“Stay out of your way,” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly.
“Maybe I should go sit in your aunt’s café and order coffee and just wait there and twiddle my thumbs until you’ve solved Garth’s crime spree on your own.”
She locked her eyes to his and licked her lips. Her heart was beating so hard he could feel it; her cheeks flushed and her dark eyes danced. And damned if he wasn’t tempted to take her here and now.
“Sounds like a good plan to me,” she said, probably not nearly as toughly and heartlessly as she’d intended.
He slipped his hand beneath her skirt and raked his palm up her bare inner thigh. She didn’t tell him to stop. More importantly, she didn’t look as if she wanted him to stop. “We can work together or we can work separately,” he said, “but I’m not going to sit around and twiddle my thumbs and wait for something to happen.” He ran his palm down the other thigh, taking his time, enjoying the feel of her skin in his hand. “Where’s the gun?”
“In the glove box. Did you think I’d walk into the bank with a loaded pistol strapped to my thigh?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you.” He checked her thighs again, both of them, brushing his fingers along the smooth skin that trembled.
“It’s, uh, nice of you to try to help and all, but I really don’t need…” Sadie began.
Truman raked his thumb across the thin slip of silk between her thighs. “I know what you need, Sadie Mae. But that’s not what we’re talking about right now, is it?”
She shook her head slowly, and even though she very well could have…she didn’t move. He watched her get completely lost and distracted and carried away by a well-placed stroke of his thumb.
“You’re better off without me,” she whispered.
“Don’t I have a say in that decision?”
“No,” she said with a telling tremor. “You don’t.”
He slipped one finger inside the panties and touched her. Sadie was hot and wet and trembling, and while she said with conviction that she didn’t need him, she sure enough wanted him. He felt the wanting in her body and saw it in her eyes. He was close enough for her to know that she wasn’t the only one affected, here. His arousal pressed against her hip.
He stroked her, and she closed her eyes. Her thighs parted slightly, making it easier for him to touch her. “It’ll be safer for you…” she said half-heartedly.
“I don’t care about safe.”
“But everything you need…everything you want…” Breathless and quivering, she arched her body against his and laid her hands on his hips.
“I don’t recall you asking me what I want. As for what I need…” He took her hand and guided it to the erection that strained his jeans.
“That just…it doesn’t mean…I don’t want you to…”
“I’m not going to turn my back on you, Sadie.”
Her eyes snapped opened and she looked squarely at him, in that fearless way she had.
“We’re in this together, whether you like it or not.” He stroked her harder, and the fire in her eyes changed.
She rested her forehead on his shoulder. “I don’t want to drag you down with me.”
“I don’t need a woman to protect me.”
“I know that,” she whispered.
“Do you? Really?”
He shoved the narrow slip of silk aside and thrust one finger into her, then another. Sadie came quickly, clenching around his fingers and stifling a cry by catching it in her throat. Her body shook, and he wrapped an arm around her to hold her up. Damned if she didn’t feel like she was about to drop to the ground, boneless and quivering.
She lifted her head slowly. Her eyes drifted open and she stared at him, unafraid and unashamed. Her dark eyes were so deep, he could easily get lost in them.
“You don’t play fair,” she accused.
“I play to win.”
Her face was flushed, her eyes glazed. She had looked at him this way Friday night and Saturday morning, well-loved and sated and intoxicated. “Do you believe me when I tell you that I only want what’s best for you?”
“Yeah. That doesn’t mean I think you know what’s best for me.”
She leaned into him and let her body rest against his. “Even if I tell you to go away, you’re going to keep investigating the murders, aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“You’re not going to give up.”
“Never.”
Sadie lifted her face and looked into his eyes, and he saw something new in her. Surrender.
“In that case, we might as well do this thing together.”
This section of the park by Miranda Lake, a short walk from the parking spot where she and Truman had slept Tuesday night, was thickly wooded. Hikers occasionally came through on the weekends or during the summer, but it wasn’t as heavily traveled as the walking trails or the docks. It was usually a pretty place, especially in the autumn when the leaves had turned, but today it had taken on a sinister and disquieting air.
“Davenport was the most recent murder,” Sadie argued. “It makes sense to start with him.”
Truman disagreed. “Everything goes back to Hearn. We have to consider the possibility that Davenport was only killed in order to point another finger at you.”
The crime scene where Jason’s body had been found was cordoned off and guarded by a sheriff’s deputy and someone—not Evans—from the ABI, so she and Truman couldn’t get any closer. Not that they needed to. Someone had called Davenport, lured him out here and beaten him to death. And—oh yeah—they had pretended to be her.
“Well, we’re here now,” she said reasonably. “Let’s just deal with one thing at a time. You know everyone around here. Who hated Jason enough to kill him?”
“He annoyed a lot of people,” Truman said. “Killing mad? I can’t think of one.”
“We know it was a woman.”
“Or a man who can impersonate a woman’s voice or has a woman working with him.”
“You’re not helping.”
