Lead Me On

by Victoria Dahl

“Well, you’re super cute,” she said without loosening one finger from its hold on his waist. Her long hair slid along his arm.

  “Um. Thanks. But I’m here with someone.”

  “Yeah? Well, if she were smart she wouldn’t leave a big old piece of man candy like you unguarded.” She chuckled, and her cleavage jiggled enticingly. “Her loss.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think—”

  “Excuse me,” an ominously soft female voice interrupted.

  Chase’s head jerked up so fast the room spun. Smack in the middle of that spinning was a tight bundle of angry Jane.

  Her lips flattened into a thin line as she narrowed her eyes at the woman. “Would you please remove your hands from him?”

  “I don’t think so, darlin’,” the woman drawled, tightening her hold on Chase. He raised his free arm to show his helplessness.

  Red spots appeared high on Jane’s cheeks. “I don’t want to be rude, but…Get. Off. Him.” The words were surprisingly clear considering her teeth hadn’t unclenched the whole time.

  Chase was starting to feel nervous. “Jane, it’s fine. Just…Lady, you’d better go on.”

  The woman tossed her hair over her shoulder, whacking Jane in the face with it. “I’ll go on when I’m ready to go on. She ain’t the kind of woman who can satisfy a man like you, baby.” Her breasts slid over his arm when she wiggled against him.

  Jane drew in a deep breath, her nostrils flared and he saw the flash of rage in her eyes as she went to the dark side. “Get your tits off him, you heifer!”

  “Jane!” Chase coughed, a shocked laugh choking off his voice. But the woman finally let him go.

  She seemed to weigh her options, then put a hand on her hip as if she’d decided to argue. “You can’t—”

  Jane took a step forward, jaw jutting out. “Do you really want all these men to see you without your weave? Because you’re about to lose it.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Chase laughed. The redhead made her decision and flounced away.

  Arms crossed, Jane watched until she was at least ten feet away before turning her glare on Chase. “You want me to leave so you can get a closer look at those?”

  “No!” He held up his hands in complete surrender. “I couldn’t get away from her.”

  “Funny, because you look awfully big and strong. Almost like a full-grown man.”

  Chase gave her his best puppy-dog eyes, silently begging for forgiveness.

  “Oh, come on,” she snapped. “They haven’t seen Jessie. He’s not here.”

  Chase studied the faces as they made their way to the door, but there was no sign of Jane’s brother. They both took a deep breath when they reached the relative peace of the dark parking lot.

  He let her stalk to the truck without a word, but when she reached for the handle, Chase wrapped his fingers around her wrist and turned her toward him. “What was all that about?”

  “All what?”

  “Potty-mouthed Jane.”

  Chin inching higher, she shrugged.

  “You were jealous.”

  “I was irritated with Jessie’s friends.”

  “No.” He felt his mouth twitch into a smile. “You were jealous. Because you like me.”

  “I was stressed,” she insisted, turning back toward the truck. “And I was in my fair share of fights during my misspent youth. I know how to handle myself.”

  Chase wasn’t about to let her blow that off. Her little tantrum in there had been pretty damn sexy. He snuck his arm around her shoulders and turned her back, dipping down to nuzzle her neck at the same time.

  “Chase!” she complained, but half a second later her head was bowing away, giving him better access to the tender skin of her neck.

  “You like me,” he murmured against her pulse. “Just admit it.” He pressed his tongue there, sucking lightly.

  “Oh…” Jane sighed. Her hands reached up to clutch his jacket. Snowflakes touched the back of his skull, like tiny bites of ice.

  “I think I’m falling for you, Jane.” He dragged his mouth up to hers and kissed her before she could protest. She would, he knew that, but he didn’t plan on paying attention to her arguments.

  She tried to shake her head, but he wouldn’t move his mouth. A tense moment passed, and then she was kissing him back, rubbing her tongue hard against his. The taste of her was a drug, wrapping around his nerves, dulling the feel of the snow on his neck.

