Page 10 of Homicide in Water Creek

As much as she wanted to avoid King, she knew she had to give her report. Jacks was also curious how King was holding up. Knowing him, he’d be stoic as always, but it was the right thing to do to check on him. “Seems you’re busy doing the right thing today, girl,” she said into the quiet car. When she woke this morning, she felt a strange determination to get her house in order. It was hard to hurt Boone, but oddly enough, once she told him they had to part ways, all she felt was free. The part of her that had been broken eight years ago was officially healed. She had Boone to thank for that, and she’d always be grateful for his willingness to be that person for her.

As for his opinion that she was going to bed hop into that of the sheriff’s, he was wrong. There wasn’t a chance in hell she’d be caught dead warming the sheets of Dean King’s bed. He’d been nothing but a burr in her side since they were in high school. They started out as friends, but when King jumped on the jock train, he also jumped on the jerk train. When he left town to go to school, she thought she was finally rid of him, until he rode back in on that damn white horse of his. Over the years, they’d managed to be civil to each other because of their granddaddies, but anything more than that was laughable.

The building came into view, and she sat up straighter, her game face settling firmly into place. “Go in, write your statement, ask some questions, and get the hell out,” she ordered herself.

With the folder in hand, she took the stairs slowly, knowing for damn sure she didn’t want to fall flat on her face in front of the man inside. As far as she was concerned, he didn’t need to know how much the leg hurt or how little function she had left in it. The last thing she wanted to see in his eyes was pity. King was the real reason she didn’t use a crutch in public. She refused to let him see her as weak.

“Well, would you look at that. It’s Tornado Jackson,” Deputy Cass Maverick said from the front desk. He went by Maverick, so when she wanted to rile him up, she made sure to call him Cass.

She eyed him, but his boyish grin instantly disarmed her anger. “Did your smart mouth get you demoted?” she asked, motioning toward the desk, which Libby kept far more organized than he did.

“Pulling double duty right now. Someone has to be the face of the department. It might as well be my extremely good-looking face. The sheriff always looks like he sucked on a lemon. Except today. Today, he came in wearing a shit-eating grin. You know anything about that?”

Jacks gave him the palms up. “No clue. I haven’t seen him since, you know, when we found his mother dead.” She grimaced. “And for five minutes last night at the Whistle Wetter. It’s fair to say he was looking worse for the wear. Where is he?”

Maverick pointed behind him. “Office. He was on the phone.”

Eyeing the office, she tried to decide whether it was worth interrupting him. “I can come back. That’s no problem.” Heading for the door, she didn’t wait for his answer.

“Jacks.” Why was King’s voice so damn smooth, sexy, and soft when he said her name? “Going somewhere?”

Turning slowly, she took in his profile. He looked relaxed, but an undercurrent of energy radiated from him this morning that told her he was more affected by finding his mother dead than he let on. “Maverick said you were on the phone, so I thought I’d return later. This is for you.”

Trying to hand him the folder didn’t work. He crooked a finger and motioned for her to follow him. She couldn’t help but notice the way he looked at her. The same way a wolf takes in a sheep. With hunger in his eyes and a plan in his mind. King’s eyes were dangerous today, which made her swallow hard. “The information on the Porsche.”

He pulled it from her fingers slowly, the motion almost erotic. She shivered as the cold, smooth paper slid across her skin. “Are you his errand girl now?”

“I’m no one’s errand girl.”

In a move she didn’t anticipate, he wrapped his arm around her, swept her into his office, and closed the door in one breath. He pushed her into the chair opposite his desk and leaned over her shoulder, his lips against her ear. “I’m glad you finally came to that realization.” Despite fighting it with her entire body, a shiver still racked her as he walked around the desk. The feel of his lips against her skin, his breath blowing softly against her cheek, short-circuited her brain. “Were the crime scene techs gone by the time you arrived?”

Leaning over his desk, Jacks waited for him to open the file folder so she could read what it said. Had the information not been in a sealed envelope, she would have read it in the car and not even felt bad about it. “It was business as usual. I assumed they just took the car with the body in it.”

King shook his head, leaned back, and crossed his legs, the envelope unopened on the blotter. “There was no way to get the car out without using the magnet because it was in the middle of twenty other cars. They didn’t want to risk further damage to her body before the autopsy, so the ME removed her. Once she was out, they pulled the car and took it to Wausau for the crime scene techs to process. That’s the closest crime lab to us. You know we can’t do that kind of work here.”

“Are you going to Wausau then?” she asked, her tone hopeful. Wausau, Wisconsin was several hours east of Water Creek.

“No, they’ll notify me of their findings.” He grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen from his desk drawer, flipped it over, and slid it toward her. “Write out your statement, and then we’ll sign it together.”

“This is ridiculous,” she grumped. “You already know what happened. I don’t need to write it down.”

He tapped the paper. “It’s the law, babe. I’m not taking any chances, considering that woman was technically my mother. Besides, if you don’t want to be accused of murder, you need to cross your Ts and dot your Is.”

Anger flared faster than a match against a striker, and she stood, leaning over his desk. “Whoa, okay, first of all, I’m not your babe,” she said, using the word in the same sarcastic way men do when they’re hitting on a woman. “I’m not going to make you a sammich or get you the remote. Second of all, you know damn well I had nothing to do with your mother being in the car! She’s been dead for a week or more!”

Unruffled, he simply raised a brow at her. “First of all, when I call a woman ‘babe,’ it has nothing to do with sammiches or remotes. Second of all, you damn well know I know you didn’t do it, but we also don’t know how she got into Boone’s yard. Until I have your statement and check your alibi, the rule of law says you’re a person of interest.”

Fine. He was right. She didn’t like it, but she had to do it. Stepping back, she stumbled on the heel of her boot, unable to catch herself with the long brace on her leg. She was going down, but King grabbed her at the last second, holding her up with a finger looped through her belt.

“You okay?”

The concern in his voice filled Jacks’s throat with an emotion she didn’t want to name. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

He unhooked his finger and held the chair out for her. She sat, but rather than take his chair, he lounged on the edge of the desk, his boot swinging against the old wood. “Without a statement, it looks like you’re hiding something. I know you like to be pissy just for the sake of being pissy with me, but don’t risk your freedom when you did nothing wrong.”

Picking up the pen, she tapped it on the paper. “Fine. But for the record, I’m not pissy for the sake of being pissy. I’m careful for the sake of being careful. Whatever,” she huffed, starting to write.

It was hard to concentrate with his warm, strong, sexy body so close to her, but in a few minutes, she had the sequence of events written out. She added a few embellishments, then handed it over to him. He read it, his eyebrows going up a few times. He finally lowered it to the desk, and that shit-eating grin Cass referred to returned to his lips. “Are you always a smart ass?”