“It isn’t ready. I’m meeting one of the medical examiners at one-thirty to discuss it.” Opening the bag, Jason lifted out two burgers and a cardboard cup of dinner-sized French fries.
Charlie turned to face Jason dead-on. “Which medical examiner?”
“You know which one.” Digging for the ketchup packets, Jason avoided his friend’s gaze.
“Ah,” Charlie said. “Dr. St. Clair. And when you meet her, you will treat her gently?”
“Yeah, yeah. Like she was made of porcelain.” His inclination to do just that still annoyed him.
“I’ve never met her, myself but I’ve heard she is very beautiful.” Charlie grinned. “You should get to know her.”
Get to know her. Yeah, that was exactly what he’d felt the urge to do. Get to know her in every way a man could know a woman. But there had been more. An urge to fold his arms around her and hold her gently until the fear left those gorgeous eyes.
Jason shoved a burger at his partner. “And you should quit meddling and eat your lunch. You need to keep up your strength so you can handle the Campanero scene again this afternoon.”
Charlie’s grin drooped into a scowl. “You mean so we can handle the Campanero scene again.”
“Well, since I have this meeting…”
“With Dr. St. Clair.” Still scowling, Charlie began to unwrap his cheeseburger. “All right. I’ll check the scene alone. But I expect a real dinner from you tonight. Lobster.”
“Lobster? Listen, I don’t make any more money than you—”
“You owe me for not telling the chief how you plan to spend your afternoon while I cover the case he gave us this morning.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “Not that you would tell him.”
Charlie placed a hand over his heart and tried to look innocent. “Of course not. But if he should ask… Well, you know how I feel about lying.”
“All right.” Unhappy, Jason unwrapped his own burger. “Lobster.”
Charlie lifted off his top bun and rearranged the pickles and tomato. “Now, tell me. What did you think about Dr. St. Clair? Are her eyes really as blue as Brian told me?”
Jason rolled his eyes. He was never going to hear the end of this.
* * * * *
Emma stirred the straw in her water glass and watched the restaurant door. She was tempted to leave before Detective MacKenzie arrived. Not only had she heard enough about his reputation from Skitch and Marta but he reminded her of her hit-and-run…of Brian’s death.
Not a great impression to make on a woman, she thought, then sat up straight as the bell above the front door jingled.
Despite the warnings of her friends, Emma’s pulse raced when the detective’s golden-brown eyes locked with hers. She knew that her reaction had nothing to do with her case. It had to do with broad shoulders, a sensuous mouth, panther-like grace and every other cliché used to describe romance novel heroes.
Forbidden fruit, she thought and wished that her friends hadn’t pointed out his attractiveness or his reputation. Not that she hadn’t noticed it on her own. But being newly divorced, she had no interest in starting to date yet.
Grabbing another breadstick, she began to crumble it onto a small plate and tried not to stare as he approached her table.
“Sorry I’m late.” He pulled out the chair next to hers. His long body seemed to fold into it. Scuffed Tony Lama boots and frayed jeans hugged legs that stretched to one side of the table instead of disappearing under it. He looked completely at ease and utterly male and his body gave off a heat that she couldn’t totally blame on the summer sun.
Uh-oh, she thought.
“Charlie was having trouble with a new computer system we have at the station,” he said. “I had to help him out.”
Emma tried to focus on his words instead of the mouth they came out of. “Charlie?”
“Charlie Garcia. My partner.” One side of that attractive mouth curled upward, cruelly defeating her efforts to ignore his sensuality. He gestured toward the mess she’d made. “You shouldn’t waste those. They make great breadcrumbs for Chicken Parmesan.”
That fraction of a smile doubled her heartbeat. She tried to blame it on the half-glass of wine Marta had forced on her but deep inside she knew it was more than that. It was him. This man was big trouble.
“You cook?” she asked, searching for any topic that might distract her suddenly and inconveniently awakening libido.