  He could kiss her forever. Just kiss her and nothing else. But Jane wouldn’t allow that. She’d want more, and he’d give in without any fight at all.

  Ending the kiss with a faint taste of her bottom lip, Chase framed her face in his hands so she’d have to meet his gaze. “I’m falling for you,” he repeated.

  “No.”

  He let her go. “You have no say in it. Sorry.” Reaching past her, he opened the truck door. “Where to?”

  “Chase, we can’t…There’s no future for us. None!”

  “You want to go to your grandma’s house?”

  She put her hand flat to his chest and pushed him. He took a step back so she’d feel some satisfaction. “Listen to me!”

  “I’ll do whatever I want, Jane. I just thought you deserved fair warning.”

  “Then you need to leave. Just go!”

  “I’m your ride, darlin’. And right now your brother is more important than your fear of genuine emotion.”

  Her jaw dropped. “My what?”

  Chase rolled his eyes. “Get in the truck, Jane. We’ll talk about this after we find Jessie.”

  She choked on her outrage a little, still staring at him as if he’d just grown a third eye. But finally she bit out, “Fine,” and climbed into the truck.

  Fine was never a good thing from a woman, and it would likely be an uncomfortable ride, but Chase was glad he’d said it. A pressure was gone from his chest, as if those words had weighed a ton. But he made a sincere effort to hide his smile as they pulled onto the road and headed toward Carbondale. Jane wouldn’t appreciate it at all.

  HIS CELL PHONE RANG like an alarm, startling Jane’s heart into a stampede. She was getting a stiff neck from holding her head perfectly straight, but when Chase answered his phone, she allowed herself to look in his direction.

  He was falling for her.

  Just that was a frightening complication, but the way her heart had responded to those words was even more disturbing. It had strained in her chest, as if it wanted her to jump up and down or throw her arms around him and squeal.

  Her second response had been abject terror. But not because she was afraid of genuine emotion. It wasn’t that at all.

  Jane glared at him in remembered anger. Then she registered the deep lines of worry in his forehead as he listened to whoever was on the line.

  “Who is it?” she whispered.

  He held up a hand. “And that’s all he would say?” When he pressed his fingers to his forehead, Jane began to worry. “Shit,” he muttered. “All right, Dad. Thanks. I’ll talk to you later.”

  Chase snapped his phone shut and wrapped both hands around the steering wheel. “We’ve got a big problem.”

  “What?”

  “They found another girl.”

  Panic blasted through her body like lightning. “A girl? A murdered girl?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. This is…”

  “Her body was found in her house tonight. Cause of death was unnatural.”

  “She was strangled?”

  “My dad’s contact didn’t know any more. He did say the time of death hasn’t been determined, so my dad suspects it wasn’t within the last hour or two.”

  “Who was it?”

  Chase shook his head, the bones of his knuckles showing white through his skin. “I don’t know. It was in Aspen, though, not Carbondale or Garfield County.”

  The panic twisted through her, squeezing her stomach too tight. “Mom should never have bailed him out.”

  Chase shot her a
hard glance. “You think he did it?”

  “I think if he was still in jail, we’d have proof he hadn’t done it.”

  By the time they drove into Carbondale and turned onto Grandma Olive’s street, Jane’s body burned with tension.

  She spotted Jessie as soon as the headlights flashed over the front porch. “He’s here.”

  The truck rocked to a halt and she jumped out and ran across the grass.

  “He just showed up,” Olive snapped. “Won’t tell me where he’s been.”

  “Okay,” Jane panted. “All right. I’ll talk to him, Grandma Olive. You go on and get out of the cold.”

  Jessie muttered, “I wanna get out of the cold, too,” but his grandmother slammed the door in his face.

  Jane grabbed his arm and dug her nails into the leather of his coat. “Where were you?”

  “I had to get out, all right? Grandma was watching a Fantasy Island marathon, and I couldn’t take it anymore. She’s only got one fricking TV in that house.”

  She shook him, hard. “Where were you?”

