Still Waters

by Tami Hoag

  What a world. Every day people died horrible deaths, society was coming apart at the seams because of drugs and AIDS and the pollution of the planet. Wars were being fought with thousands of lives in the balance. And Elizabeth Stuart's divorce had made headlines. For a few short weeks her life as a gold digger had taken precedence over world events.

  Dane had absorbed the information with the morbid fascination of a man who had gone through his own version of the battle of the exes. The woman had already been married at least once when she'd managed to snare Stuart. He had tolerated her lavish spending habits the way a billionaire might, but he had eventually objected to her infidelities and had finally called her on them. Naturally, she had tried to lay the blame at his feet. She had hurled all manner of accusations about him, the predominant one being that he nailed anything in skirts. But she hadn't been able to substantiate her case. Naturally, she had portrayed herself as an innocent while she had tried to cut herself a big chunk of his financial pie, but, for once, justice had prevailed. Dane thought Stuart had to be some kind of a saint for giving the woman a nickel after the way she'd treated him. From what he'd seen, she was nothing but trouble with a capital T.

  And now she was here, in Still Creek, Minnesota, tangled up in the first murder they'd had in thirty-three years. Christ.

  “Sheriff”—Kaufman cleared his throat nervously as he led her up by the elbow—“this is Miss—er, Mrs.—um—”

  Elizabeth took pity on the deputy. When he'd shown up at her house to pick her up, he'd been tongue-tied the instant he'd set eyes on her. He looked at her now with a shy, lovesick kind of smile, his eyes shining like a spaniel's. Men, she thought, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She offered her hand to the sheriff. “Elizabeth Stuart, Sheriff Jantzen. I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you, but the circumstances aren't exactly ideal, now, are they?”

  Her voice was dark and sultry, Dane thought, warm, a little rough. Smoke and heat. Satin and sex.

  She stared up at him with gray eyes fringed by thick black lashes. The spotlight behind her backlit her wild black mane like a holy aura and made her skin look so pale that her mouth stood out like a cherry in the snow. A tiny scar hooked downward from the left corner, tempting a man to trace it with the tip of his finger or the tip of his tongue.

  Damn, he thought, no wonder Brock Stuart had fallen for her. He let his gaze wash down over the rest of Elizabeth Stuart with insulting insolence.

  A Nikon camera hung on a thick leather strap around her neck, the weight of it pressing her oversize turquoise T-shirt to her full breasts. The jeans she wore were tight and faded. A small waist was accented by a tooled leather belt and a big silver buckle depicting a barrel racer. Gently flared hips met long, long legs. The jeans were tucked into a pair of slightly battered, obviously expensive black cowboy boots that rose nearly to her knees.

  “Have you about looked your fill, Sheriff?” Elizabeth drawled sarcastically.

  She'd been ogled plenty in her thirty-four years, but it had never unnerved her quite as much as it was doing now. She put it down to the circumstances and stubbornly dismissed the fact that Sheriff Jantzen was a prime example of the male of the species. He had what she called the “lean and hungry look”—a tough athleticism, a certain predatory animal magnetism that radiated from the hard planes of his face and the angular lines of his body, and charged the air around him. He didn't much look the part of a sheriff in his pleated tan Dockers and lavender polo shirt, but there was no mistaking the air of authority. Uniform or no, he was the man in charge, the dominant male.

  He lifted his gaze to hers and gave her a long, level stare that told her nothing she could say would embarrass him into behaving if he didn't want to. He had eyes like those of an Arctic wolf—cool blue and keenly watchful. They were set deep beneath a straight brow line that only enhanced his predatory expression. She had the disconcerting feeling that he could see right past her shield of bravado, that he could see clear into her soul if he wanted to. That made him one dangerous man.

  “What time did you find the body?” he asked, his voice at once loud enough for her to hear clearly but quiet enough so his words wouldn't reach beyond the deputies.

  “I—I don't know,” she stammered. “I wasn't wearing a watch.”

  She could have added that her Rolex was reposing in a pawnshop in Atlanta, but she doubted the man in front of her would have cared. He didn't strike her as the sympathetic sort. His face could have been carved from stone for all the emotion it showed.

