Tangled Threat ; Suspicious

by Heather Graham

  She took his hand, staring into his eyes.

  Next to him, Jesse heard a deep sigh of relief. He glanced at the woman standing by him, Harry’s new nurse. Despite himself, he felt a little electric tremor.

  Nature, simple biology, kicking in.

  She was probably one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen.

  Harry had a habit of finding pretty girls. Strange that a fat old man who owned an alligator farm could convince any young woman to come work in the middle of a swamp. Not that Harry was a lecher; he was as faithful as could be to Mathilda, his equally round and cheerful wife of thirty-odd years. But he did like attractive young people, and he had managed to fill the place with them, so this new nurse shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise. Still, Jesse felt himself pause, as he hadn’t in a very long time, staring at her.

  Maybe it was just the day he’d had so far.

  She looked back at him gravely, studying him with the same intensity as he had studied her. Then she looked down, biting her lower lip, embarrassed. In a moment she looked up again, straightening her shoulders and inclining her head, an acknowledgment that he had defused an uncomfortable situation. Her eyes were a dark-rimmed light hazel, startling against the classical, pure cream perfection of her face. Her hair was like a halo of crowning glory; she looked almost fragile in her blond beauty, yet he sensed that there was a lot of substance to her, as well.

  He felt the warmth of the older woman’s hand and, with a start, looked back to the gray-haired visitor—his current objective. He gave himself a little shake, surprised that Harry’s new nurse had so impressed him, and continued to talk to the older woman. “It’s okay. We’re going to get you home. Except you’re going to have to give us a bit of a hand to do that,” he continued. “I’m Jesse Crane, a police officer out here. I’d like—”

  “Oh!” the woman cried. “So now you’re going to arrest me for telling the truth about these monsters and the horrible people purposely breeding them.”

  “No, ma’am, I just want to get you home and make sure you’re going to be all right.”

  “Oh, like hell. You’re just trying to shut me up!”

  Jesse smiled at her. He couldn’t help it. She was a tough old broad. She might be going over the edge, but she was going with passion and style.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Theresa Manning.”

  “How do you do, Mrs. Manning? You’re free to call the newspapers, or buy a banner ad and have a plane drag it through the sky. We guarantee freedom of speech in this country. But you’re hot and miserable, and if you lost a friend to an alligator, this is not a good place for you to be. Let me take you home.”

  Theresa Manning hesitated, then sighed deeply.

  “Where is your home?” he prodded.

  “The Redlands.”

  “All right.” He glanced at his watch. It was important to him that he meet Lars to go to the airport and pick up Julie Hernandez. “Let’s go. Let me take you home now.”

  She nodded, looking at him. But as she rose, she suddenly gripped the nurse’s hand.

  “You, too. Please.”

  “But, Mrs. Manning—” the nurse protested.

  “Please,” Theresa Manning insisted.

  “Go with her,” Harry said softly to the nurse.

  “Harry, I won’t be able to bring her back for a while,” Jesse said.

  “Oh, please,” Theresa Manning said, starting to grow hysterical again.

  “Lorena, just go with him. When you get back, you get back!” Harry said impatiently.

  Lorena’s startling eyes fixed on Jesse’s, and she said, “All right. If Mrs. Manning wants me with her, I’ll be with her, and whatever you have to do, Officer, I’ll wait until you’re able to get me back. Shall we go?”

  Jesse lifted his hands in surrender. He almost smiled. Maybe she felt this was her way of getting back at him for what had happened yesterday.

  Fine. If she wanted to wind up involved in a murder investigation and not get back until the wee hours of the morning, so be it.

  “Yeah. Sure. Let’s go,” he said flatly. “Mrs. Manning?” He smiled, taking the older woman’s arm. She actually smiled back.

  He let Lorena follow behind as he escorted Theresa Manning from the office to his car.

  Damn, this was one hell of a day.

  Chapter Four

  Lorena sat in the back of the car, while Theresa Manning sat in the front with Jesse Crane.

  She felt somewhat useless being there, but the woman had been insistent. And though Lorena felt a twinge of guilt, aware that she had been eager to come not so much to help out—which she certainly was willing to do—but because she wanted the time with Jesse Crane.

  As Sally had pointed out, the man was something special. But that wasn’t why she was interested in him.

  Despite the heavy traffic, he drove smoothly and adeptly. They left the Trail and headed south. He kept up a casual stream of conversation with Mrs. Manning, pointing out birds, asking about her home and family. By the time they neared her neighborhood, she seemed relaxed, even apologetic. Jesse told her not to be sorry, then suggested that she not take any more tours in the Everglades for a while.

  At her house, she asked them in. Jesse very respectfully declined, but he gave her a card, telling her to call him if she needed him.

  When they got back in the car, Lorena told him, “That was impressive.”

  He shrugged. “The woman isn’t a maniac, just really upset. And maybe feeling that kind of rage we all do when something horrible has happened and we’re powerless to change it.” He glanced at his watch, then at her. “Sorry, I have to get to the airport, and it’s not going to be pleasant.”

