Thread of Fear (18 page)

Fiona studied his face—the firm set of his jaw, the hard look in his eyes. He was still fighting it. He didn’t realize the sheriff and his cadre of federal investigators had effectively taken it away from him. Jack had no resources, questionable jurisdiction, and very little manpower. Given the politics and publicity involved, the FBI would probably fast-track all the lab results, which was good, but they didn’t have to hand results over to Jack. Same went for witness interviews and any helpful information that could be gathered from the FBI’s vast computer databases.

Jack was outmatched, but he didn’t seem to know it yet.

“You’re here for Brady,” he said, when the silence had dragged on too long. “You plan to talk to him like that?”

She looked down at her suit and flat beige shoes. “I’ve got some jeans in my car, but I may need to borrow a shirt or something.”

“All right. You should be prepared, though. He doesn’t want to be interviewed.”

“How do you know?”

“The good sheriff already tried talking to him this morning. Brady basically told him to fuck off.”

“He
did
?”

Jack sneered. “Called him a ‘bonehead asswipe,’ I believe it was. Same difference.”

“Well, then. He’s more observant than he lets on.”

But Brady wouldn’t talk to Fiona, either. She spent half an hour with him in Jack’s office, and all she could get out of him was some snide commentary about his gym teacher’s sexual orientation. Finally, she decided to back off. After jotting down her cell phone number in case he suddenly remembered something, she let him leave the police station with his mother. From Jack’s window, she watched the boy stuff the slip of paper into his back pocket, where it would probably stay until it disintegrated in the washing machine.

“No luck?”

She sighed and turned to face Jack. “None. What does your evening look like?”

“Same as always. Work.”

He was a workaholic, just like she was. It should have been a strike against him, but it wasn’t. She tended to trust men with a strong work ethic. Her father had been that way.

She turned back to the window and checked the sky. It
was nearing dusk. Soon the lighting conditions would be similar to those Brady had had up in his tree fort when the killer had dumped the body.

“I want to check something at the crime scene,” she said. “Let’s go for a ride.”

He stared at her for a moment, probably debating whether to try to talk her out of whatever she had in mind. Finally, he pulled out his keys. “Fine, but I’m driving.”

Five minutes later, they were cruising down the road in Jack’s pickup. He was quiet. He seemed to be in a testy mood, and Fiona guessed he was frustrated with both the sheriff and the investigation.

Not to mention her presence here.

But that was too bad. Investigations were a team effort, and he was just going to have to get over himself.

She turned up the heater and got a blast of warm air. “Smells like rotten eggs,” she said, making a face.

“Hydrogen sulfide. Comes from the oil and gas wells. See the pump jacks?”

“It’s awful. How can people stand it?”

“Depends on your perspective,” he said. “Some folks call it the smell of money.”

After a few miles of silence, he pulled onto the shoulder and parked beside some bushes. Fiona glanced around as she climbed out of the truck. The air was chilly and damp. A handful of homes were clustered along a two-lane road where it intersected the highway.

“Over there is the drop site.” Jack pointed out the spot beneath the elm tree where Natalie’s body had been found. Fiona stared at the sad patch of grass for a moment and then turned away.

“Where does Brady live?” she asked, gazing out toward the houses.

“Just over there.” He pointed to one of the small brick homes. “His dad took off a couple years back. His mom has a steady stream of boyfriends in and out.”

Fiona felt a pang in her chest. It always took her off guard like that.

“I don’t think he spends a whole lot of time there.” Jack stopped beside a row of trees and underbrush lining the fence that divided the two properties. He gestured to a giant pecan tree. “There’s the fort.”

She looked up at the tree. High amid the branches was a small wooden platform surrounded on three sides by scraps of weathered plywood. The ladder leading up to it consisted of about a dozen crude boards nailed to the tree trunk. Like many of the other trees nearby, this one was naked of leaves.

“That’s really high up,” she said. “Doesn’t it look cold to you?”

“Yep.”

“I can’t believe he sleeps up there sometimes.”