  “We figure it must have been about eight-thirty,” Deputy Kaufman said, recovering from the speechlessness Elizabeth had inspired in him.

  “That was more than two hours ago,” Dane said sharply.

  Kaufman rushed to the lady's defense. “She had to get a buggy ride from the Hauers' to her place to use the phone. You know how Aaron Hauer is about getting involved with outsiders. I don't imagine he hurried any. And then we had to wait for you. . . .” The deputy's explanation trailed off pathetically as his boss fixed him with a steely glare.

  Dane turned that same look on Elizabeth. “Did you see who killed him?”

  “No. I didn't see anybody, except . . .” Her voice faded away as her gaze flicked toward Jarvis. She rubbed a hand across her mouth.

  “He was like that when you found him?”

  “No. He was inside the car. I opened the door to talk to him and he—”

  She pressed her lips together and gagged down the lump of fear and revulsion that clogged her throat. She couldn't stop the tremor that rattled through her body or the image that flashed through her head—Jarvis falling dead at her feet. On her feet, to be precise. His head had landed smack on her toes. The blood from his wound had colored her feet so that she hadn't been able to distinguish her skin from the straps of her red sandals. Bile rose in her throat, and she shivered again.

  “So he looked just like this when you left here?” Jantzen asked, all business, no compassion.

  She forced herself to glance again at the dead man, expecting to see his glassy eyes staring at her in surprised disbelief, but all that met her gaze was a helmet of oily red hair. “No. That's not how he looked.”

  Dane turned to his chief deputy. “Who moved the body?” he demanded in a tone that did not invite confession.

  Kaufman shuffled his feet on the gravel and cracked his knuckles. “Jeez, Dane, you didn't see him,” he mumbled. “We couldn't leave him that way; it wasn't decent.”

  “Decent?” Dane questioned, his voice deadly calm.

  The deputy swallowed hard. “We just turned him over, is all. Hell, it wasn't as if the killer had left him right there.”

  Dane arched a brow, his temper in grave danger of boiling over. His voice grew even softer. “No? How do we know that, Mark?”

  Kaufman closed his eyes, wincing. All his explanations stuck in his throat.

  Dane turned on his heel and started to walk back toward the Lincoln.

  Elizabeth's mouth dropped open as Jantzen's words sank in. Furious, she bolted forward.

  “Just what do you mean by that crack?” she said, impulsively grabbing hold of his arm as she caught up with him.

  He looked down at her with disdain, his gaze lingering on her hand, pale and perfectly manicured against his tan skin. Elizabeth felt a shudder of awareness shake her. As casually as she could manage, she removed her hand from his arm and took a half-step away from him. The word “dangerous” drifted through her mind again. She lifted her chin and matched him regal look for regal look.

  “Are you implying I had something to do with Jarvis's death?”

  “I'm inferring that you may not be telling us the truth,” he said. “We won't know for certain until we question you.”

  Anger flashed in her eyes like quicksilver, and she took a deep breath, obviously intending to tell him just what she thought of him and his theory. Dane casually turned away and motioned for Kenny Spencer to join them. He smiled a nasty smile as he heard the woman behin
d him choke on her rebuttal. He doubted she had much experience with men turning their backs on her. It gave him tremendous satisfaction to think he might have been the first.

  “Kenny, take Ms. Stuart back to the station and wait for me there in my office.”

  “Yes, sir.” The young deputy turned toward Elizabeth expectantly. “Ma'am?”

  Elizabeth ignored him. She wheeled on Dane, grabbing his arm again as he started to walk away from her. “Are you arresting me, Sheriff?”

  “Not at the moment.”

  “Then I should be able to come in on my own, later,” she argued. “I heard you called in the boys from the state crime lab. I'd like to stay and see them in action. I do have a job to do here, you know.”

  “I don't give a rat's ass about your job.”

  “You have no right—”

  “I have every right, Mrs. Stuart.” He leaned over her, trying to intimidate her with his height and his scowl. “You're a witness in a murder investigation.”

