It was only the late hour that made her notice the silence, that made her feel so alone.
Jarek's car swooped onto the lake bridge north of Eden and over a sea of mist. His eyeballs were gritty. A headache had been building at the base of his skull since the radio call that jarred him awake almost half an hour ago.
As a rookie detective, Jarek had learned to go for days without much sleep. His new schedule gave him hours alone on a brand-new, super firm, double-wide mattress. But for the past three nights, he hadn't slept so well. Maybe it was the new job.
Or maybe it was the woman. Tess DeLucca.
Should he have called her?
She'd been crisp and professional yesterday when she phoned the station to set up this morning's interview. Jarek lifted a hand from the steering wheel to rub the back of his neck. She was going to be really ticked if he blew her off. But right now her feelings were not his top priority.
Besides, she was probably still sleeping, he thought, and then had to push away an inconvenient image of her dark hair and ivory skin against the white sheets of his bed.
He had enough trouble already.
The early-morning sun barely cleared the pines. Jarek followed the hidden shoreline past the gated driveway of the grand old Algonquin Hotel, heading toward the Bide-A-Wee vacation cottages, relying on the police scanner and his own imperfect knowledge of the town. He missed Chicago's numbered grid.
Bud Sweet should have called him, damn it.
But even without coordinates, Jarek found the scene of the crime without any trouble at all.
His mouth compressed as he took in the stretch of road. From the look of things, he was about the only person in town Sweet hadn't called. If some enterprising burglar decided to hold up Main Street this morning, the downtown merchants were out of luck. Vehicles spilled along the asphalt under the pines. Yellow tape meandered in a haphazard rectangle around a white Honda Civic with Illinois plates. Red and white lights rotated and flashed from three patrol cans, two EMS vans, and—Holy St. Mike, was that a hook-and-ladder truck?
Jarek pulled his radio car in thirty yards behind the mess and parked on the shoulder. As he got out of the car, he saw a woman pressed against the yellow tape, bright and exotic looking against a background of dark uniforms.
His body reacted with quick enthusiasm.
Tess.
Jarek groaned mentally. With the exception of Bud Sweet, he couldn't think of anyone he'd like less to find at a crime scene.
He approached the huddle of cars, automatically putting his hands in his pockets. Look, don't touch. The pine needles edging the road muffled his footsteps.
"Tess," he said quietly.
She started. Turned. Something in his chest tightened at the early-morning pallor of her face, the unexpectedly serious set of her mouth.
"What are you doing here?" he asked.
Her eyes, that had been wide and welcoming, narrowed. She hitched her purse strap on her shoulder. "Getting a story."
He felt a muscle jump in his jaw. He didn't want her here. She would be upset And he couldn't be distracted.
He looked past her to the white car, its doors gaping open. No body that he could see, but there were enough uniforms crowding around to block his view of the interior. "I don't have time to talk to you now."
Tess shrugged. "Okay. I'll wait. You can give me a statement later."
That wasn't what he wanted, either. In his book, the public's right to know took a poor second to the victim's right to justice. But he couldn't spare time to argue.
He nodded once. "Suit yourself. But you need to step back from the tape. We have to worry about contaminating the crime scene."
She looked at him, and then at the chaos surrounding them, and then at him again. She raised her eyebrows.
"Yeah, I can see how that would be a worry," she dead-panned.
He resisted the urge to grin. There was nothing funny about a screwed-up investigation.
Behind Tess, Patrol Officer Stan Lewis—who should have gone off duty an hour ago—quit arguing with the paramedics around the ambulance to run over and consult with the mob around the car. Jarek shook his head. He didn't care how hard up his officers were for excitement A crime scene was not a Lions Club picnic.
"Excuse me," he murmured to Tess, and ducked under the police tape.
Bud Sweet stood guard by the white car, flanked by all four members of the day shift and rookie patrolman Tim Clark. When the lieutenant saw Jarek, his face crumpled like a disappointed Santa Claus's.
