by Jen Talty
Callie narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t say that.”
“You know, my brother might not be as arrogant as he used to be when it comes to work, but he’s still a cocky son of bitch when it comes to you, so yeah, that’s exactly what he said. See you in a bit.” With that, Ziggy stood and practically skipped down the dock toward the parking lot.
Wonderful.
Jackie Cash smiled and waved as she sashayed her way down the wood planks with her cameraman one step behind. Her wavy brown hair bounced like a shampoo commercial against her shoulders. She had to be a good five foot eleven in flat shoes. She had a natural beauty and carried herself with an air of confidence that couldn’t be mistaken for ego.
Something Callie had to admit she was a little bit jealous of.
“Callie Dixon,” Jackie said. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too.” Callie leaned in and kissed her cheek before easing over to the bench that overlooked the beach. “I appreciate you coming out here to do this.”
“Never in a million years did I think you would ever suggest I interview you.”
“You should know that Bailey is going to run a piece about me tonight as well. I spoke to her, but it was off the record, and nothing like what I’m willing to tell you.”
“She called me to tell me she had a piece about you.” Jackie went about hooking up a mic to Callie’s jacket. It felt strange to be on the other side of an interview. “I wouldn’t be surprised if she took a negative approach.”
“I know exactly the approach she’s taking, and it’s to make me look bad. She’s more concerned that I’m going to ask for my job back.”
“Are you?” Jackie asked. She took a step back and glanced down at her own microphone, making a minor adjustment.
“I have no desire to go back to that life.”
“Too bad. You always kept me on my toes,” Jackie said. “So basically I’ve been doing a series on unsolved crime in Seattle, so it’s perfect timing. I want to focus on why you felt the need to write the book. I just want the personal angle. You got the questions I sent over, correct?”
“I did.”
“Was there anything you want me to stay clear of?”
“Yeah,” Callie said. “My personal relationship with Jagar Bowie.”
“That’s too bad. Everyone at the station wants to know if the two of you are back together or not.”
“Off the record. We’re not. We’re just friends, but on camera, if you ask me one question about our relationship, past or present, I’ll pull the plug.”
“I’ll keep it to the book and the murders, period,” Jackie said.
“Thanks.” Callie stiffened her spine and pulled her hair back into a ponytail so the wind didn’t take it and whip it in front of her face.
Here went nothing.
Chapter 9
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, stop acting like you’re so pissed off at me.” Jag pulled back the comforter on his full-size bed. He used to have a king in his apartment in Seattle, but living alone, with no girlfriend and no desire to have a warm body spend the night, what did he need a huge bed for?
Besides, while the master suite was massive with an extended sitting room and deck, the actual bedroom part was pretty cramped, and anything bigger than a queen wouldn’t allow for even a nightstand on both sides.
“I am angry. You assumed, for the second time in two days, that I would be okay sleeping with you.”
“That’s not true.” He stood at the foot of the bed with his hands on his hips, wearing only his sweatpants, while she wore only his undershirt and maybe a tiny thong underneath, but he couldn’t tell. “When we went camping, I had the room divider and two separate sleeping bags.”
“That you zipped together.” She held up her hand. “And are you going to deny you told Ziggy that I wouldn’t mind sharing your bed?”
He chuckled. “Well, no. But that was me telling my sister what she wanted to hear. Seriously, I have no problem sleeping on the sofa in the sitting room. Or if that’s too close, I’ll go to the couch in the family room.”
“You’d really do that?”
“Go look the other room.” He stepped to the side so she could get a good look at the pull-out that he hadn’t made yet, but he’d put out all the necessary bedding.
“Oh. I see.”
“So I’ll sleep there. If you want. But I don’t want to. I’d much rather sleep with you.” He’d lost his mind.
And his heart.
He knew he’d never get either of them back, so he figured he might as well enjoy her while he could. Soon enough, she’d be walking out of his life again, and there wasn’t a damn fucking thing he could do about it.
At least this time they’d be able to leave on good terms.
That might make it easier for him to pick up the pieces and fake a life.
“That is about the most passive-aggressive thing you’ve ever done,” she said with a laugh as she climbed between the sheets. “I’m not going to kick you out of your own bed.”
“So you’re going to share it with me?”
“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” she asked. “Now kindly tell me what you thought of the interview with Jackie and of Bailey’s stupid piece on us.”
Normally, he’d shed the sweats, but that would really be presumptuous, and he wasn’t about to assume that just because she was willing to rest her head next to him that she wanted sex. If that were the case, she’d have to initiate it.
And even then, maybe he should turn her down.
Like that might be possible.
Fuck. He sat on the edge of the bed, contemplating where he might actually sleep.
“Let’s start with Bailey.” He rubbed his temples. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.”
“She all but called you incompetent.”
