On Pins and Needles (4 page)

“I wouldn't say
attracted,
no. I just did some objective observation.”

“And came to the conclusion that he was a great big, good-looking guy,” Nissa repeated, teasing her now.

“That's not a conclusion I needed to come to. It's an empirical fact.”

“An empirical fact that you took note of.”

“Do you want to talk about the problems this man is determined to cause us or about his appearance?”

“Maybe you could flirt us out of problems with him,” Nissa joked.

“You definitely don't know Josh Brimley.” Although there
had
been some flirting going on in the under currents.

Or had she only imagined it? Maybe at the same time she'd been imagining him kissing her…

“This is serious, Nissa,” Megan claimed as if her own mind hadn't just wandered from the weightiness of the situation. “I don't think it's a good idea to take it lightly.”

Nissa shrugged again. “No matter how we take it, what can we do about it? I assume this Josh Brimley is going to investigate and find out what really happened all those years ago and who did it.”

“But will he find out the truth if he doesn't look at any scenario that doesn't put the blame on Mom and Dad? Because as it stands now, he seems to believe that our leaving Elk Creek was a sign of their guilt, that they were running away.”

“I have to think that the truth will out,” Nissa said, honestly sounding un concerned as she took her cup and headed for the shower.

But Megan couldn't be so confident. She didn't for a minute doubt her parents' innocence. But she did doubt that Josh Brimley would explore other possibilities since he'd seemed to have his heels dug into suspecting them.

So what was she going to do about it? she asked herself.

But she didn't have an instant answer.

Especially not when that kitchen chair Nissa had just vacated started taunting her with images of the sheriff sitting in it again.

And once that happened, she had trouble concentrating on anything else….

 

When Josh Brimley showed up at her office at about the same time that afternoon that he had the afternoon before, Megan's first thought was that he must have been passing by, seen her through the waiting room windows putting the final touches on the base board paint and decided that even though it was Sunday he might as well take advantage of her being there and come in to have the acupuncture they hadn't gotten to the previous day. She even imagined that he'd re considered everything, realized how silly he was being to suspect her parents of murder, opened up his mind to an alternative allergy treatment, and they could start fresh.

Okay, so maybe she was being naive and overly optimistic. But she certainly didn't expect what he'd really come for.

“You have a warrant to search our house and be longings?”

“That's what I said. I'll need you to take us over there and let us in right now.”

“Us?”

He nodded his handsome head over his shoulder and for the first time Megan noted the forensics van that had
been at her house the prior evening and a State Patrol car parked on the opposite side of Center Street near Josh's squad car.

“You can't be serious,” she said in clear disbelief.

“As serious as I can get,” he assured her. “It's standard operating procedure. The forensics guys want another look around in daylight and the patrolmen and I need to search the house and premises. I had to go into Cheyenne and interrupt a judge's Sunday dinner to get the warrant but I didn't have any problem convincing the judge that it should be issued and executed immediately.”

“Right. On a Sunday. Before Nissa and I might destroy evidence that's already been around for eighteen years.”

“It's just routine.”

“For you to go through our things?” Megan said as the reality of a home search began to sink in.

Josh's silence confirmed that he was. “You're welcome to just give me the key and stay here so you don't have to see it.”

That was even worse.

“You can't go into my house without me at least being there.”

“It's up to you. But one way or another I'm already slowing things down by coming here first to let you know. I have to get out there.”

Was that supposed to make her feel better? That he was allowing her some small courtesy he wouldn't have allowed someone else before he rifled through her under wear drawer?

Well, it
didn't
make her feel better about it. Not in the least.

But regardless of how she felt, when she glanced at the warrant he handed her as proof of what he was saying, she could see she didn't have a choice in the matter.

“I guess I'll have to take you,” she finally said, wishing her sister were there to go along. But Nissa had garnered more than interest from potential clients the previous night and had gone on a date to Cheyenne for the day and evening. Which left Megan alone on the hot seat.

“We'll mainly be looking for blood,” Josh told her. “On the walls, the floors, the base boards, the door jambs, the edges and corners of counters and cup boards, and on whatever furniture has been there all along. We'll probably have to spray luminol inside the drawers of any dresser that you didn't bring with you, but you can take out your personal things yourself before we do that. And on the bright side, for now the warrant doesn't allow us to pull up floor boards or get into your pipes.”

He seemed to think that was some kind of consolation. He also almost sounded sympathetic and apologetic. But none of it made any difference. A bunch of strangers—
men
—were about to go into her home, open her closet doors, her cup boards, her drawers, and go through every nook and cranny of her living quarters, no matter how private. There was no consolation for that and even if he was sorry about it, it didn't change anything.

But since there was nothing she could do to stop it,
Megan closed her paint can, went to set her brush to soak in the sink in the break room and, without another word to Josh Brimley, she walked out of her office to her car, thinking the whole way that no matter how terrific-looking Josh Brimley was, it didn't make up for this.

 

The search took several hours and Megan hated every minute of it. Even though Josh allowed her to be the one to take her and Nissa's undergarments from the drawers, and their personal things from the bathroom, he was still right there watching her, keeping an eye on everything she removed as she removed it.

It was humiliating. Embarrassing. Enraging.

And it made her determined to dish out a little in return. So, once her and Nissa's unmentionables were out of the way, she opted for never letting Josh out of her sight as if she didn't trust him as far as she could see him.

But it didn't seem to bother him quite the same way. Instead, as if she weren't there at all, he went about his business.

