The Marshal

Right now, though, he needed fresh eyes on his mother’s case, and his mother always took precedence.

He held his breath, readying himself for the sight of Jenna to knock him daffy. By now he knew to prepare for it. That first day? He’d been toast. He released his breath, turned and there she was, sitting with her shoulders back and one hand resting on the tabletop. Her long dark hair fell over her shoulders and draped over her red blouse. The blouse with one more button undone than was technically appropriate. He studied that extra button and imagined...

Don’t.

He brought up his eyes and found her staring at him, head tilted. Their gazes held for a long second, the blue of her eyes sparking at him and—yeah, baby—he started to sweat. Slowly, knowing exactly where his mind had gone, her lips eased into a smile that should have dropped him like a solid right hook. Bam!

“Nice to see you, Jenna,” he said.

Very nice.

She stood and he moved to the end of the table, holding out his hand. She took it, gave it a firm but brief shake. “Hello, Brent. Always a pleasure.”

“It’s like a reunion in here,” Penny said.

Penny. Right. They had company. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and took the seat across from Jenna, leaving the head of the table open for Penny. Her meeting, her power spot.

He waited for Penny to get settled and then angled toward her. “Thank you for doing this.”

“It’s the least we can do. You know I hate to get mushy, but you mean a lot to us. If we can help you get some kind of closure, we’ll do it.”

Brent slid his gaze to Jenna. Talking details about his mom in front of people he barely knew never came easy. The basic stuff about her murder and the case still being open, he’d gotten used to. Now he’d have to get comfortable with Jenna real quick. And not in the way he wanted.

He swiveled his chair to face her. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s been twenty-three years. The case is as cold as they get.”

“I don’t mind a challenge, and if we can figure this out, well, I suppose we’d all be...satisfied.”

“I’d be more than satisfied. But listen, there’s no pressure here. If you can dig up some leads, it’ll help. A fresh look might crack it.”

“Maybe,” Jenna said.

“Where do we start?” Penny asked.

“I can tell you what I know, take you to the crime scene, go over whatever notes I have. The sheriff is a good guy. I can’t see him being subversive. Right now, he’s got an unsolved murder messing with his violent crime statistics.”

Jenna’s eyebrows hit her hairline. Yeah, that statistics line sounded harsh. He sounded harsh. After spending eighty percent of his life wondering what happened to his mother, he’d forced himself to detach. Emotional survival meant burying the pain. Stuffing it away.

Coping 101. Brent style.

The phone at his waist buzzed. “Excuse me, I need to check this.”

Text from his boss. They had a tip on a federal fugitive. He shot a text back, stood and buttoned his flapping suit jacket. “Ladies, I’m sorry. I need to go. Jenna, call me with your schedule. Outside of work, I’m at your disposal.”

She gave him that slow smile again—simply wicked—and his chest pinged. Son of a gun. In a matter of minutes, she’d figured out how to distract him from thoughts of his mother.

Whether that was good or bad, they’d soon find out.

* * *

THAT EVENING JENNA rode shotgun in Brent’s SUV while they drove the sixty miles south to Carlisle, Illinois, a place so foreign to city girl Jenna that she wasn’t sure she’d even speak the same language.

Maybe that was a tad extreme, but Brent had exited the tollway and immediately engulfed them in miles and miles of farmland. Could she get a Starbucks? A Mickey D’s? Anything commercial?

Not even six o’clock and the late October sky suddenly had gone black. She smacked her legal pad against her lap. Marshal Hottie had taken off his suit jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves a few times. The slightly messy look fit him. The suit look fit him, too. He was one of those men who could wear anything and still look good. Not fussy, pulled-together good, but rugged good.

She smacked her pad against her leg again and he glanced down at the offending noise before going back to the road. The man had an amazing profile. Strong. Angled. Determined. Even the bump in his nose added to his I’m-in-charge persona. She’d like to see his hair—those fabulous honey-brown strands—a little longer, but he was working the short, lawman look nicely.

“I’m not great with sitting,” she said.

“Not the worst thing. We’re only five minutes out.”

“Can you give me a quick overview? Are you okay with that? I don’t want to upset you while you’re driving.”

