Heading out to the scene. Can wait if you want to still go. Let me know.
A twinge of regret pinched at me for a moment, but I didn’t answer his text. I’d message him later before Jack arrived to let him know I wanted to hear all the details bright and early tomorrow morning. Setting the phone down again, I closed my eyes and let a daydream of how I hoped my night would end fill my mind.
Just before seven, I heard a knock on my front door and opened it to see Jack standing there dressed in a dark grey suit and stunning royal blue shirt that made his eyes pop. His dirty blond hair still looked like it usually did, like someone had just run their hands through it, but the overall look was simply gorgeous.
His eyes drifted from my face down my body and back up again before he said anything. And when he spoke, I knew all the effort I’d made that afternoon had paid off.
“You look incredible, Poppy.”
He wasn’t wrong. I did. My little black dress hugged every curve of my body and was meant to impress, as were my black stiletto heels. And my hair, makeup, and nails all added to the effect.
I was a seductress on the hunt for my prey, and tonight, that prey was Jack Reynolds.
Running my hand up the front of his dress shirt, I complimented him on his look. “I love this color on you. Great choice!”
By the way he was looking at me with eyes filled with desire, I wasn’t sure we would make it to dinner. Not that I cared. All that afternoon’s preparation wasn’t for the people who would see us at Diamanti’s, so if we never left my house, that would be fine. Dinner was merely going to be foreplay anyway.
“Are you hungry?” he asked as I locked my front door and joined him to walk to his car.
“I am,” I said with a little giggle, finding the double entendre echoing in my head amusing.
We arrived at the restaurant and were seated immediately, and it didn’t take long to see we were the talk of Diamanti’s that night. Not that it was a surprise. He was a good looking man, and I had cleaned up nicely. He sat with his back to the door, so patrons first saw me sitting at the table near the entrance and then saw him. One after another, couples entered and looked at me with wide eyes before seeing him and immediately whispering to one another as they were shown to their tables.
A small part of me liked the effect we had on everyone there. Maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to condemn me to old maid status from now on.
As we waited for our meals, we talked about his life as a photojournalist. Every place and every assignment sounded so exciting. I listened with eager anticipation to hear one story after another, never minding that he was doing all the talking. All the better since my stories were either boring or crime related, and no one other than Alex enjoyed those.
Jack lifted his wine glass to make a toast. “To us, Poppy McGuire, and all the busybodies in this town who can’t take their eyes off us.”
I clinked my glass against his and smiled. “You saw that? I wasn’t sure you noticed how interested everyone in here is in us. We’re going to be the talk of the town, you know.”
He took a sip of his wine and winked at me. “Good. I hope they let their imaginations run wild with what we’re going to be doing after dinner.”
Even the seductress that lived inside me couldn’t help but blush as he said that, and I took a sip of my wine as I averted my eyes from his intense gaze that threatened to make me feel too exposed right there in the middle of Diamanti’s. It wasn’t that I didn’t want what he wanted. It just hadn’t occurred to me in all my daydreaming about it that he’d thought about it too.
“So tell me, is it true you used to work as an investigative journalist?”
I nodded, silently wishing that job had been half as exciting as his. “I did. I worked for an online magazine that basically snooped on celebrities’ lives.” I stopped for a moment and then said, “God, that sounds so incredibly boring, and the truth is even worse. I didn’t write for them, I only did research.”
He knitted his brows like he disapproved and shook his head. “Not at all. There’s nothing boring about that. And research is just what I can see a smart woman like you doing.”
Waving off his compliment, I said, “I’m not that smart. No smarter than most people.”
“You’re right. You’re astute. That’s what you are. I see it in those sharp blue eyes whenever you talk. Nothing gets by you.”
At that moment, as he sat there gazing into my eyes and looking so incredibly gorgeous, I couldn’t think of anything better than hearing him say that to me. I’d always wanted to be seen as astute, and there he was, this worldly and accomplished man, telling me that’s exactly what he saw me as.
And then I looked up and saw Alex walk through the front door of Diamanti’s. As he walked behind the hostess, I watched for Bethany or someone else, but no one joined him. Our eyes met just before he was led into the side room of the restaurant, and all I saw in his was that same look of unhappiness I’d seen earlier in them. I smiled and moved my arm to wave hello to him, but he turned away when he realized I’d seen him.
Even though I had no reason to be upset, I was hurt that he didn’t even wave hello, much less come over to make small talk with us. I knew he didn’t think I should be spending time with Jack, but I was his friend and he’d snubbed me like I was nobody to him. I quickly pushed my hurt feelings down so Jack didn’t see them, reminding myself that he wanted to spend time with me even if my partner and friend didn’t, but a twinge of sadness pinched at me.
We sat there for over an hour talking and drinking wine as we enjoyed a fine meal and each other’s company. When we left, I looked over toward where Alex had been sitting and saw he was gone already. He hadn’t said hello or goodbye.
By the time we got back to my house, I’d forced myself to forget Alex’s slight, at least for the time being. Jack sensed something was wrong and as we stood on my front porch, he asked, “Everything okay?”
