Be Afraid (18 page)

He dug two rumpled twenties from his jeans pocket. “Sure, why not?”

She sat back down and he took his place across from her. She loaded a clean piece of paper on the easel, fastening it with binder clips. She reached for the charcoal and started to sketch the outline of his long, lean face. “So what brings you to Nashville?”

“I lived here all my life. I normally don’t get down to Broadway. Too many tourists but figured what the hell tonight. What about you?”

“New to the area.”

“From where?”

She didn’t mind asking the questions but didn’t like answering them. “Back East.”

He nodded. “You sound like an Easterner.”

“That so?”

“Yeah. Where?

“D.C. area.” Give or take thirty miles.

“So what’re you doing tonight after you finish up here?”

She sat a little straighter. “I’ve got an appointment.”

“Too bad.”

She didn’t comment as she rose and began to pack up her supplies. “Thanks for the business.”

He hesitated and then with a quick nod, turned and left. She watched him move down the sidewalk crowded with laughing tourists and then vanish around the corner. Her fingers trembled. “What the hell is wrong with me?”

She thought about the Lost Girl’s picture in her case and suddenly had a real need to give it to Rick and be done with the case.

Jenna packed up her supplies, loaded them in her car, and drove to the Nashville Police Department. She parked in the nearby lot and shut off the engine. Large humming lamps cast an eerie glow on her pale skin as she grabbed her sketchpad and headed across the lot to the front doors. She moved to the main desk where a uniformed officer sat.

“I need to leave a sketch for Detective Rick Morgan.”

The female officer had red hair twisted into a tight bun at the base of her head. The sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose did little to soften her demeanor. “And you are?”

“Jenna Thompson.” Explaining herself had not been as easy as she’d hoped. Carrying a sketchpad and saying she knew Rick Morgan didn’t mean squat to the officer on duty, who would not let her inside without a badge.

“I need identification.”

She’d left her badge in Baltimore. “Best I can do is a driver’s license.”

“That’ll do.”

She dug it out of her purse and handed it over.

A glance at the license prompted a frown before she handed it back to Jenna. “Detective Morgan should be back in the next fifteen minutes. You can wait or give whatever it is you need to give him to me. I’ll see that he gets it.”

Instinctively, she hugged the sketchpad closer to her chest. “Thanks. I’ll wait.”

“Suit yourself.”

She moved to an empty bank of chairs and sat. Seconds later, two uniformed officers moved past the front desk, flashing badges and exchanging smiles with the redhead before vanishing behind the locked double doors.

How many times had she breezed through the lobby of the Baltimore Police Department, barely tossing a glance toward the people in the waiting room? She’d never given a thought or questioned her total access.

And now here she sat. She was on the other side of the desk. An outsider. She’d chosen to take leave from the Force. She’d needed the break. But until this moment she had never felt like an outsider looking over the thin blue line. She missed belonging to a fraternity that was more family than job.

Ten minutes passed. She drummed her fingers on her thigh as she sat and watched people come and go. Whether they were laughing, frowning, or stoic, they moved beyond the double doors with ease.

Rick Morgan pushed through the front door. His jaw was set, his gaze hard and focused. Not a happy camper by her estimation.

Good. Join the club. She stood. “Morgan.”

At the sound of her voice, he turned, assessing her with a quick sweep of his gaze. “Jenna.”

With her sketchpad tucked under her arm, she moved toward him. “I have your sketch.”

Surprise widened his eyes a fraction as he met her halfway. “It’s finished?”

“Yes.” She nearly explained that, as always, she’d struggled with the eyes but caught herself and remained silent.

“Come on upstairs. I’d like to have a look at it.”

She could have handed it off to him and been done with it. In fact, that’s exactly what she wanted to do. But she couldn’t do that to the Lost Girl. Somewhere along the way she’d become invested in this case. She might have crossed the blue line, but this case was as much hers as it was his. “Sure.”

They took the elevator and wound through a series of cubicles and desks until they reached a windowless conference room. He flipped on a light and reached for his cell. “I’ll text Bishop. He’ll want to see this.”

“Okay.” On a credenza, a coffeepot filled with stale coffee that resembled sludge reminded her of the Baltimore Police Department. The furniture looked overused and tired. The walls had faded from white to a dullish gray. Some things were universal. She set her sketchpad on the table.

Rick’s phone vibrated and he checked the text. “He’ll be here in twenty.”

More waiting. She’d not have done it for anyone other than the little girl whom she’d captured in her sketch. “Sure.”

“Can I get you coffee?”

She laid her sketchpad on the table. “Was it made in the last decade?”

A smile quirked the edge of his lips. “Within the last few weeks. I’ll make a fresh pot.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I could use one.”