He chuckled. “She said that about the entire Seattle Police Department. But she had a quote taken directly from the chapter on the night we found your sister. It was as if she was reading from it. She said, ‘The hush that had come over the city of Seattle when it came to light that Adam Wanton had been killed before Stephanie Dixon and that there was no way in hell he could have been the Trinket Killer was deafening.’ After I saw the piece, I had to go get the manuscript and look it up. It was almost word for word. How’d she get that because you told me that only a few people had gotten that draft.”
“Actually, only five people had that copy. You, me, Kara, my editor, and my agent. But that’s a pretty generic description.”
“Come on. Are you really going to brush that under the rug?” He glanced over his shoulder. “So how’d she get a direct quote?”
Callie propped up the pillow and leaned against the headboard. “I have no idea, and before you keep pushing, I concede it sounded way too close to my words for it to be a coincidence.”
“Babe, I looked it up. It was word for word.” He arched a brow.
“Shit,” she mumbled. “Any chance she could have seen your copy? I mean, you did fuck her.”
“Jesus Christ, Callie. First off, I was so trashed I couldn’t perform, so the fucking never actually happened. And second, it happened two months after you left. I was angry and lonely, and you probably hadn’t even written a single damn word yet.”
She covered her mouth and made a weird noise that reminded him of a combination between gagging and giggling.
It wasn’t a pretty noise.
“I’m glad you find my failed manhood amusing.”
“It’s not that.” She reached out and rubbed his shoulder with her deft fingers. “It’s the way she tried to pretend you had a relationship and tried to use it to bond with me because she believes I think you’re a total asshole.”
“Back then you did.”
“But I don’t now,” she said. “I’m sorry I said that. I have to admit, I was jealous that you’d even think to be with her.”
“I wasn’t thinking, that’s for damn sure. I’ve n
ever been so disgusted with myself, and I’ve never been so happy to not be able to get it up. Thank God that was the only time that’s ever happened.”
“Maybe it wasn’t all the drink and it was the woman?”
He twisted his body and stretched out his legs, leaning back on the headboard. “I like the way you think.”
“Now that we’ve got my jealous rampage out of the way. How the hell did she get ahold of a copy of my manuscript? I know my editor wouldn’t give her that quote. Not without running it by me first.”
“Would Kara?” Jag hated asking that question. Kara had been a good friend to Callie, especially when Jag had been a jerk. But Kara had her own set of issues, and there were times Jag questioned Kara’s motives. At one point, he wondered if Kara wasn’t in love with Callie, but he knew now that he’d been jealous for no reason. “And I don’t mean on purpose. I’m just asking if she’d give someone a quote without thinking.”
“No. Not without asking me first.” Callie dropped her head on his shoulder. “I did have a copy of the manuscript on the table when she got there. It’s possible she saw something before I put it away.”
“For now, we’ll go with that, but I want you to change your passwords and have a conversation with everyone who was given a copy.”
“I can do that,” she said. “But what about Bailey?”
“I’ll handle her.”
Callie poked the center of his chest. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
He grabbed her wrist and kissed the center of her palm. “Bailey was more embarrassed about my lack of performance than I was. As a matter of fact, she took it so personally that she’s lied about it ever since.”
“That’s kind of pathetic on her part,” Callie said. “But do you mind if we stop talking about her now? I’m actually really curious on what you thought about the interview with Jackie.”
He raised his arm, wrapping it around her body and pulling her close.
So much for waiting for her to make the first move.
Well, she did touch him first.
“You were amazing.”
“I was so pissed when she went off-script and asked about you and me. She promised she wouldn’t. She swore she’d keep it strictly to the book,” Callie said.
Jag had been just as shocked. He’d thought Jackie was more of a classy reporter than that, but since there was no news to report when it came to the Trinket Killer, why not go for the sensationalism and dirt. “She did handle the book stuff really well and got to the heart of the investigation. I particularly liked how she brought up Armstrong and how she’s still such a big question mark in the case. We still have no idea why she planted DNA or mixed it all up. I know the department has been looking closely at all her work, and the Trinket Killer seems to be the only case she fucked up.”
“Have you read her autopsy?” Callie asked.
“I have, and no, I’m not going to show it to you.”
She glanced up at him. “Do you believe she killed herself?”
“The evidence is pretty damning for that conclusion.” He pressed his fingers against Callie’s lips when she opened her mouth. “I’ve thought about the idea the killer could have murdered her and set it up to look like a suicide. But I can’t answer the question as to why Armstrong would help the Trinket Killer.”
“Did you ever think that maybe Armstrong was the killer?” Callie asked.
“That’s an interesting theory, and now that we think the killer could have been a woman, it’s one that I’ve asked the cold case detective to look into, but my gut instinct says no.” That said, he knew there was a connection between Armstrong and the killer.
He just didn’t know what it was.
He reached for his iPad and pulled up his file on the subject. “I’ve done a lot of thinking over the last year about Armstrong. When we believed without a doubt that the Trinket Killer was a man, I wondered if Armstrong could have been his lover, and that’s possible. But she’s also bi-sexual.”
“So she could have had an affair with the killer regardless of gender,” Callie said. “But she didn’t start doing it until the sixth victim.”
