A giggle from his right drew his attention. A short, plump young woman waved at him from the porch of the house next door.
She turned away and motioned toward someone. “Daci, you’ve got company, and he’s cu-u-u-ute.”
“Oh, no!” Daci’s exclamation reached him from the opposite porch and then her trim figure appeared at the rail. “I’m so sorry, Jax. I was over here meeting Jewel’s sister and baby niece and lost track of time.”
His knees went weak at seeing her safe with her luxurious strawberry blond hair loose and cascading around her shoulders. She was dressed in blue jeans and a T-shirt and wore a welcoming, if apologetic, smile on her face. He inhaled a deep breath and willed his heart rate to slow down to normal. The rebellious organ had been trying to jump out of his chest, though whether that reaction was from relief or the involuntary surge of attraction for her he didn’t care to decipher.
“I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said. Did his voice sound as breathless as he felt?
“Come over and meet my new friends.”
Jax joined the small group on the neighboring porch, and Daci introduced him to Jewel, Cherise and Mandy, three of the residents at the group home, as well as Tanisha Grey, one of the caregivers. Before Daci could get to her, Jewel’s sister stuck out her hand and introduced herself and the baby, who slept on even as she was passed from one person to another.
“There are six young women living here,” Daci said. “But Hannah and Allie have part-time jobs and are working today. Paige is in the house. She hasn’t really warmed up to me yet.”
Cherise sniffed. “Paige doesn’t say much to us, either, but she is always on the computer talking to some guy from her church’s Uniquely Made group.”
“Uniquely Made?” Jax looked from one to another, seeking an explanation.
Tanisha laughed. “One of the local churches has a Bible study and activity group especially for adults born with extra challenges in their mental, emotional or social development.”
Daci’s face lit up. “That sounds like a wonderful program.”
Jax’s heart leaped. Daci sounded really interested. Maybe she would be drawn to attend that church and get reconnected to the faith her grandmother had tried to instill in her.
Mandy lifted a hand. “I go there, too. I’m a Down’s girl, and I’m special.”
The innocence of her beaming smile and matter-of-fact statement warmed Jax to his socks. He could understand why Daci had been drawn to come over here and visit, especially when she was going through a stressful time.
They chatted for a while, and then Daci headed for the porch steps. “See you later, ladies. We should probably get going, Jax—now that I’ve wasted half our morning.” She wrinkled her nose at him, a terminally cute mannerism that affected him more than he liked.
Jax fell into step with her as they crossed the lawn toward her place. “I tried calling, but got no answer, so raced over here like my tail was on fire.”
“I really am sorry. I should have at least texted you when it appeared I wouldn’t get to the office as soon as I’d intended. Left my phone on the charger when I stepped outside to retrieve the newspaper, and then the girls here waved me over, and one thing led to another.”
“No worries. I officially forgive you for scaring a decade off my life.”
“And I officially thank you for caring enough to check on me. It’s a weird feeling to have someone looking out after me. I’m such an independent character that I’m surprised I like it.”
They paused at the bottom of her porch steps, and she gazed up at him with those deep brown eyes. Her sincerity and humility all but undid him. If this were a date, he’d kiss her right now—despite the audience next door.
Instead, he stuffed his hands into his pockets. “That’s what partners are for.”
“Right. Partners.” Her gaze went shuttered even as she turned and led the way up her steps. “Come in while I morph into a deputy marshal.”
He followed her inside and found himself in a living room furnished with simple but quality pieces and a color scheme of rich cream accented by browns and blues. Nothing about the decor suggested excessive wealth, just good taste. But then a hint of the same sterility of his own place struck him. Except for some photographs on the fireplace mantel, very little of a personal nature graced the space, but perhaps that was because she hadn’t lived here long.
Daci retired to the back room while he gravitated toward the photos. The same people were featured in all of them, but at varying ages. Most were casual shots involving a pair of look-alike young males and two females who resembled each other but weren’t identical. He could pick out the family relationship in all of them, mostly through the eyes, which were all deep brown, and the noses, all straight and elegant, and the chins, firm and round. The face of a fifth person, an older woman with the same telltale features, filled the central frame of the grouping. The eyes were tired, but the face was serene, perhaps a little stoic. Photos of Daci’s parents were noticeably absent.
“These are your siblings and your grandmother?” he called to her.
“Good eye, Sherlock,” she called back with a laugh. “Grab yourself a drink from the fridge if you want. I’ll be a few more minutes.”
Jax checked out the refrigerator and found it considerably more stocked than his own. She must actually cook once in a while. He selected a can of iced tea and popped the tab. The container was only half empty when she rejoined him, looking like the tightly put together Daci he’d first met. Inwardly, he mourned the reappearance of that bun at the base of her neck.
“Did you get in touch with your sisters and brothers last night?”
She nodded, a frown tugging at the corners of her lips. “They were shocked, as I predicted, but Nate maybe less so.”
“How do you mean?”
