by Diana Palmer
He nodded again.
“Are you even listening?” she asked, exasperated.
He finished his two sandwiches and put everything back in its place before he looked at her. His eyes were harder than she’d seen them in a long time.
“Are you making a statement?” he asked, nodding toward the way she was dressed.
“A statement?” she asked blankly.
“You’re dressed like a bag lady,” he said flatly. “Textbook unisex clothing.”
“What did you have in mind?” she returned hotly. “Were you expecting to find me in a pert little see-through negligee, panting for you to walk in the door?”
His eyes narrowed. “No,” he said quietly. “That’s the last thing in the world I’d expect to see with you.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“You can’t forget, can you, Josie?” he asked in a soft, weary tone. “You won’t do anything to encourage me—not even leave your hair down.”
She stared at the notes in her hand. After a minute she lifted her eyes back to his. She couldn’t manage words. Her misery was plain in her dark eyes.
He leaned back, watching her. “Even a man with an enormous ego would need encouragement with you,” he said softly. “But you aren’t confident enough, are you? You’re still seeing me as the man who walked out on you without a word.”
“I suppose that’s true,” she replied after a minute. “Trust comes hard to me. But there’s more to it than trust. You want me. But that’s all it’s ever been, and all it ever will be. You don’t need a woman in your life, Marc. You’re self-sufficient. You can do most anything around a house better than I can. You’re a born loner.” She shrugged, favoring her sore arm. “So am I, really. I like being alone, having my own space, not having to answer to anyone. I don’t…I don’t want to change my life now. I’m used to things the way they are.”
“What do you know about me?”
That was a curious question. She didn’t really understand it. “You’re a Texas Ranger. You were born in Jacobsville. You were a policeman before you worked highway patrol. You’ve been a Ranger since you were twenty-six, except for those years with the FBI. You’re thirty-three now, and you have a sister who’s married to a foreign head of state.”
“That’s right. All you know are the external facts.” He made coffee before he spoke again. “What sort of music do I like? What do I read for pleasure? What are the things I enjoy most? What do I want to do with the rest of my life?”
She could have answered those questions, because she knew most of the answers. But she wasn’t setting herself up for another rejection from him. She didn’t trust him.
“I don’t know,” she said flatly.
“Exactly. And you don’t want to know.” He looked at her for a long moment. “I betrayed you once, and you can’t forget.”
“You betrayed me twice and I can’t forget,” she shot back.
His eyebrows lifted. “Twice?”
“You sold me out to the prosecutor at Dale’s trial.”
“I didn’t,” he replied. “I told you, Bib brought it up himself, without any inspiration from me.”
“But you told him all about my past,” she continued.
He couldn’t deny that. His face tautened. “Yes, I did,” he told her. “And when I realized what he’d done, I told him the truth. He was as upset by it as I was, but neither of us could make it up to you by then. It was too late.”
She searched his eyes and saw the inflexibility there. He was remembering that she’d accused his best friend of murder, and she was remembering the stinging commentary in the local newspaper about her background. It opened up wounds she thought were healing and convinced her that they were never going to be able to get past what had happened. It was too late. It was just too late.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Brannon,” she said, turning away. “Let’s go back to being colleagues and not complicate the issue anymore. I’m sure you have all the women you need in your life, anyway.”
There was a hard thud behind her, as if a fist had hit the table. She didn’t turn. She kept walking, right back into the bedroom. She put down the pad, picked up the phone and went back to work on the case.
Just that quickly, she and Brannon were enemies again. They were polite and cordial with each other, and nothing more. They returned to work the next day, although Josette still favored her sore arm. But she was well enough to do what she needed to do. She moved back into her hotel with a gruff speech of gratitude to Brannon for taking care of her, which he ignored.
Two days later, having tried to phone Mrs. Jennings and failing to hear from her or the guard that had been hired to protect her, she got into her rental car and drove down toward Elmendorf where the old woman’s apartment was located, and without phoning Brannon first. Mrs. Jennings might be more willing to talk to her if there wasn’t anyone else around.
She knocked on the front door, but there was no answer. She went next door, to Mrs. Danton, the neighbor who’d offered to take calls for the elderly woman until her own phone was working.
“No, I haven’t seen her since day before yesterday,” the thin, elderly neighbor said, and frowned. “But she had company yesterday,” she added quickly. “A man and a woman, dressed real nice, in a big fancy black car. The woman had on a hat. I remember thinking what a pretty hat it was and wishing I had one. I used to always wear a hat to church,” she added, smiling with reminiscence.
“How long did they stay?” Josette asked with an uneasy feeling.
“Not too long. Maybe an hour. They came out and got into their car and drove away. I figured maybe they were family, because they were carrying some of her things.”
“What sort of things?”
“A little wooden box, kind of like a cigar box, and a book of some sort. A Bible, maybe. The man had a cigarette in his hand, but he didn’t smoke it. He ground it out on the driveway under his shoe just before they left. Nice shoes he had on, too. Those black wing tips. I always liked to see a man wear those, they look real fancy.”
