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And, according to Jen, if not already on Taylor’s payroll in more ways than one, soon to be. No matter how handsome and sexy, a corrupt cop…she just couldn’t stomach that.
“Do you have a plan?”
Jessica laughed. “Yeah. Getting the groceries out of this heat and into the kitchen while Officer Mitch sears to a crisp in the parking lot.”
“Taylor has him watching you.”
“Bingo.” Jessica turned into the Sand Dollar, slowed to about five miles per hour and drove to the rear of the building.
“You can’t search for anything with him watching you.”
“I can start inside the apartment, though I’m pretty sure he and Taylor have already checked it out.” He’d refused to confirm or deny it over breakfast, but it stood to reason. Jen had been missing; they were cops. Knowing that Taylor had been inside the apartment Jessica was temporarily calling home, touching things that she was touching, looking at the clothes she was wearing, was creepy. Knowing that Mitch had created an inappropriate sensation all its own.
“Listen, I’m home and Officer Mitch is pulling in beside me. Give me a call later.” She disconnected and climbed out before he’d had a chance to shut off the motor. She opened the apartment door first, the metal hot enough to burn, then carried two handfuls of bags inside to the kitchen counter.
When she turned, he was blocking her way, sunglasses off and the rest of the bags in his strong grip. She swallowed hard, her chest tight, backing up until the refrigerator stopped her and giving him access to the countertop.
She’d been right about the sweat dampening his hair and his shirt—right that hot and sweaty was a good look for him. Of course, the way he’d gotten hot and sweaty could make it an even better look, she thought, then chided herself. He was the enemy, remember? It was a given that everyone who worked for Taylor was on his side. Trust no one, Jen had intoned, and she hadn’t laughed when Jessica had. She’d been deadly serious.
If Jessica didn’t keep her guard up, she could end up seriously dead.
He set down the bags, then retreated to the dining table, and suddenly she could breathe again. “Th-thank you.” For carrying in the bags? Or for giving her space? She didn’t know. Didn’t care.
He shrugged as if both his actions and her words meant nothing.
“Tell your boss I’m planning to spend the rest of the day at home, so you’ll be free to do your real job.”
Something flashed through his eyes—annoyance, perhaps. With her for being smug? Or with Taylor for assigning him to such a mundane task? “I don’t think he’s likely to take your word for it.”
“Well, if he makes you stay, at least you can stay inside. You won’t die of heat exhaustion. I keep it cool.”
Where had that come from? The last thing she needed was a cop hanging around while she looked for evidence that would incriminate his boss and quite likely him—and the last thing she wanted was more time in his company.
He gave her a narrow look, assessing, as if he might discover her ulterior motive for the invitation if he looked hard enough. Abruptly, though, he turned away. “The heat’s not going to kill me.”
It felt as if the statement was unfinished—but something else might—but that was all he said. With a muttered, “Later,” he left the apartment, and this time he closed the door behind him. A moment later, she heard the distant thud of her trunk closing. She walked to the window and peeked through the crack in the drapes and saw him leaning against a tree barely tall enough to support his weight in the tiny lawn next to her car, his cell phone to his ear, no doubt calling Taylor.
Now there was a conversation she would love to eavesdrop on.
She was still standing there, minutes after he’d ended his call, when another police car rolled around the corner. It stopped behind her car, and Mitch walked over to talk for a moment to the man behind the wheel. Then he got into his own car, backed out and drove away, and the new guy took his space, right next to her rental.
The guy was probably older than he looked—he looked about eighteen—and wore mirrored sunglasses above a scraggly mustache. He’d been with Taylor in the diner that morning, which meant he wasn’t to be trusted. What was the world coming to, some TV show character had once asked, when you couldn’t even trust the police to be honest?
Amen to that.
She double locked the door, closed that little gap in the drapes, then returned to the kitchen. Except for a few frozen dinners, most of her food purchases had been of the junk-food variety. She and Jen had been blessed with a good metabolism that allowed them to eat that way without worrying about their weight. There at the end, Jen had been spitefully pleased that Taylor tended to get fat if he didn’t exercise religiously and stay away from sweets.
