The Marshal

“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.”