“Maybe it beats the alternative.”

She felt an old bitterness welling up. “Have you called CPS about this family?”

“They’ve been out. And I’m keeping my eye on things.” Jack’s tone was serious, and he said it like a promise.

Fiona looked at him, wondering if he really knew what to watch for. Did Brady’s mother pass out on the sofa with a lit cigarette dangling from her fingers? Did she ever raise a hand to her son? Did her boyfriends?

Or were some of them a little
too
friendly?

Fiona tromped over to the tree and gripped the first rung of the makeshift ladder. The wood looked old, but solid. It appeared as though Brady had appropriated his building materials from someone’s picket fence.

She started climbing.

“What the hell are you doing?”

She tested her weight on the next rung. “I want to see what Brady saw.”

Jack stood beneath her, hands planted on his hips, as she made her way up. “It’s going to really piss me off if you break your neck up there.”

Fiona finally reached the top and hoisted herself onto the platform. From this vantage point, she had an unobstructed view of the whole pasture as well as a strip of highway and most of the nearby houses. From his fort, Brady would be able to see his mother’s visitors coming and going. He most certainly would have had a good view of the killer dumping the body. The killer’s transportation, though, was another matter.

“It’s hard to see the highway from here,” she reported. “If the guy parked beside those bushes near the road, the car would have been hidden.”

Fiona made her way back down. She had nearly reached the bottom when her foot missed a rung. She lost her balance, and Jack caught her arm and pulled her upright just before she landed on her still-sore tailbone.

“Thanks,” she said, steadying herself.

He stared down at her, and she saw the flare of anger she’d seen at the press conference.

“What?”

He dropped her arm and strode back to the truck.

“Jack?”

He jerked open the passenger’s-side door. “Let’s go.”

She walked to the pickup, determined not to lose her cool like she had down by the lake yesterday. She stopped in front of him. “What is your problem?”

He looked down at her, stone-faced.

“I’m here to help, in case you haven’t noticed. It’s not my fault your sheriff went and alienated the witness.”

“Get in. You’re going to freeze out here.”

She ignored him. “Brady could still come around, you know. In the meantime, you’ll just have to work other leads. What did you find out over at Viper’s place?”

“Get in,” he repeated, “or I’m going to put you in.”

She climbed into the truck and jerked the door closed.

He was so obnoxious sometimes. And controlling, as if he didn’t have to share information with anybody, as if he could do everything on his own. No wonder his biggest case was getting wrestled away from him.

He yanked his door open and swung into the driver’s seat. Then he fired up the truck and pulled onto the highway.

He glanced at her. “You know, I thought I asked you to stay out of all this. Now you’re down here, more involved than ever.”

“This isn’t about you. The FBI asked me to get involved.”

He shook his head and stared through the windshield. She noticed his hands tightening on the steering wheel, and she looked away. Pastures and barbed-wire fences sailed by as they sped down the road.

“My car’s at county headquarters,” she said. “You can drop me off.”

He sent her a smoldering look. His gaze dropped to her chest, and she didn’t know whether he was checking out her breasts or remembering the shirt he’d loaned her.

“If you need your shirt back, I can run into the bathroom and change.”

He faced forward then and muttered something.

“What?”

He swerved onto the shoulder, slammed on the brakes, and shoved the truck into park. Then he lifted her right up out of her seat and hauled her over the console, into his lap. The steering wheel pressed into her back as she stared down at him in shock.

“I’m not dropping you off,” he said. “And I want my shirt back. Now.”

N
ow?”

He kissed her, hard, and the roughness of it sent a sharp thrill through her entire body. His mouth moved down her neck, and he pulled the flannel aside so he could suck on the skin just above her collarbone. A tightening, tingling sensation flooded through her, and while she was distracted by it, he lifted her hips again, expertly shifting them until she was straddling him.

“Jack.”

