LITMIR.BIZ

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      THAT EVENING JENNA rode shotgun in Brent’s SUV while they drove the sixty miles south to Carlisle, Illinois, a place so foreign to city girl Jenna that she wasn’t sure she’d even speak the same language.

      Maybe that was a tad extreme, but Brent had exited the tollway and immediately engulfed them in miles and miles of farmland. Could she get a Starbucks? A Mickey D’s? Anything commercial?

      Not even six o’clock and the late October sky suddenly had gone black. She smacked her legal pad against her lap. Marshal Hottie had taken off his suit jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves a few times. The slightly messy look fit him. The suit look fit him, too. He was one of those men who could wear anything and still look good. Not fussy, pulled-together good, but rugged good.

      She smacked her pad against her leg again and he glanced down at the offending noise before going back to the road. The man had an amazing profile. Strong. Angled. Determined. Even the bump in his nose added to his I’m-in-charge persona. She’d like to see his hair—those fabulous honey-brown strands—a little longer, but he was working the short, lawman look nicely.

      “I’m not great with sitting,” she said.

      “Not the worst thing. We’re only five minutes out.”

      “Can you give me a quick overview? Are you okay with that? I don’t want to upset you while you’re driving.”

      “Jenna, it’s been twenty-three years. If I need to, I can recite the facts of my mom’s case in my sleep.”

      “I guess after a while it becomes...what? Rote?” Ugh. What a thing to say. “Wait. No. Bad word choice. I’m so sorry.”

      Brent shifted in his seat, switched hands on the wheel. “First thing, you’ve got to get over that.”

      “What?”

      “Worrying about offending me. I’m fairly unoffendable. And when it comes to my mom, if finding her killer means dealing with you speaking freely, I’m on board. Do your thing, Jenna. Don’t get hung up on my emotions. If it’s too much, I’ll remove myself and let you work. I need you focused on my mom, not me. Got it?”

      Well, hello, big boy. “I sure do.”

      “Good. I called the sheriff this morning and let him know we were coming. He’ll meet us at the house—the crime scene—so you can take a look.”

      Jenna jotted notes. “This is the house you grew up in?”

      “Yes. My father still owns it.”

      “Does he live there?”

      “No. He’s off the grid. Haven’t seen or heard from him in nine years.”

      She stopped jotting. “What’s that about?”

      “Wish I knew. When I was in college, he paid off the house and left me in charge of Camille, my then seventeen-year-old sister. I was on a football scholarship and had to figure out how to stay in school, play ball and get my sister through high school. My aunt and uncle lived next door so they helped until Camille graduated and went to college. Now she lives in the city with her newly acquired husband.”

      And, wow, Marshal Brent was a machine with the way he recited his life history. “Who lives in the house?”

      Brent cleared his throat. “We lived in it until Camille left for college and I could afford to move to the city. Now it’s empty. It’ll stay that way until we figure out who killed my mother. I pay all the bills and the house needs major work, but I don’t want anything painted or repaired. There might still be evidence somewhere.”

      In an odd way, it made sense. Who knew the secrets buried in the floors and walls? Any major construction would wash away potential evidence. “I understand. It’s smart. And amazing that you’ve maintained the house on your own.”

      Not to mention the fact that at nineteen, an age when most young men were focused solely on the number of women they could sleep with, he’d managed to help raise his younger sister. “Your dad, is he a...um...”

      “Suspect? Yes. The husband always gets a look. They haven’t been able to clear him.” She tapped her pen and Brent glanced at her. “Get over this hesitation, Jenna. I need you unfiltered and open-minded.”

      Sideways in her seat, she focused on him. She couldn’t quite grasp his he-man attitude. Sure, he had the physical size of a tough guy, but even the most hardened men had to feel something when their mother had been murdered.

      But he wanted unfiltered. She’d give it to him. “Tell me what happened.”

      A corner of his mouth lifted and hello again, Marshal Hottie.

      “Atta, girl. It was just after midnight and we were sleeping in our rooms. I woke up to a noise in the living room—I’d later find out it was my mother hitting the floor after someone blasted her on the skull. We never found a weapon.”

      Jenna jotted notes in her quasi shorthand, but paused to look at him. His features were relaxed, as if he was deep in thought, but other than that, she sensed no anxiety. They might as well have been out for a Sunday drive given his body language.

      “I heard the back door shut. I figured it was my dad coming home. He worked second shift at a manufacturing plant. Farming equipment. But the house got quiet. Usually, when my dad came home, he walked straight back to their bedroom and the floorboards squeaked. That night? No squeak. I stayed in bed for a few minutes thinking about it, and then got up to look.”

      “Were you scared?”

      “No. I don’t know why. I should have been.”

      Jenna took notes, letting him focus on the road and on the facts of his mother’s murder. Facts she was stunned he remembered with such clarity and, again, recited rather...dispassionately. He hooked a left onto another rural road and pressed the gas. What speed limit sign? “You left your room?”

      “I walked down the hall to the living room and found her on the floor.” He tapped the top of his forehead. “Bleeding. Then I got scared. My mom’s sister and her husband live next door and I ran there. My uncle went back to check on her. He called 9-1-1 from the kitchen phone, grabbed my sister and brought her to be with me. My aunt and uncle put us in their bed and told us to go back to sleep. By then, I was too scared to do anything so I stayed there.” He glanced at Jenna and then back at the road. “I can’t figure out if that’s a blessing or a curse.”

      “Probably both.”

      “Finally,” Brent said. “She’s unfiltered. That’s what we need. For twenty-three years the same man has had this case. He’s done a decent job, but he only sees what he sees.”

      Just ahead, a crossing came into view. To the right, a few houses with lit windows dotted the two-lane road. Brent cruised past them and continued on for a quarter mile to a second set of twin, single-story homes with cute porches she’d bet were great for sitting on during summer. One house was dark, the other with only a porch light. He pulled into the driveway of the darkened one, parked and cut the engine.

      “This is it,” he said. “If my aunt and uncle are home, they’ll be over in three minutes. Guaranteed.”

      Jenna sat forward, scrunched her nose at the darkness. “I’m assuming the electricity is on.”

      “It’s on. We’ve got ten minutes before the sheriff arrives. You want to go in?”

      She nodded.

      He slid from the SUV and came around to open her door. A gentleman. Love it. The front porch light flashed on and she flinched.

      “Sorry,” Brent said. “Motion sensor. Should have warned you.”

      “No problem.”

      Side by side, they walked to the porch. Brent swung his keys on his index finger once, twice, three times, and then snatched them into his hand.

      Jenna

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