder Dog. The Labrador grunted and rolled halfway onto his back, paws curled against himself.
Dane gave a little growl of disgust as he slid into his chair. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and worked his mouth against the taste of stale coffee. He'd been on the phone half the morning and had actually been looking forward to going back out on the search for Carney Fox, just to get some air. But the little scumball had finally been run to ground at a biker bar down in Loring, a trashy little burg stuck down between the hills along the Iowa border. Kaufman and Spencer were on their way in with him.
“I talked to the lab boys though,” he said. “Jarvis was on warfarin. According to his doctor in Rochester, he'd been having some problems with phlebitis.”
Yeager perked up, pleased to have something to play with. “Ooh, blood thinner. That could solve our problem with time of death.”
Dane nodded. “Yeah, it could have been earlier, but it's hard to say. Since we can't place Fox at the scene, it doesn't matter at this point.” He frowned as he stared down at Yeager's dog. “It doesn't make sense. If he was out there, say six, six-thirty, and did the deed, why the hasty retreat? Why go to the trouble of putting the body in the car and then leave it like that? I don't get it.”
“You don't have to get it, son,” Yeager said, grinning as he pulled his feet down and leaned forward on his chair. The end of his tie swung across a danish he'd left on a pile of statements, picking up a glob of lemon filling on the tip. He swiped it off and licked his finger clean, dark eyes dancing. “You just have to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Any word on trace evidence?”
“Nothing great. Your basic stuff in the car—dirt, food particles, sawdust. He had blue cotton fibers on the back of his shirt. Probably from a work shirt.” Dane arched a brow. “Not too many of those at a construction site, are there? And we've got no shortage of fingerprints, clear or otherwise. Jarvis used that Lincoln as a rolling office. There were people in and out of it all day every day.”
“We need to match only one set of prints,” Yeager reminded him.
Dane conceded the point with a nod. They needed only Fox's prints, another piece or two of physical evidence, a little bit of luck, and they could close the books on this mess. It would be simple, neat, the way he liked things.
He ignored the accusing image of Elizabeth that came to mind and blamed the twinge of uneasiness in his stomach on too much coffee.
CARNEY FOX WAS THE PICTURE OF INSOLENT disinterest, ignoring the deputies that prowled the room await
ing the arrival of their boss. He sat at the long table, idly picking at a scab on his elbow. He slouched in his chair, looking as if he might slide right down out of it and onto the floor beneath the table in a boneless heap of apathy. Small and wiry, he lacked the stature to be physically imposing. Snottiness was his best alternative, and he excelled at it.
“You want to call a lawyer?”
He didn't raise his head, but lifted his gaze from his scab to the fat-ass deputy sitting across the table from him. Ellstrom. They had crossed paths once or twice since he'd hit town. Carney had little respect for lawmen in general and less for Boyd Ellstrom. He twisted his sharp-featured face into a snide look that had come naturally to him since birth and gave a hacking little bark of a laugh. “Why should I?”
Ellstrom glanced up from the yellow pad he was scribbling on and scowled. “'Cause your dick's in a wringer, shithead.”
Carney combed a hand over his greased-back dark red hair, arrogant and unconcerned, gaze still locked on Ellstrom's jowly face, dark eyes twinkling with secret amusement. “I don't think so.”
Naw, the way Carney saw it, he was sitting pretty. He cackled to himself as Ellstrom tossed down his pen, heaved his bulk up out of his chair, and walked away.
“Fuck!” Carney choked and waved a hand in front of his face. “Jesus, Ellstrom! Did something crawl up inside you and die?”
Ellstrom shot him a glare. “Shut up, asshole.”
The door to the interrogation room swung open and Carney glanced up as Jantzen walked in, looking ready to kick some butt. He was the one lawman in this hick town Carney made a point to steer clear of. The BCA guy came in behind him, rumpled and bleary-eyed, his hair standing up in a rooster tail at the back of his head. Jantzen gave an order to one of the deputies who had run Carney in—Spencer—and the deputy left the room. Kaufman and Ellstrom stayed, Ellstrom standing back along the wall directly across from him, a frown cutting a deep horseshoe above his double chin, his gaze mean and dark as Carney sneered at him.
“Do you want a lawyer present?” Jantzen asked quietly, sliding into the chair at the head of the table, directly to Carney's right.