So About the Money (2 page)

Holly closed her eyes and hitched the blanket around her shoulders. If she wasn’t so freaked out about Marcy, being around this many cops would make her skin crawl. The small hairs on her neck kept lifting, as if they were little antennae, searching for a threat.
 

Stop it
. Not all cops were like Frank Phalen.
 

Rubbing first her neck and then her temples, she hoped to somehow escape the whole nightmare. Instead, her thoughts returned to the twined hearts, the winking stone.
 

The empty eye sockets.
 

Dear God, Marcy’s dead.
 

“Ms. Price?”

“Holly?” Alex’s voice—the tone said it wasn’t the first time he’d called her name.
 

“Think she’s in shock?” Alex asked the deputy.

She straightened her spine and transferred her attention to the brown-uniformed man who was studying her with equal measures of concern and irritation. Just because she’d thrown up and cried while she and Alex were waiting for the police—including Officer Brown Uniform—to show up, there was no reason to treat her like she was made of glass.
 

“I’m fine.”

A gust of wind swirled off the river. She pulled the blanket closer and shivered.
 

Brown Uniform tugged his hat lower on his head. “Let’s give her a few more minutes.”
 

He turned back to Alex. “How is it you were so deep into that bog?”

Alex pushed his hands into his pockets. “Normally, I wouldn’t go back there. You know how it is. Can’t get a clear shot if you flush something, and it’s a bitch to find anything if you do. I clipped a rooster. It ran. I didn’t want to leave it wounded, so when Duke caught a line on it, I followed him. It never occurred to me to tell Holly to wait up top.”

Both men turned a look on her that said she wasn’t very bright.
 

“You told me to stay with you,” she said, irritated at their discussing her as if she were an inanimate object. Alex’s possessive tone and Brown Uniform’s speculative expression made her madder.
 

They ignored her.
 

“Tell me one more time, how’d you find that body?” The deputy drew Alex away.

His words unleashed the memory of the bloated, bird-pecked corpse. Holly’s stomach cramped.
How could this happen to you, Marcy?
 

Part of her kept playing the dumb what-if game. What if she hadn’t tripped and spooked the bird? What if the pheasant hadn’t tried to fly away? The circular thoughts were pointless. She and Alex might not have found the body, but Marcy would still be dead.

Desperate for distraction, she focused on the activity around her. Men and dogs trailed across the causeway. They straggled through a field in the direction of the bluff and the bog beyond it. Others clumped in twos and threes, doing whatever men did.
 

Another man, one who wasn’t wearing a uniform, strolled across the parking lot and stopped beside her. She stifled a groan. For the past two hours, assorted law enforcement types had asked her numerous questions—the same questions.
 

The game warden introduced himself. “Now, Ms. Price.” His voice was as raspy and weather-roughened as his face. “I’m mostly out here checking on hunters, making sure they’re using the right ammunition, keeping the poachers honest, that sort of thing, but seeing as how this young woman’s body showed up in my game management area, I have a few questions.”

The shrewd expression in his eyes said he was smarter than he sounded. The deference the other cops showed him made her wary of the good ol’ boy routine.
 

He hitched his Carhartts, resettled his gear, and then pulled out a small leather notebook and pen. “Tell me, how well did you know this young woman?”

“Is it really Marcy?”

“I heard tell you said it was Ms. Ramirez. Now why would you think a thing like that?”

“I think it is. I mean, she’s missing—she’s been missing since Tuesday—and she always wore a double-heart necklace…”

“That necklace the victim’s wearing, I heard you recognized it.”

“Marcy wore one like that. I thought it was beautiful.” A flash of Marcy fingering the hearts, a dreamy expression on her face, shot through Holly’s mind and tears again filled her eyes.

If the warden noticed, he didn’t mention her reaction. “Seems like a spendy piece of jewelry, not a trinket you’d pick up at the department store. You know where she got it?”

Holly blinked back the tears and shook her head.
 

“A gift?” he asked.

“Maybe. If it was, I don’t know who gave it to her.”
 

He tapped his pen against his pad. “You say she was missing. How’d you know she didn’t just go off with her boyfriend?”

Holly raised her hands in an I-don’t-know gesture. “Her sister reported it on Wednesday. I figured they were in a position to know.”

Another Blazer with a set of rooftop lights rattled past the news vehicles on the state highway and continued down the narrow road into the crowded parking lot. The men parted, then repositioned themselves in its wake.
 

The game warden glanced at the vehicle. “That’s the Franklin County detective who’ll be handling this investigation for me. I need to speak with him. Now you just hold still a minute.”

He crossed the parking lot toward the Blazer.
 

The driver’s door opened and a tall, dark-haired man emerged. The street clothes set him apart from the assorted cops, but the aura of authority surrounding him was already turning heads.
 

“Oh, crap,” Holly muttered.
 

And she’d thought this day couldn’t get any worse.

