“Get creative,” Jason said.
Chase stared at the MoonPie for a second. “I’m gonna have to give this one some thought.”
Jason laughed.
Chase dropped the MoonPie. “Maybe you should take them home with you.”
“I’ve got a stash in the car.”
Chase shook his head, then turned to business. “What did you find out to night about the artist?”
“I think he’s the same guy that borrowed the Saturn. The friend who was driving the car when it got stolen just moved back into town from…New York. And get this. The guy’s name is Mike Brighten. The cover artist goes by Michael Braxton.”
“A little pen and ink and a driver’s license or a Social Security card can be altered,” Chase agreed. “Did you ever find him?”
“He’s conveniently out of pocket.” Jason frowned and stepped into the entryway. Lacy’s ugly dog, Fabio, who had a bad habit of nipping at his pant leg, came around the corner. “Where’s Sue?”
What was left of Chase’s smile vanished. “In the study with Lacy,” he whispered. “She doesn’t seem too happy.”
“Who? Sue doesn’t?” Jason—and the dog now attached to his pant leg—took a step.
“Yeah. When I drove her and Lacy back here to night, she had that puffy look, as if she’d been crying.”
Jason’s stomach clenched. “What happened?”
“All I know is that Lacy apologized in advance for having to kill you. I couldn’t get anything else out of her because Sue was around.”
“No!” Jason took a deep gulp of frustration. “We’ve been fine!” He met Chase’s gaze. “What could be wrong?”
He didn’t wait for his friend to answer. Taking off for the study, he dragged the dog with him. Worried more than he wanted to admit, he knocked but didn’t wait to be invited inside.
“Who—?” Lacy frowned when she saw him.
Jason’s gaze bypassed her. Sue sat on the floor, barefoot, her sandals beside her. One of Lacy’s cats lay curled up in her lap. She wasn’t crying, but her nose was red. Red from crying. Damn.
“What’s wrong?” he blurted.
Sue shook her head. “Nothing.” Nudging the orange cat from her lap, she stood and proceeded to straighten her dress that didn’t need straightening. Hell, the dress looked great on her. Perfect. She was perfect.
“You sure?” he asked.
“Positive.” She went back to readjusting clothes—a sure sign that she’d just lied to him. He’d learned from Maggie that straightening perfectly straight clothes was the same as wiping clean countertops. Something had Sue in knots. And her knots were beginning to form in his gut as well.
“Nothing’s wrong,” she repeated, fidgeting. “Chase said you got a lead on the cover artist. Did you find out anything?”
Chase walked into the room and went straight for his wife. Like Legos with super-charged magnets, the two of them couldn’t be in the same room and not linked together.
Jason’s gaze shot back to Sue’s puffy eyes. He decided to pocket his questions for later and remembering her question, he explained what he’d uncovered. He finished by saying, “I’ve got Danny coming over tomorrow while I chase down a few leads.”
“Okay.” Sue snatched up her sandals and looked at Lacy. “We should go. You two have to be exhausted. Thanks for…everything.” A lot of meaning went into that last word.
Jason watched the two women communicate with those secret looks that passed between females. What the hell did Sue have to say to Lacy that she didn’t want him to hear?
Then Lacy’s gaze slapped into him. Jason didn’t speak the female non verbal language, but he’d have to be deaf and blind not to recognize the woman’s scorn.
“What?” he asked.
“We should go,” Sue piped up. “They’re tired.”
Lacy glanced at her friend. “I’m not tired.” Her eyes shifted back to Jason. “But I’ve got an urge to make sausage.” The threat was clear, and Jason eyed Chase in hopes he could hold back his wife.
Sue reached for her purse. “I didn’t know you made your own sausage.”
“Yeah, I do.” Lacy continued to stare at Jason.
Chase chuckled, but he did wrap his arm around his angry wife as if to hold her back—just in case she came after Jason’s Jimmy Dean.
