So About the Money (3 page)

“No.”
 

“Then we’re leaving. You know how to find us.”

“Not so fast there, young fella,” the game warden spoke up. “I need to finish interviewing Ms. Price.”
 

He crooked a finger, calling her to join JC and him.

Alex glared. She wasn’t far from the same degree of irritation. People did not summon her like she was their…their…bird dog.
 

The game warden signaled again, a bigger sweep of his hand. Reluctantly, she joined the two men.

“Let’s see.” The older man tapped his pen against his notebook, a gesture that was starting to irritate her. “Now, what is it you do for a living?”

She looked from the warden to JC. Who was actually in charge?

JC smiled—a grim one—at her confusion. “This is federal land. The warden’s in charge until he releases the scene.”

Great.
 

She turned to the game warden. At least business was easier to talk about than emotions. “My regular job is with the Mergers and Acquisitions Group in Seattle, but right now I’m working for Desert Accounting.”
 

From the corner of her eye, she saw JC’s smile widen to a grin. Clearly, he was enjoying the squirm factor of her being back in Richland, working at a place she’d sworn she never would.
 

“That’s a big change for a single woman like you. We get a lot of young people moving to eastern Washington, wanting to raise a family in a more wholesome environment.”

She refrained from reminding the warden they were at a murder scene that was far from wholesome.

“What made you decide to move across the Cascades and work for a local accountant?” he asked.

“My parents own the accounting firm. My mother needed some help.”

“Your mother needed help, hmm? What about your father? He didn’t need help?”

She sneaked another glance at JC. Like she wanted to bring up infidelity in front of him. “They separated. I really don’t see how any of that’s relevant to who murdered my friend.”

The game warden’s face and voice hardened. “We decide what’s relevant. You just answer the questions.”

His words kicked over a dozen memories, none of them good. The Seattle cops had dismissed her concerns about Frank. Overlooked the stalking, the growing threats. Refused initially to enforce the restraining order against one of their own.
 

You can’t trust cops.
 

The game warden’s insistent voice intruded. “A lot of couples separate over infidelity. I heard the victim was a pretty little gal. Worked in the office right across the hall. From you. Your dad… So where is your dad these days?”
 

She slammed the door on the past. This guy was not going to build a conspiracy theory about Marcy having an affair with her father. The blasted yoga instructor, yes, but not Marcy. “He moved to Arizona. Last I heard he was living in a sweat lodge. And he certainly isn’t the only man I know who can’t keep his pants zipped.”

The smile left JC’s face.

Stop it. Ignore JC. Just give them the facts. They don’t need the details
.
 

“Hmm.” The warden scribbled something, then waited a beat—tapping his pen—as if he wanted to see if she’d say anything else. “The only shotgun and hunting license I’ve seen today belongs to Mr. Montoya. So why’s a young woman like you out here?”

After another twenty minutes of answering the same questions she’d answered when the first policemen arrived, she was ready to go home and crawl in bed. To wake up and find it was all a bad dream. That Marcy was just fine.
 

“That young man worked with the victim, didn’t he?” The warden nodded in Alex’s direction.
 

Alex glared at her—or rather the three of them. The way things were going, he ought to watch his own back. “If the body really is, was, Marcy, she didn’t work for Alex.”

The warden flipped a few pages in his notebook. “Says here Mr. Montoya and his family own a restaurant. Marcy Ramirez didn’t work for him?”

“Marcy worked for Tim Stevens.” The officer knew that—he’d accused her father of having an affair with the pretty “gal” across the hall. Alex was Tim’s business partner in the real estate development company, but she didn’t think he needed to have that pointed out, especially with the cops already all over Alex’s possible involvement. All the officers had asked too many questions about both Alex’s and her relationship with Marcy.

The warden gave her an assessing look. “You know Mr. Stevens?”

“He’s a client. I met Marcy through him.”

“Interesting the way you four are mixed up together,” JC said.

She gave him a narrow-eyed glare. He was loving watching her squirm.
“None of us had any reason to hurt Marcy. She’s our friend.” She left unspoken,
So why can’t we wrap this up and you guys go find the killer
?

The game warden made another note on his pad. “Now, we got over 800 acres out here. How is it you two managed to find the body when it was all tangled up in the bushes?”
 

“We just followed the dog.” She shuddered and shook off the memory of the body in the clearing.
 

“Okay, I got it straight now. Mr. Montoya led you to the body.”
 

Fresh adrenaline shot through her system. “No, of course not. Alex didn’t lead me—”

“Then how did you know the body was in the bog?” the officer interrupted.
 

“We didn’t know the body was there. We just found her. We didn’t kill her.”

He asked a few more questions, then slid his notebook into his jacket pocket. “I think that’s it for now. Detective Dimitrak, she’s all yours.”

 
Not just no, but
hell
no. Never in a million years.

JC’s lips twitched, as if he’d also caught the double entendre. “I have more questions.”

Of course he did.
 

She looked into JC’s cold eyes and remembered a time when his gaze was hot with desire and filled with love. The memory oozed through cracks in her emotional control. It seeped like hot acid, burning with fresh betrayal instead of lying dormant as ancient history. Her throat tightened and tears pricked her eyes.
 