What about Mitch? Those muscles hadn’t appeared out of thin air, but did he work out because he needed to or simply liked to?
“What does it matter?” Jessica asked aloud, loading her voice with every ounce of frustration. “He’s one of the bad guys, remember? Just this morning you were criticizing Jen for falling for a pretty face, yet you’re on the verge of doing the same thing.”
Letting out a low, annoyed growl, she turned, hands on her hips, to survey the living room. It was time to start searching. She knew Taylor’s men had already searched the apartment and had, presumably, found nothing. That meant one of three things: Jen had hidden it extraordinarily well, in plain sight or someplace else.
She had her work cut out for her.
Wishing she could open the drapes and let in the sun without the kid cop being able to see, she turned on every light in the room—and discovered the reason the lamps at either end of the sofa hadn’t worked the night before: they were unplugged from the wall. Jen had always unplugged things like hair dryers and can openers before leaving the house, believing they were fire hazards. With a faint smile, Jessica stuck the plugs back into the outlets and the lights immediately came on.
After plugging in the television, she tuned it to a music channel, then started her search. It was a good thing the apartment was so small. Because she intended to do a very thorough job.
“Is he in?” Mitch asked as he passed Megan. Without interrupting her broadcast, she nodded in the direction of Taylor’s office.
He wound between desks, passed the interrogation room and paused long enough for a sharp rap at the door before opening it and inviting himself inside.
Taylor leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his stomach. “Well?”
After moving a stack of files from the lone chair that fronted the desk, Mitch sat down and made his report—every stop Jennifer had made, why and for how long. The only parts he left out were the ice cream and his helping carry in her groceries. There wasn’t any reason not to tell him about either. Mitch just didn’t want to.
That done, he said, “As long as she knows she’s being watched, she won’t do anything interesting, so I’m going out on patrol.”
“That’s fine for now. I’ve got Jimmy Ray over there. Sitting in the car watching the apartment just might be what he does best.”
What Jimmy Ray did best, Mitch thought, was threaten people. He looked so young, so harmless, that no one suspected he was mean as the devil until it was too late. Not that he would ever do anything without Taylor’s order. Tough as he was, he knew Taylor was tougher.
“But I want you to watch her at night and on weekends.”
Mitch stared. He’d like to believe Taylor wasn’t serious, but he’d lost whatever illusions he’d had about his old friend weeks ago. “I’m not being paid—”
“You will be.” Taylor’s voice was as level as his expression. “You keep an eye on Jennifer on your time off and you’ll find a nice raise in your next paycheck.”
Mitch settled back, crossing one ankle over the other knee. “Using department resources and department money to investigate your wife… And I suppose if I find anything that could be useful, say, in a divorce, that would probably earn me a nice departmental bonus, wouldn’t it?”
“I’m not worried about a divorce,” Taylor said dismissively. “You have a problem with making some extra cash?”
Mitch considered it, then lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Depends on how much cash we’re talking.”
“It’ll be enough. Trust me. Just keep an eye on her. She’s a beautiful woman. It won’t be hard. Okay?”
Again Mitch waited a beat before agreeing. “Okay.”
He was at the door before Taylor softly added, “Bubba? Just an eye. You lay a hand on her…I’d hate to consider the consequences, what with you and me going back so far.”
Mitch opened the door, then glanced back. “I don’t fool around with married women.” He looked pointedly in Megan’s direction. “There’s something about those vows…”
Taylor didn’t even look uncomfortable, much less guilty.
As Mitch returned to his car, he wondered what had happened to Taylor over the years. His parents were still together after some forty years; they spent summers in Alaska and winters in South Florida and they’d always seemed happy. His father had been a lawyer, his mother a stay-at-home mom, and in their retirement they did regular volunteer work with children’s charities in both states.
