Dust Up with the Detective (13 page)

Jeremy took her hand in his. “You were wrong about the tree being just like you.”

She looked to him, confused.

The fireman motioned to them to follow him behind the tree. “We found this,” he said, pointing at the ground.

In the unburned grass was a blackened plastic doll. Its face had melted, but the arms and legs were still discernible. A little tuft of charred red hair stuck out from the back of the doll’s head. Even disfigured, Blake recognized it as one of Megan’s favorite old dolls—the one from the bookshelf in her room.

Someone had been in their house long enough to find something personal and use it against them. That someone had meant to instill fear. And it worked. But more than fear rose within Blake. In addition, there was an onslaught of rage at the thought that someone had had the gall to violate their home. Not just their home, but specifically her innocent daughter’s bedroom.

Who would have done such a thing? And why?

“There’s something else, as well,” the fireman said as he started walking toward the side of the house.

Sprayed on the siding in orange paint was a message.

DEATH AWAITS YOU

The hair on her arms rose.

“There was also a note,” he said, pointing toward a white sheet of paper that was pinned to the wall.

She moved close so that she could read the words.

If you don’t leave Butte, I will kill you and your family. Run, if you know what is good for you.

She slipped her hand from Jeremy’s as she moved to tear down the letter, but she stopped herself. This was evidence. Evidence they could use.

“We’re in luck,” Jeremy said.

“How is getting a death threat lucky?” she asked, tilting her head toward the hateful note.

“Whoever wrote this doesn’t know me.”

“How’s that?” she asked.

“You know Casper?” Jeremy smiled.

She was totally lost. “What about your brother?”

“Before he went to work for the US Border Patrol, he used to work for the FBI...as a handwriting analyst. If I call him, I bet he can have his findings back to us within a few hours. He can help us bring down this sucker. And when I get my hands on them, they’ll wish they never lived.”

Chapter Eighteen

Jeremy tapped his pencil on the kitchen table. He hated waiting. He hated being forced into inaction. But right now he was waiting for a lead. A lead only his brother Casper could give them, once his handwriting analysis was completed.

In the meantime, his mother kept coming in and out of the kitchen; by now she must have been on her eighth cup of tea.

“Is there anything I can help you guys with?” she asked.

Blake looked up and Jeremy saw the dark circles that had started to form under her eyes as the night descended on them. She wiggled in the wooden chair as if her injuries were bothersome.

“You need something, Blake?” he asked. “Ibuprofen or something? You look like you’re getting sore.”

Blake shook her head. “I’m fine—they’re nothing more than flesh wounds,” she said, trying to make it sound like a joke, but from the slow edge to her speech he could tell she was hurting.

“Where’re her painkillers, Mom?” he asked, standing up.

She went to the cupboard next to the sink and retrieved the bottle.

“Thanks.” He took out a couple of pills, then filled up a glass of water and handed them to Blake. “Take these.”

“I told you...it’s nothing,” she argued.

“You don’t have to be tough in front of me. I know how bad you have to be hurting right now.” As he said it, he suddenly realized that it was likely her body wasn’t hurting half as badly as her spirit was.

There was little worse than having one’s home violated. Thankfully, she and her family had agreed to take his and his brother’s old bedrooms. It was the least he could do to make sure that they stayed safe.

“Is Megan asleep?” he asked.

His mother nodded. “Yeah, she passed right out.”

Blake looked at him. “Thanks again for letting us crash here. I’m sure we would have been fine at our place, but it’s nice having—” She stopped before finishing her sentence.

Was she going to say that it was nice having him around? Or had she meant something else?

They had their ups and downs, but he couldn’t help the way he felt about her. They were more than friends but less than lovers. Yet the more time they spent together, the more he was willing to give up a few things in his life. Maybe. He could never leave Missoula. He loved his job. He doubted that she would be willing to leave Butte. Her family had been born and raised here; her past was here.

His thoughts moved to the night her father had stormed out of her house. He’d been drunk and slammed his car into the tree. After that night, he’d never seen the man again...and from what he’d heard from his mother, neither had Blake.

Maybe the past could be a reason she would want to leave.

He hated to get his hopes up that she would be willing to change her life for him. The only thing she had been willing to give him lately was a piece of her mind. Not that he blamed her.

If she wanted this like he did, there would have to be compromises on both sides. And compromising had never been one of his strong suits.

He looked toward his mother. “What about Mrs. W?”

“She’s watching a little television. I’ll go keep her and your father company,” she answered, swirling the tea bag around in her cup.

As the door to the kitchen swung shut, his phone rang. It was Casper.