  “I'm also a member of the press.”

  “I'll try not to hold that against you.”

  Thinking of her struggling new business, Elizabeth swung an arm in the direction of the small crowd waiting at the perimeter of the area that had been cordoned off by the deputies. “I have as much right to stay here as the rest of them.”

  She didn't like the idea of making money off a man's death, but then, that was the news. Nothing on God's green earth was going to bring Jarrold Jarvis back to life, but Jarrold could still help her pay her bills and put food on the table for herself and her son. She wasn't going to let Dane Jantzen take that chance away from her without a fight.

  Dane flicked a glance at the reporters and photographers who were waiting like hyenas at the site of a lion's kill. They watched for the opportunity to break past the deputies and snatch a juicy tidbit for their papers or news programs. They listened for every scrap of information they could catch. He could single out the ones who had come down from Minneapolis and St. Paul. They had a certain look—hungry, aggressive, clever. Their eyes gleamed with the same kind of excitement Ann Markham's had at the prospect of fast, hard sex. The others, from the smaller stations and papers in Rochester, Austin, and Winona, would be less assertive but no less persistent in their quest for dirt. That was the pecking order of the press. As far as Dane was concerned, none of them had any right to be here. A man had been killed. It was a tragedy, not a photo opportunity.

  Without looking at Elizabeth he gave a curt nod toward the nearest cruiser. “Take her, Kenny.”

  “No!” Elizabeth whispered furiously, no more eager to be overheard by her colleagues than Dane was. She leaned up toward him until they were nearly nose to nose. “I found him—”

  “Finders keepers?” Dane snorted, his eyes narrowing in derision. God, she was a cold-blooded bitch, eager to make a nickel off a man any way she could. It didn't even seem to matter to her whether the poor bastard was alive or dead.

  He thought of the men she had loved and left, of the way she had tried to milk gold from Brock Stuart. He thought of Tricia trading him in for a younger, more ambitious man and the L.A. press lapping up the story like greedy cats at spilled cream. The reins on his temper slipped a little farther through his hands.

  “You think you deserve an exclusive, Mrs. Stuart?” His mouth twisted into a grim smile. “Fine.”

  Elizabeth gasped as his hand closed around her upper arm. He set off once again toward the body, this time towing her in his wake as though she were a child's pull toy. He stopped, kneeling beside Jarvis and jerking her down with him so violently that she had to let go of her camera and grab the open car door with her free hand to keep from falling on Jarvis. The camera bounced hard off her sternum and the gravel of the drive dug into her knees as she settled with a grunt beside the body.

  “You want an exclusive, Mrs. Stuart?” He reached down and rolled the body over without looking at it, his gaze riveted to Elizabeth's face. “Here's a Kodak moment for you, Liz. Snap a few shots for the old scrapbook while you're at it. Be sure to get that charming smile—the one below his second chin.”

  Tears welled in Elizabeth's eyes as she relived the horror of what she had discovered two long hours before. She choked them back with an effort and glared at Dane Jantzen, in that moment hating him about as much as she hated anything. “Jesus Christ, you're a bastard,” she spat out.

  “Don't you forget it, honey.” He rose, pulling her up with him, and turned to hand her over to Spencer, but Kenny had inadvertently gotten an eyeful of Jarvis and was leaning on the trunk of the Lincoln throwing up on his boots.

  “Ellstrom!” Dane barked at the deputy, who stood staring blankly down at the body. “Take Mrs. Stuart to the station and make her comfortable. She'll be giving us a statement later on.”

  Ellstrom pulled his gaze away from Jarvis. A worry line creased up between his brows. “But the lab guys—”

  “Will muddle through without your expert supervision,” Dane said dryly, handling Elizabeth over by the elbow.

  “I'll give you a statement all right, Sheriff.” She jerked her arm free of Ellstrom's clammy grasp and took an aggressive step toward Jantzen. A particularly insulting and vulgar suggestion sprang to mind, but she couldn't get the words past her tongue as she stared up at him. The expression in his eyes was too mocking, too amused. He would undoubtedly laugh at her if she lost control and smirk at her if she backed down. It was a no-win situation. The thing she longed to do most was kick him, but she didn't need to add assaulting an officer to everything else that had gone wrong today.

