Unraveling the Past

“I’m sure the chief will get you home as soon as he’s finished here,” Layne said, having no idea if that was true or not. God knew the new chief was an enigma. A frustrating one.

Jess’s smirk was more sad than cocky as she laid her cheek on her knees. “Yeah, right.”

Layne inclined her head meaningfully at Taylor then walked away, stopping next to a scraggly pine tree.

“Another problem, Captain?” he asked in the flat Boston accent that grated on her last nerve.

Though it was past midnight he was, as always, clean-shaven, his flat stomach a testament to his refusal to indulge when one of their coworkers brought in doughnuts. His dark blond hair was clipped close to the sides and back of his head, the top just long enough to start to curl. He had a high forehead, thick eyebrows and eyes the color of fog over the water.

The private, female part of her admitted he was attractive—in an earthy, overtly male way.

The cop in her resented the hell out of him for it.

“If you want to run her home,” she said quietly, “I can get things moving here.”

“She doesn’t want to go home—to the house we’re renting. She wants to go back to Boston.”

“Oh.” She had nothing else to add to that. Didn’t want to get involved in his family problems. “Still, I have this under control if you want to get her out of here.”

“You ever handle a case like this?”

She rolled her shoulders back like a fighter preparing to enter the ring. “Not exactly like this. No.”

“You get a lot of missing persons’ cases in Mystic Point?”

“People don’t go missing from Mystic Point.” Although plenty of them left. “But this isn’t some Utopia. We have our share of crime, including battery, burglary, rape and occasionally, murder. All of which I have investigated.”

“Still, I think I’ll take the lead on this one.”

And then he walked away.

Layne curled her fingers into her palms and followed, her steps jerky, the camera bouncing against her chest. “Is it because I’m a woman?” she called.

He picked up a flare, lit it then stuck it in the ground, his back to her the entire time. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

She stopped behind him, her fists on her hips. “You want specific, sir, how about this. Is the reason you’re not handing this case over to me—the only detective on third shift, your second-in-command and the person who should be assigned it—because I don’t have a penis?”

“He’s a total misogynist,” Jess said with the exaggerated seriousness only the inebriated could pull off.

They both ignored her.

Taylor straightened slowly, the flare casting an orange glow over the hard lines of his face. “Tread carefully, Captain, or you might overstep.”

But she’d never been one to play it safe. Bad enough he’d come into her town and taken the position she was meant to have, now he wanted to screw with how she did her job?

“I don’t think it’s overstepping to clear the air, Chief. So let’s lay it on the line, right here, right now. You have something against having a woman on your force? Or maybe it’s just me you have a problem with?”

Lights flashed, bounced off the trees as a car drove toward the quarry but Taylor didn’t take his attention off her. She wanted to say having his cool gray eyes watching her so intently didn’t unnerve her but she’d never been a good liar.

“The decisions I make as chief aren’t personal.” She didn’t doubt he used that placid tone because it made her seem out of control in comparison. “I assign cases based on experience and expertise.” He stepped closer. “You don’t have to like how I run this police department,” he added softly. “You don’t even have to agree with me, but if you feel the need to question every decision I make, perhaps the Mystic Point Police Department is no longer the right place for you.”

Her vision blurred, her throat burned. “Is that your oh-so-subtle way of threatening my job?”

He moved closer, so close she picked up a hint of his spicy aftershave, felt the warmth from his big body. “For over a month you’ve fought me, skated the line of insubordination—”

“Hey now—”

“And have generally been nothing but a pain in my ass.” How he kept any and all emotion from his voice, she had no idea. But she almost respected him for his control. Almost. “Now, you can continue along that path and force me to take action. Or you can accept that I’m now in charge and start working with me. So, no, I’m not making threats against your job.” He tipped his head close to hers, his breath caressing her cheek. “I’m giving you the choice of what happens next.”

* * *

BY 5:00 A.M., ROSS’S EYES were gritty, his fingers tingling with cold and his head aching. He walked toward his cruiser, the rising sun’s rays reflecting off the large rocks surrounding the water, turning the sky pink and gold. The damp air smelled of burned wood and dirt.

Once the forensics unit from the state had arrived on scene around 2:00 a.m., Ross had coordinated the search for more remains. It hadn’t taken long and by three, they’d found badly decomposed bones near the area where Jess had discovered the skull.

Now, the remains were on their way to the state’s lab for testing while Campbell and Patrick Forbes, one of the department’s part-time officers, packed up the spotlights. Sergeant James Meade, a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a perpetual jovial expression that hid what Ross had already deduced was a keen cop’s mind, stood talking with Sullivan by the still-smoldering ashes of last night’s fire.

Ross lifted his hand, indicating he was leaving. Meade, taking a sip from his take-out cup of coffee, nodded. Sullivan kept her gaze on the ground. With his free hand, Ross pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit speed dial. Jess’s phone rang. And rang. He tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and opened his car door, tossed the evidence bag onto the seat.

His call went to voice mail. “It’s me,” he said. “Call me.”

Not that she would. Ever since he’d been granted custody of his niece, she’d been nothing if not steadfast in her determination to do anything and everything in her power to make his life more difficult.

He glanced back at Sullivan. Sort of like someone else he knew.

He just hoped neither one ever figured out what a good job they were doing of it.

He tried the house phone. No answer. Damn it. He needed to get the necklace they’d found near the body—the one piece of concrete evidence they had—back to the station so it could be processed. He could ask Meade to do it. Or, he could bite the bullet and do what he should’ve done in the first place.

“Sullivan?” he called. “Do you have a minute?”

“Can it wait until we get back to the station, Chief?”

Christ, but nothing was easy with her. Not even a simple request. “No, Captain, it can’t.”

Her mouth thinned but after saying something to Meade, she started toward Ross, taking her sweet time getting there. He bit back on his impatience. His edginess. Edginess she caused with her constant antagonism and smart-ass mouth. With her slow, saunter and the determined, confrontational glint in her hazel eyes.

Her dark ponytail swung behind her, the light blue, MPPD-issued windbreaker she’d put on at some point during the past four hours blowing open over her uniform. Showing the sway of her hips, how her breasts bounced under the loose material.

Interest, male and elemental, stirred. He hissed out a breath through his teeth. Shit. He must be more tired than he thought.

“Yes?” she said when she finally reached him, her tone belligerent, dark circles under her eyes.

“Jessica’s not answering her phone.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You let her have her phone back?”

Warmth crawled up his neck. He refused to call it embarrassment. “So I could get ahold of her. Yes.”