Jarek let his gaze travel slowly along the lineup to the flashing police cars and the hook-and-ladder truck still half blocking the road.
"Somebody want to tell me where the fire is?" he asked mildly.
Sweet drew himself up. "No fire. We have a roadside assault. Clark here caught the call on an abandoned auto. Only when he came to investigate—"
Jarek held up one hand to silence him. "Just a minute. How's the victim?"
"Stabilized," Sweet said.
"She's still here?" Jarek couldn't keep the anger from his voice.
"I was going to question her."
Jarek pivoted and strode quickly to the nearest EMS van. A tiny uniformed technician moved to intercept him, her dark eyes snapping.
"We need to get her to the hospital," she said. "Now."
Jarek nodded. "Do it."
As the tech climbed into the ambulance, he swung in after her and crouched down next to the victim.
Young. Blond. Pretty. Or she had been, before the attack. She was swaddled in blankets, an IV running into her arm.
Jarek put his head down close to hers. "Honey, can you hear me?"
She opened dull blue eyes. Whimpered.
The tech reached around him to moor the cot.
Jarek tried again. "Honey, do you know who did this to you?"
"Police," she whispered.
His heart nearly broke for her. She was really young. Maybe eighteen? "Yeah, I'm with the police," he said gently. "You're safe now. Did you see who hurt you?"
"We've got to go," the tech interrupted.
Jarek's jaw set. He started to crawl out of the ambulance.
"Lights," the girl on the stretcher volunteered suddenly.
Jarek leaned back in the open door. "What, honey?"
"The car that stopped me." She licked cracked lips. Blue eyes met his and then slid away. "Red lights. Like police."
Jarek felt as if he'd just been thumped in the stomach with his own nightstick.
Red lights. Hell.
He stood like a block while the female tech slammed the doors and the van drove away, its turret lights flashing. On Jarek's home turf, in Chicago, the police were identified by blue flashers. Ambulances and fire trucks operated with red. But in Eden and for most of Illinois, all official emergency vehicles were identified by red flashing lights. Only volunteer firefighters used blue.
And the victim in his most recent case had just identified her assailant's car as showing red lights. Police lights.
Jarek swore again, silently, viciously. And then he turned and stalked back to the officers clustered around the white car.
Tess still waited too close to the yellow tape, her usually animated face soft and serious.
Her absorption in the scene hit him like another slam in the gut. He had a red light assault on his hands and a reporter underfoot. What a godawful mess.
Routine, he reminded himself. Do the job.
He looked down the row of police faces. "Anybody get pictures before the body was moved?"
"This isn't a homicide," Sweet objected. "The girl's alive."
Jarek lifted one eyebrow. "And are we sure she's going to stay that way?"
Sweet's red face got redder.
Jarek dismissed him. "Lewis, take photos now. I want someone to go with the ambulance. Is Baker on?" Laura Baker was the department's only female officer.
A patrolman shifted in the line. "She's out today."
Sweet tugg
ed on his gun belt. "This isn't Chicago. We don't have the manpower to waste on an ambulance run."
Jarek held on to his temper. "I don't see a shortage of manpower here. I want an officer with the victim at the hospital."
She needed police protection. Jarek frowned. Unless she needed protection from the police.
He did a rapid mental review of his department. Who could he trust? Who the hell did he know, really?
"Call Larsen in," he ordered. "Tell him to make sure that they do a rape kit in the E.R. And I want all nonessential personnel cleared off this scene. Have you called the state police yet for crime lab support?"
Sweet scowled. "We work with the county."
"Not on a possible homicide," Jarek pronounced. "Call. Johnson and White, I want you to move all vehicles out of here. See my car? I don't want anything parked closer than that. And recordon the crime scene, divert traffic to— what's the nearest parallel road?"
"Green's just west of here," Clark volunteered.
Jarek turned back to the rookie patrolman. "Right. Green it is. You found the victim?"