  “I told you...whatever you need to do...do it. I’ll hang in the background,” Lorena said.

  He nodded, and after a few minutes she realized that he was heading for the turnpike. He glanced over at her, a curious smile tugging at his lips. “What brought you to our neck of the woods?” he asked her.

  She shrugged, looking out the window. Then she looked at him sharply. “Well, I thought you’d already figured that out. I was racing out to one of the resorts. A spa. To be pampered.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find time to slip out and hit some of the prime places,” he said dryly.

  “Really?” she murmured.

  He couldn’t resist a taunting smile. “You do your own hair and nails?” he asked.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she told him.

  He shook his head. “You don’t look the type,” he said.

  “You have to look a type to work out here?”

  “You’ll burn like a tomato in a matter of minutes,” he warned her.

  “They do make sunscreen,” she returned.

  “So... I repeat, what are you doing out here?”

  “The job at Harry’s,” she said simply.

  “There are nursing jobs all over the state. And most of them not in the Everglades.”

  She gazed over at him, surprised to realize that she was telling the truth when she said, “I like it out here.”

  “You’re fond of mosquitoes the size of hippos and reptiles that grunt through the night?”

  “I think the sunsets out here are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. As to the alligators...well, they’re just part of the environment, really. The birds are glorious. And the pay’s exceptional.”

  “I see. Well, it’s still a lonely existence.”

  It was her turn to smile. “Okay, so it may take an hour to get anywhere, but...it’s a straight shot east to Miami and a straight shot west to Naples. Not so bad.”

  “I guess not. But in bad weather, you can be stuck out here and feel as if you’re living in the Twilight Zone.”

  “You came back out here to work,” she said so
ftly.

  There was silence for a minute. “This is home for me,” he said.

  “It’s not so far off from home for me,” she said.

  “It’s pretty far.”

  She glanced at him sharply.

  “Jacksonville. I took your license, remember? And now that I know you were flying like a bat out of hell to reach Harry’s, I’m more stunned than ever.”

  “I was starting a new job,” she said defensively. “And however far it might be, I am from this state.” Great. Now he was curious. What if he decided to investigate her?

  She noticed that they had left the turnpike and were following the signs for the airport. He glanced at her again. “I’m meeting with a Metro-Dade detective. We’re meeting a detective named Lars Garcia and picking up an old friend of mine.” He hesitated just slightly. “That’s why I didn’t want you along. It’s not going to be pleasant. Julie’s parents were murdered last night.”

  “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry.”

  “I warned you.”

  “What happened?”

  “They were shot,” he said flatly.

  She decided not to ask any questions for the next few minutes. He’d obviously been deeply affected by the murders.

  They parked at the airport. Jesse knew where he was going and walked quickly. Lorena followed him. Outside the North Terminal, he walked over to a man in a plain suit, a man with light brown hair and green eyes, but dark brows and lashes. Even before she was introduced, Lorena knew that this was Lars Garcia.

  She felt the keen assessment he gave her. Part of his job, she imagined. Summing people up quickly.

  “So you’re working out at Harry’s?” he murmured.

  She didn’t have time to answer.

  “There she is,” Jesse said softly, spotting his old friend, Julie.

  “I’ll go,” Lars Garcia offered.

  But Jesse shook his head.

  He left Lars and Lorena, and walked toward the dark-haired, exotic-looking Latin beauty who was coming their way. She was wearing glasses, apparently to hide the redness in her eyes, which was apparent when she saw Jesse and took them off. Then she dropped the overnight bag she’d been carrying and went into his arms, sobbing.

  Lorena looked down, feeling like an intruder. “It’s all right,” Lars Garcia said softly.

  She looked up at him.

  “They’re just good friends.”

  Lorena felt her cheeks flush hotly. “No, no, don’t get the wrong impression. I’m just here...by accident, really. I barely know Officer Crane.”

  Lars Garcia continued to assess her as Jesse, an arm around Julie, led her to where Lorena and Lars stood waiting.

  “Julie, this is Detective Lars Garcia. He’s in charge of the case,” Jesse said. “And this is... Lorena. Lars, Lorena, Julie Hernandez.”

  Julie offered Lorena a teary, distraught but somehow still warm smile.

  “Julie, I’m so sorry,” Lorena murmured, feeling totally inadequate and wrenched by the girl’s pain. She could all too easily remember the feelings of agony, frustration and fury, and always the question of why?

  And after that, the who?

  And now?

  And now the gut-deep fury and determination that the truth would be known.

  “Thank you.” Julie looked at her for a long moment, as if sensing Lorena’s sincerity. Then she turned to Garcia. “Whoever did this...why? My parents never hurt a soul in their entire lives.”

  “We’re going to find out why,” Lars vowed softly. “We need your help, though. We need anything you can give us.”

  Julie visibly toughened then, summoning her anger and determination from deep within, her inner reserves rising over the natural agony she was feeling. “I was just telling Jesse... I have no idea. They had no enemies. But I promise you, I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  “Are you up to coming to the station with me now?” Lars asked. “It can wait, if you’d rather.”

