by Cameron Dane
“I am.” Sarah shook Peter's hand. “He's a great kid. We missed him during our two sessions last week, but we understand. This is Jasper Simmons.” She slipped her arm around Jasper's waist. “And you already know Deputy Maxwell.”
“Nice to meet you, sir.” Jasper clasped Peter's hand.
When Jasper clearly moved to withdraw, Peter tugged and kept them connected. He didn't blink at all, and it appeared as though he looked right through Jasper. “You've had sex with Ginger,” he said. He rubbed his other hand up Jasper's arm to the elbow and back down, then tilted his head to the side, as if listening intently. “She liked you. She thought you were sweet”— his mouth turned up in a half smile—“but very, very innocent and naive.”
Looking like his skin crawled, Jasper untangled his hand from Peter's and crossed his arms in a protective gesture. “She was a nice girl,” he said. “I knew her a long time ago.”
“Yes, I know.” Peter waved his hand in a dismissive manner. “You didn't kill her. I don't feel the darkness in you for it.” His eyes cleared and he shifted his focus to Jace. “This still challenges me greatly, Deputy. I still feel the male presence around her very strongly, and that a local cowboy with blond hair was the last to be with her while she was alive. Yet the more I'm here, the more I know she was in love with a woman and had contact with her in her final hours. This lover's name and face still elude me, but the shock of white in my vision remains strong. She definitely has blonde hair. It looks like a flowing river in my vision, so I suspect the hair is very long.”
Jace grabbed Peter's arm and hissed, “Do you know nothing about how to keep your mouth shut?”
“Don't fuck with my process, Deputy.” Peter wrenched himself out of Jace's hold. “Information leads to arrests. It shouldn't matter how you get it, if it leads to insight and a killer. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that.” He opened his mouth again, but he suddenly diverted his attention sharply to the left. “Excuse me. It looks like the Carltons need some support.”
Duke stood close to the family, as did others who Jace guessed attempted to offer condolences. Ginger's parents appeared to be having a rough time of it, and as Peter approached, Duke pulled his cell phone off his belt and moved away.
Jasper rubbed his hands up and down his bare forearms, where Jace could see goose bumps marring his skin. “That guy gave me the creeps.”
“Son of a bitch doesn't know when to hold his tongue,” Jace said, his voice soft.
Glancing his way, Jasper said, “I ain't—won't—say anything about what he said.”
“Me either.” Sarah looked around the gathering, and Jace followed her gaze to each cluster of people. “And I don't think anybody was close enough to hear.”
“Thank God for small miracles.”
Across the room, Duke rejoined the Carltons. He shook hands with Ginger's parents, dipped his head, and then made his way toward their small gathering. “Sarah, Jasper”—he acknowledged each with a pat on the shoulder—“good to see you.” He looked at Jace, and his lips thinned. “Jace, we need to head over to the station.”
Something about the case.
Jace nodded. “Right.”
He turned and slid a hand under Sarah's elbow. “You're doing a bang-up job, honey. I'll see you at home tonight.” Without a second thought, he brushed his lips with a clinging caress to hers, savored it, then curled his hand around Jasper's waist and did the same to him. “You too, cowboy,” he said.
As Jace pulled away, he saw a dozen faces staring openly at him. At what he had just done.
Oh shit.
Chapter Twenty-four
I kissed them both in public. Jace looked at the shock not only on Sarah's and Jasper's faces, but on the myriad of other people surrounding them. Including his boss.
Oh. Fuck. What did I do?
Beads of sweat broke out on the back of Jace's neck and trickled down his back. He looked to Sarah and Jasper with horror in his heart for his lapse in restraint. “I'm so sorry.”
Sarah put a finger to his mouth, silencing him. “It's okay, Jace.” She caressed his cheek, and a twinkle of humor even lit her gaze.
Jasper shrugged, even though his entire face burned red. “If we're really gonna do this, folks were gonna figure it out anyway.” He rubbed Jace's shoulder as Ty and Ren joined them. “Go do your work. We got this covered here.”