Now Josette felt really uneasy. She went to the driveway in front of the house. Sure enough, there was the cigarette stub. Gingerly she produced a handkerchief and carefully rolled it onto the white cloth with her ballpoint pen, securing it loosely before she tucked it into the briefcase she was carrying. She put it back in the car, along with her purse, and took out her flip phone, slipping it into her jacket pocket.
She went back to the apartment, accompanied by the neighbor, and peered in through the curtains. She couldn’t see anything. She went around to the side of the apartment, but there were venetian blinds there, and they were pulled. At the back door, she saw the kitchen through the door, but no person was visible and no lights were on. There was, however, a cracked window. And the scent that reached her nostrils through it was unmistakable to someone raised in ranch country.
She activated the flip phone and dialed the emergency services number and the sheriff’s patrol unit for that area, asking them to send not only an ambulance, but a crime scene investigation team as well. Then she called Brannon. He wasn’t in his office, but she had them relay a message to him.
“You think something’s happened to her, don’t you?” the neighbor asked sadly when she closed her flip phone. “Somebody’s always falling and can’t get up, or being found dead. It’s sad that we have to get old and helpless.”
“You go on home,” Josette said gently. “Thank you for your help, but you don’t need to be here when we go in.”
The old woman grimaced. She turned around with her arms folded and went back to her own apartment.
Josette waited outside until the paramedics and a deputy sheriff’s car drove up. She went immediately to the young deputy and introduced herself.
“There’s a recognizable odor coming from the house,” she said flatly, providing information she hadn’t wanted to share with the elderly neighbor. “I think she’s probably dead. She’s connected to a c
ase I’m working with one of the San Antonio Company D Texas Rangers and the local D.A.’s office. If she is dead, it’s going to be a homicide.”
“You sure of that?” the deputy asked, a little dubiously.
“Dead sure,” she replied.
They had to force the front door. The smell came and hit them in the face the instant it opened, because the heat was unseasonable and there was no ventilation, no air conditioner working, inside. Mrs. Jennings lay face-up on the hall carpet just outside the kitchen doorway, her eyes wide-open, her mouth open, and round burn marks all over her thin old arms and legs. There was a small hole in the bodice of her cotton housedress. There was no weapon visible anywhere around the body. The bodyguard was found in a closet, bound and gagged, but unharmed. He gave a statement, but couldn’t provide any leads because he’d been knocked out from behind and never saw the assailants’ faces.
A few minutes later, there was the screeching of brakes outside. She walked out onto the pavement in time to see Brannon get out of his SUV, followed by a panel truck driven by Alice Jones from the medical examiner’s office.
Josette nodded at Brannon and waited for Alice.
“You working homicide now, Langley?” Alice teased as she lugged her bag up the steps.
“You’d be surprised. Still cutting up people, I gather?”
Alice laughed and hugged her. “It buys groceries. I see Brannon’s here, too. He’ll want me to jab in a thermometer in front of everybody…”
“For God’s sake, Jones, put a sock in it!” Brannon said disgustedly.
“No sense of humor,” the coroner scoffed. “No wonder you never made captain.”
“I’m not old enough,” he said curtly.
“Excuses, excuses,” she murmured, and shouldered past them, her mind already focusing on the task ahead.
The deputy gave Brannon an amused look and followed Alice into the apartment.
The apartment had been thoroughly ransacked. It looked as if a tornado had hit the contents of the sparsely furnished rooms. Everything the old lady had was emptied out or scattered. There, in the midst of it, the body lay under a sheet someone had brought out of the bedroom. Her shoes were visible where it didn’t quite cover her feet. Josette remembered the woman’s affection for her son, and her grief at his death. Maybe she was with him again, now. But she looked so vulnerable lying there like that, so helpless. It made her sad.
Brannon and Josette were outside with the deputy and two sheriff’s department crime-scene investigators, helping keep the curious away, when Alice came out and pulled them to one side.
“You’ll get a complete report after we finish the autopsy,” she told them. “But from a preliminary standpoint, I can tell you definitely that she’s been dead at least twenty-four hours, and that she was probably tortured before she was shot.”
“Cigarette burns,” Josette guessed.
“Right on.”
“Just a minute, Alice,” Josette called over her shoulder as she went to the car to her purse. She drew out a handkerchief and opened it. “I found this on the pavement outside the apartment.”
“Hey, Bill!” Alice called to one of the civilian evidence technicians. “Come get this!”
The technician came out, his hands in disposable gloves. He stripped them off and peered over Alice Jones’s shoulder at what Josette had. She explained where she found it and gave a description of the visitors to them, adding the name of the neighbor who gave it to her and where she lived.
Pulling an evidence bag from his pocket, the technician carefully eased it inside and closed the edges.
“It’s a long shot,” Alice said, very professional now, “but in seven percent of the population, we can get a DNA profile from saliva traces. Cross your fingers.”
“They’re crossed. Nice work, Josie,” Brannon remarked.
“Luck,” she replied. “Pure luck. If her neighbor hadn’t told me about it, I’d have walked right over it. I saw something else. It’s an unusual brand of cigarettes.”
