“Cole.” She sighed.
The agony in her lavender eyes did nothing to ease the anger bubbling inside of him. It only got worse with her next question.
“Have you ever owned a gun?”
His jaw dropped. “I can’t believe you’re asking me these questions.”
“Have you?”
“No, I have never owned a gun.” Disdain dripped from every word. “I also didn’t kill my ex-wife.”
“Did you ever come into contact with a Smith & Wesson forty-five? Maybe a friend owns one and you held it once, admired it?”
“No.” The fury boiling in his gut spilled over, toxic waves of it pumping in his bloodstream. “Who exactly am I speaking to here?” he demanded.
She looked startled. “What?”
“Am I talking to Jamie, the woman I made love to this afternoon, or Special Agent Jamie Crawford?”
“Both,” she said, sounding anguished. “I don’t like doing this, but I understand why Finn had to bring you in.”
“Unbelievable,” he muttered.
Her voice grew desperate. “You told me you respect what I do, that my being in law enforcement doesn’t bother you. And I promised Finn to assist him on this case. Why can’t you see that I have a job to do?”
“Bull,” he shot out, his hands trembling with anger. He laid them flat on the table, resisting the urge to start overturning chairs. “You’re not even here officially, and once we slept together, you shouldn’t have been on the case at all.”
“Maybe not,” she whispered.
Their gazes locked. Cole battled a fresh rush of indignation. “You know I didn’t do this, Jamie.”
“The gun—”
“Screw the gun! You know in your gut that I didn’t kill anyone.” Every muscle in his body coiled tight. “I thought we meant something to each other.”
“We did. We do,” she corrected. “But you said so yourself, we don’t even have a future.”
“We might have,” he said quietly. “But now that you’re choosing your damn job over me, I can’t see how that will ever happen. Christ, why are you ignoring your common sense and questioning me about something I didn’t do?”
A sheen of tears glistened in her eyes, but her obvious distress did nothing to calm him down. She didn’t trust him, he realized. Maybe enough to have sex with him, but not enough to believe in him. Hell, it didn’t matter what she believed anymore. Her job was evidently more important. His reputation, his pain, it meant nothing to her.
The insecurity niggling at him didn’t help him keep his cool. What was wrong with his judgment lately? He hadn’t seen Teresa’s true nature until it was too late, and yet again he’d misjudged the female in his life. He’d thought Jamie was sincere in her assurance that she was open-minded, but clearly she wasn’t. Clearly, the evidence meant more to her than his word.
“I’m done talking,” he muttered. “I think I’ll wait for my lawyer.”
“Cole, I’m not doing this to hurt you,” she blurted out, tears clinging to her eyelashes. “I’m just trying to make sense of all this, about the gun, why it was found where you—”
“I did not leave that gun in the dump,” he snapped.
“I’m just—”
“Doing your job. Right, I got that, loud and clear.” He crossed his arms over his chest in a tight shield. “And I’m going to wait for my lawyer.”
“Cole—”
“I mean it, Agent Crawford. I’m not saying another damned word until my attorney arrives.”
Jamie paced the hallway outside the interrogation room, alternating between anger and self-loathing. She still couldn’t believe that Cole had banished her from the room like that. That he refused to see that she was simply trying to get to the bottom of this mess.
His words of accusation had been branded into her brain, and as she waited for the interview to end, she had to wonder if she’d handled this all wrong. She truly didn’t think Cole had killed his ex-wife, but in the face of this new evidence, what else could she have done? Any other suspect would have been brought in to the station for questioning. Any other suspect would have needed to answer the questions she’d put in front of Cole.
Then again, she wasn’t in love with any other suspect.
She stopped in her tracks.
She was in love with Cole?
How could she be in love with him? She’d only known him for such a short time.
She sagged against the wall, unable to control the pounding of her heart. Light-headed, she blinked back tears and drew in several long breaths.
Right now, Cole was inside that room with his lawyer, forced to answer Finn’s questions, and instead of being by his side, she was out in the hall like the bad cop asked to leave the premises.
Her stomach clenched. Her promise to Finn had overruled her relationship with Cole. Maybe Cole was right and she should have recused herself from the case.
Her mind continued to race, a carousel of emotions spinning around until she could barely function. When footsteps sounded from the end of the corridor, she jerked her head up, frowning at the unfamiliar man advancing toward the door of the interrogation room. He wore a pair of thick black glasses and had a brown file folder tucked under his arm. Acknowledging her with a nod, he knocked on the door and waited.
When Finn stepped out into the hall, the new arrival handed him the file, then shot a dubious glance at Jamie.
“You can speak freely, Tom,” Finn said. “Jamie’s with the FBI.”
“Oh. All right.” The man shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “The gun is clean. Not even a partial print.”
Finn didn’t look surprised. “That’s what I figured. Anything else?”
“The serial number was filed off, so it will be impossible to trace, but I took some digital pictures of it. You can have your deputy send them to Raleigh, maybe the folks there can gauge where it might have come from, but I warn you, there aren’t any distinguishable marks on the piece.”