Sue moved closer. Jason ignored Lacy and kissed Sue, something he should have done when he first walked in. Not kissing hello had been one of the prior complaints by a past girlfriend, and on the drive over he’d replayed every complaint any woman had ever made against him and made a vow that he wouldn’t make those same mistakes with Sue.
It had nothing to do with Chase’s right arm talk. He didn’t want marriage; he just wanted to make Sue happy. She needed him. And if he could do things right, she’d need him for a long, long time.
Maybe even longer than that.
“You ready to go?” he asked. He knew he was.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Three days later, flowers in hand, Jason pulled out of a florist’s parking lot and drove back to Hoke’s Bluff. Back to Sue.
He wasn’t any closer to solving the case, but neither had anything happened since they’d received the note in the park. The sensor lights he’d had installed at Sue’s hadn’t even flashed. Jason had even gone out there to make sure they were working. They were. But while he knew he should be happy the freak had backed off, Jason couldn’t help but wonder if this wasn’t the calm before the storm. Everything he knew of stalkers said they didn’t just give up.
He’d spent the past few days looking for Brighten or Braxton, who he suspected were one and the same. Kay Andrews, the Saturn’s owner, wasn’t too off base about the guy being a deadbeat. Jason had visited at least four of the guy’s old friends, only to discover that good ol’ Mike had stopped by and was told by all four of the guys’ wives that he couldn’t hang his hat there either. Jason wanted to believe he was on the right track, especially since both Mikes had seemed to fall off the end of the world. But he’d feel a lot better if the New York cops would get off their asses and send him some info. It seemed getting information from the NYPD was about as easy as milking a bull.
Between searching for leads, he’d confronted Mrs. Roberts, the Cucumber Lady, about retiring the pink Cadillac. Jason had given her a name of a limo service. She’d resisted at first.
“What if they don’t show up when I need them?”
“They will show up.”
“Sometimes they don’t.”
He finally won her over by pointing out that she, a lady of such class, should be chauffeured around instead of driving herself. And she did have class. She lived in one of the most upscale Houston neighborhoods. So she obviously had the money. Before he was able to get away, she asked him in for a snack. He’d endured a whole hour of looking at her family photos along with pie and coffee. Images of family holidays, family vacations. A whole world of things Jason knew nothing about. When Jason asked about her daughter who’d appeared in all the shots, Mrs. Roberts got quiet and told him her daughter had died of cancer when she was twenty.
The woman had walked him out to his car and before leaving she’d added, “You will come back again, right? And bring that sweet wife of yours.”
Wife?
He didn’t know why he hadn’t corrected her. He’d simply nodded and gotten away while the getting was good.
Sooner or later, Jason would learn not to get so involved in the lives of everyday citizens.
Or not.
As he drove, he thought about the last few evenings with Sue. The nights had been spent reading, going out to eat, and, his favorite activity, having sex. The best sex of his entire life. Sue had also started asking him for help on her new book. Which felt good. Real good. What didn’t feel good was knowing he’d never gotten to the bottom of what was bothering her that night at Chase’s. Sometimes he’d caught her staring into space. Something was buzzing around in that head of hers.
No
pe, that didn’t feel good at all.
In the past, Jason wouldn’t have worried about stuff like that. If it hadn’t affected the sex, he pretty much hadn’t given it a second thought. Not true this time.
He hadn’t quite defined what made Sue different. She was just…better. Everything was better. The sex. The company. The way she smelled. The way she made him laugh. The way he made her laugh. The sex.
Nor did he worry about her stumbling across a piece of his past or her asking questions he couldn’t answer. She already knew his past.
And then there was the sex.
Oh yeah, the sex. The girl was every man’s fantasy. But she didn’t belong to every man. She belonged to him. Just him.
The night they’d come home from Chase’s, they’d drunk the champagne he’d bought, fed each other strawberries, and had a heck of a time with the whipped cream and M&M’s. And the MoonPie fantasy had turned out better than he’d ever dreamed. He hoped Chase had figured it out; if not, his friend had missed out on the best part. Just thinking about it now had Jason reaching down to readjust things in his jeans.
