After Midnight

by Merline Lovelace

  “No one’s going to speak on my behalf.”

  “Someone already has,” Jess said carefully. “Your ex-wife came to see me this morning.”

  His stony facade cracked for a moment. Only a moment. Jess caught a flash of hope, of hurt, of fury, before the mask dropped down again.

  “Whatever she said doesn’t cut soap, colonel. I’m responsible for my actions.”

  Jess couldn’t argue with that.

  “All right. Since you’ve declined to accept legal counsel or present matters in extenuation or mitigation, I’m hereby vacating the suspension and reducing you in rank to the grade of Staff Sergeant. I’m also ordering you to pay full damages to the NCO club, levying an additional fine of $300 a month for three months, and warning you that you’re on notice, Sergeant Babcock.”

  She paused, wanting to make sure she had his attention, and leaned forward to emphasize the point.

  “If you step out of line again, if you so much as spit on the sidewalk, you’ll be out of the Air Force so fast your head will spin.”

  His forehead creased in a quick frown. “You mean you’re not initiating the paperwork to kick me out?”

  “Not this time.”

  His glance rifled to the First Sergeant. Ruiz spoke for the first time.

  “It was the colonel’s decision, Babcock. I advised her to toss your sorry butt onto the street. You owe her for this one. Her and Eileen.”

  The stony expression that descended over the man’s face again indicated a distinct lack of gratitude. Jess held his eyes, her own fierce.

  “Don’t make me regret this, Sergeant.”

  His shoulders snapped back. His chin came up. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell if he was happy with this last chance or not.

  “Is that all, ma’am?”

  “Sign these papers, then you’re dismissed.”

  Ruiz waited until Babcock had departed to gather the signed documents. “Well, at least Mr. Petrie won’t lose his only certified fuels analyst. He was worried about that.”

  “He deserves to lose him. He didn’t help him by covering up his repeated absences.”

  “Billy Jack Petrie is one of the good ole boys,” the First Shirt answered with a shrug. “He takes care of his people in his own way.”

  She reached for the phone. “Then I’d better make sure he understands we’re doing it my way from here on out.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Four hours later, Jess aimed the Mustang’s gleaming silver nose south along the causeway that shot straight as an arrow from the Bay Bridge to the beaches that edged the Gulf. A headache tugged at her temples. Christ, what a day!

  The sessions with the EPA and Sergeant Babcock had been bad enough. A late afternoon call from the commander of one of the test squadron commanders had upped the pucker factor even more. One of the avionics modules in a specially configured F-15 had failed and they needed a new one delivered and installed no later than noon tomorrow or they’d have to scrub a multi-million dollar test of a new air-to-air missile.

  Thankfully, the major in charge of the 96th Supply Squadron’s Combat Operations Support Branch knew just how to work the system. After three computer flash requests and several cajoling phone calls, she assured Jess the avionics kit had been shipped from the depot by overnight express. She also promised to track it via the computer and notify Jess immediately if it looked like it wouldn’t make the promised nine a.m. delivery.

  Only now, with the sun hanging low and the bay a patchwork quilt of aquamarine and emerald and deep lapis below the causeway, did Jess think about food. She’d downed a Krispy Kreme maple-glaze cruller for breakfast and skipped lunch. Hungry for chargrilled amberjack, she turned right off the bridge instead of left. A short drive past high-rise condos and snowy beaches topped with waving sea oats brought her to Pampano Joe’s.

  This late in the evening, the popular eatery was jammed with both locals and tourists. A smoky-voiced jazz singer crooned from the loudspeakers as Jess claimed a stool at the bar to wait for a table. The wooden shutters were raised, the windows open to the brisk evening breeze of the Gulf of Mexico.

  Idly, Jess sipped a tall, frosted glass of iced tea and watched couples stroll hand-in-hand along the sugar-white sand. The tea went down strong and sweet and cold enough to make the breeze feel comfortable. The feeling that she’d failed to reach Ed Babcock didn’t go down at all.