She couldn’t handle this. Not now.

Hands fisted, she struggled to keep the tears from falling. “Can we do this later?”
 

JC’s face tightened, as if he planned to automatically turn her down.
 

She swallowed her pride. “Please?”

A silent moment stretched, then he gave a curt nod.
 
“Okay.”

The tears, the tremble in her voice, or the memory of what they’d once meant to each other—she wasn’t sure what made him change his mind. Whatever it was, she could guarantee he’d make her pay for it later, but for now, gratitude sliced through the pain.
 

“Don’t get any thoughts about leaving town. Plug some time into your calendar for us to chat, because I have questions. Lots and lots of them.”

Oh, goody.
 

Wouldn’t that be fun.

Chapter Three

An hour later, Holly leaned her forehead against the tile wall of her shower. Warm water pounded her shoulders. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Marcy had been one of the first people who reached out to her when she moved back to Richland.
 

And now the woman was dead.
 

The pipes shuddered. The hot water ran out.
 

“Argh!” Holly dodged the freezing water and reached for the taps. Add a water heater to the list of Things To Replace.
 

She dried off and hung up the towels. A glance at the mirror drew a disgusted snort.
Oh, let’s just make this day a full and complete disaster
.
 

She looked like crap. Not that looks had ever been her strong point. At twenty-eight, she was still the tall, blond, scrawny kid she’d been during college.
 

Not that it mattered. She straightened her shoulders. A woman’s worth wasn’t defined by the outside package.
 

Her inner teenager whined,
The next time I saw JC, I wanted to look amazing
.

She told the idiot to shut up.
 

She’d managed to not think about JC Dimitrak for nearly six years. There was no reason to change anything today.
 

Except now she looked like a murder suspect. She didn’t have a choice whether or not to talk to him.

But jeez—who’d have thought JC “Just Crazy” Dimitrak would end up in law enforcement?

Still, it was done. Seventh layer of hell, between the reunion with JC and Marcy’s horrible death, but she’d survived. Running away, selling Desert Accounting at a bargain-basement price, sounded amazingly attractive. She could move back to civilization on the west side of the Cascade Mountains and never have to deal with any of it again.

Too bad it was a fantasy. She couldn’t run out on her mother.

She wandered into the living room, or as her friends had dubbed it, the construction disaster area. For a moment, she imagined a soft leather sofa in front of the fireplace, books piled on shelves, a cashmere throw, and nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon except slip away into a good story.
 

Another fantasy.
 

Alex peeled himself off the floor.
 

She started and covered the flinch. “You’re still here.” She’d hoped Alex had
acted on her subtle suggestion.
Go home.

“Thought you might need me.” He stretched, a long muscular display.
 

Tell me you did not just pose.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Sorry you had to see Marcy like that.”

An image of the shattered corpse they’d found in the bog pounced and Holly’s stomach cramped.

“How’re you doing?” Alex asked.

“I’m weirded out. It still doesn’t seem real.” Too restless to be confined, she twitched a shoulder, dislodged his arm, and moved toward the windows. “Did I ever tell you about the first time I met Marcy?”
 

He shook his head.
 

“I’d gone over to Stevens Ventures to talk to Tim about quarterly taxes. I was walking down the hall when I heard this lilting voice coming from his office, crooning, ‘Where are you, you little bugger?’ ”

She smiled at the memory. “For a minute I wondered what was going on, but curiosity got the better of me. I peeked in Tim’s office and saw Marcy’s butt wagging in the air. She was crawling out backward from under the desk, holding a metal knob like a trophy.”

Holly raised her hand in remembered imitation. “She sat back on her heels, going, ‘Now I have to figure out how it fits back together.’ And she laughed. It was pure happiness, the kind of laugh you can’t help joining, when you’re just glad to be alive.”

Her echoing laughter escaped as a muffled sob. “Except now she’s dead.”
 

Alex crossed the room and pulled her close. “It’s okay. Marcy was a sweet kid. I remember when she started working for Tim. She was like a puppy, wanting to please so bad she about quivered.”

Holly frowned and moved back, not sure she liked the analogy. “She always struck me as confident and outgoing.”

“She is now. I mean, she was. I mean, she opened up after she’d been working there for a while.”

“I can’t get my head around the reality—she’s dead.”

Alex dropped his hands onto her waist. His tone moved into the husky range. “But we’re alive.”

Oh, no
. He couldn’t mean that affirmation-of-life-through-sex thing. It was
so
not the time for an intimate moment. And then there was the whole was-he-the-right-guy? issue.
 

“Alex? I’m not ready for this.” Their relationship hadn’t reached that level, and she wasn’t sure it ever would. Today’s events had convinced her Alex was someone fun to do stuff with, period. Definitely better than watching Friday night movies alone, but not anyone she wanted as a close, long-term addition in her life. “All I can see right now is those birds and a mangled body. I haven’t even started to process the fact that Marcy won’t be in the office tomorrow.”