LITMIR.BIZ

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to look right through a man.

      They had dated a few times, shared a few kisses and gropes, but hadn’t crossed over the line from friends to sex partners. And he was glad. They genuinely liked each other, but the sexual chemistry just wasn’t right between them. If they had screwed around, it would have been harder to remain buddies.

      “More coffee?” Jazzy asked, but before he could reply she filled his cup, placed the pot on the table and sat down on the other side of the booth directly across from him.

      “Thanks.” He lifted the cup to his lips.

      “It’s decaf,” she told him.

      He frowned. “I don’t drink decaf.”

      “You do tonight. I figure you’re pretty wired already, what with all you’ve had to handle today. And my guess is that you’ve been swigging down high-octane coffee all day. The stuff has probably replaced the blood in your veins.”

      “You know me too well.”

      “You should go home and get a good night’s sleep. You look like hell.”

      He grinned. “That’s one of the many things I like about you—your brutal honesty.”

      “Good thing you’ve got a place in town,” Jazzy said. “That snowstorm Genny predicted has already started. There are probably a couple inches of ice under the three or four inches of snow that’s already fallen, and it’s only ten-thirty.”

      Jacob nodded. “I doubt I’ll sleep much tonight.”

      “Yeah, I don’t suppose I would either after getting a good look at Susie Richards.” Jazzy turned over a clean empty cup on the table and poured herself some coffee. “Rumors are flying like crazy around town. I know you can’t tell me anything much, but … you can’t put off making another statement to the press much longer. Brian MacKinnon’s going to make a big deal out of this murder. It’ll be headline news in the Cherokee Pointe Herald for weeks, especially if you don’t nab the killer soon. He’d like nothing better than to find reasons to put you in a bad light.”

      “Brian’s a prick.” Jacob grunted. “He’s another one who thinks money can buy him anything he wants.” He looked Jazzy square in the eyes.

      “Yeah, I know Jamie’s back in town. Sally and Ludie told me. And no, I have no intention of getting involved with him again.”

      “Your life. Your decision,” Jacob said. “Jamie’s not my problem, but Brian, on the other hand, is. He doesn’t like me because I don’t approve of him sniffing around Genny. He’s too old for her and she’s too good for him, and I told him so. More than once.”

      Jazzy laughed, then lifted the cup to her lips and sipped on the hot coffee. “Brutal honesty. A trait we have in common.”

      “Something about Brian bothers me. Always has, even when I was a kid. He’s too slick, too smooth. What you see is not what you get with him. I think Genny senses it, too, and that’s why she hasn’t encouraged him.”

      “A guy like Brian doesn’t need much encouragement. He’s used to getting what he wants, and believe me, he wants our Genny real bad.”

      “Yeah, well, he’s got some competition now with that Pierpont guy after her, too. Can’t say he’d be my choice for Genny, but he’s an improvement over MacKinnon.”

      “Royce Pierpoint seems nice enough.” Jazzy topped off both their cups. “He is more Genny’s type. Gentle. Sensitive. Soft-spoken.”

      “Maybe he is. But we don’t know much about him. How long has it been since he came to town and opened that antique store of his? Three or four months?”

      “Back before Thanksgiving sometime.”

      Jacob took another swig of coffee, then stood, pulled his wallet from his pants pocket, and took out several bills. He handed the money to Jazzy. “I think I’ll stop back by the office before I head home.”

      Jazzy stood up beside him and wrapped her arm around his waist. “You’ll solve this crime. I have every confidence in you.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

      He gave her a quick hug, then lumbered out of the restaurant and into the frigid night. Damn, he could barely see the streetlight in front of Jazzy’s Joint. It was snowing so hard he couldn’t see much of anything. He flipped up the collar on his jacket and stomped through the snow, making his way back to his office a few blocks away.

      The streets were deserted, making Cherokee Pointe look like a frozen ghost town.

      Dallas Sloan cursed loudly! How the hell had this happened? Nobody had said anything about a winter storm. All the weather forecasters had mentioned was some freezing rain and sleet. A trip that should have taken him about an hour had taken him three times that long. Of course making a wrong turn fifty miles back hadn’t helped any. He wasn’t even sure he was on the right road now. Cherokee Pointe was located in a valley in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains, so being on a road on the side of a mountain seemed logical to him. What didn’t seem logical was the fact that he’d wound up in a ditch. He wasn’t the type to take wrong turns or lose control of a vehicle. Everything that could go wrong had gone wrong ever since he’d stepped off the plane in Knoxville.

      He was slightly distracted, his mind mired in the details of Brooke’s murder and the similarities between her brutal killing and the slaying of a seventeen-year-old named Susie Richards. Brooke had been fifteen, the oldest of his sister’s three children. She’d been the first grandchild in the family and everyone had doted on her, even her Uncle Dallas.

      He had found out quickly that when a case was personal, you couldn’t handle it with the same cool detachment you managed to use to your advantage when the victim was a stranger. It hadn’t been easy doing his job the past eight months, but he’d tried. And he had succeeded, at least part of the time. He’d been following a lot of leads that led nowhere, but he had a gut feeling about this one. Okay, so he’d already used almost all his vacation and sick-leave days and called in favors from everyone he knew at the Bureau. So what? No one questioned his right to act the way he did. After all, anyone else in his shoes might have gone ballistic and become totally obsessed with finding their niece’s killer. Sometimes it was difficult to maintain control, to make sure he didn’t move beyond determination into obsession. But Dallas prided himself on being in firm control. He’d never been a man to allow emotions to overrule common sense. If he was going to find Brooke’s killer, he couldn’t allow sentiment to get in the way.

      Dallas punched in the sheriff’s number on his cell phone. No reception. Was he out of range of a tower or was the crappy weather messing up signals? So what should he do now? He couldn’t call for help, and he might freeze to death if he stayed in the car all night. But what was the alternative? If he got out and went in search of help, he’d probably get lost in this damn storm. Okay, maybe he could figure out a way to get the rented Saturn out of the ditch and back on the road.

      The moment he opened the car door, the fierce wind bombarded him with a stinging mixture of sleet and snow. Blinking several times to clear the moisture from his eyes, he got out, slammed the door behind him and scanned the vehicle from hood to trunk. The right half of the car rested in the deep roadside ditch, with the left half perched on the shoulder of the winding mountain road. As he stomped toward the rear of the car, his feet slid out from underneath him. Reaching out, he grabbed the left rear bumper, but his gloved hands slipped and he completely lost his balance. His backside hit the ground, sending a cloud of newly fallen snow flying into the air all around him.

      Dallas cursed a blue streak. He should have known a dangerous blanket of ice lay beneath the innocent-looking snow. After getting to his feet, he glanced at the road, first in the direction from which he’d come to see if he’d missed any sign of a house, and then he looked ahead, searching through the blinding snow. He wiped his face, blinked, and zeroed his focus on one specific spot. Was that a light he saw shining through the darkness? It couldn’t be the moon or a star, not in this kind of weather. It had to be a manmade light.

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