  “God.” He tore his wrist from her grasp. “I was with a girl, all right? Calm down.”

  A girl. He couldn’t mean…“What girl?”

  “None of your business, Jane.”

  “Jessie!” she screamed. “What girl?”

  The weight of Chase’s hand was a sudden comfort on her shoulder. She’d forgotten he was there.

  “Jessie,” he said calmly, “this is serious. Your sister needs to know where you were.”

  He finally seemed to get it. Her brother’s eyes went wide, and she was relieved to see no sign he’d gotten high. “I was with a girl named Eve. It was only for an hour or something. She just dropped me off.”

  Jane swallowed hard, fearing that she might sob with relief. “She was here?”

  “Yes. Dude, what’s going on?”

  For a moment there, she’d thought…She’d feared…

  Jane couldn’t speak, and she was impossibly grateful when Chase cleared his throat and stepped forward. “The police want to talk to you, Jess. There may have been another murder.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Jessie said. Even in the moonlight she could see his face go pale.

  Now that her doubt was gone, fury took its place. “Your lawyer told you to stay home! No drinking or smoking and no girls.”

  “I’m not a fucking monk, Jane. And I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “Will this Eve give you an alibi?”

  He shrugged. “I think so. She doesn’t have a boyfriend or anything.”

  “We’re calling your lawyer. Right now.”

  To her credit, the attorney answered on the first ring, despite the late hour. Jane babbled out the whole story, feeling more calm with every no-nonsense question the woman asked.

  “Stay with him,” Ms. Holloway said. “Don’t let him go anywhere. I’ll call you back in fifteen minutes.”

  For the full fifteen minutes Jane paced the tiny confines of Grandma Olive’s dining room. Everyone else was crowded into the living area. Jessie lounged with his feet on the arm of the couch, of course, able to relax despite the threat hanging over him like a sword. He even charmed Grandma Olive into cackling at a joke or two.

  The old woman was relaxed enough to offer margaritas, but when no one took her up on the offer, she poured herself a glass, dropped into her recliner and popped out her dentures to enjoy it.

  Chase seemed surprisingly unfazed.

  Finally the phone rang, and Jane answered it so quickly that she cracked her cheekbone with the phone. “Hello?”

  “All right, here’s what I’ve arranged. Jessie will voluntarily meet with an Aspen detective tomorrow at ten. I’ll be there. Don’t worry. I’ve made clear that he has an alibi for the whole day, but he’s happy to offer questions if they feel it will help move the investigation along.”

  “Okay.” Good. That sounded great.

  “I already spoke with Mr. Chase and he’s going to get as much information as he can on his end. Tonight Jessie needs to stay sober and get to bed. Nothing else.”

  Jane nodded. “All right.”

  “Let me speak to him for a moment.”

  She happily handed the phone to her brother, and even more happily turned into Chase’s arms when he offered comfort.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “You’re okay.”

  In that moment Chase’s threat of falling in love felt more like peace than a complication.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JANE STARED at the familiar door of Greg Nunn’s apartment as if it was the entryway to hell itself. The evening sun belied any dark imaginings, but it didn’t make her feel better. She didn’t walk up the short sidewalk or knock on the door; she simply stared at it.

  How could she do this? How could she not?

  She glanced over her shoulder to see Chase watching carefully from his truck where it was parked at the curb. He rolled down the window. “You okay?” he called.

  “Yes,” she lied.

  Her brother hadn’t been arrested, but the murder had made it to the paper, along with a note that a local man had been brought in for questioning. There’d also been one ominous line indicating that police were not yet ruling out the possibility that the murder could have been linked with the earlier death of Michelle Brown.

  If her brother’s name was linked to a serial killing or, God forbid, if he was framed for those deaths…

  She had to do this.

  Jane walked the last few feet to the door and knocked.

  At first there was no answer. If Greg wasn’t home, she was off the hook for a few hours, maybe for a whole day. But Jane knocked again and waited. Unfortunately, Greg answered the door a few seconds later. Her heart plummeted.