  “No. No, I’ll go now,” Julie said, and swallowed. She looked at Jesse. “Jesse...?”

  “Call me when you’re done.”

  She nodded, trying to smile.

  Lars took Julie’s arm and cast a grateful glance over her dark head at Jesse.

  The two walked off.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lorena said. She had never met the couple, but the sense of loss had seemed to envelop her. Impossible to see Julie and not feel it. She felt horrible, like an intruder, again. “I...wish there were something I could say, do.”

  Jesse nodded, then said only, “I can get you back now.”

  The silence, growing awkward between them, lasted as they left the airport, taking the expressway to the Trail, then heading straight down the road that stretched the width of the southern tip of the peninsula.

  They passed homes and developments, and then the casino. After that, houses and businesses became few and far between.

  She was startled when Jesse suddenly said, “Can you give me another half hour?” He turned and looked at her with those startling eyes of his. She wondered if he had decided he didn’t feel quite so much contempt for her, or if he was merely so distracted he’d barely even been aware till then that she was there with him.

  “I...of course. Of course. Harry said it was no problem,” she murmured.

  They pulled off onto something she wasn’t sure she would have categorized as a road. As they proceeded along a winding trail, she realized that they were on farmland.

  A minute later, she saw the crime tape. Jesse Crane pulled off the road.

  “Excuse me. Stay here—I’ll be just a minute,” he said.

  He exited the car, leaving her in the passenger’s seat. Lorena hesitated for the briefest fraction of a second, then followed him.

  She wasn’t about to stay.

  Jesse wasn’t in the area enclosed by the tape. He was standing just outside of it, talking to a uniformed officer and a man in street clothes who had an ease in being there that suggested he was also a cop.

  As she walked up, she could hear the man in street clothes talking. “Yeah, Doc Thiessen has the gator arm...the leg, whatever, that you discovered. I really don’t see how it’s going to help us. The Hernandezes were killed by bullets, not wildlife run amok!” He saw Lorena approaching before Jesse did, and he watched her, curiously and appreciatively, as she walked up to the scene.

  Jesse turned to look at her with annoyance, a serious frown furrowing his brow.

  “I told you to wait in the car,” he said coldly.

  “Hello, ma’am,” the young uniformed officer said.

  “Yes, hello,” the man in plainclothes said. “How do you do? I’m Abe Hershall.”

  “Officer Gene Valley, ma’am,” the uniform said.

  “How do you do?” She shook hands with the tall, slender, dark-eyed man who was obviously a detective, and the uniformed officer. Jesse stood by silently, waiting, not apologizing for his rudeness, and certainly not offering any information about her.

  “I’m working at Harry’s,” she said herself.

  “The new nurse,” Gene Valley said. “Well, welcome to the area.”

  “Thanks,” she said softly.

  “Working for old Harry, huh?” Abe Hershall said, shaking his head ruefully. “Well, good for Harry.”

  “This is a crime scene,” Jesse reminded them all. “Ms. Fortier, now that you’ve met everyone, I believe it’s time for me to get you back.”

  Taking Lorena by an elbow, he steered her forcefully back to the car.

  “I can walk on my own,” she said.

  “I told you to stay in the car.”

  “It’s a million degrees in there.” She looked him in the eye. “Who was that?” she asked. “Abe...is he Lars’s partner?”

  “Yes.”

  He forced her d
eterminedly back into the car. The door slammed. She gritted her teeth.

  “You found a piece of a gator out there?” she asked when he was in the driver’s seat.

  “This is the Everglades. There are lots of alligators, and naturally, some die.” He put the car in gear and started driving, his eyes straight ahead.

  “But you found a piece of one.”

  Jesse slammed on the brakes, turned and stared at her, angry. Whether with her, or with himself, she wasn’t sure. “Look, we found a piece of an alligator, yes. And I’d appreciate it if you would just shut up about it. I’m trying to keep that bit of information out of the press. You see, I’d really like to know if there’s a connection between that and a murder. Damn! This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have brought you out here, and I sure as hell shouldn’t have counted on you staying in the car just because I told you to!”

  Lorena looked straight ahead. “I have no intention of leaking any information,” she said.

  He stared at her. “Really? And should I ask for that as a guarantee, written in stone? After all, I don’t know anything about you.”

  She grated her teeth. “Do I look like someone who would shoot an innocent couple?”

  “No. But you don’t look like someone who’d be working at Harry’s, either,” he said sharply.

  She let out an explosion of exasperation. “I don’t suppose you’d believe I actually like it out here?”

  “Right. Nothing like being a nurse at an alligator farm,” he murmured.

  “Maybe it’s just an easy gig,” she said.

  He didn’t reply. Her heart sank. She had a feeling that he was going to know everything there was to know about her within the next forty-eight hours.

  Maybe she should just tell him.

  Maybe not. He obviously thought of her as some kind of fragile cream puff. Maybe a rich brat playing games. She shouldn’t have brought her own car, she thought, hindsight bringing sudden brilliance.

  If he found out anything about what she was doing, he might well find a way to get her out of Harry’s—fast. Even that evening.