“J.D.!”
“I know. Let it happen, love.” His mouth took her breast, sending the waves of excitement rushing to overwhelm her. Water slapped against the sides of the tub unheeded as she clung to his shoulders, meeting each thrust of his body. Incredible sensations sent her spiraling higher and higher, until she cried out in sheer pleasure, only faintly hearing his own rumble of satisfaction.
He held her tightly against his chest, rubbing her back in soothing comfort until their breathing steadied.
“That was…unbelievable,” she told him.
J.D. grinned in satisfaction. “I told you we’d fit.” He kissed the tip of her nose.
“So you did.”
“The water’s getting cold.”
Jackie laughed. “I hadn’t noticed.”
“I love your laugh. You need to do that more often.”
Her smile faltered. “There hasn’t been much to laugh about lately.”
“We’ll change that,” he promised. He lifted her gently and stepped from the tub, reaching for more towels.
A moment out of time, she thought wistfully. One glorious moment. She sat, toweling herself, while J.D. went to gather their clothing.
“You need to pack some clothing,” he told her a few minutes later.
“What for?”
“To take to my house.”
“I can’t go to your house.”
“Jackie, we aren’t going to start that all over again, are we? Ben says it isn’t safe for you to stay here, and I agree.”
“Well, good for you. What are you going to do if Larry finds me at your house? The children and Aunt Dottie could be in danger.”
Grim lines replaced all trace of humor. “I won’t let that happen.”
“You might not have any choice.”
“Have a little faith in me, Jackie,” he said softly.
“God, you’re stubborn. And—”
“I’m stubborn?”
“You’re missing the point. I know Larry. He’s dangerous, J.D. I tried to tell the police that back in Indiana. No one listened to me then, either.”
He cupped her face. “We’re listening to you now, Jackie. Ben circulated the man’s description and put out a pickup call on him. Kylerston isn’t that big. If he’s staying anywhere in the vicinity, they’ll find him. Now throw some stuff in a bag and let’s get out of here. Unless you’d rather stay with Bessie.”
“No!” Her objection came out sharper than she’d intended. J.D. cocked his head. “I could go to a hotel,” she suggested weakly.
“Sure. You’d be real safe in a hotel where people come and go at all hours.” He handed her the crutches.
He was right and she knew it. She moved to the closet, pulling down outfits at random and wishing again that she had something nice to wear. Her current wardrobe consisted mainly of sweat suits.
She turned to hand J.D. another pair of sweats, when she realized he no longer stood at her shoulder. He was clear across the room near her dresser, holding a large, ornate picture frame in his hand.
“What have you got there?”
“You tell me.”
Jackie swung to his side, the sweats forgotten on the closet floor. Mutely, he handed her the picture.
Jackie caught her breath as Larry’s face beamed back at her. The camera had captured his handsome features in a wide, gloating smile. Why had she never noticed the cruel twist to those lips? Or the fact that his smile stopped there, never reaching those sinister dark eyes?
Oh, his tuxedo appeared tailor-made and his looks were as striking as ever as he posed with his arm around his heartbreakingly young bride. She beamed at him with a radiant expression, her beauty augmented by an innocence the camera was happy to display.
Jackie’s blood chilled all the way to the marrow of her bones. The shaking started somewhere inside and spread until she trembled so hard it was difficult to stand up. “Where did this come from?”
“On the wall next to the mirror.”
Words were so hard to form with the tiny voice inside her head screaming in terror. “This isn’t mine.”
“You didn’t hang it there?”
“I’ve never seen it before.” She was cold. So cold her teeth chattered.
J.D. set the offending picture on the dresser and led her over to the chair. “Sit down.” Her body collapsed like so much wet pasta. J.D. dropped to one knee beside the chair. “You didn’t hang that picture on the wall?”
“No! God, no. There was a seascape there.” She heard the explanation tumbling from her lips and shuddered. Who cared about the seascape? She didn’t. Oh, God, Larry had been here. Right here in her bedroom. Now she had proof.
“I’m going to call Thompkins.” J.D. rose.
“But he said no one got inside.”
“Obviously, he was wrong. Someone switched the seascape for your wedding picture.”
“That’s not my wedding picture!”
J.D. frowned. He turned back to the obscenity, lifting it from the dresser to study the people. Jackie could almost hear his thoughts.
“This isn’t your wedding picture?”
“No!”
“Then when was it taken?”
“How would I know?” She could hear the shrill rise in her voice and was helpless to control it “I told you, I never saw that thing before.”
Chapter Nine
J.D. stared from her to the picture and back again. “Are you saying this woman isn’t you?”
Jackie fought against the tears determined to push past her eyes and run unchecked down her face. She would not cry. But oh, God, the woman in the picture looked just like her.
“You said you don’t have a younger sister, right?”
Jackie shook her head, unable to speak.
“A cousin who looks like you?”
She pushed a single word past the barricade of horror lodged in her throat. “No.”
“How old were you when you married him?”
Despair washed through her. “Twenty-two.”
He studied the picture again. “Do you know who this woman is?”
“I’ve never seen her before in my life.” A tear slipped past her guard and trickled down her face. She brushed at it angrily.