Finn’s knuckles tightened over the edge of the folder. “Wonderful. Then we’ve got no leg to stand on.” He shot Jamie a grave look. “We can’t hold him.”
She nodded numbly. She wasn’t surprised by the forensic tech’s findings either.
“It could still be him,” Tom the tech offered, evidently mistaking her reaction for disappointment. “He probably just wiped the gun before dumping it.”
Jamie’s lips tightened, but she didn’t object. Sure, maybe Cole had wiped the gun. If he was the killer.
But every fiber of her being told her that Cole was innocent.
Yet she’d interrogated him like a common criminal…
You did your job!
She clung to that, the reminder that she was a professional first and always had been. She might have fallen for Cole— God, hadn’t that realization come out of left field?—but she was still a federal agent, and if he cared about her like he claimed, then he needed to understand that her job was important to her. It defined her.
“I’ll be in the lab if you need me,” Tom spoke up. He shook the sheriff’s hand, gave Jamie a timid smile, then walked off.
“I can’t keep this from them,” Finn said, holding up the folder.
“I’ll wait here,” she murmured.
Finn disappeared into the interrogation room, and less than two minutes later the door flew open again with a loud thud. A man in his forties stepped out first, boasting a head of silver hair, hawklike features and a scowl. Cole came out next and Jamie’s heart ached at the sight of his lifeless expression.
“Cole,” she blurted out.
He didn’t even spare her a look. “Come on, Martin, let’s head over to the house so we can discuss this.”
Jamie’s face collapsed. As client and attorney whisked off, she stared at Cole’s back, the proud set of his shoulders, the dark hair gleaming under the fluorescent lights in the hall. She wanted to go after him but her feet were rooted in place.
“That was unnecessaril
y harsh,” Finn remarked, disapproval ringing in his tone.
Jamie couldn’t even voice her agreement. Her throat was too tight, a vise of anger clamped around it. How could Cole blow her off like that, as if she were nothing more than a casual acquaintance he’d run into on the street?
“Well, what are you waiting for?” Finn asked. “Go after the jerk.”
Snapping out of her turbulent thoughts, she curled her hands into fists and hurried after Cole. She caught up to him and his attorney just as they were reaching the front lobby, and when she called out Cole’s name his entire body went as rigid as a board. He muttered something to his lawyer and the other man nodded and exited the police station.
Looking as if he’d rather be just about anywhere else, Cole strode toward her with a frown. “What is it, Jamie?”
Her nostrils flared. “Really? That’s how you’re going to handle this? By leaving?”
“There’s nothing to handle. You made it clear where you stood back in that interrogation room.”
“Enlighten me then. Where do I stand, Cole?”
“You’re more concerned about your job than you are about us,” he said flatly.
“That’s not true,” she protested. “I told you why I had to ask those questions. It wasn’t personal, damn it.”
“Wasn’t personal?” he echoed in disbelief. “Everything about this is personal! You’ve been staying at my house, sharing my bed—how is that not personal?”
“And I’m helping the sheriff solve a case,” she replied in a calm voice. “You can’t expect me to ignore that just because we’re sleeping together.”
“That’s what it comes down to then.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “You can’t ignore your job because it’s the only thing you care about, Jamie. It’s your entire life.”
“And yours isn’t?” she shot back. “You worked hard to build your company. Well, I worked hard too. I dragged myself out of a trailer park, waitressed my way through junior college, busted my butt to get the grades I needed to transfer to Duke. I didn’t sleep for four years! I slaved to get to this place in my career and I’m not going to apologize for loving what I do, or for wanting to keep on doing it.”
He didn’t seem to hear a word she’d said. “Your career will always come first for you. You just proved that.”
She went silent. It suddenly dawned on her what this was about. God, how could she have been so blind?
“We never stood a chance, did we?” she said sadly.
He looked stricken. “That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is. Know why? Because you’re not over Teresa.”
Her quiet accusation hung in the air, the silence broken by Cole’s harsh laugh. “I got over that woman long ago.”
“But you’re not over what she did to you.” Sorrow lodged in her throat. “She betrayed you. She wounded your pride.”
“Are you trying to profile me?” he muttered.
“No, just calling it like I see it.” She shook her head. “We should have never started this up. You said so yourself, you weren’t ready for a relationship, and I see now that you were right. You haven’t worked through your issues about your ex-wife.”
“Don’t turn this around,” he said in a low voice.
“I think you were just waiting for an excuse to push me away,” she murmured. “You didn’t want to admit that making another commitment actually terrifies you, so you pretended you were fine with getting involved with me, all the while waiting for a reason to back out.”
He frowned at her. “You interrogated me as if I was just another criminal.”
“I went in to get your side of the story,” she corrected. “Because I’m in love with you.”
He gave a sharp intake of breath.
“But my feelings don’t matter,” she said, ignoring the painful constriction of her chest. “This was a mistake. This entire…thing between us. You’re not over Teresa’s betrayal and the fact that your own judgment failed you. And instead of dealing with it, you’ve decided to accuse me of a betrayal I didn’t commit. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone into that room, but I did it because I wanted to help you. Those questions would have been asked regardless, I thought it would be easier if they came from me.”
