“No,” he bit off.
“Oh.” Maybe admitting that he had actually listened to her advice interfered with some sort of code of ethics, so she tried again. “I thought that since you were late getting in for a second day in a row—”
“I had an emergency to deal with,” he answered in a clipped voice. He didn’t bother looking her way. “Couldn’t be helped.”
“Two emergencies in two days,” Brianna marveled. “You must lead an exciting life.”
“Not hardly,” Jackson answered in a monotone. And then, very deliberately, he told her, “My excitement takes place in the field.” He blew out a breath. He couldn’t have her examining his life under a microscope every time he said something. “Look, if you find my work lacking, you can request to have them send you someone else from major crimes.”
She didn’t want someone else; she wanted him. He was a good cop—besides, she’d already made up her mind that he was going to be her project.
“And ruin what could be the start of a beautiful friendship?” she asked, miming shock, as she put one hand over what she pretended to be her pounding heart. “I don’t think so.”
Jackson shook his head. He really didn’t know what to make of her. “Did you have to pass a psych exam to join the force?” he asked.
“Yes.” The exam was standard procedure in the department’s attempt to weed out applicants who were ultimately unstable.
“Maybe someone should review that exam and find a way to make it more stringent,” Jackson told her. He knew he was goading her and he was prepared for an explosion.
But he was going to be disappointed again.
“You missed your calling, Muldare,” Brianna told him matter-of-factly. “You’re rather good at creating diversions.”
Stopped at a red light, Jackson looked at her. “Obviously not good enough.”
Brianna grinned, pleased with the bantering exchange. “Don’t feel bad. I grew up with three brothers. I can see through almost anything.”
She wasn’t going to give him any peace until he tossed her some sort of bone regarding why he was late this morning. “I went to see my father, okay? Are you happy?”
“Not as happy as your father,” she told him with a knowing smile.
Jackson thought of the empty expression in his father’s eyes when the latter had looked up at him. “Don’t count on that,” he said flatly.
“Did you two argue?” she asked sympathetically, guessing that was the reason why Muldare was so stricken beneath his stoic expression.
“I wish.” The words had escaped Jackson’s lips without his even realizing that he had said anything. But since he had said that, Jackson completed the rest of his thought for her benefit. “To argue, he would have had to have been lucid.”
For a second, Jackson had lost her. And then suddenly, all the pieces came tumbling together and she realized what he was saying. Muldare had to be talking about his father having dementia.
She didn’t have any firsthand experience with the soul-crushing disease, but she knew a number of people who did.
“I am so very sorry,” Brianna whispered, placing a light hand on his shoulder.
He shrugged her off, keeping his eyes straight on the road. He didn’t want her pity.
“Don’t be sorry,” he told her icily. “Just stop asking questions.”
He was hurting and he didn’t even know it, or if he did, he wasn’t acknowledging it. But how did she reach him if she couldn’t get him to talk to her, Brianna wondered, frustrated. It would come to her. Somewhere along the line, as they worked on this terrible case together, it would come to her.
“That won’t be so easy to do if we’re trying to interview Mrs. Caulfield or the other people on this list,” she told him in an amused tone.
“Damn it, you could infuriate a saint,” Jackson bit off.
“And by saint, are you referring to yourself?” she asked innocently.
For some reason, he didn’t know why—maybe it was her tone of voice—her question made him laugh. Heartily and for more than just a second. He laughed so hard that it released some of the tension that had been knocking around in his chest.
Taking a deep breath, Jackson pushed aside everything that had eaten away at him this morning and centered himself.
“Okay, let’s just focus on this case for now,” he told her.
“I was just about to suggest that, Muldare,” Brianna responded.
Sure she was, he thought. But for now, peace had broken out between them, and he would take it. He needed that peace in order to concentrate on the case.
They were paying him to be a detective, and right now almost every penny of that money was spoken for. He needed to get his brother clean and his father looked after. Whatever little money was left over, he’d use to take care of himself, but not until his father and his brother were squared away.
There were times when he wondered how he’d got into this kind of position, with all this weight on his shoulders. And there were other times when he just shrugged, accepted his burden and made the best of it. After all, what choice did he have? There was no one else to take care of either his brother or his father and he couldn’t turn his back on them, even though there were times—selfish times—when he’d been tempted to.
“You know,” Brianna said after a prolonged silence, “you can talk. Or would you rather I asked you another question?”
That did it. His mental funk broke apart and slipped into the background as Jackson started asking her questions about the case and brainstorming with her.
Chapter 10
Roberta Caulfield was a lively seventy-nine-year-old widow with sparkling hazel eyes and short-cropped hair the color of blushing strawberries. Living in the Shadowy Oaks apartments, euphemistically referred to as apartment homes, the petite woman was eager for company and ready to talk about anything the two young people at her door wanted to discuss.
A friendly, trusting
