Look Before You Jump (14 page)

“Distantly,” I said.

‘Course I didn’t tell Detective Horace Duncan
the distance between me and my father was merely symbolic. We lived
in the same town, but we may as well have lived on separate
planets.

But I digress.

When the detective dragged my sorry carcass
from Bobby’s house before sunrise tinged the sky pink, I should’ve
been scared beyond all reason. I was dead. Headed to the slammer if
I couldn’t sweet talk my way out of this one. Soon to become
someone’s unwilling bitch. But there’s something about pulling an
all-nighter that causes my sanity to go the way of the rotary
phone.

Or maybe it had more to do with Duncan’s
surly attitude as he shoved me through the front doors of the
precinct. Rumpled cheap suit, balding dome, and a greasy complexion
in the early-morning mugginess wasn’t nearly as bad as the stench
of Old Spice in the close confines of the interrogation room. Hard
dark eyes swept over and through me like I was a mere apparition –
‘cept when settled too long below my neck.

Since arriving on this side of puberty, I’d
had many a man stare and talk to the endowments God chose to
bless
me with. For some, I didn’t mind accentuating the
positives. For others, I didn’t care for the slimy optical
undressing. Duncan fit firmly into the
others
category,
though I was inclined to dislike him on first sight – not to
mention the fact he hadn’t let me have my one phone call yet.

Duncan continued, “Didn’t you see the police
tape?”

“Was that what that was?” I asked, playing
innocent and ditzy.

“Can you read?”

“Not in the dark.”

Duncan reached into his pocket, pulled out a
roll, and unwound a short section. “Can you read it now?”

“Police line,” I repeated. “Do not
cross.”

“Which you did.”

“No I didn’t.”

“What do you call it then?”

I pointed. “That particular tape wasn’t
there.”

That got me a purse of thin lips. “But some
just like it was.”

“Says you.”

“And a whole investigative crew,” Duncan
returned. “It means you do not go under it.”

“I didn’t go under it,” I countered. “The
only thing I saw near the back door was a yellow streamer with one
end attached to the house and another end floating in the breeze
like a windsock.”

The detective cricked his neck. “Under, over,
around or through, you don’t cross a police line.”

“Can you take these things off?” I asked,
jiggling my cuffed hands in his face. “They’re cutting into my
wrists.”

His fist jostled the table and echoed between
the walls. “You weren’t just breaking and entering, but breaking
and entering a
crime scene
.”

“I didn’t break and enter. I had permission
to be there.”

“Permission? From who?”

“The homeowner. And I had a key.”

“You mean this thing?” Duncan asked as he
flung the key onto the table. “It’s still not a get out of jail
free card.”

I tried another track. “Don’t you guys record
all inmate conversations?”

“What’s that got to do with…?”

“Mr. Vernet specifically asked me to find
something for him.”

“What do you fancy yourself? Some private
investigator? Nancy Drew?”

“Just someone helping out a friend is
all.”

“In case you didn’t know, PI’s are required
to be licensed. You’re just some bartender babe.”

“Hey, I have a B.A.,” I responded.

“In what? Bad-Assery?”

“Business, dumb-ass.”

“So why’re you wasting it bartending?” Duncan
asked.

“Maybe I’m planning to open my own place
someday.”

He leaned forward, his stare dipping again
below my neck. “So why were you at my crime scene?”

“Like I said, helping a friend.”

“Clearing evidence of his crime, you mean,”
Duncan said, running a finger over the edge of the humidor.

“He didn’t kill his wife. Why don’t you do a
little investigating and actually listen to our conversation from
this morning…er, yesterday morning,” I challenged.

“Because I already did.” A smirk planted
firmly on his face just before a knock at the interrogation door.
“How do you think I found you?”

When Duncan opened the door, I felt like the
head football coach getting the Gatorade bath at the end of the
game. Only this time I wasn’t on the winning team. Tired eyes held
flames of fury ready to unleash my way.

“Duncan,” Zeke greeted.

“Taylor,” Duncan responded.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. I
was about to be someone’s bitch alright. Yup, I was so dead.

***

Silence.