He fitted her against him, and she heard herself moan at the feel of it. His hands moved up to tangle in her hair, and then he kissed her mouth again, practically inhaling her. She inhaled him right back, wondering how they’d ever gotten their wires so crossed, and then not caring at all because everything felt so good. His hand moved down the front of her shirt—
his
shirt—popping open the buttons.

“Oh my God,
Jack
.”

“Hmm?” He loosened the shirt, and the air chilled her skin. She felt the hot wetness of his mouth through her bra, and she forgot everything except pressing herself as close to him as possible. He pulled the lace away with his thumbs, and her blood started to burn as he nipped at her skin. She
combed her fingers through his short hair, wanting to make him stop and make him keep going at the same time. A car roared past on the highway, and he looked up from her naked breasts.

Their gazes locked, and some diabolical instinct made her rock herself against him. He tipped his head back against the seat and looked pained. “We need a motel room.”

The lust evaporated, and she pulled the sides of his shirt together. The flannel was soft against her bare skin, and she couldn’t believe she was
straddling
this man in his truck.

“What?”

“Nothing.” She tried to look impassive.

“Honey, we can’t do this here. I’m the friggin’ chief of police. I’d never hear the end of it.”

“What about your house?”

He hesitated—just a second too long—and she felt a stab of disappointment.

“The motel’s closer.” He slid his hands up her shoulders, resting them on either side of her neck. “Half a mile, tops.”

She bit her lip and looked down at him. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t want to check into some cheap motel with him and have to nurse a bruised ego when he got dressed and left an hour later.

He cupped the side of her face with his hand. “Does it really matter to you?”

She nodded.

He closed his eyes briefly, sighing. Then he took the two shirttails and tied them together at her belly button. “Stay way the hell over there, then. It’s a ten-minute drive.”

Seven minutes later, he whipped into a gravel driveway in the middle of nowhere. They’d been surrounded by farm
land, and then—inexplicably—there was this little white house.

“You live here?”

He shoved the gearshift into park. “Yep.” He hopped out and came around to her side as she sat there gazing at his home. It was a thirties-era one-story cottage flanked by two enormous oak trees.

He pulled her door open and practically dragged her out of the truck.

“When was this built?” she asked, as he tugged her up the sidewalk. The deck on the front looked new, but the pier-and-beam construction and the age of the trees told her he wasn’t the original owner. He led her by the hand up the stairs and pulled open the screen door, then thrust his key in the lock.

“Is it postwar?”

He shoved the door open and then scooped her off her feet. “Save the history lesson. I want you naked.”

The screen door slammed behind them, and he kicked the wooden one shut. She draped her arms around his neck and rested her cheek against his shirt. He smelled good, like he always smelled. Like Jack. Her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and she realized he was carrying her through a kitchen, then a short corridor, and into a bedroom. With no ceremony whatsoever, he dumped her on the bed and started pulling off his boots. They thudded heavily to the floor, and then she heard the rip of Velcro. He’d been wearing an ankle holster, she saw, as he switched on a lamp and placed his gun on the dresser. His shirt came off next, and she tried not to embarrass herself by saying
oh my God,
but that’s exactly what she was thinking. She propped up on her
elbows to admire his perfectly sculpted chest, and smiled because he was completely at ease in his house and in his body. She toed off her shoes.

Then he knelt beside her on the bed and tugged loose the knot of her shirt. Soon her smile faded as he really got down to business, making her body quiver under the heat of his mouth. No one had ever wanted her like this, and she felt swept away on a tide of need and emotions. This man was strong and insistent and hot for
her,
for some crazy reason, and she couldn’t do anything but feel the craving deep inside her body and the certainty that she was in way over her head.

He pulled the shirt from her arms and stared into her eyes as he slid a big, warm hand around her rib cage to un-hook her bra. He slipped it off and dropped it on the floor. Then he unbuttoned her jeans, and she stiffened.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

He nuzzled her temple and touched her body through the denim. “Don’t tense up on me, now.”

“I’m not.”

But he called her bluff by easing down her zipper and then standing at the end of the bed to pull off her jeans. Next came her panties, and a warm blush spread over her skin as his gaze moved slowly over her body. She gripped the bedspread, trying to calm her nerves as he looked at her with that glint in his eyes.