  So Jess was in no mood for company when someone asked if the stool beside hers was taken. Even less when the lazy drawl registered and she looked up to find Sheriff Paxton planted squarely between her and the nearest exit.

  Chapter Three

  Jess’s first impulse was to say yes, the stool next to hers was taken. Her second was to down the last of her tea and depart the premises. Still wired from her demanding day, the last thing she needed was this sudden, jagged jolt to her nerves.

  With a conscious effort of will, she subdued the impulse to flee. Pride wouldn’t let her run. Not this time. Not ever again. Indicating the seat next to her with a careless nod, she shrugged.

  “Help yourself.”

  Her distinct lack of enthusiasm raised a gleam in Paxton’s aquamarine eyes. “Thanks.”

  He slid onto to the stool with an easy grace and hooked one loafer heel over a rung. From the look of them, the loafers were handcrafted and expensive. As was his suit. The charcoal gray slacks molded trim hips. The well-cut jacket draped his broad shoulders with a touch of elegance. He’d discarded his red tie, one end of which dangled from his suit pocket, and popped the top buttons on his pale blue shirt, but the impression was still one of sophistication.

  He didn’t miss her quick inventory. Jess had the uneasy feeling he didn’t miss much of anything.

  “I was at a meeting of Florida law enforcement agencies over at Pensacola,” he said in answer to the question she hadn’t asked. “Thought I’d grab something to eat before leaving the bright lights of down county.”

  “Down county?”

  “According to the old timers, Walton County’s developed a severe case of split personality. Up around the county seat of DeFuniak Springs, it’s still old timber, Victorian homes, and Confederate flags. Since the tourist boom, down county is now all golf resorts, high rise condos, and Yankee snow birds.”

  “With the bay keeping both cultures well separated.”

  “Exactly.” Signaling to the bartender, he ordered a beer. “You probably got a taste of the separation when you lived here as a kid.”

  He let it drop so casually, anyone else might have been fooled into thinking he was just making conversation. Jess knew better.

  “Did you run a background check on me, sheriff?”

  “Standard procedure, colonel.”

  “Find anything interesting?”

  “Several things, as a matter of fact.”

  She considered not taking the bait, but the need to know overcame her reluctance to continue the conversation. “Like what?”

  “Like the fact that you pulled two tours in the Balkans.”

  “A lot of people pulled tours there.”

  “But not all of them led a re-supply unit through heavy enemy fire. Nor were they decorated for heroism as a result.”

  “Did you get all that from police records?”

  “No, from your official bio and the story the Daily News ran on you when you arrived. Our police computers contained only one entry from an old FI card – a field interview card,” he expanded at her look of polite query. “Seems one of our officers responded to a report of an out-of-control juvenile. According to his report, some bratty seven-year-old had bloodied the nose of one boy and blackened the eye of another.”

  A bratty-seven year old.

  Jess remembered her well. All arms and legs, toting around a chip the size of Idaho on her thin shoulders. A chip that had grown with every move and every taunt from the kids at school.

  They’d never accepted or understood her. She was always the newcomer, always the outsid
er. Always the scruffy kid whose mini-skirted mother raised brows each time she marched through the halls to extricate her daughter after yet another tussle.

  No wonder she and her mom had formed such a close bond. There had only been the two of them. Just her and her mother. Until Frank Blackwell. With a silent prayer of thanks for the gentle, patient garage mechanic who’d married Helen and adopted her daughter, Jess pulled her thoughts from her past to the man who kept dragging it into the present.

  “The boys were too embarrassed to admit they’d been bested by a girl,” he related, a smile tugging at his mouth, “so the incident was dropped with no further action taken.”

  The smile was potent. Too potent. Against her will, against every cannon of common sense, Jess felt a stir of sexual attraction. Evidently even a badge didn’t completely negate Sheriff Paxton’s brand of tawny hair, tanned skin, and lazy charm.