“Trust me when I say nobody is going to derail my kids' event today with gossip,” Ty said, the familiar steel of his adopted father in his voice. “The counselors, volunteers, and staff will make sure the focus remains on the center.”
“Thanks, kid.” Duke pressed a kiss to the side of Ty's head. “You're doing great today. I'm not sure where Ruby dragged Risa. Can you tell them I had to leave?”
“One of us will let them know, Dad,” Ren answered. “Come on, Jas.” He chuckled as he put his arm around Jasper's shoulder and gave him a noogie. “I'll give you a quick lesson in how to politely fend off inappropriate questions about your love life.”
Jace hung suspended for a moment, watching Ren lead Jasper away. Ty and Sarah put their heads together too and made their way back to the groups of parents and children. Jace's arms ached with the desire to pull them back to his side so he could snarl and snap at anyone who looked at either of them with judgment, but he forced his legs to turn and followed Duke out of the youth center.
As soon as they hit the sidewalk, Duke slid an assessing look his way. “Is that going to cause a problem down at the station?” he asked as they briskly walked the short distance to the station.
Jace's eyes widened, and his stomach somersaulted. “No, sir. Absolutely not.”
“Then that's all I need to know.”
“Thank you, sir.”
They walked in silence for several minutes, and Jace held his professional curiosity while they were still on the street. As soon as they reached the station, he held open the door for the sheriff and asked, “Did we get an update or new evidence for Ginger's case?” His drive to solve Ginger's murder almost matched his need for the two people he had left back at the youth center. Christ, he hated walking away from them.
“Not for Ginger's case,” Duke corrected. “I just received a text from one of Robyn's people that he e-mailed the station an update on our Jane Doe.” The sheriff smiled at his part-time receptionist/dispatcher. “Hello, Margaret. Where are Cade and Max?”
“Good afternoon, Sheriff,” the older woman answered with a smile. “Deputy McKenna made a list of some follow-ups on various cases and decided to take care of them back-to-back. He left about ten minutes ago in one of the SUVs. Deputy Stuart is on patrol. She's been out for almost an hour. Do you need me to call either of them back?”
“I'll let you know.” He walked backward as he answered. “We'll be in my office. Thank you.”
Jace followed Duke inside and shut the door. He took a seat and once again held his questions while Duke got into his work e-mail and opened the report. The man's already hard face grew somehow more rigid. “Son of a bitch.” He looked up at Jace. “Her name is Sonya Mayer, out of Boston. Picked up once two years ago when vice busted an escort service.” Duke looked like he wanted to hit something. Or maybe throw up. “Our Jane Doe was another prostitute.”
Jace shot up from his slouch, surprised, although he shouldn't have been. The stereotypes of drug use and an abused-looking body were there, but somehow it still stunned him to hear. He knew what it meant.
Duke said it for him. “We might be on the verge of having ourselves a serial killer.”
“Wait a minute. Hold on.” Something significant scratched at Jace's brain. “Did you say she was from Boston?”
“Yep.” Duke referred back to the computer. “File says someone reported her missing six months ago. No follow-up notes to the original file. I'm going to guess whoever took the report saw she was a hooker and figured she ran off or a john or pimp killed her, and she would eventually turn up as a dead body.”
That insi
stent, invisible finger of awareness tapped at Jace's skull, trying to nudge the information free. Of course. Son of a bitch. Adrenaline waved all over under the surface of Jace's skin. He looked right at his boss and said, “Alexander Quick is from Boston.”
“No shit.” Duke started clicking away at his computer again; Jace guessed doing a search on the man.
“He has a multimillion-dollar business whose main offices are located in Boston, Massachusetts. I looked it up when”— when he started sniffing around what's mine—“when he showed up and decided to stick around town. Son of a motherfucker; Boston is one of the places Ginger visited when she started traveling.” Jace jumped up and strode to the door. “He is in a fucking building full of our family and friends right now.” Fear mingled in with the adrenaline rushing through Jace, making his hands and voice shake. “We need to go get him.”
