“Or a better shot of getting my butt in a ringer.”
She chose to ignore that last comment. Instead, she pressed on. “Don’t shut me out, Detective, use me. Then, when we find her killer, you’ll be the town’s hero.”
The line was silent for a moment as he seemed to be mulling over his decision. “The town’s hero, you say.” He huffed. “Oh, all right.” His voice lowered and it sounded as if he was cupping his hand around the phone. “She was five-five to five-seven and roughly in her mid-thirties to early forties, but you didn’t hear that from me. That’s all I can give you.”
“I noticed there was something that looked like a necklace in one of the photos I took.”
“You took photos?” He sounded angry. “I knew I shouldn’t have let you stay at the scene.”
“In the end, you’ll be glad you did.” Or at least she hoped he would be. “Getting back to the photo, there was something that looked like a necklace maybe. Do you have any idea what that was?”
“I’ve already said too much.” He hung up.
She got the uneasy feeling that he was hiding something—but what?
Chapter 13
Noon rolled around and she pulled up in front of Antonio’s Italian Ristorante, just a few blocks from The Sweet Spot Café. She recalled having gone there a few times as a teenager—one of those times was on a date with Logan.
When she walked into the quaint restaurant, Michael was already seated at a table in the middle of the room, dressed in a button-down shirt with a tiny blue-and-white check pattern, and his sleeves were rolled up at the cuffs. Each of the tables in the restaurant were covered with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth and an old dripping candle in the center, just as they had been when she was a girl.
He stood and waved her over, exposing his untucked shirt hanging down over his dark blue jeans. His broad grin told he was delighted to see her.
“Hello,” she said, smiling up at him, then glancing around the familiar room. “Waiting long?”
“Not at all.”
They exchanged pleasantries, placed their lunch orders, and chatted while they waited for their food.
The waiter brought their pasta dishes and wished them buon appetito as he left.
“So, tell me, Michael, what have you been doing with yourself since high school?” She pulled a slice of Italian bread from the basket and began buttering it.
“I joined the army, at my dad’s suggestion. He said it would make a man out of me. I guess he thought I was pretty wimpy back then.” Michael stuck a small meatball in his mouth.
“Oh, you were not.”
“Well, yeah, kinda.” He swallowed. “Once I was in, I decided to become a Ranger.”
“That’s pretty grueling training, isn’t it?”
He nodded. “But it certainly did make a man out of me.” He grinned at her, flexing his arms and chest.
She laughed a little. “Yes, it certainly did. I hardly recognized you the other day, the first time you pulled me over. You’re not the Michael I knew in high school.”
“I’m still the same old Michael on the inside, just stronger.”
She smiled at the thought. “So what did you do after the army?”
“So many questions.” The corner of his mouth tugged up into a crooked smile.
“You’re the one who said you wanted to catch up.” Jenessa studied his face, watching as he considered his response. His brown eyes were warm and kind, the color of chocolate, and his angular cheekbones and square jaw exuded a quiet strength. “Besides, I’m an investigative reporter. Questions are my life…so spill.”
“Okay.” He raised both hands in surrender. “After my stint in the army, I went to college back east on my GI bill. That’s where I met Josie, Jake’s mother. We got married when I was a senior and she was a sophomore. She got pregnant right away—which wasn’t the plan—and she ended up dropping out of school when Jake was born. Then, after I graduated, we moved back here. I applied to the police academy and was accepted.” He twirled some spaghetti onto his fork.
“As I recall, your dad was a cop, right?”
He nodded. “Retired now.”
“So, I’m assuming Josie is no longer in the picture.” Jenessa raised her brows to him, wanting to be sensitive to the situation.
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, one, you’re here with me, and also Ramey mentioned something about your being a single dad.”
“Yeah, I am that. Josie hated the small-town life. She wanted the big city and a big career. In college, her major had been drama, so she packed up and left one day, when Jake was two, and moved to Southern California to try her hand at acting.”
“How does a woman just walk away from her marriage and her child?”
“I guess I didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.” Michael’s gaze pensively drifted toward the bank of windows. “It wasn’t all her fault, though. I can be pretty rigid sometimes, and she’s more of a free spirit. I think that’s what attracted me to her.”
“Does she stay in contact?”
“Some. She calls once in a while, sends Jake gifts at Christmas, and comes to see him on his birthdays.”
“That has to be hard,” Jenessa said.
“Especially on Jake.” There was a distinct sadness in his voice.
Was it difficult for Michael too? Although it had been three years since she left, was he still in love with her?
Jenessa became aware of the presence of someone standing beside their table and heard the person clear his throat.
“Hello, Jenessa. Michael.”
She recognized the voice and her back stiffened. She slowly lifted her head. “Logan.”
“Hey, Logan,” Michael said, unaware of the totality of the relationship Logan had had with Jenessa, or the little white lie she had told him earlier that morning.
Logan crossed his arms. “I thought you said you were having lunch with Ramey today.”
“Plans change,” she replied, taking a sip of water, not wanting to make eye contact with him.