As the forensics unit studied the grave and surrounding area, and the patrolmen walked the rest of the property and searched the old barn, Josh searched the house.

He did a thorough job of it, beginning by getting up into the attic and down into the crawl space, then turning his attention to the main floor and the second level of the two-story home.

Since the furniture had been there from before her family had taken to the road, Josh left no piece of it
unmoved, over turned, or with a drawer that wasn't pulled completely free and checked inside and out.

When that was accomplished, he sprayed the luminol over nearly every surface and used a fluorescent light that he explained would expose even old blood that was in visible to the naked eye.

And while he confiscated several items—her father's ancient sneakers and her mother's equally aged gardening gloves among them—Megan was convinced he didn't find anything that would end up being evidence of a crime.

 

It was after eight o'clock that evening before Josh decreed the search over. The forensics men had left before sundown but the other two officers had stayed as long as Josh.

Megan could see them through the living room window, talking beside the patrol car. She wondered if they were all just going to leave or if at least one of them would allow her the courtesy of a goodbye.

She didn't have long to wonder, though. After a while Josh shook both men's hands and watched them get in their car.

But he didn't follow suit. Instead he stayed staring after them until they'd driven out of sight.

Then he retraced his steps back to the house and came in without so much as a knock on the front door that opened into the living room.

Still, he didn't say goodbye. He didn't say anything. He merely leaned a nonchalant shoulder against the
door he'd closed behind himself and gave Megan the once-over.

“Time for my strip search?” she said facetiously before she realized what she was actually saying.

Josh cracked a smile—the first since he'd shown up at her office that afternoon—and raised a charmingly lascivious eyebrow at her. “Are you offering?”

Megan could feel her face heat and knew it was turning cherry-red—a hazard of having such a fair complexion. “I just meant that that seems like the only thing you
haven't
done here, so I'm wondering if that's what I'm in store for since you didn't leave with the rest of them.”

She was only making it worse and she knew it, so she finally stopped talking.

Josh's smile remained, as if he were still enjoying her blunder and the blush it had induced. “As a matter of fact, I'm off the clock now and I thought I'd help get everything back in place.”

“Oh,” she said for lack of a better response as his big hands began to roll up the cuffs of his uniform shirt, exposing thick wrists and hair-spattered forearms.

Helping to put everything back in place was a nice thing for him to do but it left Megan in a melee of mixed feelings.

She was mad at him for this whole thing. For suspecting her parents. For searching her home.

But at the same time, here she was feeling pleased by his offer to pitch in with the cleanup and admiring the sight of oh-so-masculine hands and wrists and arms, of all things.

Of course it had been that way all afternoon and
evening. Even in the midst of invading her privacy not a detail about him had escaped her notice.

She'd taken in every scuff on his cowboy boots, and the snug caress of blue jeans that fitted his to-die for derriere like kid gloves. She'd studied his uniform shirt—a tan color with darker brown epaulets and flaps on the breast pockets. She'd surreptitiously read the lettering on the sheriff's department insignias that rode each of the sleeves where his biceps stretched them to their limit. She'd memorized the number on the badge emblazoned on a chest that appeared to be made up of massive pectorals. And all in all she couldn't help but be aware of how incredibly appealing he looked. Despite the fact that he was tossing her home as if she were a common criminal.

“So what do you say? Let's put this place back in order.”

For a moment more Megan just stared at him. He'd been freshly shaved when he'd shown up at her office and she could still smell the faint scent of a sea breeze-like after shave wafting to her from where he stood.

Tell him no thanks,
she ordered herself.
Tell him that if his business is finished he should get out, that he isn't welcome here.

But the trouble was, as much as she knew she
should
say exactly that, she couldn't quite do it.

Instead, another voice some where in her head said,
He was the one who made the mess, he should be the one to clean it up….

And somehow that seemed perfectly reasonable.

“Where would you like to start?” she heard herself say suddenly.

“How about in the same order I messed things up? You can put your things back in the bathroom and the dresser drawers while I get the beds and bureaus against the walls again.”

Megan was about to agree when her stomach rumbled quietly and reminded her how hungry she was.

“Or you could go to work on the furniture and I could make us a couple of sandwiches,” she suggested.

“Better yet. It's way past sup per time and I'm starving.”

And wasn't this all amiable and companionable? Megan thought, feeling disloyal.

But again there was emotional confusion because she was also feeling a twinge of excitement at the prospect of the two of them sharing a light, impromptu supper alone together.

This was really crazy, she decided, wondering if she should rescind her own offer of sandwiches, reject his offer of help putting the house in order, and call it a night after all.

Only once more she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

It would be rude, she rationalized. Not to mention that being on the good side of the sheriff seemed wiser than alienating him any more than she already had.

It didn't mean she was any less resentful of his suspicions of her parents or any less on their side. It was just good public relations, she assured herself.

“Sandwiches,” she repeated as if to remind herself.

“Furniture,” Josh said the same way.

Then he pushed off the door and spun around to the stair case.

And only when his eyes slid away from her then did she realize he'd been watching her very intently. So intently that it was almost as if she'd been under a heat lamp. A heat lamp that had just been turned off.

It was a strange sensation. Especially since it was ac companied by the slight wave of disappointment she was experiencing, as well as the desire to regain the warmth of that midnight-blue gaze in whatever way she could.

Crazy. Definitely crazy.

“Food,” Megan whispered to herself, again in reminder.

Maybe she hadn't gone crazy, she thought then. Maybe hunger had made her go haywire. Maybe as soon as she got some thing in her stomach she'd be more resist ant to Josh Brimley's effects.