He’d barely had to explain the MoonPie to Sue. She’d even added her own spin.
Yup, with Sue the sex was definitely better.
A smile worked its way to his lips as he turned in to Sue’s subdivision, and he wondered about the topic for next week’s girls’ night discussion. The “different positions” one might be fun. A couple of positions he’d like to try with Sue sprang to mind. Something else sprang up, too. It required another adjustment of his crotch. No wonder Chase had such a damn good marriage.
Jason’s mind flipped to the arguing couple who’d owned the Saturn, and he wondered if Chase was right about unhappy marriages. Perhaps the Andrewses just hadn’t been meant to get married. Then he wondered why the hell he was even thinking about it.
Pulling into Sue’s drive, he waved good-bye to Ricky, a retired cop he’d asked to watch over Sue while he was out and about. After Danny’s comment about Sue, Jason had decided he wanted someone different to play bodyguard. Plain and simple, Sue’s body was too damn important to be guarded by anyone who’d even think about trying to steal her away. Ricky, sixty, retired, and a grandfather, was the perfect candidate. Ricky also preferred to watch the house from his car, and since Sue was complaining about being behind on her writing it felt like the perfect setup.
As Jason picked up his files, a picture of Michael Brighten, provided by Saturn owners, slipped out. Jason stared at the image, feeling his frustration return and prick at the lining of his stomach. If this guy was responsible—and his gut said he was—Jason wanted him behind bars as soon as possible.
The investigation into the man’s past had left Jason a little leery. The man fit the profile of a serial killer: a loner, abused as a child, his only trouble with the law was a charge of animal cruelty that had never made it to court.
Not that Jason usually paid much attention to such profiles. Because lose the animal cruelty charge and he himself could be considered right up there with the worst of them.
Slipping the photo back into the file, Jason dropped it in the backseat of his car and decided to shelve the case and think instead about the sexy woman who waited for him inside. Climbing out of his Mustang, he reached back in for the flowers.
As he got to the porch, the sensor lights came on. They hadn’t done much since the freak hadn’t returned, but he was still glad he’d gotten them. A woman living alone needed all the protection—
But Sue wasn’t living alone anymore. She had him.
Jason fit his key into Sue’s door and called out, “I’m”—home—“here!” This wasn’t his home, but he was living in the now, living for the moment. That’s what he was doing. And it was great. Couldn’t get better.
Liar.
He shut the door, acknowledging the reason for the needling thoughts that threatened to burst his bubble of happiness. It was Sue’s unfocused stares. It was knowing that as soon as he found Mike Brighten/Braxton he would no longer have a reason to come home to her every day. Oh, he didn’t doubt she’d still need him sexually. But face it: You didn’t have to live with someone to be lovers.
As a matter of fact, it was one of Jason’s big no-nos.
He’d never lived with anyone. Seldom stayed the entire night, in fact. Sue, of course, had been different.
But she’d needed him to stay. What was going to happen when she didn’t?
He tossed the question aside. He was living for today, not worrying about tomorrow.
“In here,” Sue called from her study.
Jason walked into that room and handed her the three red roses he’d picked up from the florist. “For my lady and favorite author.” He dropped a kiss on her mouth.
When they came up for air, he passed a finger over her lips. “I finished your book today. You had me all the way to the end. I liked the twist of having the villain frame the other suspect.”
“You really liked it?” she asked, and he heard so much in that question. His opinion mattered to her. He really liked mattering.
“Hell, yeah, I liked it. I’m in awe of your talent, woman.”
After several more deep kisses, he followed her into the kitchen. When she stepped in front of him, he saw she wore those Daisy Duke shorts that had driven him crazy when he’d first come to stay here. She leaned over to get a vase from the cabinet.
With her bottom hoisted high, she looked back. “You better be careful,” she said.
“Of what?” His eyes stayed glued on her behind. “It’s you who should be careful. You know how I feel about those shorts.”