“If you didn’t want to have lunch with me, you should have just said so.” The atmosphere became uncomfortably awkward.
Her gaze briefly flew in Logan’s direction, then back down. “You’re right, I should have. I apologize.” She looked across the table at Michael, who appeared confused by the exchange.
“Enjoy your lunch.” Logan turned and marched to a booth at the far back corner of the restaurant.
“Sorry about that,” Jenessa said, glancing down as she straightened the linen napkin on her lap. “I ran into him at The Sweet Spot this morning and he asked me to lunch.” She took another sip of water, then stared at the straw as she stirred it around in the glass. “I really didn’t want to go. Ramey stepped in and rescued me.”
“Whatever happened to the two of you? I remember when I graduated the two of you were going hot and heavy.”
“That’s a good way to put it.” She lifted her gaze and looked Michael in the eye. “I guess you could say my life fell apart after that.”
“Fell apart? What happened?” His eyes were filled with sincere interest.
Jenessa’s gaze darted around, making sure no one was within earshot of her spilling her guts. She leaned forward and lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “I got pregnant that summer.”
Michael leaned toward her and kept his voice low, as well. “By Logan?”
She frowned at him and pulled back, sitting up straight in her chair. “Who else would it be?” Did he think she was sleeping around?
“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. I was just surprised is all.”
“We only did it once.” She crossed her arms on the edge of the table. “I was so naïve at the time, I didn’t think you could get pregnant the very first time you had sex. He was headed off to college and I was very…well, let’s just leave it at that.”
“I’m so sorry, Jen.” He reached across the small table and put his han
d on her crossed arm. “I didn’t know anything about it.”
“Do you think we could get out of here?” she asked. “I hate talking about this with him sitting in the corner over there.”
“Sure, we’ll get some to-go boxes. We can finish our lunch in the park.”
~*~
Crane Park sat in the middle of town, and its tall old trees provided a canopy of shade. It was often the center of local activities, but today it was almost empty. An elderly couple sat at a wooden picnic table, maybe thirty feet away, and a young mother was pushing her little girl on the swings in the playground area.
Sitting side by side at one of the picnic tables, under an imposingly large elm tree, Jenessa and Michael unpacked their boxes from Antonio’s and finished their lunch with plastic utensils.
She went on to explain what happened after she and Logan told their parents about the pregnancy and how she had been sent to live with her grandmother. Michael assured her he had no idea what had happened.
After she’d had the baby, and given up her little boy, she licked her wounds for a while at her grandmother’s house, but Gran wouldn’t let her mope around for long. She urged Jenessa to get on with her life, so she got her GED and went to college at Sacramento State, earning her degree in Journalism.
“I worked for a small newspaper for a couple of years, but then I was hired by a larger newspaper in Sacramento.”
Michael’s attention seemed to be riveted to her story. Dare she venture to delve into her strained relationship with her father and all the pain and misery that entailed?
He made the decision for her. “How did your folks react to your getting pregnant?”
“Mom was very upset of course—disappointed mostly. That wasn’t the life she wanted for me.”
“What about your dad? I know that if I’d gotten a girl pregnant in high school, my father would have tanned my hide, then he would have lectured me every day for the rest of my life.”
“My dad built a wall instead.”
“A wall?” His eyebrows wrinkled into a quizzical expression.
“Like I wasn’t even there. I might as well have been dead to him.” She busied her hands with the paper napkin in her lap, mindlessly folding it into a tiny square. Her eyes were lowered as she spoke. “My father rarely said two words to me. He couldn’t even stand to look at me.”
“You mean at first?”
She raised her tearful gaze to him and threw the folded napkin on the table. “No, I mean until the day he died.”
They sat on the bench, neither saying a word, for a prolonged moment. Then Michael draped an arm around her shoulders. “I am so sorry.”
Jenessa leaned her head against his broad shoulder and felt safe.
After a minute or two of silence, she finally sat up and ran a finger across her cheek to wipe away a tear that had fallen there. “I miss my mom.”
“I remember reading about her car crash when it happened. I was already back in Hidden Valley by then. I assume you were in town for her funeral.”
“Of course, but that was the last time I was here.”
“I can’t even imagine—”
“It was horrible.” Jenessa dabbed at her cheeks with a napkin. “My dad blamed me.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he blame you?”
She explained how Thanksgiving that year had been torturous and she had refused to come home again for Christmas, so her mother drove up to see her. “The wreck happened while she was driving back to Hidden Valley.”
“That’s crazy, it was an accident.”
“Didn’t matter. Dad seemed to blame me for everything after I got pregnant. He liked his world all nice and neat—no drama, no embarrassment. The community’s perception of him was what he cared about most.”
“I didn’t know things had gotten so bad between you.” His voice was deeper than she remembered it, laced with sincere concern. “It’s got to be hard living in your old house again.”
“Lot of memories there—good and bad.” Her gaze fell to her lap again. “At least it’s free rent for now.” She gave a half-hearted laugh.