“What did you find?” Jeremy asked, trying to keep his nervous excitement in check.

“It’s nice to talk to you, too, snotface,” his brother chided.

“Yeah, yeah. If I wanted an etiquette lesson I would ask for help from Dear Abby.”

His brother laughed, reminding Jeremy just how much he missed him...and, regardless of the animosity they had held for each other, how much he would miss Robert now that he was gone.

“So you’re taking on Robert’s case?” Casper asked, almost as if he could tell by the silence what Jeremy was thinking about.

“Yeah. Helping out our former neighbor, Blake West.”

“I remember Blake,” Casper said, his voice filled with the excitement that came with reminiscing. “She still hot?”

“Uh...” Jeremy looked over at Blake. His cheeks warmed, and he tried to staunch his blushing. For the first time that evening, she smiled. “She’s as beautiful as ever.”

She looked away as her features seemed to take on a reddish hue of their own.

“I’ll have to check her out when I come down for Robert’s services. You know when they are going to release the body?”

“Probably not until we get a handle on the murder. Speaking of...did you find anything in the handwriting analysis?” He set the phone down and put it on speaker.

“I don’t know what you were expecting, but I did find some interesting things in the note.” Casper paused, and there was the sound of rustling papers on the other end of the line. “If you take a look at the physical characteristics and the pattern in the note, the letters are almost at a forty-five-degree angle, and they’re jagged, rushed. Whoever did this was in a hurry, but they were likely driven by passion or anger.”

If they were in a hurry, they had likely written it on-scene. Which meant they knew there was a chance of being seen. Yet they had thought that their mission was worth the danger.

“Looking closer, whoever wrote it was a woman.”

“A woman?” he repeated, shocked by his brother’s claim. “How do you know that?”

“If you look at the loops and swirls in the handwriting, it’s distinctly feminine. And, based on the angle of her letters, she’s left-handed.”

“Left-handed, huh?” His thoughts moved to the fingerprint the tech had found on the gun.

“Did you find out anything about Tiffany yet?” Casper asked, his voice full of suspicion.

“No, but we’re going to use all available resources until we do. Dead or alive, we need to know if she’s involved in this.”

Jeremy looked to Blake, his eyes conveying his conviction. He couldn’t help noticing her eyeliner was smudged and bits of mascara had flaked onto her cheeks. Even slightly disheveled, she was still the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

“Thanks, Casper.”

“No problem. And hey,” Casper added, “if you need me, I can be there within a few hours.”

“No worries. Blake and I can handle this,” he said, never breaking eye contact with her. “We can handle anything.”

* * *

B
LAKE
TWITCHED
AS
the brothers spoke of time, the measurement of everything in her world. Yet now the only time that really mattered was the mounting hours that had slipped by since Robert’s murder. With every passing second, the chances of their solving this case were going up in smoke.

She stood up and grabbed the uniform jacket she’d hung on the coatrack by the door. “Ready?”

Jeremy looked up at her. “For what?”

“We need to get out there. Get a line on Tiffany.”

He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost eleven o’clock at night. Where do you think we can go that we’re going to find her at this hour? First, we don’t know if she’s even the woman behind the fire. There’s no direct evidence of her being involved. Second, we haven’t heard anything about her whereabouts since the start of this investigation.”

“What other woman, besides Tiffany, would care if we’re investigating your brother’s murder?”

“Blake, the note never mentioned the investigation. It was a death threat, nothing more. For all we know, it was just some whack-job who’s been reading the paper and got it in her head that you’re the devil. Who knows?”

Blake gripped her jacket so hard that her fingers on her good hand throbbed. “You wouldn’t feel the same way if it was you or your family being threatened. You’re minimizing this.”

“I can assure you I’m not. I’m just as upset about what happened as you are, but you need to rest. When the sun comes up, you and I can go full-on guns blazing, but tonight you should take a break and let your body heal. You’re no good to anyone if you end up back in the hospital because you’ve refused to take care of yourself.”

He was right, but it didn’t lessen the urgency she felt. Whoever thought they could come into her house and threaten her family needed to pay.

Jeremy stood up slipped her coat over her shoulders. “Why don’t we go for a walk and get some air?”

She nodded, glad that he hadn’t attempted to calm her by requesting she stay put. This was one of those times when the only thing that was going to make her better was the feel of pavement under her feet.

He opened the door and followed her outside. The night air was brisk and had started to take on the smell of fading leaves and the last blooms of the season.

They made their way down the sidewalk and started down the hill. The full moon lit their way, and far off in the distance atop a mountain was a white sculpture called
Our Lady of the Rockies
.