Her grin hit him below the belt—in a good way. Oh, she feigned innocence, but the spark of sass in her eyes gave her away.
She blinked. “Don’t you know what red roses mean?”
The question floated around his head. He knew he’d come back to it later, and he probably wouldn’t be happy where the question took him, but his other head was doing the thinking.
“I know what these shorts mean.” He picked her up and set her on the counter. “Tell me you didn’t remember that I told you those shorts drove me crazy.”
He moved his hands up her legs and under the frayed hem, expecting to feel her silk underwear. Instead he found something softer than silk. He went hard as a rock.
“Oh, you are a bad girl. You’re not wearing pan ties.”
Sue smiled, looking a bit bashful and a lot precious. “It was just a little surprise. That, and…” She reached behind her on the counter and pulled out a MoonPie.
“Well, now you’re going to get a surprise,” he said. “Only it’s not going to be little. Actually, it’s growing even as I speak.”
He had just started unzipping her shorts when his cell phone rang. “I’m getting rid of this thing!” He checked the number. It was Chase. Snapping open the phone he said, “Bad time. Later.”
“Don’t hang up. It’s important.”
“So is what I’m about to be doing.”
With one hand he continued unzipping Sue’s shorts. Tight blonde curls peeked out of the open zipper. He slid a finger inside her shorts…and then into her. She was already wet. Meeting her eyes, he ran his tongue over his lips, insinuating exactly what he wanted to do with that wetness. He’d started to close the phone when Chase’s next words stopped him.
“They found the Saturn.”
Jason’s attention refocused. “They did?” He pulled his hand from Sue’s shorts and shot her a look of apology.
“Yeah. And we were wrong. That artist isn’t behind this.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“It’s not him? How do we know?” Jason asked.
“Under the seat they found a few pages of a manuscript. The name at the top was Benny Fritz.”
Jason flinched. “I knew I liked that bastard for this!” “He’s here for questioning on the stolen car,” Chase said. “He’s demanding a lawyer. But before Danny picked him up, he went to see Fritz’s wife. She
copped to her husband having her parents’ .38. Isn’t that a match to the slug they pulled out of Sue’s wall?”
“That piece of shit! I want to see him!” Jason said. “I thought you would. But you’d better hurry.” Jason hung up and looked at Sue. She wasn’t going to like hearing this. “I’m sorry,” he said. Her eyes were wide. “They caught him?” “Yeah, but it’s not Michael Brighten. It’s Benny Fritz.” Sue looked stunned. Then her mouth thinned into a line he’d grown to understand was her stubborn expression. “Jason, I told you, he didn’t do this.”
“They found the Saturn, and inside were pages of his manuscript. And his wife admitted to him having a .38 that belongs to her parents.”
Sue looked confused, then shook her head. “Lots of people have guns. And…”
Not believing was easier, Jason knew, but she had to accept this. “If that’s not enough proof, he’s screaming for a lawyer. If he wasn’t guilty, Sue, why would he need a lawyer?”
“Maybe because everyone thinks he’s guilty.” Sue jumped off the counter and zipped her shorts. “I’m coming with you.”
“Not this time.” And never in those shorts. They were for his eyes only. “Sorry, but I’ve let you come between me and this guy once already. I’m going to deal with it my way now.”
She wasn’t happy when he left.
He wasn’t happy about her not being happy, but he had to go.
Jason was walking into the station when his cell rang. “Jason Dodd.”
“Told you they wouldn’t come! No show! No show! And I’ve got a hair appointment.”
It took Jason a second to recognize Mrs. Roberts’s voice. “Did you call them?”
“Yup. They said they’d be here ten minutes ago.”
He didn’t have time for this, but he’d brought this all on himself. “I tell you what, I think I still have their number. Let me give them a call.”
He hung up, went through his previous calls until he found their number. A quick conversation to the limo service had him reassured that the driver was on his way to pick up Mrs. Roberts.
Divorced, Desperate And Dating Page 29