“Jenna, it’s been twenty-three years. If I need to, I can recite the facts of my mom’s case in my sleep.”

“I guess after a while it becomes...what? Rote?” Ugh. What a thing to say. “Wait. No. Bad word choice. I’m so sorry.”

Brent shifted in his seat, switched hands on the wheel. “First thing, you’ve got to get over that.”

“What?”

“Worrying about offending me. I’m fairly unoffendable. And when it comes to my mom, if finding her killer means dealing with you speaking freely, I’m on board. Do your thing, Jenna. Don’t get hung up on my emotions. If it’s too much, I’ll remove myself and let you work. I need you focused on my mom, not me. Got it?”

Well, hello, big boy. “I sure do.”

“Good. I called the sheriff this morning and let him know we were coming. He’ll meet us at the house—the crime scene—so you can take a look.”

Jenna jotted notes. “This is the house you grew up in?”

“Yes. My father still owns it.”

“Does he live there?”

“No. He’s off the grid. Haven’t seen or heard from him in nine years.”

She stopped jotting. “What’s that about?”

“Wish I knew. When I was in college, he paid off the house and left me in charge of Camille, my then seventeen-year-old sister. I was on a football scholarship and had to figure out how to stay in school, play ball and get my sister through high school. My aunt and uncle lived next door so they helped until Camille graduated and went to college. Now she lives in the city with her newly acquired husband.”

And, wow, Marshal Brent was a machine with the way he recited his life history. “Who lives in the house?”

Brent cleared his throat. “We lived in it until Camille left for college and I could afford to move to the city. Now it’s empty. It’ll stay that way until we figure out who killed my mother. I pay all the bills and the house needs major work, but I don’t want anything painted or repaired. There might still be evidence somewhere.”

In an odd way, it made sense. Who knew the secrets buried in the floors and walls? Any major construction would wash away potential evidence. “I understand. It’s smart. And amazing that you’ve maintained the house on your own.”

Not to mention the fact that at nineteen, an age when most young men were focused solely on the number of women they could sleep with, he’d managed to help raise his younger sister. “Your dad, is he a...um...”

“Suspect? Yes. The husband always gets a look. They haven’t been able to clear him.” She tapped her pen and Brent glanced at her. “Get over this hesitation, Jenna. I need you unfiltered and open-minded.”

Sideways in her seat, she focused on him. She couldn’t quite grasp his he-man attitude. Sure, he had the physical size of a tough guy, but even the most hardened men had to feel something when their mother had been murdered.

But he wanted unfiltered. She’d give it to him. “Tell me what happened.”

A corner of his mouth lifted and hello again, Marshal Hottie.

“Atta, girl. It was just after midnight and we were sleeping in our rooms. I woke up to a noise in the living room—I’d later find out it was my mother hitting the floor after someone blasted her on the skull. We never found a weapon.”

Jenna jotted notes in her quasi shorthand, but paused to look at him. His features were relaxed, as if he was deep in thought, but other than that, she sensed no anxiety. They might as well have been out for a Sunday drive given his body language.

“I heard the back door shut. I figured it was my dad coming home. He worked second shift at a manufacturing plant. Farming equipment. But the house got quiet. Usually, when my dad came home, he walked straight back to their bedroom and the floorboards squeaked. That night? No squeak. I stayed in bed for a few minutes thinking about it, and then got up to look.”

“Were you scared?”

“No. I don’t know why. I should have been.”

Jenna took notes, letting him focus on the road and on the facts of his mother’s murder. Facts she was stunned he remembered with such clarity and, again, recited rather...dispassionately. He hooked a left onto another rural road and pressed the gas. What speed limit sign? “You left your room?”

“I walked down the hall to the living room and found her on the floor.” He tapped the top of his forehead. “Bleeding. Then I got scared. My mom’s sister and her husband live next door and I ran there. My uncle went back to check on her. He called 9-1-1 from the kitchen phone, grabbed my sister and brought her to be with me. My aunt and uncle put us in their bed and told us to go back to sleep. By then, I was too scared to do anything so I stayed there.” He glanced at Jenna and then back at the road. “I can’t figure out if that’s a blessing or a curse.”

“Probably both.”