Her hands shook as she reached up to rub away the tears forming at the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t even sure she’d gotten through to him. His rugged face revealed nothing, not a single iota of emotion.
With a sigh, she took a step back. “Take care of yourself, Cole.”
When he didn’t respond, she simply cast a last sad look in his direction, turned on her heel, and walked away.
“They don’t have a case,” Martin Worthington declared as Cole walked the older man to the door.
Martin had said the same thing in the kitchen as the two men discussed the case over coffee, and Cole felt better thanks to his attorney’s confidence. Better about the investigation, anyway. About the heart-wrenching confrontation with Jamie…well, he was still ravaged from that.
“Just do as the sheriff requested and stay put,” Martin continued, tucking his black leather briefcase under his other arm so he could shake Cole’s hand. “And don’t worry. The gun isn’t registered to you, your fingerprints aren’t on it, and even if the DNA results put your skin cells under Teresa’s fingernails, you have an alternative explanation. She grabbed you in front of witnesses. Trust me, Cole, this won’t even go to trial.”
“Thanks, Martin.” He gave the attorney’s hand a firm shake, then bid him goodbye and closed the door.
The moment he was alone, an unsteady breath left his mouth.
Everything Jamie had said to him kept replaying through his head like reruns of a bad TV show. She’d been completely off base, accusing him of looking for a reason to push her away.
That was insane. Wasn’t it?
During his conference with his lawyer, he hadn’t let himself consider Jamie’s words. As far as he was concerned, she’d gone from a lover to a stranger when she’d marched into the interrogation room and acted like an emotionless federal agent.
Now, in the solitude of his home, he allowed himself to think about what she’d said.
He walked to the kitchen door, his gaze drifting out at the backyard. It was surreal to think that she’d been shot this morning. So many crappy things had happened since then, and the sun was only now beginning to set.
As hues of pink and orange filled the sky, Cole finally opened his heart to permit the truth to slide in.
Jamie was right.
Damn it, she was right.
A part of him had always wondered how his judgment had failed him so completely when it came to his ex-wife. Teresa had revealed her true colors within months of their wedding. She’d let down the mask and the wife he’d adored had turned into a cruel, selfish monster who went out of her way to hurt him.
He’d spent many long nights thinking about how foolish he’d been, how blind. Teresa had sliced up his pride with a blade of spite and hatred. He’d vowed to never let another woman humiliate him like that again, and when Jamie had started asking all those questions…Christ, that same sting of humiliation returned, making him lash out.
He hadn’t understood Teresa’s true nature until it was too late and he still didn’t know how he hadn’t seen it. But he did know one thing, and that was that he’d totally blown it with Jamie back there.
The sound of vibrating snapped him back to reality, and he turned away from the door and fished his cell phone out of his pocket.
“Donovan,” he said briskly. At the greeting of the unfamiliar voice, he furrowed his brows. “Who? Oh, Pierre…hey, what’s up?”
He listened for several disturbing seconds, then said, “No, stay put. Let me call you back with instructions.”
Hanging up, he quickly punched in another number from memory, letting out a relieved breath when his private investigator answered on the first ring. “Hank, it’s Cole. I need you to drop what you’re doi
ng and check something for me.”
Chapter 15
Well, you knew it couldn’t last.
With a noisy exhale, Jamie shoved the pessimistic thought out of her mind and took a sip of the coffee she’d just poured without waiting for it to cool. Maybe if the liquid scalded her throat she might be able to ignore her aching heart. She’d been sitting in Finn’s office for the past twenty minutes, lost in a private pity party.
She kept wondering if Cole was all right, if his lawyer was assuring him at this moment that there was no case against him, but then she realized it was none of her concern anymore. Cole didn’t want anything to do with her, all because she’d done her job and questioned him in that interrogation room. To make matters worse, her shoulder was beginning to throb again, now that the effects of the painkillers she’d taken earlier were wearing off.
“Want me to drive you to the B&B?”
She looked up to see Finn in the doorway. “I checked out, remember?” she said with a sigh. “And all of my stuff is at Cole’s.”
“I can pick it up for you, if you’d like. And you can come stay with me. I’ll even call the alarm company and have my system updated.”
She knew he was trying to help, but not even his gentle tone could ease the ache in her chest. “Sure, whatever you want,” she murmured.
“Jamie, I know you’re upset, but—”
He was interrupted by the hurried sound of footsteps, and then Max Patton, Finn’s second deputy, rushed up to the door. “Boss, a 911 call just came in.”
Finn’s shoulders went stiff. “What have we got, Max?”
“A body,” the younger man said, his features creased with tension. “The caller wouldn’t give his name, but he said he stumbled over a body in the woods behind Joe Gideon’s house.”
Jamie sucked in her breath. “Joe Gideon?”
Max nodded. “I’m not sure if Gideon was the caller, or if it’s his body the caller was referring to—the guy hung up before I could ask.”