Hotshot P.i.

“There’s one other thing,” Tadd said. Jake felt the bad news coming even before Tadd opened his mouth. “You should know the sheriff has two witnesses who overheard Westfall and Clancy arguing at the marina café the evening Dex Westfall was murdered. Both said they heard Clancy threaten Dex.”

Jake groaned inwardly.

“One is a waitress at the marina café,” Tadd continued. “The other is Frank Ames. You remember him?”

Yeah, Jake remembered the tall, pimply-faced kid six years his senior. Frank had always had a major chip on his shoulder, one that Jake had more than once wanted to knock off. Jake’s father had given Frank a job at the resort, wanting to help him. But Frank’s hostile unfriendliness had forced Warren Hawkins to let him go, making Frank Ames all the more bitter.

“Frank owns the resort now,” Tadd said. “Maybe you’d heard.”

“No, I hadn’t.” Jake hadn’t heard anything about Hawk Island since the day he promised his mother he’d never say his father’s name in her presence again. It had been the day they left Flathead Lake, right after Warren Hawkins had been convicted of embezzlement, arson and one count of deliberate homicide. They’d left town on the whipping tail of a scandal that had rocked the tiny community. Kiki had been right; his mother had insisted they leave without stopping at the Montana State prison in Deer Lodge to see his father even one last time.

Jake had kept his promise to her; he’d never mentioned his father’s name. But several times a year he’d visited Warren Hawkins in prison. Jake had wanted to reopen his father’s case and do some investigating on his own, but Warren had asked him not to. Jake had left it alone, not wanting to hurt his mother any more than she had been.

But now she was gone. And he was back in Montana thanks to Aunt Kiki. Back on Flathead Lake. And that hunch of his was knocking at the back of his brain, demanding to be let in. Demanding that he follow it, no matter where it might lead. Clancy was his ticket as surely as Tadd Farnsworth was a born politician. It was just going to be harder to get the truth out of Clancy than he’d first thought.

“Can I get a copy of this and the autopsy report?” Jake asked, tapping the envelope with his finger.

Tadd nodded.

“Give me call when it’s ready.” He gave Tadd the number from the cellular phone Kiki had given him.

“Here’s my home number,” Tadd said as he took out a business card and wrote on the back. He handed it to Jake. “In case you come up with something.” He sounded more than a little doubtful that would happen.

Tadd pushed his intercom button and instructed his secretary to make Jake a copy of the Dex Westfall case, including the latest on Clancy’s sleepwalking defense.

“What?” Jake snapped, telling himself he must have heard wrong. He glanced over at Clancy; she met his gaze for an instant, then looked away, her body suddenly tense. Jake cursed under his breath. What else had Clancy and her aunt failed to tell him?

“I guess you didn’t know,” Tadd said, smiling sympathetically at Jake. “Clancy was sleepwalking the night Dex Westfall was killed. That’s why she doesn’t remember what happened.”

Jake stumbled to his feet, feeling the weight of the world settle around his shoulders. He took Clancy’s elbow and steered her out into the hall.

“Sleepwalking?” he demanded the moment the door closed behind them. He couldn’t believe what a chump he was. Even when she’d lied on the stand, he’d figured she only did it to protect her own father. If Tadd was opting for a Twinkie defense like sleepwalking, it meant only one thing: Clancy’d killed Dex Westfall and she damn well knew it.

“Sleepwalking?” Jake demanded again, trying to keep his voice down.

“I guess I shouldn’t expect you to believe me,” Clancy said, jerking her elbow free of his grip. She started down the hall, but he grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around to face him.

He let his gaze rake roughly over her, telling himself not to be fooled by that face of hers with its cute little button of a nose or the crocodile tears in those big brown eyes. He pulled her into the first alcove and blocked her retreat with his body. “Another murder and you just happened to be sleepwalking again?”

Clancy found her gaze locked spellbound with his. There was something commanding about him. He demanded her attention, and ever since she was a girl, she’d been unable to deny him. She looked into his eyes; they darkened like thunderheads banked out over the lake. Everything about him, from his eyes to the hard line of his body, warned her of the storm he was about to bring into her life. Jake Hawkins was a dangerous man, one she’d be a fool to trifle with.

“I walk in my sleep. I have ever since I was a child.”

He stared at her, suspicion deep in his expression. “Sure you have.”

She wanted to slap his smug face. “I assume you’ve never walked in your sleep.”