It wasn’t in other parts of my world, but in the part that included him, everything was going great. “Dinner was wonderful. Thank you. Would you like to come in for a drink?”
Jack ran his tongue across that beautiful lower lip of his and smiled. “I’d love to. The night’s still young.”
Yes, it was, and this woman intended on letting her inner seductress out to play for the first time ever.
Chapter Twelve
I slowly opened my eyes and immediately squinted from the morning light streaming in through my bedroom windows. Rolling over in my full size bed, I saw the other side next to me empty. Confused, I scrubbed the sleep away and tried to remember what had happened. Jack and I came back here after dinner at Diamanti’s. We had a glass of wine and then…
I lifted the sheets to see my body naked under them. I wasn’t losing my mind. Jack had spent the night. So where was he now?
As the events of the previous hours flowed through my mind, I stretched my limbs and felt the night gradually ease out of them. A few minutes later and as awake as I was going to be without my morning coffee, I rolled over and felt something under my hand where Jack had been just a few hours earlier. Looking down at the bed, I saw a piece of paper and lifted it up to read the words in the morning sunlight.
Poppy,
I hated that I had to leave, but Jessica is having a hard time dealing with the loss of Lee and nights are the worst times for her. Thank you for a wonderful date, and I hope we can have another night like this again before I leave.
Until next time,
Jack
When a man leaves after sleeping with a woman, it usually isn’t an occasion to smile, but I couldn’t help it. His note was so sweet. How could I be angry with a man who left to take care of his sister-in-law in her time of need?
I folded his letter neatly and slid it under my pillow before turning over to check my phone. Panic raced through me at the sight of the spot where it usually sat empty, but then I remembered I hadn’t taken it out of my purse when we returned from the restaurant.<
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Not that I got many calls and texts. As I rolled out of bed and made my way to the bathroom, Alex’s text flashed through my mind. Oh my God! I’d never answered it. Was that why he was so cold at Diamanti’s?
Immediately after my shower, I called him but after two rings it went directly to voicemail. I knew what that meant. Either he was too busy to answer his phone, which had never happened before, or he was avoiding me.
Unsure which it was and what to do if he was avoiding me, I dressed and made my face presentable before taking a nice walk to The Grounds. A slight chill in the air nipped lightly at my cheeks as I made my way to where I’d get my first coffee of the day, and I was thankful the line at the coffee shop wasn’t too long when I arrived at just around nine AM like we always did.
Alex was nowhere to be found, though. Needing caffeine before I even began to consider what was happening between us, I sat at our table at the back of The Grounds and sipped on my French Roast made just right by Jennie. A cherry danish sat on the table in front of me waiting for me to dig in, but I didn’t want to begin eating until Alex arrived.
By quarter after nine, I had a sinking feeling he wouldn’t be showing up for what had become our everyday routine. I tried to keep my mind preoccupied with people watching The Grounds’ customers as they came in for their morning fuel. The former mayor came in without the First Lady and quickly changed his order to go when he saw me sitting nearby. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten past what Alex and I had found out in the Geneva Woodward case because that was the fourth time since we solved that case that he practically ran in the opposite direction the second he saw me somewhere in town. Oh well. The guilty had to find ways to live with what they’d done, and if bolting every time he saw me was how the former mayor Girard lived with his guilt, so be it.
At nine-thirty, my danish remained untouched and my coffee was empty, so I gathered up my things and threw my breakfast in the garbage. Usually, I couldn’t pass up a cherry danish from The Grounds, but this morning my stomach just couldn’t tolerate it with all the knots it had tied itself into.
I bought Alex a black coffee and began the short walk across the street to the police station, the whole time wondering why he was acting like this. When he and Bethany began dating, I didn’t ignore him. I didn’t love the idea of them together, but I accepted it. Why couldn’t he accept Jack and me? We weren’t any different from them.
Well, that wasn’t entirely true. In a few days, Jack would be gone from Sunset Ridge and there would be no Jack and Poppy, but Bethany still lived here and she and Alex could get back together at any time. Still, I didn’t freeze him out, so why was he doing exactly that to me? Or maybe I was misreading the entire situation. Maybe he was kept at the police station by Derek and his silly worrying about the Lee Reynolds case.
One step into his office and I knew my gut feeling had been correct. Alex was avoiding me. Seated behind his desk and staring at his computer, he had a coffee cup from The Grounds beside him. He’d gone to where we met every day and hadn’t bothered to wait for me. My heart sank at the sight of that paper cup with the letter B scribbled on it in black marker just like the one I held in my hand.
“Hey, partner. Why didn’t you come to The Grounds like always?” I asked as I placed the coffee I’d bought him down on his desk.
Alex looked at the cup and then up at me. “I didn’t want to intrude on anything.”
He sounded odd, like he felt nothing for the words he was saying. Something was definitely wrong. Had his voice caught on the word intrude? He looked like the same old Alex I knew, and I didn’t even see that look of sadness in his eyes I’d seen so often lately.
I wanted to believe whatever was going on was all in my mind. Yes, he didn’t approve of me spending time with Jack, but maybe he was just trying to give me space to have a personal life. That would explain why he wouldn’t come over to our table the night before at Diamanti’s and why he might think Jack and I would be having breakfast together this morning.