“Finally,” Brent said. “She’s unfiltered. That’s what we need. For twenty-three years the same man has had this case. He’s done a decent job, but he only sees what he sees.”

Just ahead, a crossing came into view. To the right, a few houses with lit windows dotted the two-lane road. Brent cruised past them and continued on for a quarter mile to a second set of twin, single-story homes with cute porches she’d bet were great for sitting on during summer. One house was dark, the other with only a porch light. He pulled into the driveway of the darkened one, parked and cut the engine.

“This is it,” he said. “If my aunt and uncle are home, they’ll be over in three minutes. Guaranteed.”

Jenna sat forward, scrunched her nose at the darkness. “I’m assuming the electricity is on.”

“It’s on. We’ve got ten minutes before the sheriff arrives. You want to go in?”

She nodded.

He slid from the SUV and came around to open her door. A gentleman. Love it. The front porch light flashed on and she flinched.

“Sorry,” Brent said. “Motion sensor. Should have warned you.”

“No problem.”

Side by side, they walked to the porch. Brent swung his keys on his index finger once, twice, three times, and then snatched them into his hand.

Jenna stopped at the base of the stairs. “What about other suspects?”

“The sheriff thinks it might have been a robbery gone bad. Back then the only one in town who locked their door was my dad. Every night after he came home he’d lock up. My mom would wait for him. The working theory is an intruder came through the unlocked back door and tried to rob the place.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Maybe. Carlisle isn’t that big. Eight hundred people. Everyone knows everyone. There was a junkie who lived across town. He’s moved away since, but they looked at him hard thinking he needed cash to score drugs. Couldn’t make a case.”

Junkie. Jenna made a note on the pad she’d brought from the car. “Does the sheriff know where he is?”

“I keep tabs on him. I’ll get you his address. Then there’s my dad. He left work that night and said he came straight home. No one knows what time he left the plant, and there was no security video inside the plant back then. He punched out at midnight, but theoretically his buddies could have punched him out. Guys did that all the time.”

“How does that feel?”

“What?”

Please. Did he even realize how repressed his emotions were? At some point, Brent would need to stop burying the agony of his mother’s death and let himself grieve. Obviously, now was not the time because this boy was locked up tight. “Thinking about your dad killing your mother. How does that feel?”

He climbed the stairs, waving her forward. “I have no idea.”

“Pardon?”

Facing her, he let out a long breath and scrubbed his hand over his face. “I can’t go there. I’ve thought about it over the years, but I don’t want to believe he could do that to her.”

“Did they argue a lot?”

He shrugged. “He yelled. She yelled back. Beyond that, I don’t know. I was too young to draw any conclusions about whether they were happy or not.”

And somehow, with all this trapped inside, he’d managed to stay sane.

“Anyway,” he said. “The sheriff’s name is Barnes. He’s on board with you poking around, but don’t irritate him. He needs to be involved.”

She wrote the sheriff’s name down so she could check him out. Maybe ask her dad’s contacts about him. “Involved to what extent?”

If she had to check in before every move, they’d be sunk. She didn’t and wouldn’t work that way. Part of being good at her job—at least she hoped—meant shifting on the fly. She had no interest in checking in every ten minutes.

“To the extent where you don’t aggravate or blindside him. If you’re coming here, give him a heads-up. If you get a solid lead, give him a heads-up. If you want to question one of his citizens, give him a heads-up. Beyond that, I’ve got your back. You need a battle fought with him, I’m your guy. I know his buttons, and that makes me good at not pushing them.”

And, oh, her heart went pitter-patter. This man, screwed-up emotions and all, might be her dream come true. He knew how to work people without them turning on him. “Brent Thompson, I think we’ll make a great team.” She faced the house, took in the peeling paint on the front door and breathed in. “Take me inside. We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter Three

Brent shoved his key in the lock on the front door, stared down at the weathered handle and held his breath. Beside him, Jenna moved, ratcheting up his already spring-loaded tension. Straightening his shoulders, he released the breath he’d been holding.

“Are you okay?” Jenna asked, her voice mixing with the whistling wind.