She had to keep Truman busy with Davenport’s murder. Lillian would be crushed if word got out that she’d been Aidan Hearn’s mistress up until a few months ago. If they got to a point where Truman had to be told, she’d tell him. Until then she was going to steer him elsewhere.
“Maybe someone was hoping the value of their wooden fish would go up if he was dead,” Sadie offered dryly.
Truman snorted. He’d seen Jason’s “artwork.”
Her body still trembled, even though it had been hours since Truman had slipped his hand under her skirt and all but blown the top off her head. Instead of being satisfied, she wanted more. Tonight, when everything was done, would she be able to say goodnight at the door? Would she be smart enough to remind herself that he was better off without her?
Sex was easy; anyone could do sex. It was Truman’s assurance that he wasn’t going away that made her light-headed, when she let herself think about it.
While they studied the crime scene from a distance he placed his hand at the small of her back, and every feminine alarm she had went off and up.
Shoot, she might as well pack her suitcase and move into his room, because she was not going to turn her back on him again.
“What about the friend he was with when the call came?”
“Bradley Johnson.”
Sadie wrinkled her nose. “I remember him from high school.” His father had spent more time in jail than out, and his mother had been married three or four times, with numerous boyfriends in between. Bradley had never been quite right. “He’s the witness? They’re taking his word over mine? I’m insulted all over again.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“Will he talk to us, do you think?”
Truman glanced down at her, and he smiled. Lillian was right—there was fire in him, and it burned brighter now than it had when she’d first seen him, sitting in the booth drinking coffee and watching the sun come up.
“I think Bradley will talk to you,” he said. “He had a huge crush on you, back in high school.”
“He did?”
Truman nodded.
“Ewww.”
They didn’t cross the crime-scene tape, of course, but there was nothing to stop them from walking through the rest of the park and doing their best to see what they could find. The deputy and the ABI investigator eyed them suspiciously from time to time, but there was nothing they could do to keep Sadie and Truman from walking the perimeter of the tape. When they’d arrived at the park a television cameraman from Birmingham and a couple of newspaper reporters had been on the scene, trying—without success—to get their questions answered. Earlier in the day there had been a few gawkers, but they had gone home, bored that there was nothing gruesome left to see.
Now she and Truman were the only civilians prowling about.
Even from here, she could see the place where Davenport’s body had fallen. The blood on fallen leaves and uneven ground had turned dark, but that was clearly visible, too.
“He was a jerk,” she said softly.
“Yep.”
“Back in high school, now…a real jerk.”
“I won’t argue with you on that one.”
She grabbed Truman’s hand and held on tight. It was nice—the warmth and the closeness and the way he threaded his fingers through hers. “I never actually slept with him, you know. He dumped me because I wouldn’t, not because I did. Again, a complete jerk. But he didn’t deserve to die like this.”
“No one does.”
“We can’t let the killer get away with this.” She wasn’t a do-gooder, she wasn’t a crusader. She was good at her job and she was well-paid, but it was a job, not a calling.
But two people in Garth were dead, and if she knew nothing else she knew that it shouldn’t have happened here.
Truman lifted her hand and kissed it. “We won’t.”
“I don’t think I should be talking to you two,” Bradley said with a shake of his head.
Sadie batted her lashes, and Truman almost laughed. He had never seen her play the damsel in distress. She did it well. The red sweater that hugged her curves didn’t hurt matters any.
“I just don’t know where else to turn,” she said softly, turning up her Southern accent to a new level. “Why, some people actually think I called Jason to…to lure him out, and then I killed him. What am I to do?”
Bradley backed up and invited them into his trailer, which was located on an isolated lot not far from the park where Jason’s body had been found. The rusting trailer was surrounded by pine trees and untended brush and the occasional squirrel.
“Maybe you’d better come on in and sit down,” Bradley said, his eyes dropping down very briefly to study and appreciate Sadie’s chest.
Sadie gave him a smile. “Thank you so much. I do feel like I need to sit a spell.”
Bradley moved a stack of newspapers and made a place for a distraught Sadie to sit on the orange and brown plaid sofa, and she lowered herself gracefully.
Like Jason, Bradley had let his hair grow long. Like Jason, he did not have a great head of hair for such a hairstyle. While his greasy locks were much paler than Jason’s had been, they were just as thin and unkempt. Where Davenport had been chunky, Bradley had the thin, gaunt look of a drug user, though his eyes were clear and he didn’t seem to be under the influence of anything illegal at the moment.
The poor guy was under the influence of Sadie. Bradley looked at the woman who was perched on his couch like she was an ice cream cone and it was a hot summer day. He plopped himself down in the vinyl chair that faced her. Truman remained standing, apparently forgotten.
She straightened her skirt, in a girlish and obviously flirtatious way. “Thank you for seeing us, Bradley. I just don’t know where else to turn. I didn’t call Jason Friday night, I swear. Whoever called, it must’ve been someone pretending to be me.”
Or else Bradley was lying and he knew darn well someone else had called. That was a possibility they weren’t ready to throw at him.
“I suppose. I didn’t actually hear her, except for real faint in the background, you know. I could kinda tell from the voice that it was a woman. Jason told me it was you and that you’d had a change of heart and wanted to meet him down by the lake to…you know.”
