“You’re asking me out?”
He bent and kissed her lips. “It’s time we had our first date.” He left her with the retort still trapped in her mouth.
Liz lifted the pups into her lap, cuddling and murmuring as she administered the antirejection drugs to suppress their immune systems. Everything would be better. They’d been so young when she started patterning. There would be no emotional struggle, no false need for distance. They’d never known distance.
“Lizzie, are you sure?”
“This time will be different.” She turned and studied Lucy, misshapen, pale. So small and fragile. “For you, Lucy.”
Tears streamed down Lucy’s wan face. “It’s the only way?”
“I have to be sure.”
Gulping, Lucy nodded. “I’m here. I’ll help.”
Jonah strode into the conference room. “What do we have?”
Moser rose and addressed the wall where the case was diagramed. “We got Sean Bolton peddling at the school, released on bond, did not give up Caldwell, Greggor, or his muscle, Malcolm. Must have got the message that talking wasn’t healthy.”
Jonah felt gratified that none of his officers snickered. He glanced at Sue, every bit as intent on Moser’s briefing as the others. Though he had initially put her on leave, her participation in this portion of the investigation had merit, for her and the case.
“Caldwell’s been a choirboy. Knows he’s on Candid Camera.”
“Candid what?” Newly rocked his chair back.
“Before all your reality TV,” Moser explained, “Candid Camera caught people kissing their elbows and such.”
As expected both Beatty and Newly gave it a try.
“Kids?” Moser snapped his fingers. “If I may have your attention.”
As Moser laid out the investigation to date, Jonah forced himself to focus. The pieces seemed to be all there. If only they could put them together, they would get these guys. Jonah thought of Sam, and his blood heated once more. But thoughts of Liz and the pups and Tia kept pressing in.
When the briefing ended and the officers had dispersed, he took Moser aside. “I need to throw something at you.”
“Okay.”
“It goes back to the raccoons.” He gave Moser a chance to catch up, then laid out his suspicions.
“Liz Rainer? The vet?” Moser’s face reflected his own doubts. “What’s the evidence?”
He told him what little he had.
Moser shook his head. “You know Judge Walthrup. You don’t have physical evidence? Even one eyewitness? No way.”
“The stitches match. At least the parts that weren’t torn out.”
Moser gave him a stare.
“I looked close while you were losing your lunch. I don’t think I’m wrong.”
“But you can’t prove it. And, Jonah. I’ve seen her with Marlene. Not getting that sense at all.”
He nodded. That was why they needed proof.
Back in his office, he called Jay, who was either practicing silence again or too busy to answer. He’d have to trust Enola to give Scout what care the pup needed. Frustrated, he dove into the work that couldn’t wait. Ruth brought him coffee that he drank without tasting. Clearing his desk of administrative backlog would eliminate the mental clutter of undone tasks. And sometimes, in the mundane, he found clarity.
She had been forced into this date, but Piper took her agreements seriously. She dressed nicely in white jeans, a fitted green tee, and a gray sweater that tied around the waist. She applied mascara and curled her hair. She knew how to play fair.
Bob could have made trouble for Miles and hadn’t. For this she was thankful. If he wanted to know how she could befriend someone so weird, she would explain. She’d also make him understand it would be only one date.
He picked her up in a Camaro convertible she had to admit was smokin’. She had a feeling the drive would leave the rest of the date in the dust.
“Here, put this on.” Bob reached into the backseat for a black leather jacket. “We’ll take a little spin, and the wind can get cold.”
“Thanks.” That was thoughtful but probably part of the schmooze. The jacket smelled like his cologne.
He sped up the mountain highway, cornering and maneuvering like a Grand Prix driver. “Tell me you don’t like this beauty.” His hair blew free of its style, and he grinned.
“I like it fine.” She leaned her head against the rest and let the ride take her.
The curl had been blown out of her hair by the time they reached the restaurant, and she felt a little dizzy getting out, like after a roller coaster. But he was a good driver and, well, a Camaro? “Nice ride, Bob.”
He flashed his perfect teeth, flicked out a comb, and unfortunately reset his do. “You probably won’t need that inside.”
He locked the leather coat in the trunk and ushered her into Redford’s fanciest restaurant in the lobby of the Tarleton Hotel. He wore a blue dress shirt, open at the collar, and cream-colored Dockers. The flat gold chain around his neck was a half inch of shimmer, and his loafers probably cost more than all her shoes together. If she wanted money, he’d be a catch.
When the server came, Bob eased back in his chair. “What are you drinking, peach?”
She told the server, “Chardonnay, please.” She could nurse that awhile.
Flushing, the server said, “ID?”
She gave Bob an I told you look but showed a valid ID.
“Thanks. I have to ask.”
“No problem.” She flashed him a smile.
Bob ordered a martini, then studied her appreciatively. “They’ll probably card you until you’re thirty.”
“Probably.” She slipped her hair behind her shoulder.
“You are a puzzle.” He stared like a cat at a fishbowl. “Now tell me, cutie, why on earth do you give that big nut a second thought?”
Right there was the reason this test drive would not end in a sale.
Twenty-Seven
Union gives strength.
