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“What?” Jodi asked when she followed his gaze.
“The ladder’s there, but the back door was open when I went into the house.”
She made a sound to indicate she was giving that some thought. “Well, the guy used the ladder to escape. Jameson and I saw him running from it when we got to the backyard.”
Yeah. So, maybe the open back door had nothing to do with their perp. Still, Gabriel intended to check it out. When he’d run through the house to go in pursuit, he hadn’t looked around to see if anything else had been...disturbed.
Gabriel started toward the porch with Jodi following along behind him. Part of him wanted to tell her to stay put while he checked it out, but it might not be safe for her to be out here alone. Of course, she would believe she could take care of herself, but if that idiot had indeed brought help, there could be more gunfire.
He didn’t slow down until he reached the back door, and then Gabriel paused just to take in the room. The gray tile didn’t show the dust, which meant it didn’t show any footprints, either. That didn’t mean some weren’t there, though, so he used his elbow to open the door as wide as it would go, and he stepped to the side.
Jodi stayed in the doorway, but they seemed to spot something at the same time. She made a slight gasping sound.
Because the thing they spotted appeared to be drops of blood.
Gabriel reminded himself that it could be fake. Just like the blood on the knife. But that didn’t stop the tightness in his chest.
“Come inside but stay back,” he told her. He definitely didn’t want her following what appeared to be a trail of blood drops. Drops that led right to the pantry.
The door to the pantry was ajar but not open enough for Gabriel to see if there was anyone or anything inside. With his gun ready, he went closer, and behind him he could hear Jodi shifting her position, as well. No doubt getting ready in case they were about to be attacked again.
As soon as he was close enough, Gabriel gave the door a kick with the toe of his boot. He took aim.
Then he cursed.
Hell.
There was more blood here, pooled on the floor amid the toppled cans. And in the middle of all that blood was what appeared to be a dead body.
Chapter Three (#ubed458c7-832f-5a4b-b3a4-4cd72a0208c9)
Breathe.
Jodi kept repeating that reminder to herself.
She couldn’t keep taking in those short bursts of air that could cause her to hyperventilate. She needed normal breaths because that was her best bet right now at staving off a panic attack.
Gabriel certainly wasn’t doing anything to put her at ease. He was seated at his desk at the sheriff’s office building on Main Street in Blue River, and he was on his umpteenth phone call since they’d arrived two hours earlier. Jameson and Cameron were in the squad room, and they were doing the same thing.
Obviously there was lots to do now that this was a murder investigation. In addition to the calls and fielding questions from his deputies, Gabriel also kept glancing up at her.
Not that he had to glance far.
Jodi was pacing across his office while she tried to keep herself together.
What Gabriel wasn’t doing was questioning their suspect. The bald kid who’d fired shots at them. Maybe a kid who had committed the murder, too. And had also left the knife on the porch. But Gabriel wouldn’t have a chance of confirming any of that until the kid’s lawyer arrived. Whenever that would be.
Gabriel finally finished his latest call, and immediately started making some notes on his computer. “You should go home,” he said. And since Jodi was the only other person in the room, that order was obviously meant for her. “I can have one of the reserve deputies drive you and stay with you until this is all sorted out.”
“I’m staying here,” she insisted.
Then, she huffed, a little insulted that Gabriel had thought she couldn’t take care of herself and needed a deputy. His doubt about her abilities probably had to do with that look that kept crossing her face, the one indicating she was about to have a panic attack. Jodi hated that it was there. Hated that it felt as if she might lose it at any moment, but that wouldn’t stop her from defending herself if someone came after her again.
“What did the ME have to say about the body?” she asked.
His eyebrow came up, maybe to show her that he was surprised that she’d known he was talking to the ME. She hadn’t heard anything the ME said, but she had been able to tell from Gabriel’s questions who’d been on the other end of the phone line.
“He’s a white male in his mid-to late thirties,” Gabriel answered after a short hesitation. “There was no ID on him. Cause of death appears to be exsanguination from multiple stab wounds to the torso.”
Breathe.
That felt like a punch to the chest. Because just hearing the words caused the memories to come. Memories of her own blood loss from stab wounds.
Mercy.
She’d lost so much blood that night that her heart had stopped for a couple of seconds. The medics had brought her back, but it could have gone either way. She could have ended up like the dead man in the Becketts’ house. Or like Gabriel’s parents who had died on their kitchen floor.
“Is this never going to end?” Jodi said before she could stop herself.