"Yes, sir. I—" The young officer swallowed hard. "She didn't want to talk. I tried to get a description of her assailant, but… Anyway, I finally just wrapped her in a blanket and left her alone."
A compassionate action that had effectively wiped any trace of the son of the bitch who attacked her from her skin. Hell.
"All right," Jarek said. "Did she give you her name?"
"No, sir."
"How about her purse? Do we have an ID?"
"Her wallet's missing. I ran the plates," Bud Sweet said. "Car's registered to a Mr. and Mrs. Richard Logan of Evanston. So the car could be stolen."
"Or she could be their daughter," Jarek said grimly. "Find out. And find out what she was doing up here."
"She was a student at Bloomington," Tess said from behind him, her voice flat. "Taking a break from exams."
His gut tightened like a fist. He turned. Tess had moved to this side of the crime tape, but he couldn't object to her presence now. He wanted to protect her from the ugliness of the scene. He needed to protect his department from the force of her determination, from those wide golden eyes that saw too much. But this wasn't Chicago, where he could canvass half-a-dozen surrounding buildings for witnesses. If Tess knew something, he had to talk to her.
"You know the victim?"
Tess's slightly crooked teeth caught her lower lip. "Her name is Logan? Carolyn Logan?"
"I don't have a first name. Can you describe her?"
"Oh…" Tess frowned in concentration. "Medium height, nineteen years old. Blond, shoulder-length hair. Her eyes were blue. Or maybe gray?" She shook her head. "Light, anyway."
Okay, so her being a reporter wasn't a total loss, Jarek thought. It was a good description. And, for good or bad, it fit the battered girl in the ambulance.
"How do you know her?"
"I don't know her," Tess corrected him. "I met her last night."
"Tell me."
She fidgeted with her purse strap again. "My story for yours?"
His jaw set. He didn't make deals. But he knew how to get what he wanted from an interview. "It could work that way."
She snorted. "Oh, now, that's something I can stop the presses for."
She wasn't as tough as she made herself out to be. He waited.
"Oh, all right," she said crossly. "What do you want from me?"
Too much. He shoved the thought away.
"I want you to wait for me over there," he said quietly, "while I finish talking with the investigating team. And then I'd like it if you'd go with me to the station house so I can take your statement."
"You can't take it here?"
He could, of course. But he wanted her away from the crime scene. A vicious sexual assault might be news in sleepy Eden. But to a town that depended on tourism, it could also be a public relations disaster. And to the new police chief, the attack at the beginning of his watch was a personal and professional spit-in-the-eye.
Especially if his own department was implicated.
He met her gaze steadily. "No point in being uncomfortable. You want to give the station house coffee a shot?"
The memory of her words trembled between them. Offering you coffee is what got me into trouble in the first place.
Tess hugged her arms across her waist Lifted her chin. "Maybe I'll let you buy me a drink instead."
"It's a little early for that."
"Why don't we see how long this takes? I'll just get my butt back on the other side of your police tape until you're ready for me."
Jarek watched as she walked away and bent back under the yellow crime scene tape. Her butt Yes.
Sweet coughed. "Looks like you've got yourself a hot one, Chief."
Jarek stiffened. "Excuse me?"
"Hot lead," the lieutenant said. "If DeLucca really knows anything worthwhile, that is."
Sweet was a jackass. Tess was a complication. And Jarek had never felt more like an outsider in his life.
"We won't know that until I take her statement," he said calmly, and turned back to the scene of the crime.
Chapter 4
Tess slid into the dark booth at the back of the Blue Moon and pushed a coffee mug toward Jarek Denko. Her own stomach cramped with hunger and nerves. She should never have skipped breakfast.
"We've got to stop meeting like this," she said.
The creases deepened on either side of his hard mouth. "Over coffee?"
"In bars."
Denko looked around at the empty tables. Sunlight slanted through the shutters, gleaming on the bottles, dimming the neon beer signs along the walls. "I didn't know this place even opened at ten."
"Depends on who you know," Tess said smugly.
