Taming Deputy Harlow

by Jennifer Morey

  She appeared distracted, as though confused over why they had shown up when she hadn’t called for help. And perhaps she was a bit out of sorts with the abruptness of Virgil’s abandonment. She wore a flowing floral robe over her nightgown and it was late afternoon. Had sadness kept her in her pajamas all day?

  “Why did he leave?” Reese asked as Lavinia handed her a steaming cup.

  “He left me a letter.” Lavinia sat on a kitchen table chair and chewed on her thumbnail. “I knew I should have never married him. No wonder I always called for help. He wasn’t who I thought. He lied to me.”

  Could they be so lucky as to get a written confession—at least for the identity theft?

  Jamie pulled out a chair for Reese, who eyed him as though he was too old-fashioned. He didn’t care. He’d do things like that for her until he was old and gray. If she ever let him.

  He also sat down, with Reese closer to Lavinia at the round table.

  “Can we see the letter?” Reese asked. “It might contain evidence.”

  Lavinia frowned. “Evidence?” Then she waved her hand with the roll of her bright blue eyes like beautiful crystals glittering out from their wrinkly nest. “He assumed another man’s identity.”

  Getting up from the chair, she went to a built-in desk in the kitchen and lifted a folded letter. Returning, she placed it in front of Reese.

  “All a crock of lies.” Lavinia sat down. “All this time I believed him when he was hiding who he really was.” She shook her head. “It’s had me locked up in here for days, trying to get my head to figure out how he got away with it for so long.”

  “Many people have a sixth sense,” Jamie said. “You seemed to have picked up that something wasn’t right with him.”

  “Oh, yes I did. In my younger years nobody could pull wool over my eyes. I didn’t live to make others happy. But you get on in age and certain things don’t matter the way they used to.”

  “‘Dear Lavinia,’” Reese began to read. “‘I can find no words to describe how sorry I am to have to tell you this. There is something I have never told you, something I have never told anyone. Long before I met you, I lived in San Diego and met a girl I fell in love with. I was young and anxious to make a lot of money. Back then, I stole things and probably would have followed a lifetime of crime if I hadn’t met you.’” Reese looked up at Lavinia, who’d put her fingers to her mouth and listened. “‘I would have kept this a secret to my grave, and especially to preserve the life we’ve built together. But the police found me. They went to see my sister in Durango and asked me for a DNA sample. I have to assume they’ve made the connection between me and the man I used to be, Darius Richardson. I can’t tell you the rest. It pains me too much. You’ll find out soon enough, I’m guessing. Police will come looking for me and I have to be long gone by the time they do.’”

  “What is he talking about with police? We had our trouble but he sounds as though he’ll be arrested. What for? Stealing an identity?”

  “No,” Jamie said. “Murder.”

  Lavinia inhaled sharply.

  “Darius Richardson is the man who killed Ella Neville, who also assumed a false identity,” Reese said. “The money I found in my house was stolen. Darius Richardson robbed a bank and Ella, who is really Eva Sinclair, drove the getaway car. Eva hid the money but Darius came for her and killed her before she could do anything with it.”

  Lavinia flattened her hand to her heart. “Oh, my Lord, this is much worse than I ever dreamed. I was married to a murderer?” Her eyes rounded and her mouth stayed open in her shock.

  “We’re sorry to have to tell you,” Jamie said. “He’s already been arrested.”

  Lavinia looked stunned. “I wish I would have learned this when I was several years younger. It’s not as though I’ll be able to attract a new man. I’ll be forced to live alone now. Die alone.” She averted her eyes as she stared off, contemplating her fate. “I suppose I could write him while he’s in prison for the rest of his miserable life. I could tell him what an ass he was for lying to me.”

  “You could.” Jamie smiled. The woman had spunk.

  “How did you arrest him?” Lavinia asked.

  “His sister called police and told them where he’d gone. US Marshals picked him up in Tijuana. He was transported back to Colorado and during questioning, confessed to everything.”

  He’d gotten nervous when Reese began investigating Eva’s case, particularly since the man who’d come to town to help her was from such an elite agency. He’d found out who Jamie was and his past, that he’d worked for Aesir International. When he’d seen Stankovich in town, he’d recognized him as the owner of Aesir. He’d approached him after learning Reese had found the money he thought Eva had spent buying the house with Jeffrey. He’d broken into Jeffrey’s house after he killed Eva just to be sure she hadn’t lied. He’d thought she told the truth up until Reese found money hidden in the floorboards. He’d struck a deal with Stankovich, suspecting Eva had hidden the rest of the money somewhere else in the house. He hoped Stankovich would take care of Reese and Jamie before they figured out he was Darius Richardson.

  As to Eva’s and Paula’s murders, he claimed he’d followed Eva to Never Summer because she had stolen his money. When he found out she married another man, he’d lost control of his temper. He’d loved her despite her deception. She’d loved him, too, but he had issues with his temper back then. After she told him all the money had gone “into the house” she’d purchased with Jeffrey, he’d killed her. He was forced to kill Paula because she witnessed him strangle Eva and thought she’d go to the police, even though she kept promising she wouldn’t.