J.D. crossed the room, lifted the telephone by her bed and punched in some numbers. “This is J.D. Frost. I’m at 2137 Maple Drive. Officers Thompkins and Barker just left here. I’d like one of them to return. We’ve found something they should take a look at.”
He hung up and turned to her, his face hard and expressionless. “Jackie, you need to take a closer look around. See what else has been disturbed.”
“We looked before. I didn’t even notice the picture. How could I not have noticed something like that?”
“You weren’t looking for anything subtle before. Now we will.”
“But, J.D., don’t you see? I can’t be sure when he changed the picture. It could have been there for days.”
“Maybe. Come on. I’ll help you—” He paused, turning back to stare down at the nightstand that housed the telephone. Jackie struggled to her feet as he drew an object from the table.
“What is it?”
J.D. extended his palm. The rings were distinctive, of white gold and diamonds with ruby chips on either side of the center stones.
Jackie went numb all over. Finding an inscription would be anticlimactic. She knew J.D. held her wedding rings. Larry liked her to wear rubies. Jackie pulled back when J.D. would have handed them to her.
J.D. replaced them on the nightstand and crossed to the picture on her wall. Jackie stayed put, her stomach rising and plunging with each breath, threatening to disgorge its contents at any moment. She knew what J.D. would see. The woman in the picture would be wearing these rings.
J.D. KEPT A TIGHT REIN on the anger in his chest as Ben Thompkins stared at the picture, looked at Jackie and shook his head. J.D. understood his disbelief. The woman in the picture looked as Jackie must have looked several years ago.
Without a magnifying glass, he could only make an educated guess that the rings on the woman’s finger were identical to the rings sitting at Jackie’s bedside. They appeared to be the same, ruby chips and all. Yet Jackie claimed she wasn’t the woman in the picture.
Jackie closed the last of her dresser drawers and lifted lifeless eyes to Thompkins. “Nothing else is out of place.”
Thompkins didn’t seem surprised. J.D. knew what he was thinking. Would anyone really go to all this trouble just to make her look insane? Particularly an ex-husband she hadn’t seen in years?
J.D. clenched his fist. He was no psychologist, but someone around here was crazy.
He stared hard at the picture. There were subtle differences, he decided. The woman in the photograph had much lighter brown hair and her face was insulated by a soft layer of baby fat. Still, any way he looked at the picture, it looked like it was Jackie’s face that beamed fatuously up at her groom.
Larry looked straight into the camera while his bride’s head angled slightly upward to gaze adoringly at her husband. J.D. grimaced. His gaze shifted to the damning rings on the hand that rested against the black lapel of Larry’s jacket. Rings that appeared identical to the ones on Jackie’s nightstand.
He peered closer. Wasn’t that the heart necklace she’d mentioned Larry giving her? Of course, she’d said he gave it to her after they were married, not before.
“We can try dusting for prints, Ms. Neeley, but I seriously doubt we’ll get anything at this point since both you and J.D. already handled the frame.”
“What about the rings?” J.D. asked.
Thompkins shook his head. “Even if you hadn’t picked them up, we couldn’t get anything usable from an object like that.”
Jackie turned away with a shake of her head. J.D. watched helplessly. He didn’t want to believe she was crazy or a liar, but those damnable rings…
“And you admit these are your wedding rings?” Thompkins asked.
“I think so.”
She could hardly deny it when the inscription gave the date and her initials.
“When was the last time you saw them?” Thompkins continued.
“The day I left.” Jackie answered without emotion. It was the lack of expression in her voice and on her face that caused J.D. another pang of indecision.
Was she telling the truth?
More than anything, he wanted to believe her.
“The only things I took from our house were my clothing and some personal items that I owned before we were married. I left the rings on the nightstand next to our bed.”
J.D.’s glance drifted to the nightstand where he’d discovered the rings. They glittered obscenely.
Had she been playing them for a fool all along? Listening to Thompkins’s questions and Jackie’s listless answers, J.D. realized she fully expected them to disbelieve her. Shouldn’t she be trying to convince them she was telling the truth instead of staring at them with dejection written in every line of her body?
“Walk me downstairs, J.D.?”
“I’ll be right back, Jackie.” She didn’t even look at him.
“Damn it, what’s going on here?” J.D. demanded as they stepped onto the porch.
“You know her better than I do.”
No. J.D. wasn’t sure he knew her, at all. “What does she gain by planting this stuff and lying?”
Thompkins scratched at his jaw. “Your sympathy?”
He scowled.
“Now, don’t jump down my throat,” Thompkins protested. “Think it through. No one got inside this house today unless Luke handed out one of the new keys.”
“No way,” J.D. snarled.
“Agreed. And those are good locks, J.D. Not a mark on them.”
“I know that, but what if her neighbor actually saw the guy leaving the house instead of trying to get inside?”
“Only the back door’s been tampered with. The old house key implies someone attempted to enter through the back door.”
J.D. made a disgusted sound low in his throat “Anyone could have dropped that key at any time.”
“Maybe. And maybe she’s so besotted by her exhusband that she hung their wedding picture where she could see it each night and dream about what might have been.”