A detective’s shield winked in the sunlight as the newcomer reached into his truck and pulled out a heavy coat. Uniformed men converged on him. The deputies shuffled around, reorienting themselves in some obscure male pecking order, undoubtedly ready to update him on the investigation.
 

It was official. This was the worst day of her life.

Marcy was dead.

She and Alex were apparently suspects.

And her ex-fiancé was the lead investigator.

Chapter Two

No, no, no,
echoed through Holly’s head.
 

Her ex-fiancé, JC Dimitrak, hitched the coat over his shoulders and turned his attention to the surrounding officers.
 

Alex moved next to her. “Another one?”

She edged around Alex, positioning him between JC and her. At least the detective hadn’t seen her yet. She couldn’t deal with JC right now. She’d hoped to
never
deal with him again.
 

She’d managed to avoid him the entire five months she’d been back in Richland—something that had taken more effort than she’d expected in a town of fifty thousand. Why did he have to be in charge of this investigation?

Alex dropped an arm around her. “How’re you holding up?”
 

She had enough in her head with Marcy. Thank God Alex didn’t know about JC. The only thing worse than dealing with them separately was handling them together.
“I’ve had better days.”

“You and me both. This isn’t exactly our normal routine.” Alex gestured at the crowded parking lot and then looked in the direction of the hidden bog.
 

“Are they sure it’s Marcy?” Her dead friend might not be her first choice for conversation topics, but talking about Marcy beat obsessing about JC and whatever he was planning, thinking, or saying. Holly scrubbed her hands over her face. That sounded horrible, but JC’s presence screwed up her ability to think straight about
anything
.
 

“They haven’t told me jack.” Discouragement flattened Alex’s voice. “They just keep asking questions.”
 

“I know the feeling. Think they’re nearly finished?”
 

“God, I hope so. I don’t know how many more times and ways I can say, ‘I don’t know who killed her.’ ”

“Can we leave?” The other police officers had her information. Maybe talking to JC wasn’t
really
necessary.
 

Alex shrugged. “They have their processes. Cops never struck me as particularly flexible people.”

A gust of wind eddied around them and she shivered.
 

“You cold?” He tightened his arm.

“I’m freezing.” She scooted closer to Alex. He definitely had redeeming qualities. Right now, they included shoulders wide enough to block both the wind and JC’s line of sight.

“I’ll be glad when they’re done.” The strain of the past hours showed in the gray tinge under his olive complexion. Lines pinched the corners of his eyes and mouth, and the bleak expression was one she’d never seen before. He’d known Marcy longer than she had, so her death would hit him hard. And clearly the officers had hammered him with tougher questions than the ones they’d asked her.

Men’s voices carried across the narrow parking lot. Mostly she caught words and phrases, but after all this time she could still pick out JC’s deep, rumbly voice.
 

Finally the cops’ conversation seemed to wind down. “The couple who found the body is right over here,” the game warden said.
 

Here it comes
. She resisted the urge to peek around Alex’s shoulder.
 

“Alejandro Montoya and Holly Price,” the warden continued.

“Who?” JC asked.

She braced herself and stepped forward. Hands clenched, she met the detective’s hard-eyed scowl.
 

“So they found the body?” JC spoke to the game warden but his eyes never left hers. “Anyone check to see if it still had a heart?”

“Real mature.” Heat flooded her cheeks as the insult slapped her. “You had to say something. You couldn’t just let it go.”

Six years vanished and all the hurt and anger of their last confrontation lay between them. Everyone froze, as if wondering how to back away without losing a body part. Then a couple of officers stepped forward.
 

Looking to protect JC or her?

“I take it you two have met.”

Alex’s voice. She startled. Intent on JC, she’d forgotten Alex was there.
 

Damn
. Think he picked up on that little detail?
 

Eyes narrowed, Alex’s gaze swung from her to JC.

She struggled to keep the turmoil twisting her stomach out of her words. “That’s JC Dimitrak. I
thought
I knew him, once upon a time. I found out the hard way I didn’t.”

JC held his ground, studying her. After a beat, his attention transferred to Alex and she saw the same cool scrutiny in his expression. She’d have given a lot to know what he was thinking.
 

She examined the hard planes of his face. Then again, maybe she didn’t want to know.
 

“This is hardly the place to discuss ancient history.” JC’s voice was as frigid as his little black heart.
 

You started it
, she wanted to sputter. But she wasn’t going to act like a two-year-old. Or like she cared what JC thought. Or…or…

“You’re the last person I expected to see out here,” he said.
 

His comment covered multiple levels. He hadn’t expected to see her at a murder scene. At a game management area. In Richland, at all.
 

She lifted her chin and hoped her voice matched his icy tone. “How would
you
know where I’d be or what I like to do?”

His gaze drifted down her body, his expression considering, with a trace of smug.
 

Her face grew warmer. Okay. There were things he’d known she liked.
 

She crossed her arms. “My being here’s a temporary arrangement.”

Alex’s face grew stonier with each barbed exchange. “Are we under arrest?” he asked the detective.