Gabriel cursed, got up from his desk and took hold of her arm. Good thing, too, because she suddenly wasn’t too steady on her feet. He put her in the chair and got her a bottle of water from the small fridge in the corner.
“This is why you shouldn’t be here,” he insisted. “This is too much for you.”
“It’s too much for all of us.”
He certainly didn’t argue with that, but he did sit on the armrest and stare down at her. She saw it all in his eyes. His own battle with the nightmarish memories. His unease at her being there.
Except it was more than unease.
Oh, no. It was that attraction again. Anytime they were within breathing distance of each other, the heat returned. Thankfully, they were both in a place to shove it away. It wouldn’t stay gone. But for now, they could keep it at bay.
“How do you think he got the knife?” Jodi pressed.
Gabriel lifted his shoulder. “Maybe he found it. I would say it’s a duplicate, but there’s the problem with only a handful of people knowing about the broken tip. Of course, a handful is more than enough for the info to leak and get to the wrong person. If so, he could be just some nutjob copycat.”
All of that made sense, but it didn’t exactly soothe her raw nerves. Too bad Gabriel didn’t have a theory that would clear her father’s name.
Gabriel gave a heavy sigh. “Look, I don’t know what happened, but if this guy confesses to sending the threatening emails and committing the murder, then maybe this will put an end to it.” He added another shrug when she stared at him. “Well, for everyone but your father.”
Yes. Her father would get a different kind of ending. This wouldn’t do a thing to get Travis out of jail.
Jodi looked away from him at the exact moment she felt Gabriel’s hand on her shoulder. She didn’t jump out of her skin as she usually did from an unexpected touch. In fact, it felt far more comforting than it should.
And that’s the reason she stood and moved away from him.
That got his attention. Something she hadn’t particularly wanted to get right now. Gabriel was giving her the once-over with those lawman’s eyes, and he was obviously waiting for an explanation.
“I just have trouble being touched sometimes,” she settled for saying.
A lie. She had trouble with it all the time.
He drew his eyebrows together. “Uh, have you gotten help for it?”
She nodded. That wasn’t a lie. She’d attempted to get help by seeing a string of therapists. “In my case, help didn’t work.”
He kept staring at her, clearly still wanting more. She’d already told him far more than she’d spilled to anyone else, and Jodi didn’t want to get any deeper into it. He probably wouldn’t understand that the only thing that eased the demons was the knowledge that she could now defend herself.
Thankfully, she didn’t have to add more because there was movement in the doorway. Jodi automatically reached for her gun, but it was just Cameron.
Cameron had lawman’s eyes, too, and he slid a glance between Gabriel and her. The corner of his mouth lifted a fraction and for just a second. A dimple flashed in his cheek.
“You two always did have a thing for each other,” he drawled.
Heaven knew what Cameron had seen or sensed to make him say that or to make him give that half smile, but it caused Gabriel to scowl. Unlike most people, Cameron didn’t seem to be affected by that particular expression from the king of scowls. Probably because he’d had a lifetime of scowls tossed at him. After all, Gabriel wasn’t just his boss, but they’d been friends since childhood.
“Do you have a reason to be here?” Gabriel snapped.
Cameron gave them that lazy smile again, and he handed her a cup of coffee and a small white bag. “It’s some doughnuts from the diner. Thought you might need a sugar fix right about now.”
She wasn’t hungry in the least. In fact, Jodi wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold anything down, but Cameron’s gesture touched her. “You remembered I have a sweet tooth,” she said.
“Hard to forget it. I remember having to wrestle some chocolate cake away from you once when we were kids.”
Jodi nodded. “And I had to wrestle them from Lauren and your sister, Gilly.”
She caught the slight change in Cameron’s expression and knew she’d hit a nerve. Two of them, actually. From what Jodi had heard, Gilly had died during childbirth, and Cameron was raising her child. Since that’d happened only a few months earlier, the grief still had to be raw.
However, there was another rawness, too. One that might never go away, as well. Once, Cameron had been in love with Lauren. And vice versa. But again, those feelings of young love had all been shattered the night of the murders because Cameron had been a deputy then, and Lauren had blamed him for not preventing her parents’ deaths. It probably wasn’t logical for Lauren to feel that way, but those sorts of raw feelings weren’t always logical.
“Yes,” Cameron said as if he knew what she was thinking.
His smile stayed in place a moment longer before his attention shifted to Gabriel. “The CSIs are processing the knife right away. We should know soon if the blood belongs to the victim and if there are prints that match our suspect.
“Sorry,” Cameron added to Jodi. “This kind of talk doesn’t exactly go well with coffee and doughnuts.”