  Darius Richardson’s DNA would match that of the bloodstained fiber and he would go to prison. Case closed.

  * * *

  Jamie opened the door for her at the grange. Reese entered in a skirt and country blouse and boots. A town celebration honoring her achievement had been arranged. She couldn’t have solved the forty-year-old case without her father and Jamie, and wouldn’t have been promoted to assistant sheriff, either. But she couldn’t refuse the town’s kindness. The sheriff had insisted on celebrating.

  Jamie had gone mysteriously quiet since learning she’d be promoted. Of course the news made her happy, but she was still so mixed up about him—what to do about him.

  The podium had been removed in the grange and tables arranged into more of a reception-like configuration. White tablecloths spiffed up the place and someone had added vases. The DJ was where he always was, chewing gum, bobbing his head to A Florida Georgia Line song and tapping the edge of the platform with an old-school pencil.

  Betsy and Horace Milton danced with more exuberance than the only other, much younger, couple swinging it up on the dance floor. In jeans tucked into a pair of cowboy boots and a flannel shirt, Betsy smiled big with sparkling eyes as she kicked out one of her feet. Horace smiled with her, twirling her and bending her back over his arm.

  “I’m going to be like that when I’m their age,” Jamie said.

  “It’s all about movement.” She’d go along with that.

  Catching herself thinking in terms of being with Jamie when she reached that age, Reese turned to scan the gathering crowd. Many residents had shown up. She spotted Candace, whose face lit with a smile. She waved as she approached.

  “Congratulations, Reese!” She hugged her briefly. “You solved the cold case. That’s so awesome!”

  “Thanks. I had help.”

  Candace gave a small swat with her hand. “You’re too humble. Is she always that way?”

  “She’s humble but there are other words that describe her better,” Jamie said.

  “He thinks I’m stubborn.”

  “You two are together now, right? Sheriff said he saw you kissing.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “You going to take our celebrity aw
ay from us now? You live in Wyoming, right? You work for that famous detective. The one who was shot?”

  “Yes, and if I can I’ll seduce Reese into moving there with me.” He turned a challenging but flirtatious look her way. When she lifted her eyebrows in answer to his challenge, he added, “Her father would like her to come and work for him, too.”

  What a well-placed dangling carrot.

  “Oh, how romantic!” Candace put her hand by her mouth and leaned closer to Reese. “I won’t tell the sheriff.”

  “What won’t you tell me?”

  Reese turned to see him approach, mortified that he might think she’d leave her job now that she’d gotten a promotion.

  “I’m trying to steal her away from you,” Jamie said.

  She glared at him in warning but he only grinned and pecked a kiss to her lips.

  “He’s joking,” she said.

  Sheriff Robison took her in for a hug. “You deserve this promotion, Reese. You’re a good detective.”

  “Excuse us.” Jamie took her hand and led her to the dance floor. A slow country Western song had begun.

  “I’m not coercing you. I’m teasing. You need time to decide. I’m going to give that to you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going back to Wyoming tomorrow morning. After this dance, I’ll go to my hotel room.”

  “You’re not even staying for the party?”

  “I’m happy for your achievement but I won’t celebrate something that will take you away from me. You have to decide if I’m worth a change in your lifestyle.”

  She stopped dancing with him. “You’re asking me to leave my hometown.”

  He lowered his arms. “Yes. I am. You have more than me waiting for you in Wyoming.”

  Her father. She had family there, a real family. “You’ll wait for me?”

  “I believe in us, in this, in what we have together.” He touched the side of her face. “I can only hope you come to believe the same.”

  Without the certainty he clearly had, she couldn’t promise him anything. Not only did she have to decide what was best for her and her future, but she also had to be sure if her feelings were strong enough to justify picking up her life and moving it somewhere else. She’d just gotten a big promotion. Would she pass it by for a chance to prove herself at Dark Alley Investigations?

  Chapter 17

  “So you just left her there.”

  “Would you rather I begged?” Jamie stepped outside to the bite of a late February wind, seeing a flashy red Ferrari pull into a parking space at the edge of the sidewalk.

  He and one of the detectives at DAI had decided to go out for lunch at the Spicy Habanero. Jasper Roesch had joined DAI shortly after Kadin had opened the doors to his investigation agency. A big Swiss man with thick blond hair and blue eyes, he had a lumbering gait and a taste for spicy food diametric to his fair heritage.

  “No, but if I met a lady like that, I wouldn’t have given up.” Jasper paused to watch the Ferrari.

  “Who says I’ve given up?”

  Jasper chuckled just as a woman got out of the expensive sports car. “Take a look at that.”

  A leggy dark Spanish beauty rose from the car. Long, wavy black hair framed olive skin and full lips. Her eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses but Jamie bet they were as striking as the rest of her. She looked at them as she shut the car door. Holding a black clutch with glittering stones along the top, she wore a figure-fitting black dress that revealed some cleavage and her legs from midthigh down.

  “Holy mother...” Jasper said in a low voice.