“I’ve been known to.” He looked up at the waitress who appeared beside him.
“What can I get you, sir?” The young lady’s smile hinted that she’d like to offer something that wasn’t on the menu but the man seemed unaware of his affect on her.
“Just coffee, thanks. You want anything, Dr. St. Clair?”
“Um, no.” Still off balance by the bombardment of strange sensations, she quickly reached for her water glass. “I’m fine.”
He leaned his elbows on the table as the waitress went to fill his order. “You can’t beat Rodolpho’s coffee, can you?”
With less than three feet separating them, Emma couldn’t help noticing the gold flecks in his brown eyes. They burned against the deep walnut-brown background of each iris like a flame in a fireplace. She could almost feel their warmth reaching out to her.
Marta and Skitch had a lot to answer for, she decided and focused on the crumbs on the table. “It’s very good.”
“Much better than what we get at the station. That stuff tastes like they scooped the water out of the bay and then forgot to use a filter when they brewed the coffee.”
“Trinity Bay isn’t all that dirty.”
“I don’t like to drink any more of it than I have to.”
His remark had her looking up in surprise. “How often do you drink water out of Trinity Bay?”
“Only when I swim in it.” Humor set those gold flecks to sparking. “I have a small house on the shore and I try to do a few laps every morning.”
The thought of waking up every day to the sigh of the sea touched her with a sense of peace that she hadn’t felt in a long time. “You must love it there.”
He opened his mouth to answer but then a shadow swept over his eyes. Sadness. Pain. Emma wasn’t sure which. Maybe both.
The waitress returned at that moment with his coffee and both of them sat silently until the young woman left. Then, grabbing a packet of artificial sweetener, Jason tore it open.
“Did you finish the autopsy on Amalia Campanero?” he asked, abruptly abandoning the small talk.
“Yes but the lab tests aren’t finished.” Edgy at the reminder of the morning’s incident, Emma shifted in her seat.
Jason stirred the sweetener into his coffee. “You want to talk about what happened?”
“It was pretty routine,” she lied. “We didn’t find anything that was obviously unusual in a shooting victim.”
“I’m talking about what happened to you.” The volume of his voice dropped, giving it a caring tone and his gaze locked with hers. Locked and penetrated. “You looked pretty shaken up this morning.”
Emma tried to hold his gaze but couldn’t when it seemed to reach into the most secretive depths of her body and stir sensations she barely recognized. She looked down at her hands. Neither could she tell him that she’d had a hallucination any more than she could tell Marta. He was a cop. Besides, her personal problems were none of his business.
He continued to stir his coffee, the spoon clinking against the cup. “I never saw anyone as pale as you who was able to stay on her feet.”
“After being away from work for so long, I wasn’t used to standing for long periods of time. I just got a little dizzy.”
“It was barely ten o’clock in the morning. You told me you’d just gotten started.”
The slight question in his tone, the pause as he waited for her response, drew her eyes upward again.
He tilted his head to one side and studied her face. “And now, just talking about it, you look pale again. That woman
you saw—”
“I’m fine, Detective MacKenzie.” The corners of her mouth quivered with the effort as she forced a smile. “Really.”
“Call me Jason.” He stopped stirring his coffee as his gaze continued to roam over her face. “And I’ll call you Emma.”
She blushed hotly as his attention settled on her mouth. His lips took another slight curve upward. Skitch and Marta were right. This man could charm the feathers off a bird.
Not this bird, she decided and sat up straighter. “Have you learned anything more about what happened to me and Brian? Do you know who was driving the car that hit us?”
“No.” His eyes hardened. “Charlie and I checked out every body shop in Clear Harbor but there have been no suspicious repair jobs since that night. We’ve talked to restaurant staff and customers but so far we’ve got zip.”
He’s a man who doesn’t like to lose, Emma realized as his brow creased. He’s more like Alan than even Skitch and Marta realize.