  “At a loss for words, Mrs. Stuart?” he asked, arching a brow.

  “No,” she snarled through clenched teeth. “I just can't seem to find one bad enough to call you.”

  “There's a thesaurus on my desk. Feel free to use it.”

  “Don't tempt me, sugar,” she said as she took a step back toward the waiting deputy. “What I'd like to do with it wouldn't exactly be good for the binding.”

  Dane chuckled in spite of the fact that he disliked her. She had a lot of sass . . . and a backside that could make a man's palms sweat, he observed as she sauntered away with Ellstrom. She moved like sin. And the way she filled out a pair of jeans was enough to make Levi Strauss rise from the dead.

  It was too damn bad she was nothing but trouble.

  FOUR

  BOYD ELLSTROM PILOTED THE CRUISER DOWN THE drive, away from the resort and the swarm of reporters that had attempted to descend on the car. That son of a bitch Jantzen would grab what glory he could with the press, but Boyd was the one escorting the star witness away from the crime scene. More than one camera had captured that on film and videotape. He made a mental note to get as many copies of the photos as he could. They would come in handy when the next election rolled around.

  Yessirree, the way he saw it, nothing but good could come from old Jarrold biting the big one. Dying was probably the only thing the old fart had ever done that would benefit others more than it did himself. Jarrold wasn't going to get anything out of it but a chance to rot in the ground. Boyd, on the other hand, was looking at a much rosier future—provided he found a certain IOU before anyone else stumbled onto it.

  The idea of that damned note floating around had his bowels twisting like a snake in its death throes. He wished for a Tums.

  Jarvis had always kept to himself the names of the people who owed him money and favors. As much as he had enjoyed publicly lording it over other people, he had gotten off just as much on the feeling of playing God, manipulating with unseen hands, giving and taking at will. He had kept all the damning evidence hidden away somewhere, producing it like an evil magician when he wanted to apply a little pressure—as he had with Boyd earlier that day.

  The fat toad had been walking around town all day with that damned note in his pants pocket. Boyd Ellstrom: $18,700. He'd slipped it out and set it on the table at the Coffee Cup just that morning while pretending to hunt for change for a tip. Boyd had
just about died at the sight. For the minute and a half that slip of paper had lain on the table, in plain sight of half the town, he had seen his whole cursed life pass before his eyes and swirl right down the toilet. If anyone in Still Creek got wind of him owing Jarvis—or, more important, why he owed Jarvis—he could just bend over and kiss his political ass good-bye. Jarvis had merely smiled at him over the rim of his coffee cup, the pig.

  Well, he'd died like a pig too, hadn't he? Boyd thought. Like a pig at the slaughterhouse. Poetic justice, that's what that was.

  Elizabeth studied the deputy from the corner of her eye, not liking what she could see of his face in the light from the dashboard instruments. He kind of favored Fred Flintstone with his big square head and droopy shoulders. He had the look of a bully about him, the kind of man who sought out positions of authority to give him a sense of power over other people.

  She had learned early on in her life to be a quick and shrewd judge of character. It had been essential to her survival as she'd come of age around Bardette, a dusty, hopeless place where the honky-tonk and whorehouse were the only thriving businesses and most of the men were meaner than the rattlesnakes that coiled behind every rock. She had learned to size up a man at glance. Deputy Ellstrom fit into the same category as Jarrold Jarvis had.

  The image of Dane Jantzen filled her head in Technicolor memory—handsome, predatory, churlish. What category did he fit into? One all his own, she thought, doing her best to ignore the disturbing shift of feelings inside her—heat and uneasiness, wariness and anger. The last thing she needed right now was to run afoul of a man like Dane Jantzen.

  She had come to Still Creek to start her life over, to build up a business and her self-respect and her relationship with her son. They hadn't been here three weeks and she was embroiled in a murder investigation and on the bad side of the sheriff. Pure damn wonderful.

  “Did you know him?” she said abruptly, needing to break the silence and her train of thought.