Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Cindi Myers

  Turning into him, she surrounded him with her arms and hugged him, providing comfort and peace he hadn’t felt in quite some time. Not since before Afghanistan.

  The moment was shattered as Declan and one of his workers returned, arms wrapped around a large hog that roughly weighed the same as Selene. They wrestled the carcass to the center of the firepit and dropped it. It landed with a thud, kicking up dirt. Making Rhea jump with the sound.

  He returned her embrace, hugging her close. Peering at her, he said, “Are you ready to do this?”

  She shook her head. “No, but there’s no choice is there? Not if we want to know if Matt did this to Selene.”

  Before he could warn Rhea not to get her hopes up, she was in action, making a pile of brush and kindling above the hog. As she started to expertly stack the logs, he joined her and said, “I see you’ve built campfires before.”

  “Selene and I were Girl Scouts. We started a lot of campfires in our day,” she said, adding more wood to the tipi atop the hog.

  He helped her, adding logs and tinder until the body of the pig was almost completely covered.

  Jackson stepped back, hands on his hips as he scrutinized their prospective campfire. Rhea joined him, staring at the pile and then up at him. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s ready.” He reached into his pocket for the box of matches and, once the match was lit, tossed it into the tinder material. The first hint of flame quickly flared into more. Smoke came from the pile along with the crackle and snap of wood igniting. The fire had taken.

  Satisfied, he headed to the trunk of the police cruiser where he’d stowed two portable camping chairs. Rhea and he set them up several feet away from the campfire. The heat quickly built from the intensity of the flames, but they still had to keep it going for several hours, much like Matt had done the night of Selene’s disappearance.

  Rhea was silent as they sat there, staring into the flames as they consumed the pig. The smell of the meat roasting was awkward. While there was no denying it was pork, it made her wonder...

  No, better not to wonder, she told herself.

  Jackson shifted from his chair to add more logs and keep the fire going. It had barely been an hour, but the greedy flames were quickly eating up the wood on the pile, as well as the carcass beneath the ash and embers. Because of that, Jackson walked over to an area with wood waiting to be split, grabbed an ax and went to work.

  He swung the heavy ax with ease the same way he had chopped with the machete the day before. He was clearly a man used to physical labor, despite the injuries that still seemed to bother him. Over and over he swung the ax, the thunk of it hitting the log loud in the quiet of late morning.

  Feeling guilty, she rose and went over to collect the split wood and add it to the pile by the fire. Tossing more logs into the firepit as well to keep the flames going.

  The physical labor helped to keep her mind off what was happening in the firepit, but it also whet her hunger. Especially as Declan’s restaurant opened for lunch service and the smokers that they’d loaded up that morning were opened, spewing the tasty smells of barbecued meats into the air.

  Almost as if he’d read her mind, Declan exited from the back of the restaurant with a large tray loaded with food and drinks. He brought it over and placed it on a stump by their chairs. “I thought you might be hungry by now.”

  “Thank you. That was very thoughtful,” she replied.

  Declan did a side glance at the firepit as Jackson approached. “I know this is a tough thing for you.”

  She nodded. “It is, but your help has really made it easier.”

  Declan shrugged. “Like I said before. Anything for Jax...and for you since...well, you and Jax.” He stopped, clearly uncertain and possibly uneasy as Jackson returned from splitting logs.

  With a laugh, Jackson wagged his head. “Deck, you always manage to talk too much.”

  “And before I stick my foot in my mouth even deeper, I’m going,” he said as he jerked a thumb in the direction of the restaurant and backed away.

  Rhea smiled at the friendly and jovial exchange between the two. “I guess you’ve known each other a long time.”

  Jackson chuckled, sat and reached for one of the plates that Declan had brought out. “You might say that. We grew up together, but then I went off to college and Deck stayed to help his family with the restaurant.”

  “Have they had it for long?” The building was well-kept and had that look of age that hinted at permanence.

  “A few generations.” Jackson took a big bite of the brisket sandwich Declan had provided.

  “Where did you go to college?” she asked, wanting to know more about the man who was intriguing her on so many levels.

  “Annapolis,” was his one-word answer around a mouthful of pulled pork.

  She picked up her own sandwich, grateful it was beef and not pork. She nibbled the burnt ends, murmuring her approval. “Delicious.”

  With a nod, Jackson took another big bite. After swallowing, he said, “His pops taught him well, and Deck really upped his game. He’s won quite a number of competitions over the years.”

  Rhea admired the pride that Jackson had in his friend, as well as the fact that they had been friends for so long. Much like the permanence of the restaurant, it spoke to Jackson’s character and the fact that he was a man you could count on. But then again, he’d more than proved that over the last few days.

  “You were a Marine?” she said, resuming her earlier quest for information.

  “I am a Marine. Once a Marine always a Marine,” he said with a smile.

  Yet more proof of his ability to commit. “And then you came home and became a cop?”

  With a small shrug, he swallowed the last of his sandwich. “I wanted to serve, and it seemed like the best place to do it.”