  Cursing herself for a fool, she turned her attention to the open windows. The sun was just kissing the Gulf, sandwiching a patina of gold between the darkening sky and deep emerald swells.

  Paxton ignored the magnificence outside. Swiveling his stool, he planted an elbow on the bar and leaned closer. Too close. The end of his tie drifted over Jess’s arm, raising a ripple along her nerves where the silk brushed the skin.

  “Why didn’t you mention last night that you’d lived in Choctaw Beach?”

  Deliberately, she blanked the memory of a rusted trailer mounted on cinder blocks a few miles from the half-dozen or so buildings that passed for the town of Choctaw Beach. Just as deliberately, she dragged her gaze back to his.

  “You didn’t ask and I didn’t think it was pertinent to your visit.”

  She might have carried off the careless reply if Paxton’s glance hadn’t dropped to her hands. With another silent curse, Jess saw that she was massaging the puckered flesh with her thumb. She reached for her tea to give her hands something else to do.

  “How’s the investigation into Ron Clark’s death coming?”

  “The ME confirmed the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning.” His long, tanned fingers stroked the frosted beer glass the bartender placed before him. “I talked to the folks at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement before I left Pensacola this afternoon. They’re ready to make a preliminary determination of suicide.”

  Relief seeped through Jess. She was searching for a noncommittal answer when she heard Paxton’s name called over the loudspeaker. He cocked his head, and Jess braced herself for the invitation she saw coming.

  “Care to join me?”

  Jess was already forming a refusal when she realized Steve Paxton might take that as a sign she had something to hide and dig deeper into her past. Better to go along, she decided. Besides, it wouldn’t hurt to discover just how much he knew.

  “That depends,” she answered coolly.

  “On?”

  “On whether you’re still on duty.”

  “A cop never goes off duty.” His smile remained in place. “This cop, however, is more than willing to put business aside and make small talk with a good lookin’ Air Force colonel for a few hours.”

  That line probably worked magic with most of the females he approached. Jess wasn’t impressed. She flicked a look at the hand cradling his beer glass. He wasn’t wearing a ring, but that didn’t mean squat.

  “It also depends on whether there’s a Mrs. Sheriff Paxton waiting for you at home.”

  One sun-bleached brow cocked. “Do you always vet your dinner companions this carefully?”

  “I don’t like complications.”

  “Fair enough. There was a Mrs. Detective Paxton once. We were divorced a year or so before I moved down here from Atlanta.”

  Neither his expression nor his voice altered, but Jess sensed a definite withdrawal, as though the subject wasn’t one he wanted to talk about. Apparently Paxton’s divorce had left some scars. Like Sergeant Babcock’s.

  The loudspeaker blared the sheriff’s name again. Taking her silence for assent, he slipped a hand under her elbow to help her off the barstool. The intent might have been mere courtesy, but his touch ignited a series of small, electric shocks just under Jess’s skin.

  Slinging her military purse over her shoulder, she broke the contact and wove through the milling crowd to the hostess stand.

  When they finished their grilled amberjack and walked outside into the night, Steve had gleaned little more information about Lieutenant Colonel Jessica Blackwell than the bare facts he’d had in his possession going into Pampano Joe’s.

  Through casual conversation, he’d confirmed the basic details in the background report. She was thirty-three. Single. Born Jessica Yount in Bethany, Pennsylvania, and adopted at the age of ten by a step-father she evidently adored. Graduated from UCLA, then went on for a MBA from Stanford. Entered the air force right out of grad school. Other than that one curious incident as a child, she had no record of any brushes with the law, not even a citation for jaywalking.

  Which didn’t explain why Steve made her so nervous.

  He’d like to believe the jumpiness she almost succeeded in concealing was physical, a reaction to his raw, animal magnetism. Unfortunately, his raw animal days were a thing of the past. Maturity and his ex-wife had taken their toll. Although…

  Damned if all parts of him hadn’t sat straight up and taken notice when he’d cupped the colonel’s arm. She’d quickly shaken him off, but not before Steve had catalogued smooth, soft flesh and a heat just under the skin that shot right from his fingertips to his groin.