—AESOP, “THE BUNDLE OF STICKS”
When Jonah came for her in a black crew-neck shirt and khakis, his hair still damp and a little tousled, Tia almost couldn’t walk through the door. How had she functioned nine years with him in the same town?
He took in her filmy layered skirt, tights and boots, her soft sweater. “You look great.” The kiss he brushed where her jaw met her neck sent a jolt straight through her. “Smell nice too. Like your candles.”
“I was cleaning out scents.” True, but she hadn’t needed to tell him that. “Is Scout—”
“He’s alive.”
“Liz?”
“Not enough for a warrant.” His frustration formed a piece of common ground.
She had felt more pity than anger, but if Liz hurt a puppy to punish them … “How will you know unless she hurts something else? Do you have to wait until something or someone else—”
“I have no proof. All I can do is put together the pieces I get.”
The whole thing left her prickly and agitated. Or was that Jonah? “Can’t you make her tell you?”
“I’d need grounds to interrogate.”
“But you could talk to her, draw her out. Let her think—”
“What? I want her?” His face darkened. “Get her all warmed up, then ask if she attacked my pup?”
She shook her head. “I hate not knowing. What if she isn’t guilty?”
“That’s why we have due process. Now can we have dinner?” He slipped a hand behind her back and eased her out the door.
As a cop, he might be able to shift gears like that, but she couldn’t shake the uneasy thoughts as they drove the short distance to the Tarleton Restaurant. “Really?” She hadn’t eaten there since Reba’s sixteenth birthday, and her uneasiness grew.
“I go all out on the first date.” He parked beneath an old-fashioned gas lantern. “It’s burgers and fries after that.”
“So many first dates, you developed a strategy?” She c
limbed out, gathering her skirt in the wind.
He came around, head cocked. “I was joking, Tia. We can eat here every night, if you like.”
“On your salary? On mine?”
“Or go somewhere else if you’d rather.” He was picking up her mood.
She reined it in. “I wouldn’t.”
“Then our table is waiting.” He took her hand.
For a moment she lagged, then with a slow transfer of weight, stopped resisting. As they followed the manager through the elegant, meandering dining room, she caught sight of Piper with Bob Betters at a table by the windows. It seemed Bob went all out too.
A waiter appeared to take their drink order. Tia ordered a glass of Shiraz.
“Coffee,” Jonah told him.
She looked over when the man had gone. “Not even wine?”
“Six years sober.”
“Is Jay your sponsor?”
“How’d you know that?”
“You gave his name weight.”
“Pretty good police work.”
The compliment peeled one layer of the tension in her chest. “Nothing to it.”
His eyes crinkled. “Uh-huh.”
“You’ve said that exactly the same way as long as I can remember.”
“Okay.”
“And that.” She opened her menu. “So what’s he like? Jay …”
“Laugersen. Half Dane, half Cherokee.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Is that what defines him?”
“Wait and see.”
“Will I?”
“He’s eager to meet you.”
She bit her lip. “How much does he know?”
“He pretty much saved my life.”
So everything. Skidding off that thought, she sipped the wine, then glanced up. “Will this bother you?”
“Never was a wine fan.”
“You haven’t slipped in six years? Not even once?”
“Have to start over if I do.” He took a sip of coffee. “Can you live with that?”
“Of course.” But then she wondered how he’d meant it. “If it became relevant.”
“Oh, it’s relevant.”
“I meant that living with each other’s frailties implies a future together.”
“I guess I wasn’t clear before.”
“You were.” She looked up. “But just because you have some organic hold on me doesn’t mean everything goes away.”
“I know that.”
“I need to do this right.” She moistened her lips. “I need time.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Another layer peeled away.
He glanced past her. “What’s the story on Bob and Piper?”
She ran a finger down her glass. “If I tell you, will you not overreact?”
“No promises.”
She frowned. “Miles had an episode at the bakery. Bob was ribbing him, and then he tried to get his attention—tactilely.”
“He touched him?”
She nodded.
“And Miles went ballistic.”
“He bumped a table into Bob, who got really upset, then said he’d get over it if Piper went out with him.”
Jonah nodded slowly. “Which part am I not overreacting to, Miles, or Bob extorting a date?”
With a rush of warmth, she leaned in and squeezed his hands. “Good answer.”
Jonah glanced across the room again. He couldn’t hear the conversation, but from the continuous flapping of Bob’s mouth, Piper was paying big time. Her plate was nearly empty. Bob paused now and then to shovel in his own food, then took up where he left off.
The server brought new glasses of wine. Piper dabbed her mouth and escaped to the ladies’ room. Jonah slid his gaze back to Tia, but a shift in Bob’s posture caught the corner of his eye. Bob leaned, then settled back in his seat.
“Jonah?”
“Sorry.”
“Is something wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” When their server came over, Jonah motioned for her to order.
“I’ll start with the glazed pear and walnut salad and then the pan-seared rainbow trout.”
“Very good. Chief?”
“That salad sounds good. Make my entrée lobster. Thanks.” He checked Piper’s table. She had rejoined Bob and was downing her wine for reinforcement.
“I thought you were a red-meat man,” Tia said.