  In a town the size of Regina, she imagined crime was usually limited to minor incidents, which was why Selene’s case had been such a big deal at the time. “It must be pretty quiet in Regina for the most part.”

  He placed his plate back on the tray and did another shift of his shoulders. “It is. Problems with people partying too much. Noise complaints. Shoplifting. Occasionally a burglary or assault.”

  “Cat up a tree,” she teased, imagining him dealing with a dowager and her felonious feline.

  Jackson laughed as she’d intended. “More like bear up a tree. Those suckers can really climb,” he said, but then he grew a little more serious. “I like it. I like dealing with people. Solving problems. If I become chief...”

  There was something in the way his voice trailed off that warned there was an issue there.

  “Are you next in line?” she asked, wondering about his hesitation.

  “I was...am,” he said with a little more confidence, but she sensed his concern. When he shot her a hurried, almost furtive glance, she realized she was the cause of that worry.

  “Your chief was going to blow me off, wasn’t he?”

  “Let’s just say he wasn’t sure there was enough evidence to reopen the case.” Jackson rose and tossed more wood on the bonfire before returning to his chair.

  He was in major avoidance-mode, but she wasn’t going to give up until she had her answer. “But you decided differently, and he didn’t like that.”

  Heaving a sigh, he nailed her with his gray gaze, now almost charcoal with his upset. “You know you would have made a great interrogator.”

  She met his gaze. “I suspect you think I’m more like a Grand Inquisitor. But I don’t give up, which is why we’re sitting here, trying to cremate a hog.”

  “It is,” he admitted with a slight dip of his head.

  “But that put you in hot water. Maybe even enough to affect you becoming chief?” She hated that she might be the reason Jackson’s career was at risk.

  His demeano
r was deadly serious as he said, “If it gets to the truth of what happened to Selene, it’s worth it, isn’t it?”

  She nodded. “It is.”

  “And you remember your promise, right?” he pressed, turning the tables on her.

  She remembered, as much as she might not like accepting that Selene was truly gone. “I do, Jax. I remember it every time we hit another brick wall.”

  Jackson nodded and worried that today’s experiment would turn into another disappointment for Rhea. With that in mind, he said, “I reached out to people who might know more about cremating bodies.”

  She tilted her head and focused on him, her gaze both questioning and challenging. “Does that mean you don’t think this is going to prove anything?”

  He hesitated, but had to be truthful. Especially since he’d already kept his problems with the chief secret. “It may prove something you don’t want.”

  “Which is?” she urged and gripped the arms of the seat with hands white with pressure.

  Gesturing with his hands, he mimicked the path of the flames in the bonfire. “With those low paver walls, we’re getting a lot of flames, but the energy of the fire is being expended upward.”

  A deep furrow marred her brow. “What does that change?”

  He once again used his hands to illustrate what he’d learned. “If the fire was contained, like in a barrel or a pit with higher sides, you’d get more heat in a concentrated area.”

  Her eyes opened wider and she nodded, getting what he was saying. “We may not have enough heat to cremate...”

  She couldn’t finish, and he didn’t push on that point. “Bingo.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his smartphone. He opened up his digital notebook with the crime scene photos of Matt’s bonfire. Leaning close to Rhea, he held the phone so she could see, although he suspected they were tattooed on her brain.

  “There’s a lot of ash here, but nothing else.”

  “He could have taken away anything that was left.”

  He couldn’t deny that. “He could possible remove larger bits of bones, but getting rid of other—”

  “What other?” she countered.

  “Body residues. Teeth,” he said, but she held a hand up to stop him, the sheen of tears glistening in her gaze.

  “I don’t want to upset you—”

  She cut him off again with a quick wave of her hand. “I get it, Jax.”

  He had no doubt she did, but just in case, he reviewed what Matt had done that night. “He started a bonfire and went up to the ridge location.”

  “Supposedly. He could have also followed Selene to Regina.”

  Jackson drilled back to the pages in his digital notebook on the timelines Rhea had worked out. Analyzing them, he said, “He could have. It’s only about forty-five minutes to Regina, and the neighbors say he was gone for a few hours.”

  Losing some of her earlier upset, Rhea jumped right into helping him work through the materials. “We have two witnesses who place an SUV near Selene’s car.”

  With a nod, he ran a finger across his screen, scrolling through the notes and then thought out loud. “Let’s say he and Selene did fight. She storms off. He’s pissed and needs to literally burn off his anger. He starts the bonfire. But he’s still really pissed at Selene and needs to do something about that.”

  Rhea joined in. “He goes after her to give her a piece of his mind. There’s really only one way to Denver, and it runs right through Regina. He finds her. They fight again and something happens.”

  Jackson wagged his head. “But it’s possible Selene took longer to get to the lake than everyone originally thought. We’ll have to investigate that. But let’s assume he ran into Selene right away. Why not just toss her body in the lake?”

  “We’d find Selene right away in the lake, wouldn’t we?”