Through high school and college he and Mitch had had far more in common than not. They’d shared an apartment, taken the same classes, even had the same plans of going into law enforcement. Taylor had returned home to Belmar, though, while Mitch had gone to Atlanta for big-city police work within a few hours’ drive of his brothers.
Somewhere along the way, though, Taylor had changed. He’d become more controlling, more self-centered, less honest. He’d always been a little on the wild side and more than a little full of himself, but within limits. Back then he’d given a damn about something besides himself and power and money. Mitch felt as if he hardly knew him anymore.
Felt as if he hardly knew himself.
One thing about working law enforcement in a town where most of the police department was corrupt—there wasn’t much other crime to investigate. Since coming to Belmar, Mitch’s days were mostly spent writing traffic citations, with the occasional teenage vandalism, burglary or drug bust. People on the chief’s good side got special attention when they were the victim of a crime and a blind eye when they went speeding through town. That had been the toughest problem Mitch had faced since coming to town—keeping straight who was on the chief’s good side.
Until Jennifer had returned.
“Don’t lay a hand on her,” he scoffed. As if he needed to be told. He’d kicked Taylor’s ass twenty-four years ago and could easily do so again in a fair fight. Not that Taylor fought fair. He used his badge, his authority and his department to intimidate and frighten. He was rarely seen without one or more of his officers. He believed in making a show of force and in letting others do his dirty work.
That was the man Mitch had called friend for twenty-four years.
He drove to the north edge of town, where an abandoned gas station stood across the street from a big, relatively new truck stop. What the station owner hadn’t hauled away, thieves had, and vandals had broken the rest. The only thing that still worked on the premises was the pay phone, only because it was around the corner, on the side of the building where weeds grew tall. He backed his car into the weeds, beaten down because it was one of his few routines. With the highway coming into town and the speed limit dropping from fifty-five to thirty in the space of a few hundred yards, it was a good spot to work radar.
Leaving the coolness of his car, he dropped a few coins into the pay phone, then dialed his brother’s cell phone.
“Calloway.” Loud music played in the background, raunchy and punctuated by louder, rowdier male voices.
“Jeez, it’s not even noon and you’re already in a strip joint?”
“It’s noon somewhere,” Rick said. “Besides, I get paid to be here. I’m tending bar. You still in Mississippi?”
“Where else?”
“How does the small time compare to Atlanta?”
“I’m more likely to die of boredom here than there.”
“Yeah. Some guy gets bored and shoots you to liven up his day.”
Mitch had heard the joke before, but he still grinned. Wouldn’t that be something—after eleven years on the streets in Atlanta, to get killed in the line of duty in a nowhere place like Belmar. “The only person liable to shoot me down here is my boss, and that’s only if I get too friendly with his wife.”
“She worth getting shot over?”
He didn’t even need to close his eyes to summon up an image of Jennifer in last night’s second-skin jeans and sweater. When he’d first come up behind her in the dark, he’d smelled her fragrance, subtle, just enough to tease a man, and felt the heat radiating from her before he’d taken a step back for safety. His, not hers.
“She could be, if she wasn’t married,” he replied, earning a grunt from Rick. Funny thing about Mitch and the Calloway boys—having a father who wouldn’t keep it in his pants had given the meaning of fidelity one hell of an impact. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d told Taylor there was something about those marriage vows.
“Other than the boss being a tad possessive about his wife, how’s it going down there?”
“Okay. He offered me a raise if I keep an eye on her.”
“She’s worth getting shot for, and he’s not sticking close enough to keep track of her himself?”
“They’re separated. Remember? She went missing in the hurricane, he thought she was dead. She’s not and she’s back, and he wants to know everything she does.”
“Why doesn’t he hire a private investigator who specializes in divorce cases?”
“When he can let the city pay me to watch her?” Mitch scowled as a car sped past on the way into town. The city manager’s teenage son was behind the wheel and he was at least twenty miles over the limit. Lucky for the brat that his father was on Taylor’s good side.