“I noticed.” His face was flinty. “I want these people locked up. I can’t imagine the sort of mentality it takes to torture a helpless old woman!”
“The neighbor said they took a small box and a book, maybe a Bible, out of the apartment when they left. Mrs. Jennings knew something. We’ll never know what.”
“And I have more news,” he told her. “York knocked out an orderly and walked right out by the man we had guarding him in the hospital.”
“Oh, great!” Josette muttered. “That’s just what we need, a hit man on the loose and a target we can’t name still in danger.” She glanced toward the apartment. “You don’t suppose…?”
“The neighbor’s description of the male visitor doesn’t match York,” Brannon said. His eyes narrowed. “But I checked the files. Jake Marsh always wears wing tips,” he added with a determined look.
“Does he have a wife or mistress?” she asked.
Brannon lifted an eyebrow. “I hear he has two wives,” he mused. “But nobody can prove it.”
“Mrs. Danton said the man had a nice-looking woman with him, in a fancy hat with a veil,” she continued.
“Not much to go on.”
“Yes. I know.” Josette grimaced. “I guess somebody’s told poor Mr. Holliman that his sister’s dead.”
“Not yet,” Brannon said. “I asked. I think you and I could handle that chore better than the deputies, because we know him. I’ll clear it with them.” He went to find the investigator in charge.
“Did you notice that all the drawers were pulled out and the contents dumped?” Josette asked as she sat beside Brannon in his big SUV on the way to Mr. Holliman’s house.
“Yes.”
“Wouldn’t you deduce that whatever they were looking for was small enough to fit in a drawer?” she persisted.
He nodded slowly. “Good thinking.”
“I’m a trained investigator,” she drawled.
“And that’s all you want out of life, is it?” Brannon asked carelessly. “To go on working in the criminal justice system until you can draw your pension?”
She frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You used to love kids,” he recalled quietly. “I remember we’d go to the park and feed the pigeons some days during lunch. Parents would bring their children to swing on the swings, and you’d watch and smile and go dreamy.”
“You have to have sex to get children,” Josette pointed out.
“That’s blunt.”
“It’s the only language that works with you,” she said. She glanced at him and folded her arms over the blue jacket she wore with a white blouse and patterned rayon skirt.
“What’s wrong with sex?”
Josette shivered. Every time she thought about it, she saw herself as she was with that boy so long ago, or with Brannon. The things she’d let Brannon do to her were still shocking. And, even in memory, delicious.
“I know your people were religious,” he said gently. “But I’ll remind you that sex is a big part of life. It’s a beautiful experience between two people who care about each other.”
“If they’re married.”
Brannon shook his head, laughing softly. “You’ve got to be the only woman I know who thinks so.”
“I was never one to follow the crowd, as you keep reminding me,” she said idly, glancing out the window.
“If you’d have that minor surgery, you could have sex with me,” he said outrageously.
Josette leaned back against the seat with her eyes closed. “Then you’d go on to your next conquest. You only want me because you can’t have me.”
He laughed. “That’s really funny.”
She turned her head toward him. “Why?”
Brannon pulled onto the long, winding graveled road that led to Holliman’s house and looked at her for a long moment before he accelerated. “Because I could have had you whenever I liked two years ago,” he replied quietly.
“That is a�
�!”
“If you’re going to say ‘lie,’ save yourself the breath,” he interrupted. “I was the one who pulled back on that last date,” he reminded her bluntly. “You were begging me not to stop.”
Josette ground her teeth together. “Don’t!” she groaned.
“Why are you so ashamed?” he persisted. “Josette, we were two grown adults. You make it sound like a perversion that I made love to you.”
Her eyes closed in anguish.
“You enjoyed me. I enjoyed you, too. I’ve never been so high on such innocent love-play,” he added gently.
“Innocent!” she exclaimed, almost choking on the word.
“Innocent,” Brannon emphasized. “Surely you know…?”
Her face was like stone. She didn’t meet his searching gaze, and she was even more tense than before.
“You don’t,” he realized, scowling. “Why not?”
“Because everyone in Jacobsville knew that I accused a boy of rape and he was acquitted because they said I lied about it,” Josette replied tersely. “Nobody would come near me after that. I had a reputation. Even after we moved to San Antonio, there was a girl who had family in Jacobsville. She knew about it and told everyone.”
“God!” Brannon exclaimed. “I never realized…!”
“I didn’t go to parties, because the boys either made fun of me or made insinuating remarks,” she said huskily. “I didn’t go to a single school function right up until graduation. Then when I went on to college, I thought it would be all right, but there were people there who knew me from high school.” Josette sighed audibly. “Until you started taking me out, I hadn’t had a single date.”
He was floored. No wonder she’d reacted so strangely to his ardor that night. He’d literally swept her off her feet, given her no time to be shocked or hesitant. He’d aroused her and proceeded to undress her. She’d been in so deep that she never protested at all. And if it hadn’t been for her shocking condition, he probably wouldn’t have stopped at all, he admitted privately. He’d wanted her. He’d been prepared. There would have been no real risk.