Then this afternoon, he’d gotten word that someone had called in an anonymous tip. A young waitress in nearby Harmony Grove had been making large cash deposits into her account for the past two and a half months. She’d supposedly just killed herself. Maybe it was related to the case he’d been working, maybe it wasn’t. But it was the only lead he’d had so far. So he’d rushed over to Harmony Grove and secured the apartment.
Jessica moved to the counter to retrieve another towel, this time wrapping some ice inside. “Here, hold this against your face.”
He grinned up at her, his rapidly-swelling lip interfering with the gesture. “Do you always provide medical treatment to your victims, or is this your form of an apology?”
“Uh-uh. I’m not apologizing for beating you up. You shouldn’t have been in my house.”
All right. He would give her that. His gaze circled the ransacked room. “Whoever did this, what do you think they were looking for?”
“I don’t know.” Her answer came without hesitation. She didn’t know, or wasn’t willing to tell him?
He studied her. He could usually spot a liar. This Jess Parker wasn’t so easy to read. Her dark eyes were guarded, her real thoughts hidden behind a facade of toughness. Penetrating it would require getting to know her. The idea intrigued him.
He slapped aside the thought. His career didn’t lend itself to developing romantic relationships. And he’d never been a love-’em-and-leave-’em kind of guy.
“Anything your sister might have been involved in that was a little shady? Something she might have had possession of that someone didn’t want the authorities to find?”
She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have a clue. I haven’t talked to her in eight years.”
Eight years? That was hard to believe. “Why so long?”
She tilted her head. “A little nosy, aren’t we?”
Yeah, she’d see it that way. He waited for her to continue.
She raised her chin and crossed her arms. “Not that it’s any of your business, but my sister and I weren’t exactly best buds. Far from it. Things with my parents weren’t any better. When I turned eighteen, I took off and never looked back.” She flashed him a smile, but there was no humor in it. “I’m pretty sure the town of Harmony Grove threw a big party.”
Ah, troubled childhood. That explained some of her hard edge. “Are you going to stay here?”
“Not permanently. But since no one can find my mother and whatever man she’s currently with, all of this falls on me. Once I get it resolved, I’m heading back to Miami.”
“That’s probably a good thing. I’m not sure how safe you are here. Whoever did this might be back.”
“Maybe. But he won’t get in. I’m going to screw the stationary slider into place and install a Charley bar to secure the other one.”
“Do you think they found what they were looking for?”
“I don’t know. As near as I can tell, the whole place has been turned upside down. The only rooms I haven’t checked are the master bedroom and the two baths.”
“I see.”
He glanced around the kitchen, then looked at the woman in front of him. This Jess Parker was a little rough around the edges. Was she part of whatever Priscilla had gotten involved with? She obviously wasn’t any saint. No one got into a locked door that easily without some practice.
But breaking and entering to drug trafficking? That was a large jump to make, even if there was some connection between Priscilla Parker’s cash deposits and his case. He was good at reading people, and when Jess said she hadn’t spoken with Priscilla for eight years, he was inclined to believe her. There was something in her eyes—a steadiness, a lack of pretense, the unspoken assurance that what she projected was the real deal.
He didn’t have that same confidence where her sister was concerned. He’d never met her, but he didn’t need to speak with her to know that small town waitresses didn’t drive Lotus Exiges or make the kind of money that was finding its way into her account.
Chances were good that, whatever she’d been involved in, some clues lay hidden in the mess around him. With probable cause, he could get a warrant. Maybe he wouldn’t need one.
“Would you like some help with this?”
She eyed him with raised brows. “Why would you do that?”
“Just being neighborly.”
“You don’t have a job to go to or something?”
“No, I just arrived this afternoon, remember?”
She shrugged, but still didn’t respond to his question. “What do you do? Normally, I mean. When you are working.”
“A little of this, a little of that. So feel free to put me to work.”
She studied him for several more seconds, then gave a brief nod. “All right. Tomorrow. Now I’m going to get some sleep.”
He rose from the chair and stepped toward the open sliding glass door. “Lock this behind me.” He flashed her a teasing smile, accompanied by a wink. “You never know what kind of riffraff might come through.”
“Yeah, I learned that tonight.”
As she clicked the lock into place, he rubbed his bruised ribs. Whatever came through that door, she could probably handle it.
Chapter Two
Jessica let herself into the house juggling a McDonalds coffee, an egg and sausage biscuit and the morning paper. She needed to call the police and make a report. After Shane had left last night, she’d curled up on the couch and gone to sleep, then headed out this morning as soon as she’d awoken. She’d been careful to not touch anything, but before the police arrived, she’d probably clean up the remains of the coffee table. That was something she’d rather not have to explain.
Nothing would happen until after coffee, though. The plaque hanging over her kitchen table back home summed it up nicely: Is there life before coffee? Everything was
