LITMIR.BIZ

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ones foolish enough to get played.

      Finally, the sheriff got a hold of himself, straightened up and turned to Brent. “I have the copies you wanted in the car.”

      “Thank you.” Brent swirled his finger. “I was about to review the scene with Jenna.”

      “Want me to do that?”

      Not a bad idea, but he wanted to give his version of what he knew from that night. “I’ll handle the first part and you can summarize the investigation. That work?”

      “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

      “Sheriff,” Jenna said, “I appreciate you letting me look at your files. A lot of people wouldn’t.”

      Barnes shifted his hat between his hands. “I was a deputy back then and this was my first murder case.”

      His gaze went to the floor, the spot where Brent’s mother had died, and the damned flicking stabbed up Brent’s arms again. Anymore, he couldn’t be in this house without the failure tearing at him. He inched his shoulders back and focused on Jenna.

      “Anyway,” Barnes said, “this case has stayed with me. I’ve got patience, but I need someone with imagination who can see more than I’m seeing. All I know is I want it solved.”

      Didn’t they all.

      Brent gestured down the hallway to his childhood bedroom where the hell began. “Let’s start there.”

      * * *

      JENNA FOLLOWED BRENT down the corridor, tracking his footsteps on the threadbare rug as he demonstrated the path that led him to discovering his mother’s body. She glanced up at the peeling wallpaper—white with roses—and wondered how long it had been there.

      “I looked out the door, but didn’t see anything,” Brent said. “My parents’ bedroom door was closed, so I went to the living room, where the television was still on.”

      Something in his tone, the flatness, the lack of emotion, the detachment, again struck Jenna as odd. This was his mother and he was reciting these facts as if reading from a script.

      “The house was quiet,” he continued. “I figured my mom had fallen asleep on the couch. She did that sometimes.”

      Jenna jotted notes as she walked. At least until Brent stopped short and—smash!—she collided with him. Her chin bounced off his back, her pad fell to the floor and her pen...well...that sucker plunged into him. She gasped, dropped it and instinctively rubbed the wounded spot. A spot that happened to be on Brent Thompson’s extremely tight backside.

      The shock of her hand in a place it seriously shouldn’t have been must have registered because he spun toward her.

      Holy cow! She’d just groped a US marshal.

      And liked it.

      What a nightmare. She smacked her hand against her chest. Bad, hand, bad. A horrified giggle blurted out. And it gets worse.

      “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to beg you to believe that was a completely—completely—unintentional thing. It was a reaction. If I’d hit your arm, I’d have grabbed it. I swear to you. Total accident.”

      Defuse it. Yes. That’s what she’d do. Before they both started stuttering. She leaned forward, went on tiptoe and, keeping her voice low, she added, “But seriously, your backside is a work of art. Pure heaven.”

      At that, Brent’s lips spread slowly, like melting butter inching across his face, and Jenna’s brain seized. The man had a smile—one he didn’t show too often—that could spark a fire in a saturated forest.

      “Heaven, huh?”

      “Pure. I am sorry, though. Really.”

      Not really.

      “You don’t look sorry.”

      But the sinful grin told her he was enjoying the game as much as she was. Sure, she liked flirting. Did it often and with purpose. But with Brent, it was just plain fun. They both knew the spark was there. They’d just chosen not to do anything with it.

      At least until she’d groped him and decided they definitely needed to do something with it.

      The sheriff stepped into view at the end of the hallway. “It got quiet. You two okay?”

      Brent’s gaze traveled to the open buttons on her blouse and back up, giving her a heavy dose of eye contact. “Are we okay?”

      “We are A-okay, Sheriff. Just having a little powwow here.”

      “Powwow,” Brent said. “Is that what it’s called?”

      “It is now, big boy.”

      A squeak from the back of the house sounded and Brent winced, the move so small she’d almost missed it. In the second it took him to realize she’d witnessed his unguarded response, he threw his shoulders back and jerked a thumb toward the end of the hallway.

      “Someone’s at the back door. Probably my uncle. Let me check this.”

      Turning from her, he strode to the end of the hall, hung a right and headed to the kitchen.

      If it was his uncle, she’d get an opportunity to put a face to a name. As she always did, she’d lay on the Miss Illinois-Runner-Up charm and let him get comfortable with her before interviewing him. She may have been rejected by the FBI, but they were clueless at how adept she was at handling men. Her four brothers could attest to that.

      Regardless, everyone here the night of the murder needed to be interviewed. Any one of them could hold one small detail they deemed irrelevant, but might actually be important. Anything was possible.

      Even twenty-three years later.

      “Hey,” Brent said. “Figured it was you.”

      “We just came from dinner.” Male voice. A little gravelly. Older. “I saw your car outside. You didn’t call.”

      Jenna and the sheriff stood in the living room giving Brent privacy with his uncle. At least she guessed it was his uncle.

      “The day got away from me,” Brent said. “Come into the living room. I want you to meet someone.”

      “Really?” The gravelly voice raised with that recognizable tone every unmarried, twenty-eight-year-old woman knew and sometimes, in her case, despised.

      Did Brent’s uncle think he was bringing a love interest home to meet his family? And what? Showing his girlfriend the place where his mother was murdered?

      Twisted.

      But, well, she’d seen plenty of twisted in this line of work. Simply put, people were weird. Brent just didn’t strike her as one of the weird ones.

      “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Brent said.

      “You’re not getting any younger.”

      Finally, Brent laughed. “As you keep telling me.”

      He stepped into the room, his uncle on his heels. Given Brent’s size it was no shocker that his uncle stood a good six inches shorter. He wore tattered jeans with an untucked flannel shirt over a T-shirt. His scuffed work boots clunked against the hardwood as he came into the room. Under the brim of his baseball cap, one which Jenna’s mother would ask him to remove in the house, his gaze shot to Jenna and then to the sheriff.

      He nodded. “Sheriff, everything all right?”

      “Just fine, Herb. Brent asked me to meet him here.”

      “Uncle Herb, this is Jenna Hayward.”

      Herb removed his cap, came toward her and shook her hand. “Hello.”

      “Jenna is a private investigator.”

      That got his attention. He looked at Brent, and

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