I wasn’t about to be the one to break it.
With no sleep for the past twenty-four hours and only one cup of
coffee flowing through my veins, synapses weren’t firing in my
brain which wouldn’t bode well for my foot-in-mouth disease.
Instead I listened to the rumble of his Ford Raptor and watched the
sun rise over a new day in Dallas. The day Ranger Zeke saved my
sorry carcass from rotting in a Dallas jail cell. The day my
account balance with Zeke went so deep into the negative I was
swimming in red. He owned my hide.

And we both knew it.

“I told you to stay away,” Zeke finally
growled.

“Well that didn’t work,” I responded.

“Why won’t you ever listen to me?”

“Bobby needed me to…”

My body jerked against the seatbelt as Zeke
slammed on the brakes with a squeal of molten tires and slid the
truck onto the highway shoulder in one tug of the steering wheel.
The stench of burned rubber filled the cab. Horns honked and middle
fingers were raised in the southern salute, but Zeke’s attention
was all on me.

“Are you ready to join him in jail?”

“All Bobby wanted me to do was see those
letters,” I said.

“Will you listen to yourself? Bobby this and
Bobby that. Do you know how close you were to being booked?”

In a moment of clarity and wisdom I remained
silent.

Zeke took a deep breath. “Damnit, Vic, I’m
trying to help you here, but you’ve gotta start helping yourself by
listening to me for once in your life. You’re not going to do Bobby
any good sitting right beside him.”

“Then what should I have done all day? Wait
around for you to finish planning security for the governor’s
visit?”

“If I’d known what you were looking for, I
could’ve made a phone call. Arranged to meet up with Duncan at the
house after I got off work.”

“Would you have let me go inside with you?” I
asked.

“It’s an active crime scene,” was all Zeke
said.

“Then I’d have never gotten the name of Amy’s
dad.”

Zeke stopped for a second. “Is Juarez really
her father?”

“I’d say it’s a safe bet.”

We remained silent until Zeke pulled up in
front of my apartment building.

“What about my car?” I asked.

“I’ve taken care of it. Should be dropped off
by ten.”

“I guess that means I’ll have to stay awake
until then,” I muttered, dragging my ragged rump from the cab.

Zeke rolled down the window after I shut the
door. “Remember, I’m still working on things from my end. I don’t
want to see an innocent man in jail any more than you.”

My brain was already shutting down. “Yeah,
yeah.”

“I mean it, Vicki. Call me if you need
anything.”

If my antenna hadn’t been so addled, I’d have
suspected more lingered behind Zeke’s statement than an intent to
help with Bobby’s situation. The truck idled at the curb while Zeke
waited for me to enter my complex and stumble my way past the
super’s apartment and up the stairs. In my present state, the only
man allowed in my rumpled bed this day was my ball-less and
claw-less tabby.

After all, a girl needed sleep on
occasion.

***

Ever have one of those headaches from lack of
sleep? It’s different from the piercing headache caused from a
hangover, where light and sound are like a hot poker to the gray
matter. It’s the kind of ache where your brain feels too heavy for
your skull. Disembodied and fuzzy. It takes far too much effort to
piece together a single sentence, much less follow through on an
action.

The tequila bottle rested in my hand as I
tried to remember if I’d actually poured it in the glass on the bar
a second ago or if I’d dreamt it. The music warbled around me as if
coming from a tin can. I tossed in a measure of tequila – just in
case – threw a lime wedge on the edge and called it good. Thank God
this night at the bar remained slow.

After spending the eventful morning with
Duncan and then Zeke, a nap had sounded like the perfect fix to a
not-so-perfect day’s start. But after collapsing into my bed and
drifting faster than a racecar at Daytona, Janine’s call for
updates got my brain going again – however briefly – as I replayed
my visit to Bobby’s home and my almost trip to the slammer. Certain
discoveries I kept to myself, namely the probability of the
chromosomal contribution to Amy’s genetic makeup. If it’d concerned
Bobby enough not to reveal the name through a recorded jail line,
it’d behoove me to hold it close as well and not reveal it to
outsiders.

“Well if it isn’t my favorite mind
reader.”

My brain snapped awake so fast at the
familiar voice it almost gave me whiplash. “Hey there,
Radioman.”