“He told me Uncle Con called him a couple of days ago. As if the phone call itself wasn’t enough of a surprise, instead of his usual gloomy attitude he apparently sounded almost jolly, but with an anxious, sort of manic edge. The last thing he said to my brother was ‘tell your mamasis to look after herself.’ Nate felt like the comment was off-key with the tone of the rest of the conversation, but wrote it off to Con’s awkward social skills and forgot about it.”
Jax frowned and crossed his arms. “Have you told your siblings about the attempts on your life?”
“So far, just Nate. I had to come clean after he shared that strange conversation with me.”
“I think you should—”
A special ringtone from his phone cut off his sentence. He answered immediately. Tiny prickles cascaded over his skin as the Marshals Service desk clerk spoke.
He ended the call and met Daci’s expectant stare. “The PD just pulled a red RAV4 out of the Connecticut River. There’s a body in it.”
Six
With Jax a strong presence at her back, Daci stood in the thick of the activity at the vehicle-recovery scene. Clouds boiled in from the west, veiling the sun, and the wind kicked up angry-looking waves in the blue-gray water of the Connecticut River. The rumble of distant thunder promised rain.
A shiver shook Daci’s body—not because of the impending squall, but from the face of the dead man who lay limp on a tarp at her feet. A bullet hole in the man’s forehead was identical to Conrad’s wound, but even that gruesome detail was not what had frozen her insides into a massive block of ice. The weight of her shocked, horrified recognition nearly doubled her over.
“I know him.” The words sprang from her lips in a ragged whisper.
“I do, too,” Jax said. “He’s the owner of Sam’s Clams, that restaurant we almost went to on the day we met.”
“Restaurant owner!” Daci jerked. “Are you kidding? How can that be?” Hot emotions stormed through her, shattering the ice and turning the shivers to quakes she was helpless to stop.
/> Jax grabbed her elbow and turned her to face him. “What’s wrong, Daci?”
“This man,” she spit out, pointing a quivering finger toward the dead body, “shot my grandmother!”
Jax’s mouth fell open, but no words came out. Daci wrenched away from him and stalked toward her department car. Within a few steps, her legs turned to jelly and she crumpled to her knees. Hot tears cut paths down her cheeks even as cold raindrops began to pelt her face. She hugged herself tightly to bottle the sobs.
She was making a complete fool of herself in front of fellow law-enforcement officers, including Detective Herriman, who was in charge of the investigation and standing nearby. If his eyes were on her, he must be marking her down as a hysteric unable to hack the rigors of the job.
A moment later, a clean-cut face swam into cloudy view and a pair of warm hands gripped hers. Jax had knelt in front of her.
“You’re sure?” he queried gently.
“His face is engraved in my brain!” She hauled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s aged fourteen years, but I recognize him.”
“I believe you. This information is important to the case. We need to talk with Herriman, but not here. Downtown. Out of the rain. Head for the car, and I’ll let him know we need to meet when he’s done here.”
Nodding dumbly, Daci allowed him to help her to her feet. Good thing the two of them were not alone, or she might give in to the temptation to melt into the comfort of his embrace. She was starting to depend too much on this guy. She needed to watch herself.
Stuffing her hands into her pockets, she marched to the unmarked sedan and climbed into the passenger seat. Jax soon joined her, assuming the driver’s seat without comment. As they drove to the police station, she watched the windshield stream with what looked like the buckets of tears yet lurking behind her eyes.
“How did a carjacker and murderer become a respected business owner?” She released a pent-up question—one of the least volatile among those scrambling around in her brain.
“I would guess on the profits from carjacking.”
“But crooks don’t readily turn from the easy dime to hard work. The restaurant business is tough.”
“Maybe killing your grandmother scared him straight.”
Daci’s heart lightened the barest fraction. “Grandma would have liked that. But even if he changed, it apparently was not enough to resist attempting to kill again when he saw me in the street.”
“You’re guessing a moment of horrified recognition led to a panic reaction?”
“Excellent description. You are most definitely a wordsmith.”
“Handy trait in a lawyer...or a used-car salesman.”
“You said it.” If Daci could have smiled, she would have. How she enjoyed their banter. “I’m thinking more along the lines that he caught a glimpse of me when I ate at his restaurant last week, has been fretting himself into a frenzy over my presence in his neighborhood. Then when he saw me in the street, he reacted on impulse.”
Jax gave a soft hum. “Plausible. Then what? He hired some gang members to finish the job he failed?”
“Maybe, but I don’t want to connect too many dots too quickly. Something more is going on here.”
“Agreed. Did the person who killed your uncle also kill the guy who killed your grandma and tried to kill you? If so, what is the connection?”
Minutes later, they sat across from Herriman in front of his desk, nursing typically horrible cop-shop coffee. Daci grimaced at the scummy blackness, but at least the sludge provided warmth in her belly.
For Herriman, Jax laid out the facts about her uncle’s death and the similarity in the execution-style killings between his murder and that of the driver of the RAV4. Daci added her recognition of the man as the carjacker who killed her grandmother, grateful that her voice emerged steady and professional after the emotional tsunami that had overwhelmed her at the river. Herriman’s gaze conveyed no judgment about that embarrassing moment. Maybe he hadn’t noticed her meltdown. Not likely, but she could hope.