“Funny thing,” he went on. “Taylor’s not worried about a divorce.”
Rick was silent for a moment, considering that. Mitch thought about it, too. Taylor didn’t have a prenup—he’d mentioned that before. He had a lot of assets, most of which couldn’t have been funded by his salary. It was hard to imagine that he could possibly have anything on Jennifer that would make her walk away from the marriage with nothing. Taylor, guilty of something worthy of blackmail? Sure. No doubt. Jennifer? No way.
“Maybe he plans to win her back,” Rick suggested.
“Maybe.” Or maybe he had other plans for her. But this was neither the time nor the place to discuss that in depth. Anywhere else in the country, phone calls, especially from pay phones, were relatively safe as far as privacy. But Belmar wasn’t anywhere else.
“Well, there are worse people that could be watching her.”
“And worse people to have to watch.” But damned if he could think of a single one. If there was a woman in town with the ability to screw with his concentration the way Jennifer had, he hadn’t met her yet.
“When you get that raise, why don’t you come up here and take us out for a weekend on the town?”
“Isn’t that a night on the town?” Mitch asked drily.
Rick snorted. “A night’s not even enough to get started. Mom said to tell you she misses your ugly mug and she wants to know when you’re coming to visit.”
“I’ll call her when I get a chance.”
“Yeah, just be careful what you say.”
Mitch rolled his eyes. What was it with people stating the obvious to him? Did he look that dumb? “Jeez, thanks for the advice. I probably would have blurted out everything, going all the way back to that pretty blonde who lived across the street from you guys and taught me everything a fifteen-year-old boy could bear to know when I spent the summer there.”
Rick gave a low whistle. “Kayla Conrad. Son, she taught all of us all we could bear to know. Man, I haven’t thought of her in years. Tell you what—you stay there in Mississippi and I’ll go home for a visit. I’ll give Mom—and Kayla—your best.”
“You do that.” Though if anyone could take his mind off the crappy state of his life at the moment, it might be Kayla.
Jennifer could make him forget. For a while. Then they would put their clothes back on and come back to their senses, and life would be even crappier because he would have broken one of the few rules he lived by. Taylor would find out and Mitch would suffer the consequences—and with people like Jimmy Ray on Taylor’s payroll, suffer was definitely the right word.
Scowling, he said goodbye to his brother, then returned to the car and switched on the radar unit. He was frustrated and annoyed, a prime combination for writing traffic tickets.
Taylor might be paying him illegally from the city’s coffers. But at least Mitch would know he’d done his best to increase those coffers first.
Chapter 3
A minute shy of six o’clock, Jessica ran out of steam.
She’d taken every CD and DVD out of its case, checking for original labels, and flipped through the pages of every book. She’d looked behind every picture and painting and underneath every shelf and drawer. She’d unzipped the sofa and chair cushions and tipped the furniture upside down, searched for loose tiles in the kitchen and bathroom and crawled the perimeter of the apartment checking for places where the carpet might have been pulled up. She’d heaved the mattress and the springs off the bed, dragged the frame from the wall so she could see behind it and taken every single item from every drawer, cabinet and the closet.
In the process, she’d discovered that Jen had been an amazing housekeeper, gotten hot and dirty and found nothing. Now, after a shower, she was calling it quits for the evening and heading out to dinner. Snacks could only take a woman so far.
“Going somewhere?”
She started as she locked the door but thought she did a decent job of hiding it. Letting her key ring dangle from one finger, she turned to find Mitch kicked back in a folding lounge chair underneath the scrawny oak. He wore denim shorts, faded and soft, and a Belmar High School basketball jersey that looked about twenty years out of date.
He looked incredibly hot—and she didn’t mean his temperature.
“To dinner.” She moved to the edge of the grass, wishing she were barefoot like him and could curl her toes into the cool green growth. There she could see a beer can on the ground next to the chair and a book open in his lap. She recognized it as the one she’d read on her last flight from Hong Kong—a thriller about a vulnerable woman taking on police corruption.