“And that’s what is fascinating to me.” He handed her his iPad. “I just made this note today, but that’s when the color of the trinket changed from gold to silver.”
Callie sat up taller and scrolled through his detailed notes he’d been making for the last year. Every little thing he’d ever thought of. It was more of a flow of consciousness than anything else, so some things he’d already proven incorrect. But sometimes, going back and examining the way his mind pieced together the information as it was presented gave him insight.
Or it just made him crazy.
“And you really think the killings started before Renee?”
“If the three ravens are a precursor of what is to come, then there had to be a single trinket to start.”
She handed him his iPad. “But the one you showed me didn’t have six murders.”
“Because they caught who they thought was the killer. I suspect if Adam hadn’t been released, our killer would have stopped. We gave him or her permission to finish his cycle when Adam was proven not to be the murderer and was released.”
“And Armstrong helped proved that right before she committed suicide,” Callie said.
He pressed his lips against her forehead, sliding down onto the mattress. In the last couple of days, they’d uncovered more information than he’d been able to in an entire year. “We make a good team,” he whispered. “That is when I’m not being an arrogant detective who thinks he knows everything and—”
“I’m not out for ratings, doing whatever it takes, including snooping in police files.”
“We both made a lot of mistakes. We’ve both changed. Why aren’t you willing to give us another chance?”
“There are a lot of reasons. One of which is I’m not willing to live in Seattle. Hell, I won’t be staying in Washington State, and this is your home. It’s where your family is, and I know you’re never leaving.”
He couldn’t imagine leaving the Seattle area. Whidbey Island was about as far away from his siblings and his parents as he could stand to be. However, he watched Levi leave the police force, a career he loved, for a woman he couldn’t live without. Sure, they could have done the long-distance thing with Starla’s career, but Levi wanted to be by her side.
He didn’t want anyone else protecting her on a daily basis.
“I’d consider it for you,” Jag said.
She kissed his chest. Her hot breath tickled his skin, sending goosebumps rippling across his body. “You’d be so unhappy anywhere else.”
“I’m unhappy here without you.” He rolled to his side, holding her close, looking deep into her dark-almond eyes. “Sure, I’ve survived. I’m going about my daily life. I put a smile on. I laugh. It’s not the worst life, but it’s not my best. That was always with you.”
“Jag, please don’t do this. I will always love you, and I know that will never change. But I’m not staying, and I won’t have you leaving your family or your career to come with me when I don’t even know what’s next, only I suspect whatever it is, it will happen in New York.”
He jerked his head back. “You want to live on the East Coast?”
“It’s the mecca of the publishing business. It’s where my editor and agent are, and this book is getting the attention of some true crime television shows.”
“And that’s what you really want?”
She nodded.
“I can be a cop in New York.”
“No. I’m not going to let you do that,” she said, jumping to a sitting position. “This.” She pointed back and forth between the two of them. “It’s a trip down memory lane. It’s a way for us to heal old wounds. It’s not a path to a future together. Maybe if we’d been in touch this past year. Or maybe if we hadn’t been so toxic when we broke up. But you and me, we’re over.”
“Are we?”
“Ye
s,” she said softly. “And if you didn’t think so before, you will after I tell you this.”
“I’m listening,” he said.
“I had a miscarriage a couple of weeks after I left last year.”
“You had a what?” He swallowed his breath. “You were pregnant? With my baby?”
“Our baby, but yes.” She held up her hand. “I didn’t know until about a week after I landed in San Francisco, and I lost the baby about two and a half weeks after that.”
His heart hammered in his chest. “Fuck, Callie. And if you hadn’t miscarried? Would you have told me?”
“Of course I would have, but that doesn’t change the facts. We’re not meant to be together.”
“That’s bullshit.” He shouldn’t use sex to prove a point, but it was all that he had right now. He tilted her chin with his thumb and index finger. “I’m sorry about the baby. I really am. I wish I could have been there for you.” Her lips parted, and her pupils widened. “But if our story ended, then why are we here in this bed about to make love?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. His mouth took hers in a hot, hard kiss that had only one intention and that was to devour.
He pressed his body against hers, letting her know exactly the power she held over him and what little control he had when it came to being in her presence. Of course, if she pushed him away, he’d leave the bed like the gentleman that he was, but by the way her tongue commanded his and the way her fingers dug into his ass cheeks, he suspected she wanted it as much as he did.
“Jag,” she managed between raspy breaths.
“What, babe?”
“I’m a selfish woman.”
“Why do you say that?” He slipped his hand under her shirt, removing the cotton fabric. He inhaled sharply, staring at her perfect small round breasts with tightly puckered pink nipples. Her chest rose up and down, presenting them to him.
“Because I’ll gladly have sex with you for my own personal gratification, even though I don’t want to hurt you.”
He kissed the underswell of her breast. “What makes you think I’m worried about that? I’m a big boy, and you’ve made it clear that you think we’re over.”