Jason pulled his legs under the table and sat straighter too. “Tell me your version of what happened that evening.”
“There isn’t much to tell. Brian and I were leaving the restaurant after dinner. We’d just stepped off the curb and the next thing I knew, I—I woke up in the hospital.”
He picked up his coffee cup. “You didn’t see anything? No car? Maybe other witnesses?”
Emma shook her head.
Jason considered her over the rim of his cup. “You and Brian were good friends?”
“Yes. You knew him well too, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” He sipped his coffee. When he spoke again, the sadness in his tone surprised her. “He started with the ME’s office about the same time I made detective. We worked several cases together and got to know each other pretty well.”
“He might have mentioned you once or twice.”
“Only once or twice? Well, I shouldn’t be surprised. Brian always was jealous of my natural charm.” He allowed himself a fuller smile.
To Emma, that smile was like the flare of a match in a deep cave. The sudden heat made her miserable. And annoyed. She hadn’t been divorced long enough for his smile to do that to her.
To her relief, he frowned suddenly, as if he hadn’t meant to smile at all. “There were traces of blue automotive paint on his clothes but it was a common shade. Not enough to tell us what kind of car hit him.”
“I know,” she said, sitting up straighter, determined to control her reaction to him. “I read his autopsy report and the report from the crime lab.”
Jason’s frown deepened. “That had to be unpleasant.”
“I wanted to see if there were any clues there.”
“No useful ones from what I read. Not from the accident scene either.” His jaw tensed. “Like the clues at the Campanero crime scene. You said you don’t have your lab results yet but did you find out anything from her autopsy?”
Emma’s stomach clenched as an image of the dead woman swept into her mind again. Carefully, she answered, “She died as the result of a gunshot wound to the face.”
“That was obvious from the photos. What else?”
“Her wound was not self-inflicted.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“Like what?” Emma’s temper flared as the stress of the day, of this conversation, of his very presence got to her. “Was there anything unusual in the way she died? Not beyond the fact that she was murdered. Was she drunk or drugged? No. That much I could tell by the condition of the one eye she had left. Were there any obvious signs of rape? No. Did she—”
“I get it.” He raised both hands in the air. “You found nothing that will help us catch the guy who killed her.”
“That’s right.” Her ribs began to ache as her stomach tightened but her outburst wasn’t spent. “And I can offer nothing to help you find who killed Brian. I guess I’m about as useless as you are, Detective.”
Guilt tore through her as pain flashed in his eyes. In the heat of the moment, she’d forgotten that Brian had been his friend too. Beneath the hard, assessing cop’s stare, something almost vulnerable peered at her. For an instant, Emma believed that other urge inside her. The urge to help him.
She twisted her fingers together in her lap. “I didn’t mean to say that. I want to help you, really. I believe it was an accident but I want to know who hit us. I want to know why Brian is dead and I’m…not.”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry too.”
The last of Emma’s anger dissolved as she watched his fingers sift his thick dark hair. The strands gleamed in the light, moving like silk over his rough fingers.
Confused by her shifting emotions, she looked down at the tangle of her own fingers clenched in her lap. “Do you have any suspects in mind? On Ms. Campanero, I mean.”
“No.” He lowered his hand to the table. “She came from Mexico when she was a little girl. Her parents died about twenty years ago and she never married.”
Emma thought of the words her strange vision had spoken. “What about siblings? Maybe she had a brother…or a sister,” she quickly added.
“Why would you think that?”
Looking up, she found him watching her again and his regard made her uncomfortable. She half feared he could read her mind and knew exactly why she’d made the suggestion.
Muscle tensed over her ribs. “I guess I just wish she had someone to mourn her. It’s sad that she died alone.”
“She wasn’t alone,” Jason said. “Her killer was there.”
“Yes. Well. I hope you find out who it was.”
“Don’t worry.” He tilted his head and studied her more closely. “It may take me a while to solve a case but I usually find out everything I want to know.”