Cornflower-blue eyes sparked in the ambient
bar lighting. The amber hair sported the perpetual indentation from
wearing headphones all day. Yeah, I’d love a chance to fix it by
ruffling my fingers through it. Or tousle it when he kissed me. Oh
hell, why not just tangling it as he made wild and passionate love
to me. With his silky and sultry radio voice, I’d let him talk
dirty to me all night long.

Nope, I no longer felt tired at all. In fact
just call me the energizer bunny.

Radioman chuckled. “Where’d that moniker come
from?”

I popped the lid off a Sam Adams and handed
it over. “I made it up the night we first met when you came in with
your two buddies.”

After a long pull, he sat down on a stool.
“It’s better than Bruce, that’s for sure.”

“As long as your last name isn’t Banner or
Wayne, and you don’t go running around in the night all green and
enraged or caped and cowled, we’ll call it good.”

“You can call me whatever you want,” he
growled with a smile.

My legs got a little noodley with that pitch,
and I leaned against the counter to stay upright – even though all
my happy neurons wanted to go horizontal. “What brings you out
without the entourage?”

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on
either side of his beer. “The chance to see a lovely lady
again.”

I followed suit and leaned near, loose
strands of hair tumbling over my shoulders and pooling on the bar.
“Are you flirting with me, Mr. Radioman?”

“I might be.” He wound a strand around his
finger and gave it a test tug. “You free on Saturday night?”

The spicy scent of his cologne wafted beneath
my nostrils as he came in closer for the kill, licking his lips and
lowering his lids to half-mast. I sucked in a breath. Why didn’t he
get it over with and take me right there on the cold, hard
counter?

“No she’s not free,” Grady interrupted.
“She’s a working girl.”

Exhaustion washed over me again. Radioman
pulled away to a more respectable distance – damnit – as Grady
sidled up behind and draped an arm across my shoulders like a dog
marking his territory. Pheromones flew thick before I shimmied out
from underneath the boss’ arm, grabbed a towel, and started taking
my frustrations out on the counter.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “But yeah, I’m working
Saturday night.”

Radioman wasn’t so easily deterred. “What
about tomorrow night?”

“She’s gonna be out of town,” another
familiar voice called out.

Zeke flanked Radioman, set his black Stetson
aside and tapped the bar in front of him. I knew what it meant, but
I ignored him on principle and fumed instead.

“What do you mean, I’m gonna be out of town?”
I groused.

Grady poured a dark ale from the tap and set
it before Ranger Taylor. “Need some alone time with your girl,
Zeke?”

“I’m not his girl.”

“If it’s not too much trouble, Grady,” Zeke
responded.

“I’m not his girl,” I corrected again for
Radioman’s benefit.

“How many days you gonna need her?” Grady
asked Zeke.

“I’m standing right here, guys.”

“Tomorrow’s all,” Zeke continued, completely
ignoring me.

“Hey, wait a minute,” I broke in.

Radioman’s head toggled back and forth
through the ridiculous conversation, quietly drinking his beer and
seeming to enjoy the show about me that didn’t include me. The
slight lift at the corners of his mouth said he was actually
enjoying my pain.

Men.

“Just a cotton-pickin’ minute,” I yelled and
turned to Grady. “You won’t give me Friday or Saturday off to go on
a date, but Ranger Boy, who by the way is
not
my boyfriend,
comes waltzing in and you give me tomorrow night off to spend in
his
company? No questions asked?”

Grady shrugged. “He wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t
important. Besides, you’ve been so grumpy tonight I figured you
could use some entertainment.”

“Humph,” I muttered as I confronted Zeke.
“What’s so important that you need to take away my earning
potential on a busy night?”

“Need you to take a trip down to Austin with
me.”

“Austin? Why the hell would I need to go to
Austin tomorrow? Can’t it wait until Monday?”

Zeke guzzled the ale and stood, sliding his
hat from the bar to his head in one smooth motion. “I’ll pick you
up at seven.”

“Seven?” I asked his retreating figure. “As
in A.M.?”

“Yup.”

Grady and Radioman smiled at me in unison. My
brain simply glazed over. Too many early mornings in a row. Why me?
Someone just shoot me now.