He blew on his coffee before sipping it. Cautious, she thought.
"And you know everybody," he said.
"Pretty much."
"Convenient," he remarked.
She shrugged. "As long as you don't mind everybody thinking that they know you."
"Is that a problem for you?"
Tess wondered if the gloomy booth was dark enough to hide her wince. She flashed him a smile, in case it wasn't "It's a problem for anyone growing up in a small town."
"Don't tell me that," he complained mildly. "I just moved here."
"I think you'll be okay. You look pretty grown-up to me."
Grown-up. Yes. Hard and assured and competent. Tess had enjoyed watching him take command away from Bud Sweet, admired his immediate concern for poor Carolyn Logan.
Jarek set down his mug. "Honey, I'm past the age of worrying what other people think of me. But I'm planning on raising my daughter in this town."
Tess toyed with objecting to the "honey" and then gave it up. Three days ago, she'd swapped saliva with this man in front of his brother and a bar full of cops. She supposed that kiss created a bond, of sorts.
"Is she coming to stay with you soon? Your daughter?"
"For the weekend. Next weekend." He glanced at the bare table in front of her. "Aren't you getting anything?"
Okay, not much of a bond, she thought wryly. He still wouldn't discuss his family with her. "Tim's bringing me orange juice."
On cue, the bar owner appeared, a well-built, closely shaven man in his forties.
He offered her a tall, cold glass and a smile. "Here you go, Tess. You get home all right last night?"
Tess thought of Carolyn Logan and shivered. "I… Yes, I did."
"Just wanted to be sure. It was pretty late when you left." He turned to Jarek. "How's the coffee?"
"Fine. Thanks. You Tim Brown? The owner?"
Tim looked surprised. "That's right."
"Jarek Denko."
"The new police chief," Tess contributed.
"Yeah, I heard," Tim said. He stuck out his hand. The two men shook.
"Well…" Tim hesitated. "Can I get you folks anything else?"
"We're good, thanks," Jarek said.
> Tim went back to the register. Tess waited for Jarek to say, "Nice guy," which is what everybody always said when they met Tim. When he didn't, she said it for him.
"Tim's a nice guy."
Jarek took another sip of coffee. "He grow up here, too?"
"No. He moved here from Chicago. He did something for the city. Sanitation? Firefighter? But he married a local girl. A cheerleader, even." Jarek raised his brows slightly. Tess explained. "Heather Brown went to school with my brother."
"Wouldn't that make her a little young for him?"
Tess thought so. But she said, "Not really. Tim had the looks to attract her and the money to keep her. The bar does very well during the season."
"And the rest of the year?"
"It pulls in enough locals to stay open. The after-shift crowd from the paper mill, mostly. There's not much to do in Eden on a Friday or Saturday night. Except the Algonquin lounge, and most people can't afford to drink there. I can't, anyway."
"Is that what you were doing here last night? Drinking?"
Tess suppressed a flash of annoyance. "No. I was meeting someone." When Jarek didn't react, didn't say anything at all, she sighed. "My brother. I was meeting my brother. He's a bartender here."
"What's his name?"
"Mark." Tess scowled. Jarek had actually taken out a little notebook and was writing stuff down. "But he doesn't have anything to do with this."
"Was he here?"
"Yes. He was working."
"Did you talk to him?"
"Well, yes. I told you, I came here to meet him." Because Mark, irresponsible, unreliable and infuriating as he was, could always make her feel better. And since her abortive kiss with Denko on Wednesday night, Tess had been feeling pretty lousy.
None of which she was confiding to Jarek Denko.
"Was that before or after you saw Carolyn Logan?" he asked.
"Before. We were talking, and then I went to the ladies', and when I got back, she was sitting at the bar."
Denko scratched something down. "What time would that have been?"
Tess did her best not to be intimidated by the damn notebook. Reporters used notebooks, too. It wasn't as if anything she said was going to be used against her. "Ten? Around then, anyway."
All a Man Can Do Page 4