The thought gnawed at him. “That doesn’t exactly go with a restraining order,” J.D. responded.
Thompkins shrugged. “As a cop, I’ve seen stranger things.”
J.D. rubbed his jaw wearily. “I’d swear her fear is real.”
“If she’s mentally unbalanced, she doesn’t have to fake the fear. I’m no psychiatrist, but there are some disturbingly real things happening here that may be pushing her over some edge. The neighbor did see someone on her porch earlier. It’s possible with all the local burglaries, our perp was trying what he thought would be an easy target. He could have read the kid’s obituary and decided to take a chance that this house might be empty and easy pickings.”
“Do you really believe that?”
Thompkins shifted uncomfortably. “No. Our thief has been real particular lately. This isn’t the sort of neighborhood he’s been hitting. He’s going for the big estates. The expensive-looking places.”
And this was a family-oriented neighborhood.
“Her car is missing,” J.D. pointed out.
“Unless she moved it herself.” Thompkins raised a hand to ward off J.D.’s instant protest. “And she does have a restraining order against her ex-husband. I know. Those are facts. The dead elf and the rest of these things?” He spread his hands. “Truth or fantasy, who can tell? Maybe her ex is playing some sort of mind game with her. If so, the guy’s nuts and probably dangerous.” His expression hardened in warning. “No telling what he’ll do to another man involved with her.”
“Or what he’ll do to her if there isn’t one,” J.D. added darkly.
“True. On the other hand, if she isn’t playing with a full deck…I’m not discounting what she’s said, but a little concrete evidence would be nice. I don’t buy this wedding picture appearing out of thin air. A picture that she didn’t notice hanging on her wall until you picked it up.”
Yeah, that bothered him, too.
“And let’s not forget the rings.”
As if he could.
“I mean, come on, J.D., they’re sitting there like she just forgot to put them back on.”
J.D. didn’t want to hear his own thoughts expressed so clearly.
“And,” Thompkins added, “let’s not forget the disappearing, reappearing dead elf or the missing teddy bear with his eyes pulled off—both of which only she ever saw.”
“And an unsigned Christmas card,” J.D. mumbled.
“What?”
He explained about the Christmas card, and Ben scratched at his jaw. “You say it was mailed here in town?”
“I saw the postmark,” he admitted glumly.
Thompkins’s expression came close to pity. “Tell me something, J.D., other than the fact that you’re a nice guy and she’s an attractive woman, why are you hanging around here? Call one of your other women friends. Enjoy an active evening for two—or something.”
Thompkins indicated the partially open front door. “Whatever’s going on here, the lady inside is pulling your chain.”
“And if she’s not?”
Grim lines bracketed his mouth. “Watch your back, okay? We’ll keep an eye on the house.”
“Thanks, Ben.”
He watched Thompkins head down the sidewalk before stepping back inside. Jackie stood at the bottom of the staircase. From her stricken expression, he realized that she’d heard every word.
He noted her stiff carriage and the way she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. Embarrassed, he said, “We need to finish packing.”
“Go home, J.D.”
Her words tightened his stomach. “Look, Jackie, nothing has changed. You—”
“I said go home.”
Her voice could frost glass.
“Jackie, Ben’s
a cop, and cops—”
“Are you going to leave or am I going to—”
“—are trained to be suspicious,” he finished weakly.
“—have to have you removed?”
Angry determination lifted her chin and gleamed in the haughty depths of her dark eyes. Two tiny spots of color high on her cheekbones accentuated the stark whiteness of her skin.
“Jackie, don’t do this.”
Without a word, she spun and swung her way down the hall toward the kitchen. Heart pounding, he followed her after a moment to find her lifting the telephone with a steady hand.
“Put it down. If you really want me to go I’ll leave.”
She stared at him, regal and in perfect control, her finger poised to push buttons. And in that moment, he wondered again if she hadn’t been telling him the truth.
“Go home to your children.” Contempt laced her words. “They need you.”
Damn. “What about you?”
“I don’t need you, at all.”
J.D. sat in his car staring at her house for several long minutes, his mind in turmoil. Why did he feel as if he’d just lost something special?
Because he’d made love to her.
The memory of the way she gave herself so sweetly, so completely, was a dull ache in his mind. He’d had relationships with other women, but today had been different. Jackie was different.
Part of him wanted to go back inside and reassure her. The other part told him to be grateful that he was no longer involved in this impossible situation. He started the car, trying to soothe away his guilt.
He wasn’t leaving her friendless and alone. She had Bessie and Frank. Yet, he couldn’t help feeling he was making a terrible mistake as he drove away.
“Damn.” He slammed the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. Jackie Neeley had thrown his well-ordered life into chaos.
He gripped the steering wheel in frustration. He should go to the office for an hour or so, except he was in no mood to work right now. Instead, he drove home.
The television rumbled in the living room, but there were none of the sounds associated with two active children. J.D. found his aunt asleep in her chair, a talk show keeping her company. Where were the kids?
A sudden thought assailed him. Surely they wouldn’t go to the shopping center after his talk with them the other night. His heart rate increased. They must be outside playing. Any minute now they’d spot his car and come bursting through the door.
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