Suddenly, she couldn’t stand it anymore, and she knelt at the end of the bed and reached for
his
jeans, but he caught her hand. “Not yet,” he said, and kissed her.

She flattened herself against his chest, loving the contrast of his hair against her smooth skin. She felt the hammer of
his heart and realized he wasn’t nearly as calm as he wanted her to think. The knowledge spurred her on, and she pulled him back onto the bed, right on top of her.

“Fiona.”

She wrapped her legs around him, bringing him hard against her. She sank her fingers into his skin and kissed him until her body ached.

“Just hold on.” His voice was strained.

She squeezed. A groan came from deep in his chest, and she felt gloriously empowered. His knuckles brushed against her as he hurried to free himself from his jeans. He reached over her, and she heard a drawer scrape open and the tearing of foil. She waited, on the verge of meltdown, struggling not to bite a hole in her lip. And then he thrust into her, and she cried out at the shock of it.

“Sorry.” He winced. “Just…give me a second.”

She looked up at him, at the desperate need on his face, and she didn’t have a second to give. With every fiber of her body, she pulled him closer. His muscles tensed under her hands, and she felt the wonderful power of him pounding and pounding into her.

“Fiona…”

“
Yes.
”

And in a searing, white-hot moment, it was over.

Jack stared down at her, mortified beyond words. Even the blissed-out expression on her face couldn’t fool him into believing she’d actually enjoyed that. He pushed up from the bed, surprised when she locked her legs around him to keep him from moving. He did the obligatory kiss on the forehead, and she finally let go.

A few moments later, he flopped onto his back beside her and dropped an arm over his eyes with a groan. The mattress shifted next to him as she turned onto her side.

“Fiona.” Shit, what could he say? He opened his eyes and looked at her. A damp curl clung to her neck, and her cheeks were tinged pink. She looked so goddamn pretty, and he’d just turned in his worst sexual performance in at least a decade, probably more.

She stroked a finger down his chest, and he caught her hand. “I’ll make it up to you,” he said.

Her eyebrows tipped up. “Make what up?”

“
That.
” Christ, it would be easier if she just elbowed him in the ribs and told him, tough shit, he was all out of chances.

Instead, she brought his hand to her lips and kissed his knuckle, which was still blue from pummeling Hoyt’s face. Then she nestled into the crook of his arm and sighed. They lay there for a few minutes, her breath warm against his chest as his heart rate returned to normal.

“Jack?” she murmured.

“Yeah?”

“Your house is really cold.”

It wasn’t just cold, it was arctic. He’d hardly been home in days, and the heater had been turned off. But the damn thing barely worked anyway, so instead of hassling with it, he scooped up her knees and swept the bedspread and sheet down. Then he pulled the covers back up over them both and hooked an arm around her waist.

“Thanks.” Her voice sounded sleepy, and he prayed she wouldn’t drift off before he managed to salvage at least a shred of pride. He pulled her body back against him, and she made a soft, mewing sound.

Something pinched inside his chest. For a while, he just lay there with his mind swirling. He couldn’t believe this had happened. And with her, of all people.

Her hair tickled his chin as she snuggled closer. He wished he could turn back the clock. Ten minutes would do it. Five, even.

She mumbled something incoherent.

“Huh?”

“You
do
have rabbits.” She gave him a drowsy look over her shoulder. “I saw the cage on your porch.”

“They’re my nieces’.” God, were they really talking about this? “My nephew’s allergic, so they live here.”

“That’s sweet.”

Sweet. Not the word he wanted to hear right about now.

Her shoulders hunched as she stifled a yawn. She was tired. So was he. The last two weeks had been a marathon. What he needed was just a few minutes’ rest, and he’d be back in the game.

He kissed her ear and whispered a promise to her, but she didn’t hear it. She was already out cold.

John D. Alvin was a shit.