With all the open space out here, he’d grown immune to the wind noise. Except tonight. Tonight that wind could have been a brass band in his head. Why tonight should be any different from the thousands of other times he’d stepped into this house, he wasn’t clear on, but it definitely had something to do with Jenna-the-investigator, a near stranger wearing that red blouse with the extra unfastened button still taunting him, entering his space. The place where his life had been decimated.

“Brent?”

One, two, three. Go.

He turned the lock and shoved open the door. “I’m good. Just thinking.” Flipping the inside light switch, he stepped over the threshold. “Come in.”

When Jenna stepped in, he closed the door, shut out that damned wind and pointed to the living room floor. “Crime scene.”

Jenna glanced around, taking in the sofa and the end tables all covered with sheets. Her gaze traveled to the front windows and the dusty drapes. Last time he’d been here, he’d forgotten to close them. Not a huge deal since his aunt and uncle watched over the place. Even if someone wanted to break in, what would they get? Thirty-year-old furniture. That’s all. Everything else had been tossed or cleared out, all their childhood memories and valuables split between Brent and Camille.

All that was left here was the place his mother had died.

“Wow,” Jenna finally said.

“Yeah.”

“This is the original furniture?”

“Yes. The floor, too.” He gestured to the hardwood. “It’s never been refinished. In case you were wondering.”

“I was. Thank you.”

“Everything is relatively the same.”

She took a step, and then halted before turning back to him. “May I?”

“Can’t investigate standing here.”

She walked around the furniture, peeled back a corner of a sheet to inspect the sofa then backed up to study the floor. After a minute, she squatted and ran her hand over the area where he’d found his mother beaten and bloody. Suddenly, the way Jenna’s black slacks stretched over her rear seemed a whole lot better to think about.

Yeah, think about the beautiful woman instead. For once, he’d let his baser needs take the lead.

“Your bedroom is down this hallway?”

At that, he blurted a laugh. What timing.

“What’s funny?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Yes, bedroom is down the hall.”

She inched closer to the sofa and his palms tingled, the flicking shooting straight up his arms into his chest.

“Right there,” he said.

Jenna stopped and looked back at him. Her eyes, her body, the way she moved, all of it left him...affected.

“What?” she asked.

“One step to your right. That’s where she was when I came down the hallway.”

Without moving, she stared at the floor, studying the details—the grain of the wood, the seams where blood had seeped, the scuff marks—he’d spent years obsessing over.

Outside, a car door slammed. Sheriff Barnes arriving. Brent turned away from Jenna to open the door. The cruiser was parked behind his SUV. Brent held up a hand. “Hey, Sheriff.”

Barnes, in the drab beige uniform the Carlisle Sheriff’s Department had used since Brent could remember, strode to the porch, hat in place, bat belt—otherwise known as his gun belt—snug on his hips. Over the years, Barnes had filled out, but at nearly fifty-eight, he could still chase down perps.

He shook Brent’s hand. “Brent, good to see you.”

Not really, but what else was the guy supposed to say? “Thanks for coming, Sheriff. Come in.”

Barnes stepped into the house, spotted the gorgeous brunette in the killer blouse and did a double take. Right there with ya. Every damned time Brent looked at her he had that same feeling. A little helpless, a little stunned and a whole lot horny.

Jenna glanced up, smiled and strutted toward them. Brent cleared his throat. “Sheriff Barnes, this is Jenna Hayward, the investigator I was telling you about.”

Barnes shot him a look, and then shook his head. “But damn, if I had an investigator that looked like her, my crime rate would skyrocket. Everyone would want to be investigated.”

In Brent’s office, if he’d made a comment like that, his superiors would have sent him to sensitivity training. Out here in Carlisle? No one much cared because they knew Barnes was a good, honest man who’d sooner sever his own hand than use it to touch a woman other than his wife. Unsure how Jenna would feel about the remark, he turned to her, offered an apologetic nod.

“Now, Sheriff,” Jenna said, “you’d better watch yourself. I tend to get bored easily and may come looking for a job.”

Barnes shook Jenna’s extended hand, locked eyes with her, and the way she smiled, all crooked and come-get-me, once again reminded Brent how she used her looks to play men.

Particularly ones foolish enough to get played.

Finally, the sheriff got a hold of himself, straightened up and turned to Brent. “I have the copies you wanted in the car.”