* * * * *
Ten minutes later, Jason sat alone, staring into his coffee. He wondered why he’d lied. I usually find out everything I want to know. He damn well couldn’t seem to find out anything lately.
He shook off his moodiness and thought about Emma. She didn’t look like the woman he’d seen in the emergency room two months ago. Blood-matted and gravel-littered hanks of hair had become a gleaming auburn mass. Her bruises had faded and her eyes…his lower body tightened every time he thought about her haunted eyes.
He shifted in his seat. He didn’t need a distraction like that. Pushing away his coffee cup—along with thoughts of her—he stood up.
“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.”
Jason looked at the newcomer leaning on the chair Emma had recently vacated. Guilt nipped him. “Maggie. How’s it goin’?”
“Goin’ good, Jason.”
Maggie Richardson managed a small movie theater he’d once frequented. They had dated a few times but not exclusively. Maggie hadn’t liked that even though he’d told her up front that he was just looking for a good time. When his sister died and he stopped asking Maggie out, she’d reacted with spite. Tyrone had caught her about to pour sugar into the gas tank of Jason’s Mustang and arrested her for vandalism. Jason had dropped the charges but she’d hated both men ever since. After that Jason became more particular about the women he allowed into his life.
Disdain twisted Maggie’s lips as she hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “That your latest little chickie?”
Jason didn’t want to resent the insult to Emma but he did.
“The lady,” he said slowly, “is a doctor.”
“Oh. You got a medical problem?” Maggie lifted an eyebrow as her gaze went to his crotch. “Stud?”
Jason drew a couple of bills out of his jeans’ pocket and dropped them on the table. “I have to go.”
Putting away his wallet, he headed for the door. Feeling Maggie’s glare between his shoulder blades, he experienced a powerful urge to watch his back. And to drive his Mustang straight to a garage for a thorough check-up.
* * * * *
Sitting on the edge of her bed that night, Emma thought about Amalia Campanero
…the unscathed Amalia who had appeared in the autopsy suite as a shadowy figure. Emma wondered if she would ever be able to shake that eerie image. Perhaps if the old woman’s murder was solved…
Grabbing a tube of gardenia-scented body lotion off her nightstand, she drew her legs up on the blue gingham quilt and went to work on her scarred left shin. Jason MacKenzie would figure out the Campanero case. He seemed determined to solve not only that case but her own hit-and-run as well.
Massaging the lotion into her skin, she thought about the look she’d seen in his eyes this afternoon. It hurt him deeply that he couldn’t find Brian’s killer. She wanted to ease his hurt but she didn’t understand why. She shouldn’t feel anything personal for him. And in light of the warnings she’d received from Skitch and Marta, she’d be wise to forget him.
But he had stirred a restlessness in her that she couldn’t deny and forgetting him would be difficult. Especially when he had seemed interested in her too.
But his appeal and reputation weren’t all that made her resist her unexpected attraction. She feared the emotional risk of losing herself in another strong man like her ex-husband. Independence felt good and she had no intention of losing it just because a pair of dark brown eyes could heat her—
“That’s enough thinking about Jason MacKenzie,” she muttered, putting aside the lotion and sliding under her quilt.
She reached for the switch on the bedside lamp. Sudden unease stopped her from turning it off and her gaze shifted from the pool of lamplight to the darkness beyond it. Shadows lurked in the bedroom doorway. Silent, watchful shadows. Still more darkness crouched between an old pine armoire and the Bentwood rocker that had once belonged to her grandmother. Focusing her gaze on that rocking chair, she half expected it to move.
This is nuts, she thought, huffing out a breath. That woman today was a figment of my imagination. No ghost is going to appear in my bedroom.
She reached out to snap off the lamp and then leaned back on her pillows and closed her eyes to the darkness. Immediately, in her mind, she saw the face of Amalia Campanero.
Final Words Page 5