“Did you know that she is dedicated to mothers everywhere?” Blake asked, pointing up at the woman atop the mountain.

“You ever been up there?”

She shook her head. There were hiking tours and helicopter rides that went up to the ninety-foot statue, but she’d never been.

“You can see the Berkeley Pit and the entire city. It’s hard not to think about all the people who gave their lives for this corrupt place.”

“Who owns the mines around the pit?” Jeremy asked.

“The one and only Tartarus Environmental Investments—headed by our glorious mayor. They shut down the mines in the 1990s. I think they weren’t making enough money per yard to keep the large-scale mines running. Ever since then they’ve been hurting for money.”

They had cleared the mayor as a suspect, but she couldn’t help the nagging feeling that he was still somehow connected.

They walked in silence, their footfalls and the occasional passing car the only sounds. Jeremy reached over and took Blake’s hand, and his heat soaked into her cold fingers. It was wonderful to have a man want to touch her, to reach out and take her hand not with ownership but rather something deeper, more visceral...more caring.

She glanced down at their entwined fingers. For a moment she couldn’t tell where he stopped and she began. Noticing her attention, he ran his thumb over the back of her hand, stoking her desire.

“Do you think Mayor Engelman is involved in all this?” she asked him.

He nodded. “There’s something so wrong about him. It has to be more than circumstantial that all of a sudden Robert gets a tax lien. Then he ends up dead...and the mayor’s company is there to scoop up the claim. I just wish we could find concrete evidence to tie him to this thing. Something he can’t deny.”

They walked slowly up the hill that led to Montana Tech’s School of Mines and Engineering. The brick buildings in front of them acted as sentinels as they approached. On the side of one was a picture of a man wearing a hard hat and holding a pickax, and above him read Go Orediggers.

The small college campus was eerily quiet. There were a few cars parked in the lots, but there wasn’t a single student hurrying across the grass or making his or her way back to the dorms. As silent and desolate as the campus seemed, it was a comfort. The last thing she wanted right now was to share the silence with anyone other than Jeremy.

There were a few lights on in the buildings, but most were black and closed down for the night. Near the edge of the campus was a gazebo nestled in bushes and covered in yellow roses. Jeremy let go of Blake’s hand and made his way over to them, breaking one off. He came back to her and handed her the flower. Its heady fragrance filled her senses.

“That’s sweet, thanks,” she said, twirling the open bud in her fingers.

“I hope you know how bad I feel...about everything.”

“The fire wasn’t your fault,” she said, taking another sniff of the flower.

“That’s not what I mean. I mean I’m sorry for
everything
,” he said, looking into her eyes. In the moonlight, his eyes appeared as if they were full of stars. He took the rose from her and slipped it behind her ear.

She could hold a grudge, but after everything that had happened over the past few days she didn’t have the energy to deny her true feelings. He was nice to have around, and it was nice to have someone who wanted to help her, someone she could trust.

He stepped up into the gazebo and disappeared behind the roses. She followed him up the steps and sat down on the bench at the center. He walked over to her and gently put his hands on her shoulders. She reached up with her good hand and placed it on his. The concrete had started to cool in the night air. A chill moved through her, but she wasn’t sure if it was the cold or Jeremy’s nearness.

“I never wanted you to get hurt,” he said, running his finger over the strap of her sling. “I never wanted you to feel threatened.”

She looked up at him, and her lips brushed against his arm. She paused and let the sensation of his soft hairs against her skin sink into her. Ever so gently, she leaned her face against his arm and let herself just feel his touch.

“I made my choices, Jeremy. I’ve known ever since I chose this path that it was possible I could get hurt. What happened at Todd’s wasn’t your fault. I froze.”

“You shouldn’t have been taking point.”

She didn’t want to argue with him, not when he was looking at her like he was searching for forgiveness and maybe something more. He touched her face, soft at first, unsure. Taking his hands in hers, she kissed his palm. She stood up as she ran her lips down the length of his finger and took the tip of it into her mouth and sucked. His breath hitched, and his body tensed with anticipation.

Moving into him, she pressed against his body and traced his wet finger across the curve of her lip, over her chin and down her neck.

“I’m not the kind of woman who is going to stand back and let others get what I want.”

He looked at her as he played with one of her loose hairs, wrapping it around his finger and unwrapping it as if he was in a daze.

“What is it that you want?”

“Right now?” she asked, her breath catching in her throat as she admitted what she had repressed for so long. “Right now, I want you.”

He took her lips. His kiss was hard and hungry. He tasted of salt and the sweetness of desire. Jeremy wanted this. He wanted this as badly as she did.