With all this swirling around in my head, I sat down in front of his desk and waited for him to begin talking about our case. He’d gone out to the crime scene, at least he’d planned to according to his text, so I was sure he had some news to tell me.
But he said nothing, instead just staring at the screen in front of him like I wasn’t even there.
Finally, unable to stand the silence between us anymore, I asked, “So how did the trip to the scene go? Find anything good?”
Still silent and staring at that damn computer screen, he opened the top right drawer of his desk and pulled out a large plastic baggie containing a phone. He placed it in front of me, and I saw the phone looked damaged beyond repair.
“What’s this?”
For the first time since he said he hadn’t wanted to intrude, Alex spoke to me. “I found it at the scene. It’s been stomped on and thrown into a tiny pond near where the body was found, but I think it might be the victim’s.”
The words the victim instead of our victim seemed to echo throughout his tiny office.
“Do you think you’re going to be able to get some information off it? It looks pretty beat up,” I asked as I examined the phone through the baggie.
“I’m going to stop by Jessica’s house to ask her if it was Lee’s and then I’m going to head down to Baltimore to meet my friend St. Clair. He says he knows a tech who might be able to retrieve information from the SD card.”
He didn’t ask me to join him, but then again, he never really asked. Something in his voice made me feel excluded, though—a coldness different from his usual quiet way and even different from the way he was when he was angry with me. I didn’t know exactly what had changed in him, but I heard it when he referred to only him going out to investigate instead of the two of us.
For the first time, I felt like an intruder on his case. I wanted to be the person he looked to as a partner, not just someone he looked through as she sat as his desk with him.
Quietly, I asked, “Do you mind if I come with you?”
He nodded and merely said, “That’s fine.”
Suddenly, as if everything inside me threatened to tumble out of my mouth if I didn’t say something, I began to explain why I’d asked. “It’s just that I wasn’t sure since you didn’t ask. I mean, I know you don’t usually ask, but it just seemed like you didn’t want me to go with you.”
In a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “I never had to ask before, but I didn’t want to assume you were coming just in case you had something better to do with your day.”
Before I could say this was what I did with my days, except when I had to be at The Eagle, and that I didn’t want to do anything else with my days, he picked up the phone and walked out to the car. I hurried behind him to catch up, unsure if I didn’t that he wouldn’t simply leave without me.
Never since the first minute we began working together had I felt so unwanted and unwelcome in his world. As I closed the passenger door and turned to see him starting the car, I wanted to say something to fix whatever was wrong so we could get back to being Poppy and Alex like we’d been for months, but I didn’t know what to say.
He said nothing in the car as we drove to Colonial Drive and Jessica Reynolds’ townhouse, but I sensed a growing chasm between us, even though I couldn’t honestly say he was acting out of character. Alex never talked much when we were in the car together.
I spent the entire ride rationalizing and justifying his actions because I hated not understanding what was happening between us. I didn’t know what to do or how to fix what we’d become, but I knew I had to if I ever wanted things to be right again.
We walked silently to Jessica’s front door and waited without a word for her to answer it. She barely got the door open before she began crying upon the sight of the smashed phone in pieces. I escorted her inside to the living room couch and tried to soothe her so she could tell us what she knew about what was obviously Lee’s phone.
When she fi
nally calmed down after five minutes of continual sobbing, Alex sat down in a chair across from her and held the baggie up in front of her. Far nicer than he’d ever been with her, he gently asked, “Jessica, can you tell me if this is definitely your husband’s cell phone?”
She wiped her eyes and nodded. “Yes, that’s Lee’s phone. He got a brand new phone two months ago. I made fun of him because I thought it looked like he was holding a tablet up to his head when he made calls because the phone was so big. I teased him about it all the time.”
I braced myself for more crying, but she took a deep breath and merely sniffled. “Where did you find it?”
“Near the crime scene,” Alex answered as he stood to leave. “Thank you for your help, Jessica.”
I smiled at her and gave her hand a sympathetic squeeze. “Are you going to be okay here alone?”
She tried to smile and then just nodded. “I’m fine. I know I must be the worst person to ask questions of since I’m constantly crying, but I do want to help you find Lee’s killer.”
“You’re doing fine. If you think of anything that might help us, you still have Alex’s card, right?”
“I do. If I think of anything, I’ll call.”
I smiled, hoping she’d be okay and then remembered that Jack was likely there with her now. As I followed Alex out of the townhouse, I scanned for where Jack might be but didn’t see him. All the better since it would likely make things worse between Alex and me.
By the time I reached the car, Alex had it in gear and was ready to go. I didn’t look forward to the ride to Baltimore in complete silence, so even though I wasn’t sure how he’d react, I decided I needed to make the first move to get this partnership back on track.
“Do you think Jessica’s tears were for real this time?” I wondered aloud, hoping he’d take the bait and join me for our first real conversation of the day.
Unfortunately, he didn’t. All he did was make some quiet humming noise for a second or two. Then he returned to staring silently out the front window and driving.
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