“Wait a minute.” Duke's voice rang with authority. “Sit back down.” He lifted a finger at Jace, picked up the phone, and a moment later said, “Margaret, please contact Deputy Stuart and have her pick up a Mr. Alexander Quick from the youth center. She knows who he is. There are a lot of kids there, so please tell her to be discreet and start with asking politely. Have her make it clear to him we don't want to put cuffs on anyone in front of children if we don't have to. Thank you.”
He hung up the phone, steepled his fingers, and looked at Jace. “Now we wait.”
* * * *
Alexander Quick entered the interview room with a suited man in tow. Max closed the door behind them, and the stranger stuck his hand out to Duke first, then Jace. “Stan James.” He introduced himself as he sat down. “I am Mr. Quick's lawyer, and I've already advised him not to answer any questions I don't give him the okay to first.”
Jace narrowed his stare on Quick. “That was fast.”
“Not really,” Alex answered while taking a seat next to his lawyer. “Stan is my contract attorney. It looks like I'm going to get the land I want, so I flew him in yesterday. While I thought it wise to have him here”—he spared a fast look at the man he spoke of—“I already told him I'll answer any questions that seem reasonable.” He turned a level stare on Jace, dealing with him. “Particularly once I know what this is about.”
Jace slid Alex a copy of a photo from the original missing-persons file for their second victim. “Do you know a Sonya Mayer?” he asked.
Glancing at the woman's likeness, Alex slid it back to the center of the table. “No—wait.” He picked up the picture, studied it a second time, and made eye contact with Jace. “Is this the dead woman found in the ditch?”
“Yes, it is.” Jace pushed the picture of the woman in front of Alex again. “Do you know her?”
“I saw the morgue photo that one news station obtained,” Alex answered. “I thought it was an ugly thing to do. I don't know her otherwise.”
“She's from Boston,” Jace revealed, watching closely. “Like you.”
The attorney suddenly became animated. “Whoa. Stop right there.”
“Actually”—Alex overrode his lawyer's voice—“I'm not technically from Boston. I'm from a little town outside of Atlanta. My business, however, is based in Boston, and I do live there most of the time now. You are correct in that.”
Jace raised an eyebrow but otherwise ignored the technical correction of Alex's roots. “Okay. How about this woman?” He pushed another photo in next to Sonya's. “Do you know her?”
With barely a glance, Alex mimicked the raised eyebrow Jace had given him. “Just like the first, I know her face.” He took another look at Ginger's image. “How could I not? This poor woman has been splashed all over the local TV and papers since you guys discovered her body.”
“Would it surprise you to know that Ginger, like Sonya, spent some time in Boston?” Jace tapped his finger against Ginger's photo. “Take another look. Are you sure you didn't meet her there in a bar and have some kind of no-strings-attached weekend together?”
Stan put his hand on Alex's arm. He bypassed Jace and directed his comment right to Duke. “I don't like where this line of questioning is leading, Sheriff.”
Alex continued to ignore his lawyer and kept his attention on Jace. “I don't go out to bars.” His jaw ticked, but his voice remained surprisingly even.
Cool. Very controlled. It would take hitting just the right button to rattle this man's cage. “Let's move on from that for a moment.” Jace shifted gears. “Can you tell me where you were last Friday night?”
“I would guess in my motel room preparing the best way to approach Mr. Michaels and Mr. Sandavow about their land.”
“Anyone with you?”
“No.” The barest hint of irritation slipped out in Alex's voice. “But I probably went out and grabbed a fast-food burger or taco or something at some point. I couldn't tell you which, but it would have been one of the places within a five-minute drive from where I'm staying.”
Jace made a note to check the chains in the area of the motel. “Do you remember the time you stepped out?”
“It probably would have been somewhere between eight and ten,” Alex answered. “That's when I usually get hungry for dinner. I can't narrow it down any more than that.”
“That motel you're staying at.” Jace kept his tone conversational. “Would it shock you to hear that our first victim was at the very motel you're staying at the night she died?”
Alex's eyes widened, but he just said, “It's not really my business where other people sleep.”