The detective nodded. “The ID on the RAV4 guy says his name was Samuel Clayhorn. He was the owner of—”
“Sam’s Clams,” Jax finished for him.
“You know him?”
“Only by sight from eating at the restaurant. Didn’t know his name until now.”
Herriman tapped on his computer. “What do you know? Sammy-boy has a sheet. Petty theft, minor graft mostly. Got sent up for a year at Mass Correctional when he was twenty years old. Released on probation eight months later, but started hanging out with a bad crowd again. Notes here says the probation officer was nervous that Sam was getting close to breaking the conditions of his parole when the guy suddenly turned choirboy. Clean as a whistle until now.”
“Fits,” Daci said. “He looked late teens or early twenties when he killed my grandmother.”
Jax frowned. “For a petty grifter to suddenly turn carjacker and murderer, that ‘bad crowd’ must have included someone with the kind of connections to handle a stolen vehicle of Lexus caliber.”
Herriman leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Believe me, as part of the investigation, we’ll be taking a very close look at this guy’s business.”
“You think the restaurant might be a front for something crooked?” Jax’s question sounded speculative rather than inquiring.
“If it’s a front for money laundering or something of that nature,” Daci said, “it would be doubly important to eliminate someone like me who could connect him to a crime that has no statute of limitations. He couldn’t afford for his past to catch up with him. Whoever he’s answerable to would be seriously displeased.”
“True.” Herriman nodded. “Plus, he’d spend the rest of his natural life behind bars.”
“So, I get the incentive to kill me, but why is he the one who is dead?”
Jax shot her a sidelong look. “I would say that’s one of many important details we don’t have nailed down yet.”
Daci’s stomach churned. “I have a more disturbing question. If Sam Clayhorn has a record, why did I not find his mug shot in the photos the police had me poring over for days after the tragedy?”
A frown etched deep lines in the detective’s face. “Let me look into what was going on in the force at that time and dig deeper into Clayhorn. There must have been a reason for the exclusion. I’ll connect with the PD in Boston, too. See if there are other commonalities between the two recent murders.”
“Keep us informed.” Jax rose, and Daci followed suit.
They shook hands with the detective and headed for the vehicle. The rain had passed, and the partly cloudy sky allowed sunlight to peek through, warming the air.
Daci’s spirits lifted. With the man who had killed her grandmother identified and no longer a threat to her or her family, she might begin to find closure on that horrible incident from her past. Who had killed Clayhorn, and if the murder of her uncle might be connected, remained to be discovered, but as for this moment, the man who had been trying to kill her was dead, which meant there was no reason she would need to be taken off the Naylor case. Why not do something proactive to fulfill her duties?
“You up for some lunch?” Jax asked, tossing the car keys in the air and catching them.
On the next toss, Daci snatched them. “I am, but not with you.” She laughed at his crestfallen expression. “Not today anyway.”
They stopped beside the sedan. “My assignment is to cozy up to Serena Farnam. I think I’m going to invite her out for lunch. Naylor was last seen in Boston. I’m going to finesse what I can out of her about places her ex might hide in that city. The woman knows something. I’m sure of it. But she may not realize what she knows.”
Jax chuckled. “If anyone can finesse her, my vote is with you.”
“Thanks, partner.” She grinned back at him.
“You and me,” she said. “We click, you know, right?”
Daci smiled, guilt smiting her. This undercover work could be heart-wrenching. “We have important things in common—like our love for babies and our commitment to protect Chase.”
“You got that right, sista.” Serena began studying the menu.
Daci’s mouth watered. Odors of peppers and onions and sizzling meat wafted around her. She took a homemade tortilla chip from the basket between them, scooped up some salsa and popped it into her mouth. The flavors exploded on her tongue, and an appreciative moan left her throat.
“Great eats, huh?” Serena grinned. “I’m having beef fajitas.”
“I think I’ll go for the chimichangas.”
After they ordered, Daci leaned across the table toward the younger woman. “Speaking of keeping the little guy safe, any sign of you-know-who?”
Shadows clouded Serena’s gaze. “No, and I wish he’d be caught. Worrying he might go after my boy again is... Well, it’s like trying to breathe but getting no air. Sometimes I can hardly stand it. You know? I want to be with him 24/7. Protect him. Do you get that?”
“Totally.” Daci cocked her head. “Will you see Chase over the weekend?”
Serena’s face went radiant. “This afternoon. I get a supervised visit at the park.”
“Great! Mind if I tag along? I’ve got nothing else to do today.”
The younger woman shrugged. “Why not? With another person there, maybe the social services worker won’t hover over us like I might do a runner. I’d be super tempted to do it if I thought it would get us safe from my ex.”
A cunning expression flitted across her face—there and gone so fast not many would have caught it. Did Serena have an escape plan percolating in the back of her mind?
“You don’t have anywhere safe to go?” Daci asked. “What about asking the police for protective custody?”
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