“Thank you.” Brent swirled his finger. “I was about to review the scene with Jenna.”

“Want me to do that?”

Not a bad idea, but he wanted to give his version of what he knew from that night. “I’ll handle the first part and you can summarize the investigation. That work?”

“Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“Sheriff,” Jenna said, “I appreciate you letting me look at your files. A lot of people wouldn’t.”

Barnes shifted his hat between his hands. “I was a deputy back then and this was my first murder case.”

His gaze went to the floor, the spot where Brent’s mother had died, and the damned flicking stabbed up Brent’s arms again. Anymore, he couldn’t be in this house without the failure tearing at him. He inched his shoulders back and focused on Jenna.

“Anyway,” Barnes said, “this case has stayed with me. I’ve got patience, but I need someone with imagination who can see more than I’m seeing. All I know is I want it solved.”

Didn’t they all.

Brent gestured down the hallway to his childhood bedroom where the hell began. “Let’s start there.”

* * *

JENNA FOLLOWED BRENT down the corridor, tracking his footsteps on the threadbare rug as he demonstrated the path that led him to discovering his mother’s body. She glanced up at the peeling wallpaper—white with roses—and wondered how long it had been there.

“I looked out the door, but didn’t see anything,” Brent said. “My parents’ bedroom door was closed, so I went to the living room, where the television was still on.”

Something in his tone, the flatness, the lack of emotion, the detachment, again struck Jenna as odd. This was his mother and he was reciting these facts as if reading from a script.

“The house was quiet,” he continued. “I figured my mom had fallen asleep on the couch. She did that sometimes.”

Jenna jotted notes as she walked. At least until Brent stopped short and—smash!—she collided with him. Her chin bounced off his back, her pad fell to the floor and her pen...well...that sucker plunged into him. She gasped, dropped it and instinctively rubbed the wounded spot. A spot that happened to be on Brent Thompson’s extremely tight backside.

The shock of her hand in a place it seriously shouldn’t have been must have registered because he spun toward her.

Holy cow! She’d just groped a US marshal.

And liked it.

What a nightmare. She smacked her hand against her chest. Bad, hand, bad. A horrified giggle blurted out. And it gets worse.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m going to beg you to believe that was a completely—completely—unintentional thing. It was a reaction. If I’d hit your arm, I’d have grabbed it. I swear to you. Total accident.”

Defuse it. Yes. That’s what she’d do. Before they both started stuttering. She leaned forward, went on tiptoe and, keeping her voice low, she added, “But seriously, your backside is a work of art. Pure heaven.”

At that, Brent’s lips spread slowly, like melting butter inching across his face, and Jenna’s brain seized. The man had a smile—one he didn’t show too often—that could spark a fire in a saturated forest.

“Heaven, huh?”

“Pure. I am sorry, though. Really.”

Not really.

“You don’t look sorry.”

But the sinful grin told her he was enjoying the game as much as she was. Sure, she liked flirting. Did it often and with purpose. But with Brent, it was just plain fun. They both knew the spark was there. They’d just chosen not to do anything with it.

At least until she’d groped him and decided they definitely needed to do something with it.

The sheriff stepped into view at the end of the hallway. “It got quiet. You two okay?”

Brent’s gaze traveled to the open buttons on her blouse and back up, giving her a heavy dose of eye contact. “Are we okay?”

“We are A-okay, Sheriff. Just having a little powwow here.”

“Powwow,” Brent said. “Is that what it’s called?”

“It is now, big boy.”

A squeak from the back of the house sounded and Brent winced, the move so small she’d almost missed it. In the second it took him to realize she’d witnessed his unguarded response, he threw his shoulders back and jerked a thumb toward the end of the hallway.

“Someone’s at the back door. Probably my uncle. Let me check this.”

Turning from her, he strode to the end of the hall, hung a right and headed to the kitchen.

If it was his uncle, she’d get an opportunity to put a face to a name. As she always did, she’d lay on the Miss Illinois-Runner-Up charm and let him get comfortable with her before interviewing him. She may have been rejected by the FBI, but they were clueless at how adept she was at handling men. Her four brothers could attest to that.