“No.” He made that one word say it all.

She reminded herself that people who’d never sleepwalked didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. But she wanted Jake to, needed Jake to.

“It’s frightening, because when you wake up you don’t know how you got there. You don’t recall getting up. Suddenly you are just somewhere else, and you don’t remember anything. Not even where you’ve been.” She met his gaze. “Or what you’ve done.”

“How come I never heard about you sleepwalking when we were kids?”

She glanced away. “I was…ashamed. Wandering around at night in my pajamas, not knowing what I was doing. It was something I didn’t want anyone to know about.”

Jake nodded, eyeing her intently. “And you’re trying to tell me that the night Dex Westfall was murdered you were walking around in your pj’s, sound asleep, and you don’t remember killing him? Not that you didn’t kill him, but that you don’t remember because you were sacked out?”

“I’m trying to tell you the truth,” she said angrily, and wondered why she was even bothering. “Sleepwalking isn’t something I have control over. It just…happens. Like last night.”

“Last night?” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “You mean last night on the dock when you were sure someone pulled you into the lake and tried to drown you? Now you’re telling me that you were asleep?”

She didn’t like his tone. “I was walking in my sleep.” She took a breath and looked away. He’d never given her the chance to explain ten years ago; he’d just assumed she’d lied on the stand and he’d cut her off without a word. Without a goodbye. “Just like I was the night of the fire.”

“How convenient that you were asleep at the murder you committed,” Jake said, bitterness oozing from his every word. He slammed a palm to the wall on each side of her. “And how inconvenient for my father that you just happened to wake up in time to see him kill Lola Strickland.”

“Yes.” She ducked under his arm and ran down the hall, blinded by tears and regrets. Behind her, she heard him. The sound was a low, pained howl, the cry of a wounded animal. It tore at her heart. She wanted to take him in her arms, to comfort him. But nothing she could do or say would do that. She’d told the jury the truth. She didn’t know what else had happened that night at Hawk Island Resort because she’d been asleep—walking, but sound asleep. Sleepwalking had always been her private shame. A frightening weakness that was best kept a secret. Until the night Lola Strickland was murdered. Now that horrible memory had come back to haunt her—just the way her sleepwalking had come back.

Jake slammed a fist into the wall, too stunned to chase after her. Sleepwalking? She’d been sleepwalking the night of Lola’s murder and the night Dex Westfall was killed in her garret? And last night on the dock? His brain tried to assimilate this information but couldn’t.

That’s why her story had sounded like a lie. Could she really not remember anything? Was that why there’d been so many holes in her story? Because she’d been asleep?

His mind refused to accept it. Just as it had ten years ago.

She was lying. Again. Sleepwalking! Again.

He charged after her, only to run headlong into a group of students on some kind of career day. The teacher tried to gather her flock, but they scattered like errant chicks. Jake forced his way through to reach the elevator door just as it closed. He watched the numbers overhead to make sure Clancy was headed down before he took off at a run for the stairs. She didn’t really think she could get away from him, did she?

He burst out of the stairwell and into the main lobby as the elevator doors were closing again. He raced over to them, slapping the doors open and startling the only occupants, an elderly couple.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was looking for a blond woman.

About five six. Cute.” Incredibly sexy. And innocentlooking. He started to make a curvaceous outline with his hands, but stopped himself. “Nice figure. Wearing a navy shirt, jeans and sandals?”

They both gave him a knowing smile. The elderly woman pointed across the hall to a door marked Women. “She seemed a little upset,” the woman said, clearly blaming him.

“Thanks.” As the elevator doors closed again, Jake made a beeline for the bathroom, cursing himself for letting Clancy out of his sight for even an instant.

He stormed through the doorway, propelled by a flammable fuel of high-grade anger. “If you think I’m going to believe this latest story of yours—” he said, taking up the conversation right where they’d left off.

His voice echoed off the tiled walls. A half-dozen women looked up, startled. Clancy wasn’t at either of the two sinks powdering her nose. That left only the row of four stalls.

“Sir, you’re in the wrong rest room,” one woman politely informed him as if he didn’t know.

He politely informed her that he didn’t care, then he leaned down to look for Clancy’s sandaled feet in the occupied stalls. No Clancy. The last stall appeared empty; someone had put a handmade Out of Order sign on it.

Most of the women had the good sense to flee from the room, though they did it in high indignation, telling him in no uncertain terms what they thought of his behavior.