  Jackson immediately knew where she was going. “Which is why you think she may still be alive. Because otherwise we’d have found her body in the lake.” He paused for a moment and then quickly added, “Unless the spillway was open to keep the lake levels in check.”

  She whipped out her phone, and her elegant fingers danced over the smartphone screen. With a satisfied dip of her head, she held it up for him to see a report she’d obtained.

  He’d only done a quick glance at it before, but now he took her phone, used his thumb and forefinger to zoom the image. Rhea had filed a Freedom of Information Act request to obtain information on spillway activity from the department that managed it.

  “Spillway was closed that night and for days after. If Matt put Selene in the lake—”

  “Or if she killed herself—which she didn’t—we would have found her body,” Rhea finished.

  The crackle and thump of logs collapsing in the fire drew his attention. Embers shot up and danced in the air as more wood fell in the center of the pit. “Time for more logs.”

  Together they piled on even more wood and, as they did so, it was obvious to Rhea that there was a little less of the pig carcass beneath the ash and embers.

  She snuck a peak at her watch. “It’s been about four hours since we started.”

  Jackson likewise did a quick look at his phone to confirm the time. “About. We’ll need to keep it going a while longer to match what Matt did.”

  “Which means more time to get to know each other,” Rhea said, wanting to find out all she could about Jackson.

  “First, more firewood,” he said and walked over to split more wood.

  She recognized avoidance when she saw it, but she refused to let him avoid that talk. He was becoming too special to her in just the few days they’d spent together. Too hard to resist, even though becoming involved with a man was low on her priority list. Both before and after college she’d been focused on establishing her career. Once it had taken off, her emphasis had shifted to her gallery. In the years since then, she’d made a number of friends and spent time with Selene, but a relationship...nonexistent.

  That she was giving the “relationship” label to what she was feeling for Jackson was a scary proposition. He was connected to too much hurt. He was also nothing like the artsy men who inhabited her life. But maybe that was why she found him so interesting. He was the epitome of the strong, silent hero type, but beneath that hard surface was a powerful and compassionate man.

  Instead of sitting, she walked to where he was working and, as he split the logs, she picked them up and carried them close to the firepit. They had just finished making a nice pile when Declan came out of the restaurant with another tray, this time loaded with what looked like slices of pie and tall glasses of lemonade.

  “Dude, if you’re in the mood to keep on chopping, I could use some hickory for the smokers,” Declan called out and motioned to a far pile of wood with the tray.

  Jackson nodded. “Sure thing. Least I could do to thank you for all your help and the food.”

  And to avoid talking to me, Rhea thought, but bit her tongue. He could run, but he couldn’t hide.

  When Jackson moved to the pile of hickory logs, she tagged along, picking up the pieces he’d split to add them to the neat pile Declan had beside the uncut logs.

  “You’ve known Declan forever,” she said, hoping to start the discussion on what was hopefully a safe topic.

  Jackson raised the ax and sent it flying down onto the log, splitting it in half. “We grew up in the same neighborhood. Went to school together.”

  “I bet you were a jock,” she said, picturing him on a football field.

  Jackson grinned and shook his head. She thought she heard him murmur, “Grand Inquisitor,” but then he said, “I was. Baseball, not football.”

  It was too easy to imagine that powerful and lean body in a tight baseball uniform, igniting heat at her core. But he was more than just a pretty face.

  As she picked up a pile of cut hicko
ry logs, she asked, “Why does a landlocked Colorado boy decide to go to Annapolis?”

  Jackson set the ax on the ground and stretched, arching his back and wincing slightly. But before she could offer to help, he picked up the ax and went back to work.

  She pressed him for an answer. “Why Annapolis?”

  He finished quartering the log and set the ax aside, obviously in pain. But he finally answered her. “I didn’t want my parents to have to pay for college since they still had my sister and brother to worry about. Dad is a Marine and I wanted to follow in his footsteps. Annapolis made sense.”

  She stacked the last of the logs he’d split and followed him back to the fire. Together they tossed on more wood, then sat to eat the slices of pie Declan had brought out. But that wasn’t going to keep her from her goal.

  “Are you always so sensible and responsible?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  He paused with a forkful of apple pie halfway to his mouth and glanced at her. His steely gray gaze glittered with a heat she hadn’t thought possible. “Not always.”

  The warmth that had kindled in her core earlier grew ever higher, like the flames in the fire a few feet away. It was so intense, she had to cool off with a few sips of icy lemonade.

  “What about you, Rhea? I know you’re talented. Determined,” he said, the latter word followed by a playful chuckle.

  She considered him over the lip of the glass, thinking about how to answer. After a pause, she said, “I know some people think artists can be temperamental and flighty. You probably did.”

  He smiled as he scraped the last of his pie from the plate and then licked the fork clean. “I plead the fifth,” he joked, but then quickly added, “But you probably thought I was uptight and by-the-book.”

  She felt the urge to shake him up a little. “I still do, but I look forward to you proving me wrong.”

  His glass rattled against the tray as he set it down and, when he fixed his gaze on her, it seared her with its fire. “I look forward to that also.”