“I guess not. Not normally mine either, except when I have two dead women who both have connections to Boston, where you happen to live.” Jace kicked the pressure up a gear and let ice slip into his tone. “Additionally, Mr. Quick, I can put you and Ginger at the same establishment the night of her death. That doesn't make you look innocent in my eyes.”
Next to Alex, Stan's face mottled with red, and he pounded his fist on the table. “Are you accusing my client of murder?”
“Here's something else I find odd,” Jace went on, his eyes entirely on Alex, whose remained entirely on him. “A big-shot guy like you turns up in our little town, out of the blue, looking to buy a modest ranch that shouldn't be on anybody's radar beyond our own state, and maybe Wyoming, certainly not someone like you, all the way out in Massachusetts. Seems a striking coincidence that you show up in a town you've never visited or likely heard of before, but you're now looking to buy property. In a town where I now have a dead girl whose home it is, but who also visited the place you make your home.” He finished and calmed his voice to rational. “Now I'll ask you again. Are you sure you never met Ginger Carlton in Boston? Are you sure Ginger isn't how you heard of Quinten?”
“I didn't know Ginger,” Alex said through clenched teeth, “or the other girl.”
Jace studied the photos of the two women and let their need for justice talk through him. “Let me tell you a story about how I think things might have played out.” He talked as he would when working out a scenario with one of his coworkers. “You're a rich, bored guy, and you meet a pretty girl vacationing in your city. You hook up, something happens between the two of you, maybe really good, or maybe she pissed you off in some way. Either way, you felt the need to pay her a visit. Hell, you're a busy, important man, and maybe Ginger wouldn't leave you alone. I don't exactly know yet; I'm just floating some theories out there for you.”
Looking up from the pictures, Jace lowered his voice to lethal. “I don't think you came to Quinten with the intent to buy land at all, Mr. Quick. I think that's a cover for your presence here. I think you came here to kill Ginger. She did something, or you perceived that she did, and it angered the hell out of you. Or maybe you're just insane; I don't know. In any case, I think the sick way you decided to go about murdering her required an accomplice and that you knew Sonya Mayer. She worked as a prostitute in Boston. Maybe you hired her; maybe had a history with her, enough to know she had a drug habit and was likely malleable to whatever you wanted her to do, as long as you kep
t her supplied. I think Sonya helped you kill Ginger and nail her to that tree. I think Sonya was a loose end but also irrelevant, and so you suffocated and strangled her and left her like trash on the side of the road rather than taking the time to pose her as you did Ginger.” Fire burned in Jace's belly, but his words were covered in frost. “Do you want to make any corrections to my story? Tell me how it really happened?”
Stan sputtered and stood up. “This is outrageous.” Horror and anger turned his fleshy face crimson. “We are leaving.”
“No.” Alex turned to his lawyer. “You get out of here, Stan. Now.”
Stan's mouth gaped. “What?”
The eyes of a man used to being obeyed nailed Stan James to the wall. “I need to talk to this man alone. Get out of here,” Alex stated emphatically again. He then turned his attention to Duke. “Sheriff, I'm going to ask you to give me a little bit of breathing room and leave too.” His gaze lifted to the mirror. “Also, whoever might be watching from behind that glass.”
Stan glanced wildly back and forth between his client and law enforcement. “I must advise you very strongly against this course, Mr. Quick.”
“And I've heard you,” Alex replied. “Now please go.”
Duke stood and ushered Alex's lawyer to the door. “Come with me. You can wait in my office.” He took hold of Stan's arm and guided him out of the interview room.
Once they were alone, Alex laid a sobering stare on Jace. “Off the record?” he asked, his voice conciliatory.
“I can't promise that.” Damn. Jace was curious as hell, but he wouldn't lie. “It depends on what you say.” He did, however, shut off the tape recorder. “I will take notes. If it turns out you have nothing to do with this, and there is no way I can connect you to either of these women, I'll say this was just a friendly chat and try to keep it out of the file.” He could only give Alexander Quick what the sheriff had given those married johns out of respect for their families.