  “Jane?” His eyes widened with what looked like pleasant surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m glad! Come on in.”

  “No! I just…I can’t come in.”

  Eyes narrowing, he leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. He was wearing a cardigan. An honest-to-God cashmere cardigan. Jane resisted the urge to look toward Chase to see the way his muscles bulged in his worn T-shirt, but her control didn’t matter. Greg’s gaze rose to look over her shoulder.

  “Who the hell is that?”

  “Nobody,” she said automatically, but the word sent a shock of painful guilt through her heart. Crud. Drawing a deep breath, Jane squared her shoulders and made herself stop wringing her hands. “I need to, um…I need to talk to you about Jessie MacKenzie.”

  “Who?” he snapped.

  “Jessie MacKenzie. The police suspect that he’s been involved somehow in those murders. I figured you might know something.”

  “What the hell?” His groomed eyebrows drew together. “What does any of this have to do with you?”

  Jane would’ve swallowed in nervousness, but her throat was too dry to manage it. If there was anything worse than the prospect of asking a bitter ex-boyfriend for help, it had to be this. Asking him for help while explaining that your life was a lie, and a messy one at that.

  “I know that Jessie couldn’t have done it. The police act as if they don’t believe me, so I’m coming to you for help. You said that you genuinely cared about me….”

  His mouth twisted with impatience. “I said I had feelings for you. Past tense. Regardless, what possible interest could you have in Jessie MacKenzie?”

  For a moment she considered blaming Chase. The guy in the car is Chase. I work with him. Jessie is a friend of his and he needs help. It would be an easier connection to admit, but the lie wouldn’t last through one inquiring phone call to police. And it wouldn’t be the truth. The last thing Jessie needed was lies piled on top of his situation.

  Jane wanted to look down, but she met Greg’s gaze straight on and spoke over the mad pounding of her heart. “Jessie’s my brother.”

  That knocked the impatience off his face. “Excuse me?”

&
nbsp; “He’s my brother.”

  “Jessie MacKenzie?”

  “Yes. So I wanted to know if—”

  “Jessie MacKenzie is your brother?” Now his lips were drawn so tightly down that white showed at the edges. “You’re kidding me, right?”

  “No,” she bit out.

  “You weren’t friends with Michelle Brown. You were calling for your brother.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, her pulse pounding faster.

  His gaze swept up and down her body. “This has got to be a fucking joke, right? Your dad’s an ex-con? A murderer?”

  “My stepfather,” she muttered. “And that murder conviction was overturned. He was never charged again. He didn’t do it.”

  “That’s what you want to talk about?” he growled. “You lied to me. You’ve been lying to me for months.”

  “I’m sorry, Greg. I never…I don’t really like to talk about my family—”

  “No wonder!”

  “I didn’t lie about them. I just—”

  “You let me think you were from a decent family! And you’re nothing but garbage.”

  Jane’s chest burned with anger, but she couldn’t let it out. She needed his help.

  “And you proved it by trying to coerce information out of me for a murderer.”

  “He didn’t do it.”

  “I really…I can’t believe I almost took a piece of trash home to meet my parents.”

  Shock sang through her body at his words. She should have expected them, but she hadn’t. No one had called her trash in a decade. No one except her, anyway.

  The shock broke quickly into old pain. Jane stuffed it down where it belonged. “I wanted to speak with you about Jessie’s case. I know what the police suspect him of. And I just want you to take a closer look at the evidence. For me.”

  “For you?” Greg had never struck her as anything other than a decent person. Aggressive and short-tempered yes, but decent. But now…now he looked ugly and cruel, cheeks flushed and eyes bright with rage. “You broke it off with me, Jane. Now you’re standing in my doorway with your nose still in the air and asking me for help?” The bitter sneer in his voice was not a good sign. If he wanted her to grovel, she would grovel.

  “I’m sorry I broke up with you, Greg. It wasn’t working.” Her brain offered up an excuse. “We’re from two different worlds.”