  If Jamie hadn’t already fallen in love with his soul mate, his jaw would have dropped, too. She was Jasper’s polar opposite. Dark where he was light. But they both had the looks to attract each other.

  “Are either one of you Kadin Tandy?” She held a hint of an accent, but must have been raised in the United States.

  “He’s on leave for several weeks,” Jasper said.

  Penny had ordered her husband to take some time off to be with his family. They, including Jamie, hoped that would include Reese very soon.

  “Can I help you?” Jasper asked.

  The woman hesitated, glancing at her car as though contemplating leaving, and looked back at Jasper. Then she began to walk around the car.

  A vehicle slowed while it passed. Jamie turned just as a man lowered the dark windows of a black sedan and stuck out a gun. He fired, and Jasper bolted for the woman while Jamie pulled out his pistol.

  The woman went down. The driver of the sedan sped away as Jamie fired his pistol several times. He thought he saw the silhouette of the passenger slump in his seat, but the driver must have been unharmed. The sedan disappeared from sight.

  “Call 911!” Jasper yelled.

  People from inside stores poured out into the street, several with cell phones to their ears. Someone had already called for help.

  The woman lay on the sidewalk in front of DAI, one leg bent, one arm above her head. Blood began to spread beneath her. She’d been shot in the chest.

  Jasper ripped open her dress to reveal the gunshot wound. He pressed hard against the bloody hole and leaned down to test for breathing.

  Jamie kneeled on the other side of her, taking her pulse. He felt one but it was faint. He looked up for signs of an emergency vehicle. He heard it before he saw it swing around a corner.

  Seconds later, paramedics went to work on the woman. Hooked to an IV, she was placed onto the gurney. Jasper climbed into the ambulance with her.

  After watching the ambulance race away, he grew aware of people asking him questions.

  “What happened?”

  He ignored the woman who asked and went to the Ferrari. The passenger door was locked but he hadn’t seen the woman lock the driver’s side. He went to that door and it opened. He leaned inside and searched for some identification. There was no registration or insurance papers. Jasper had taken her purse with him in the ambulance. He’d have to wait to find out who the woman was. And hopefully she survived to tell them why someone had tried to kill her.

  * * *

  The next day, Reese parked her Jeep in front of DAI. The building looked different than it had the last time she’d been here. She hadn’t noticed its historic architecture and tinted windows. And the size. This was no one-man private investigation agency.

  She got out of her Jeep. No longer in a uniform, she’d opted for a skirt and jacket. The chilly air touched her legs as she approached the building.

  She entered to find a smiling receptionist. “May I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Jamie Knox. Would you tell him Reese Harlow is here to see him?”

  “No need. He said if you showed up to let you in.” She stood and went to the secured doorway, using her badge to release the lock.

  “Thank you.” Reese stepped into the busy work area. Detectives talked on phones and among themselves. Someone laughed. She reached the end of the hall and headed for Jamie’s office. The door was open.

  Her heart drummed a nervous beat. At the door, she slowed as the sight of her lover gave her that familiar electric shock of attraction. She went inside and closed the door, making sure she switched the lock with enough verve that he would hear. He looked up from whatever had him riveted on his computer screen.

  He stared at her, at first blankly and then with heating eyes and an emerging grin of pure satisfaction.

  She laughed lightly, the joy of this moment stimulating her, too. The rightness of it assured her she’d made the right decision.

  She walked fast to him as he got up from his chair. Around his desk, she threw her arms over his shoulders and he lifted her against him as he kissed her.

  “Oh, Jamie,” she breathed against his mouth. “I
was heartbroken from the moment you walked out of the grange.” She planted kisses on his mouth and face. “I’ve been so lonely. So lost without you.” She kissed his mouth longer. Then drew back and put her hands on each side of his face. “I’m not whole without you.”

  He looked into her eyes for a while, obviously basking in the light of their love, as she was.

  “What took you so long?” he asked.

  “I had to be sure. I had a long talk with my mother. My real mother.” Giselle had tentatively talked at first, seeming as unsure as Reese had been up to this point, but soon they opened up.

  “You’ll be seeing her again?”

  “Yes. She helped me to see the right path.”

  His mouth curved. “And here you are.”

  “Here I am.” She laughed lightly again. “And I couldn’t be happier.”

  “Marry me.”

  “Just say when.”

  “After this.” He reached for her skirt and pulled it up.

  “Jamie.” She glanced back at the door. She had locked it...

  “You’re all I’ve been thinking about.” He kissed her as he tugged down her underwear. “I can’t wait to take you home.”

  His fingers brushing her removed any hesitation she had about where they were. With the view of the butte, she unfastened his pants and pushed him down onto the office chair. He held her as she straddled the chair, the arms spreading her legs wide. Hanging onto his shoulders, she eased down on his erection, his strong hands steadying her. Then she moved up and down, slowly at first, then going into a bounce as they ended the drought of having each other.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said.

  “Shoot.”

  “I’ve loved you since that day we spent together, too.”

  He chuckled. “I know, but thanks for telling me.”