  The view of her backside as she crossed parking wasn’t bad, either. He liked the way she walked, hips rolling, long legs striking out as if she had places to go and important people to see. He also liked the way her dark blue uniform slacks shaped her bottom. He slowed his pace and enjoyed the view as he followed her to a snazzy little Mustang convertible.

  Tossing her purse onto the passenger seat, she reached for the door. Steve didn’t fail to note how she put it between them before she turned.

  “Good night, sheriff. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

  No thanks for the company. No polite pretensions that she’d enjoyed herself. Another man might have taken the hint. Steve wasn’t finished with Colonel Blackwell yet.

  “Oh, you will,” he promised casually. “I still haven’t pinned down why you were on Ron Clark’s mind just moments before he killed himself. I’ll let you know when I do.”

  She slid behind the wheel and keyed the ignition. “You can reach me any time through the 24-hour operations center at the 96th Supply Squadron.”

  He got the message. She wasn’t amenable to any more unannounced, late night visits to her home. Wondering if she really thought he intended to play by her rules, Steve dug in his pants pockets for a package of Dentyne. As he watched the Mustang nose into the east-bound lane of US 98, known locally as the Emerald Coast Highway, red hot cinnamon set fire to his taste buds.

  He claimed his unmarked cruiser a few moments later. A quick check with dispatch revealed relative quiet for a Tuesday night. The only disturbance involved an altercation at a little league softball game that had landed one over-aggressive parent in the county jail.

  “He’s waiting for his wife to bail him out,” Wilena reported with a deep, rich chuckle. “Just between you ‘n me, sheriff, she plans to let him cool off for a day or two.”

  “Hope we don’t have to respond to a 10-16 when she springs him,” Steve drawled. As he’d learned all too well during his years on the Atlanta PD, domestic disturbances could turn deadly in the blink of an eye.

  Advising the sultry-voiced dispatcher that he intended to stop at the new down-county substation on his way home, he signed off.

  The Walton County Sheriff’s Department sub-station had been constructed less than a year ago and still smelled of new paint. It was headed by one of the department’s newer captains. Steve had personally selected Jay Dubois to command the ten officers assigned to the substation. Jay was exper
ienced enough to hold their respect, yet young enough to walk the fine line between the needs of the ante-bellum communities of North Walton County and the booming tourist economy to the south. It didn’t hurt that his wife, Pam, had a way of baking the rainbow trout Steve and her husband reeled in that could make wild dogs grovel and grown men weep.

  Jay was at home, no doubt sprawled in his recliner after another of Pam’s delectable suppers, but the shift officer in charge welcomed the chance to shoot the breeze with the sheriff. They traded the morbid war stories only cops could appreciate for a good twenty minutes. Steve was just getting up to leave when Wilena Shaw’s voice came through the console.

  “Substation, this is Central Dispatch.”

  “Damn!” the grizzled officer muttered, reaching for the mike. “The way that woman sounds over the radio, she could make a monk cream.”

  Privately, Steve agreed with him. Publicly, he refused to tolerate sexual innuendo or off-color jokes on the job. The pointed glance he sent his subordinate had the man reddening and mumbling an apology before he keyed the mike.

  “This is Officer Harriman. What’s up, Dispatch?”

  “Is Sheriff Paxton still there?”

  “He’s standing right beside me.”

  “Be advised we have a signal-seven, Sheriff.”

  Steve lifted a brow. Two dead bodies in less than a week. Business was certainly picking up. Edging the shift officer aside, he thumbed the mike.

  “This is Paxton, Dispatch. What are the particulars?”

  “Two kids gigging bullfrogs up around Harry’s Bayou found a floater. Their mama called in the report about ten minutes ago. From what the boys told her, the body’s pretty putrid.”

  “Who’s responding?”

  “Officer Martin’s on the way. I’ve notified Captain Alexander. He’s sending an investigator. Want me to call the fluff?”