“It’s all right. I want to know what’s happening with the case. Has the kid said anything?” she asked. “Or has his lawyer arrived yet?”
Cameron shook his head to both of her questions. “Nothing from him, but you do have a visitor, and he’s demanding to see you. It’s your boss, Hector March.”
Gabriel shot her a glance, one that seemed like an accusation. “I didn’t call him,” Jodi insisted. And she looked to Cameron for answers. “The murder is already on the news?”
The deputy nodded.
Good grief. That hadn’t taken long at all, but then, she hadn’t expected it to stay quiet. Still, she hadn’t wanted to deal with Hector when her nerves were this close to the surface.
Jodi stood, trying to steel herself up by taking some deep breaths and flexing her hands. “Where is he?”
Cameron hitched his thumb toward the squad room. “I had him wait out there. Something he’s not very happy about. Apparently, he’s not the waiting-around sort.”
No, he wasn’t. But if Jodi tried to put Hector off, that would only make him dig in his heels even more. She reminded herself that Hector had been the one to help her get back on her feet when she’d been just nineteen and devastated from the knife attack. He’d been the one to offer her a job and train her. She would probably be in a psych ward somewhere if it weren’t for him.
She put the coffee and doughnut bag on Gabriel’s desk and went out in the hall and toward Reception. Gabriel was right behind her, of course. And Hector was exactly where Cameron had said he would be. Her boss was dressed in his usual black cargo pants and black T-shirt. He’d once been special ops in the Marines, and he still looked as if he were in uniform.
Hector immediately went to her, ignoring Gabriel’s scowl. Heck, Cameron was scowling now, too. Apparently, neither approved of Hector’s shades-of-gray approach to his business and justice.
Hector didn’t touch her. He hadn’t in years, since she usually went board stiff when someone put their hands on her. But he did get close enough to whisper, “Are you all right?”
She managed a nod. “Neither of us were hit, and Gabriel has a suspect in custody.”
Hector turned to Gabriel then and extended his hand. “I’m Hector March, owner of Sentry Security.”
Gabriel didn’t shake his hand. “I know who you are.”
Hector gave a crisp nod. “And I know who you are, too, Sheriff. Why the hell would you let Jodi get anywhere near that house after we got those threatening emails?”
That grabbed Gabriel’s attention. “We? You got an email, too?”
“Yes.” Hector frowned as if annoyed that he would have to take the time to address this. “It came this morning. But Jodi got hers the day before yesterday, right after she told a reporter that she was remembering some more details of her attack. I’m sure she explained that to you, and that’s why you shouldn’t have let her go to the house.”
“I didn’t let Jodi do anything.” Gabriel’s voice was as crisp as Hector’s nod had been. “When I saw her car, I stopped to see what she was doing. She trespassed onto private property and then stumbled onto a crime scene.”
Suddenly, all eyes were on her. Even the emergency dispatcher at the reception desk and the other deputies were looking at her. Maybe they were waiting for some kind of logic from her that they would understand. But it wasn’t something they’d be able to grasp. Because they’d never been left for dead in a shallow grave.
“I wanted to see if being at the old house would trigger any other memories of the night of my attack,” she admitted. Best not to tell them she had also wanted to draw out the snake who’d knifed her.
Hector pulled back his shoulders, clearly not approving of that. “And did it? Are you actually remembering new details?”
“No.” In fact, the only thing it had accomplished was nearly getting Gabriel, Jameson and her killed along with giving her a new set of nightmarish memories.
All that blood on the pantry floor.
Mercy, another dead body.
She prayed the man wasn’t dead because of her, but Jodi had to accept that he could be.
“Did you give the FBI the email you got?” Gabriel asked Hector at the same moment that Hector asked him, “Is Jodi free to go? I can drive her to her apartment in San Antonio.”
“I don’t want to go home,” she insisted. “I want to listen when Gabriel talks to the suspect.”
Hector’s mouth tightened. It was yet something else he didn’t approve of. Tough. She was staying put.
“And yes, I gave the FBI the email,” Hector answered Gabriel, but he kept his attention on her. “Apparently, it’s not traceable since the person who sent it bounced it around through several foreign internet providers.”
Not a surprise. Jodi hadn’t figured it would be so easy to find out who was doing this. But then maybe their suspect would spill it all. Not just about the emails but about the person who’d hired him.
“You think the guy in custody is the one who attacked you ten years ago?” Hector asked.
She didn’t jump to answer. Because she wasn’t sure how much Gabriel wanted to reveal about this investigation.