“How long do you think you’ll stick around?”
She looked up and an impish smile curled on her lips. “You haven’t heard? I got a job at the Hidden Valley Herald. I’m here for a while.”
His eyes lit up at the news, and his face gave away his delight before his words did. “I think that’s great. It’ll be fun to have you back.” Before she knew what was happening, both of his arms were around her and he pulled her into an enthusiastic embrace.
Chapter 14
“Sorry.” As quickly as Michael’s arms surrounded her, they dropped to his sides, like he had done something wrong. She wondered if he had sensed her tense up in his arms and draw back.
“I think I’ve spilled my guts to you enough for one day,” she said, trying to cover for the awkward moment. “What about you? What do you see in your future?”
“Well…I didn’t want to say anything…” He playfully looked around for dramatic effect, pretending he was searching for someone who might overhear. “I don’t want to jinx it, but I’ve applied for the position of Detective. I got through the assessment, and the board review is coming up tomorrow. So, wish me luck.”
It was obvious the move up meant a lot to him. A gleeful smile swept over her face. “I wish you all the luck in the world.”
Jenessa was happy for him, hopeful he would get what he wanted. It sounded like he had experienced his own brand of heartache since they had been high school friends.
She didn’t want to take advantage of Michael, but she couldn’t help but wonder if having a police detective as a good friend might come in handy for her as a reporter. Maybe he’d be more forthcoming than old George Provenza.
~*~
The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Jenessa spent most of her time at Aunt Renee’s, lazing around the pool, swimming and reading, unable to stop thinking about Michael and Logan.
Aunt Renee had taken care of finalizing details for the funeral and the luncheon after. The ladies of the church had offered to put on a buffet for all the friends and family after the service, which Renee gladly accepted.
After dinner with her aunt, her sister, and Ramey, Jenessa received a call from Jack Linear’s cousin. She wouldn’t give her name, but she confirmed the estimated height and age of the victim, reporting that the woman was Caucasian and had given birth to at least one child. One of the members of the lab was trying to reconstruct the face from clay on the skeleton, to get a better idea of what the woman might have looked like. She promised to send a photo to Jenessa when the reconstruction was finished, if she could manage it.
Jenessa asked about the necklace, if it had been with the remains when they reached the lab. The woman confirmed that a chain and locket was there.
“Was there a picture inside?” Jenessa asked, knowing there usually was.
“As a matter of fact, yes—a picture of a little redheaded girl, maybe three or four years old.”
“Would it be possible for you to send me a photo of it?”
“I guess it couldn’t hurt. I’ll snap a picture with my phone while the others are out to lunch tomorrow, then I’ll email it to you. Is that soon enough?”
“Sure.” Jenessa gave the woman her email address and thanked her for the help.
“I know I’m sticking my neck out a bit, but I want to make sure that woman’s killer is found. Too many women just disappear and are never heard from again, and nobody seems to care.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Jenessa said. “You’re doing a heroic thing.”
“I don’t know about that,” the woman replied. “But if this lady had a child, maybe the one in the locket, that little girl deserves to know her mother didn’t abandon her.”
Her words sounded like they were hitting close to home. Was this woman speaking from personal experience?
“You’re absolutely right,” Jenessa agreed. “Oh,
by the way, before I let you go, there was another object I saw near the body when I was at the crime scene. It looked like a button or an earring or something—maybe square with a design of some sort on it.”
“I don’t know anything about that, but I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
~*~
Jenessa spent the next morning puttering around the house, getting reacquainted with her old home. She filled a bowl with high-fiber cereal—not her choice, but it was what her father had left in the cupboard. After pouring a splash of milk on the cereal, she took the first bite, realizing the milk had clearly sat in the refrigerator too long. She dumped the contents of the bowl and went to the fridge to see if there was another carton.
Standing before the open refrigerator, she found none and decided she’d better make a run to the grocery store soon. With no more than a few dollars in her wallet, a half-gallon of milk and a couple of bananas were all she could afford.
That would change soon, though, having already begun her new job. But until she got her first paycheck, she’d have to make do with what was in the house, grateful to have a standing offer for breakfast at The Sweet Spot and dinner at Aunt Renee’s.
A partial loaf of bread on the counter caught her attention. If it didn’t have mold on it, she’d settle for a piece of toast with strawberry jam.
As the toast was browning, she leaned against the counter and thought of Michael, remembering their lunch together and wondering how his board review was going this morning. She had forgotten to ask him if he knew any small-time criminals who could pick the lock on her father’s desk.
She was tempted to phone him right then, but no, she should leave him alone on this important day. Maybe she’d call him tonight and ask how the review went before diving into the subject of someone to pick the lock. Until then, she would eat her toast and begin the long process of going through the kitchen drawers, as well as the dressers and the closet in the master bedroom.
She began looking through her father’s closet first. His highly polished dress shoes were precisely stationed on the lower cedar shelves, and his sweaters were neatly folded and stacked on the upper ones. The aroma of his aftershave still clung to them, and to his business suits.
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