No heart was involved, of that Truman was certain. Bradley was scum, and he didn’t like the creep even looking at Sadie. He wanted to grab the man by his ratty collar, push him against the wall, and threaten to shoot him if he didn’t tell the truth. But he didn’t. For now he kept his mouth shut and stood back to watch Sadie work.
“I was sound asleep when that call was made,” Sadie said softly. “I swear it. I would never, ever hurt a living soul.”
Bradley’s eyes cut to Truman, briefly. No doubt he had heard where Sadie had been sleeping. Just as well. Truman wanted everyone to know that Sadie had been claimed. By him. He was willing to give Sadie room to work, but if Bradley made one wrong move Truman was ready and willing to cut the sucker off at the knees.
“Who would want to frame me that way?” Sadie asked, wide-eyed and pretty and almost innocent.
“Coulda just been somebody who knew y’all had had a date that went bad.”
Sadie raised a hand to her chest. “You mean, I might’ve been a convenient diversion? A…a patsy for someone who wanted Jason dead?”
Bradley nodded his head. “I’m afraid that could be the case.”
Sadie said, with a completely straight face, “I still don’t understand why anyone would want to murder a respected artist.”
Bradley, who had one of the atrocious wooden fish sculptures hanging in his trailer—it was red and purple and yellow, and the eyes were oddly humanoid—apparently held the same opinion of Davenport’s art that Sadie and Truman did. He curled his lip, momentarily. “Jason had a hard time paying the bills with his art, so on occasion he picked up odd jobs.”
“What kinds of odd jobs?” Sadie asked.
“Oh, you know…he picked up work here and there, when he needed to. For a while he worked at the grocery store, but they wanted him to cut his hair so he quit.”
“I certainly can’t see a motive for murder there, Bradley.”
The smitten man leaned forward slightly and lowered his voice. “Well, I really shouldn’t say, but the truth of the matter is, Jason dabbled in illegal drugs, on occasion.”
Dabbled. Made it sound like a hobby.
“Jason Davenport?” Sadie said, apparently horrified. “Drugs?”
“Hard to believe, I know.” Bradley shook his head. “I told Jason all along, I just don’t cotton to that sort of business.”
Yeah, Bradley was a real upstanding citizen.
“Do you think one of Jason’s drug associates murdered him?” Sadie asked, a hand held to her chest in—again—horror.
“I suppose it’s possible.” Bradley was so intent on impressing Sadie. How much would he tell before he realized he’d gone too far?
“Could you possibly give us the names of these horrible people?” Sadie asked. “I mean, I know you’re not at all involved, but if you ever heard Jason mention their names…”
“Nope,” Bradley snapped, and Truman saw something in the man shut down. “I never heard a name or a detail or anything.” They’d gotten all they were going to get, for today, but Bradley maintained his interest in Sadie. “Would you like something cool to drink? You look a bit peaked.”
Truman reached out his hand, and Sadie took it. “Come on, sweetheart. It’s time to go.”
She turned those dark eyes up to him, all innocence and soft amusement. “Whatever you say, honeybun.”
Bradley stood as Sadie did. “I know y’all are just looking for the truth, but I’d be obliged if you’d keep my name out of it. If anybody realizes that I knew Jason was into drugs and such, I could be in a heap of trouble. I surely don’t want to end up in his sorry shoes.”
“I won’t tell
a soul how helpful you were,” Sadie promised. She turned her face up to Truman and…heaven above…batted her lashes. “We’ll keep it our little secret, won’t we, sugar lips?”
“Absolutely, darlin’.”
Bradley locked the door behind his departing guests, and neither of them said a word until they’d climbed into the truck and Truman had started the engine. Then he turned to Sadie.
“Sugar lips?”
She wore a wide grin. A grin that told him she liked this sort of thing. The playacting, the danger…the rush. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
She was teasing, but he was deadly serious. “You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”
“Done what?”
“Pretended to be someone you’re not to get what you want. Batted your eyelashes at a man to get him to tell you something he shouldn’t.” Called your backup sugar lips.
“A few times. Believe it or not, a man will very often let a secret slip to a woman when he’s completely shut down to a man. A smile, a flutter of lashes, maybe a heaving bosom or two…”
“I don’t like it,” Truman said as he pulled onto the gravel drive that would take them back to the road.
“What do you mean, you don’t like it?” Her smile was wide, and there was a touch of laughter in her voice.
He didn’t feel much like laughing. There were so many things about the picture Sadie painted that he didn’t like. How was a man supposed to protect a woman who didn’t want to be protected? “It’s not safe.”
After a moment she answered, deadly serious. “I don’t have a safe job, Truman. You know that.”
His hands gripped the steering wheel. “I know that very well. That doesn’t mean I have to…”
His sentence was interrupted by a loud noise and the shattering of the truck’s windshield. He swerved off the gravel road, and Sadie reached beneath her skirt and came up with a pistol in her hand.
Truly, Madly, Dangerously Page 15