He turned back to her. “At places like this, I order things I don’t cook myself.”
“You don’t like dropping the wiggly fellows head first into boiling water?”
“Thanks. I’ll enjoy my meal much more now.”
“I think it’s just the tail here. He’s already passed on.”
At least she seemed to be coming out of her funk. Bob was holding forth again, and Piper had made it halfway through her wine. He studied her face, saw her blink.
“Not that I’m sensitive, but are you staring at Piper?”
“I need to watch for a moment.”
“What’s wrong?” Tia looked over her shoulder.
“Don’t draw attention.”
She turned back, drilling him with her gaze. “Is something wrong with Piper?”
Jonah folded his napkin and set it beside his fork as Piper put her palms to the table and gave a little shake of her head. He stood up, walked over to their table, and removed the glass from her hand. “I’ll take this.”
Bob looked up, a flash of irritation, followed by concern, followed by jocularity. “Hey, Chief. She’s a little tipsy, but I’m looking out for her.”
“I don’t think so.” Jonah signaled the server for Bob’s bill. In a moment the woman in black and white stood the leather folder on the table. Jonah said, “Pay it.”
“Okay, sure.” Bob took a credit card from his wallet and slid it into the slot in the folder.
Piper blinked. “Jonah?”
Bob spread his hands. “Look, what’s this about?”
“It’s about what you put in her drink.”
Bob pushed back with a schmoozy grin. “You’re not serious.”
Jonah lifted the goblet. “Blue Chardonnay?”
Bob blanched. “It’s a wine cooler. With Curaçao or something.”
“No,” Piper slurred. “White. White wine.”
“Didn’t know about the dye in the new pills, did you?”
Bob looked from Piper to the glass Jonah held. He started to say something and stopped. Jonah called the station, reached McCarthy, and apprised him. Less than ten minutes later, McCarthy, dark Irish and wiry, and Newly, towheaded and fleshy, had Bob Betters cuffed and marching out of the dining room between them.
Tia had come to Piper’s side, and Jonah asked her to find the server and cancel their order. “Tell him I’ll come back and settle up the bill.”
“That won’t be necessary, Chief.” The manager spoke softly, approaching from behind.
Jonah nodded. “Thanks. I’ll return the goblet once the lab has it processed.”
“Let me seal it in plastic.”
He shook his head. “I can’t let it out of my sight. Chain of custody.”
“I didn’t drink that much.” Piper’s words slushed. As slight and young as she was and with the alcohol she’d already had, the drug had hit hard and fast. “Why am I …”
Tia crouched down beside her. “It’s all right, sweetie. We’ll take care of you.”
Tia helped Piper into the Bronco as Jonah opened his kit, poured the liquid into a sterile container, then bagged and labeled the goblet. Tia climbed in back with Piper.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Sorry about dinner.”
“Are you kidding?” She stroked Piper’s hand. “If you hadn’t seen this?” She shook her head, jaw cocked.
He debated driving Piper to the hospital but took out his phone instead. “Hey, Lauren. Have you finished up with Sarge?”
“A while ago.”
“I was hoping you were still in town.”
“I’m sti
ll in town.”
“Can I ask a huge favor?”
“You can ask.”
He glanced in his rearview mirror. “A guy slipped someone a roofie. I hate to take her to emergency. Could you draw some blood for the lab?”
“Hold on a second.” She talked to someone in the background, someone whose voice he recognized.
Lauren came back. “Where do we go?”
“Is that Jay?”
“Mmm hmm.”
Huh. He gave her Tia’s address, then pocketed his phone. Tia murmured assurances all the way to the house. Jonah scooped Piper up and carried her to an overstuffed recliner that looked more comfortable than the antique settee. Tia went into the kitchen.
Lauren arrived in Jay’s truck. Jonah looked from one to the other, then told Lauren, “The first glass of wine was clean. She had about half the doped glass.”
Lauren prepared for the task, inserted the needle, and drew blood into a vial. She pressed a label onto the vial and gave it to him. He initialed beneath Piper’s name, the date and time, then bagged the vial.
“Can you check her vitals?”
Lauren cocked an eyebrow. “You think?”
Right. He stepped back and looked at Jay. Jay looked back. Jonah cocked his head, and Jay’s mouth quirked.
Lauren spoke up. “You’re not very observant, Jonah.”
“Tell that to Piper.” Did he only notice criminal behaviors? To Jay, he mouthed, “Dena?”
Jay shrugged. Jonah rewound the past weeks. Had Jay been there the nights he’d invited Lauren to stay after working with Sarge? Probably. Jay was like furniture, always there when you needed to sit down. He’d obviously been there when Lauren recalculated her odds with the chief of police.
“Sorry I interrupted your plans.”
Tia came in with a tray of cheeses, flatbread, and pear slices. She set it on the table and sank to her knees beside her semiconscious friend.
Lauren said, “She probably shouldn’t eat or drink until she’s over the side effects. Rohypnol is a sedative and muscle relaxant.” She lifted Piper’s limp arm. “She’ll be like this for four to six hours, and then she’ll probably be confused and hung over.”
Tia’s features tightened. “Will she be okay?”
Indivisible Page 26