Courtney watched him through the windshield, taking in the tailored dark suit, the red power tie, the French cuffs that showed a flash of gold at his wrist.

Courtney was no detective. She wasn’t
psychic,
like Fiona. But it didn’t take a crystal ball to figure out John D. Alvin was a lying prick. And he’d assumed she was too stupid to figure it out. He’d thought he could lie to her, take what he wanted, and then be done with her.

But if there was one thing Courtney couldn’t stand, it was asshole men who thought she was stupid.

She shoved open the door of her ’98 clunker and stepped out onto the sidewalk. She stood and watched from just yards away as John
David
Alvin handed his Porsche keys to the valet and escorted
Mrs.
John David Alvin into the restaurant.

“Pig,” Courtney muttered. He walked in ahead of his wife, like the dickhead that he was, and didn’t even bother to hold the door.

Not that she felt sorry for the woman. She drove a white Jag convertible and lived in a mansion in Lakeway, a freaking
golf
resort just west of Austin. The woman probably knew precisely what kind of jerk she’d married. What wife didn’t?

The valet jumped into the Porsche and headed south down Congress Avenue. Courtney got back into her Buick and followed him. She took a swig from her bottle of Grey Goose—a little liquid courage for the rest of the night’s activities.

After Googling David on the Internet and finding no Dallas attorneys by that name, she’d followed up on a hunch. The hunch had led her to the swank Austin offices of John D. Alvin, Attorney-at-Law. And what had she seen in the parking lot? A shiny red Carrera with which she was intimately familiar.

She’d waited outside his office, a ball of hatred forming in her stomach. Then she’d followed him home in rush-hour traffic and watched him pull up to the mansion he shared with his wife.

She’d felt sick. Then stupid. Then sick all over again
when she’d spotted the pink Big Wheel abandoned in the driveway.

She took another swig of vodka and felt better, somehow, as it burned a path down her throat.
Hey, baby, I’ve got something for ya.

Taillights glowed in front of her, and the Carrera turned into a half-empty lot. The valet parked between two Beamers as Courtney drove past and turned into an alley. She parked. Then she sat there for a few minutes, staring at her lap and remembering the Barbie Big Wheel she’d had when she was a kid. It had been a hand-me-down from Fiona, and Courtney loved to pedal it around the run-down apartment complex where they’d lived in Los Angeles.

Her stomach churned.

She took a last, long swill of vodka. Then she scrounged up her supplies and got out of the car.

Her breath turned to frost in front of her mouth. She’d forgotten a coat. The alley smelled like vomit, and she made her way to the street on legs not quite steady.

“Shit!” she yelped, stumbling over a beer bottle. She glanced around, but saw no one. This side street was vacant except for a few cars at meters. She crossed the parking lot to the gleaming Porsche.

She dropped her supplies into a pile and stared down, trying to remember what to do first. She’d had a plan earlier, but it was fuzzy now, a little vague around the edges. She needed to think. The hammer seemed to be calling out to her, so she picked it up, tested the weight of it in her hand, and took the first swing.

The sound was musical. Glass fell at her feet like snow, and she smiled. She made her way around the car, ignoring
the alarm wailing in her ears. She felt euphoric. Gleeful. She took another swing, and then another. Each brought a shower of ice, and another little thrill.
I’ve got something for ya.
She rounded to the passenger’s side, stopped to stare inside at the leather upholstery. It had felt good against her skin, warm and rich. The hammer slipped from her hand, and she teetered on her heels.

She shrugged off the dizziness and crouched down for the can. She shook it beside her ear, making the bead inside clatter over the wail of the alarm. She stood up. The car blurred in front of her. She held her hand out and saw that it was trembling, but then the hissing came, and she felt steadier, more powerful. She could do this. She moved around the car and thought of the picture she made—Courtney the
artist
! Courtney the
painter
! A giggle escaped, and then another. She bent over, laughing hysterically, and her cheeks felt freezing and she realized they were wet. Her legs folded under her and the can rolled away, and she lay there, sobbing on the asphalt, as the wailing closed in.