“Then, sure.” The coffee would mean she wouldn’t sleep but her racing mind had already signaled this was going to be a long night.

“Be right back.” He vanished and reappeared minutes later with two steaming cups. “I’m fairly good at making coffee.”

It smelled fresh, rich. “A man of hidden talents.”

He nodded, and a smile curled his lips as he raised the cup to his lips. “Sugar or milk?”

“No, thanks.”

He motioned for her to sit and if she’d been left alone, she’d have stood. Too much energy buzzed in her body. But if she stood, so would he.

She sat in the chair and watched as he sat and angled his seat away from the table so that it faced her. “Can I have a look at the sketch?”

“You don’t want to wait for your partner?”

“No.”

She hadn’t been away from the Force so long that she’d forgotten how to read a tense vibe. “There a turf war between you two?”

His fingers tensed a fraction as he sipped from his cup. “No. I just don’t feel like waiting.”

“You ooze tension, Morgan.”

The next smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Don’t know what you’re seeing.”

She opted not to press. “Long as it doesn’t interfere with this case, then I don’t care.”

“You talk about it as if it were your case.”

“It is. Not officially, of course, but I’m invested. I want her killer caught.” She opened her sketchbook and flipped past several pages filled with sketches of half-drawn faces.

He studied her a beat. “You miss the job, don’t you?”

“Sure. I miss it.”

“Why’d you quit?”

Ah, there was the question. The elephant that danced in the room each time they were together. “I didn’t quit. I took leave.” He’d turned the tables on her. “Does it really matter?”

“Not in the big scheme but I’m curious.”

“Just needed a break.”

He shook his head. “That’s a lame answer, Thompson.”

Just because he asked, didn’t mean he deserved an answer to the question. “Didn’t you take a break after you were shot?”

“A bullet to the hip forced the time off so I gave school a try while my body healed. Matter of time before I returned.”

“We should all be so lucky to have your clear vision.”

Jenna shifted, her discomfort growing like a flame fed with dry kindling. “Let’s look at the sketch.” She opened her sketchpad, more than ready to be finished with this conversation.

As she flipped through the pages his attention was drawn away from her to the page filled with eyes. “What’re those?”

“I’m always drawing. Often, I’m intrigued and work on a face and then I lose interest and don’t finish it.”

“You got a thing for eyes.”

“They’re the mirrors to the soul.”

“You believe that?”

“I do.”

“Seems odd that you wouldn’t finish the sketches. Or maybe that’s kinda your thing. Not finishing a job.”

“Damn, Morgan, does your brain only entertain one thought at a time?” Irritation burned under her tone.

“I’m like a dog with a bone.”

Did he just want her gone from Nashville? “I didn’t come here to talk about me. These partial drawings are a part of the drawing process.”

“Whom are you trying to draw?” he said, pointing to the eyes.

“I don’t know exactly.”

“You don’t know?”

This close, his energy radiated. She offered another shrug of her shoulders to soften another incomplete explanation. “Artists and their quirks.”

She quickly flipped more pages; aware he watched each page and sketch as they passed. When she found the page featuring the little girl, she carefully folded the sketchpad so that this was the only image he saw. She turned it to him, nerves biting at her. There was always a rush of worry when she showed any work for the first time. And for reasons she couldn’t explain she wanted Detective Rick Morgan to approve of this job.

A deep frown furrowed his brow as he reached for the sketchpad and then hesitated. “May I?”

“Yes.”

He lifted the sketch and studied the image. The little girl smiled back revealing an uneven crooked tooth. Her eyes were hazel green, her face round, and angel-soft hair haloed dimpled cheeks. She wore a soft pink collared shirt that enhanced her glow.

“She’s beautiful.” He spoke softly, his voice thick with emotion. “I can almost imagine hearing the sound of her laughter.”

The knot in her chest unfurled just a little. “I wanted her to be pretty because I think she must have been very sweet.”

“Why the smile?”

What he didn’t say was that he feared, as she did, that the little girl had had little to smile about in her short life. “She deserved to be seen by the world smiling. I’ve also another sketch of her. In that sketch I drew her with a closed-mouth expression. I realize she might not have been a happy child.”

He didn’t bother to flip the page but continued to stare at the smiling image. “This is excellent, Jenna. Really some of the best forensic art I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m one of the best.”

He lifted his gaze to her. “I believe it now.”

“You didn’t before?”

“If you were so good, why’d you end up in a bar seven hundred miles from home, drawing pictures on the street?”

She didn’t answer because she didn’t have a credible answer for him or for herself.

“I can’t believe you walked away from this.” When she opened her mouth to correct him, he held up a hand. “Took leave.”

A shrug.

He sat back in his chair and stared at her with a keenness he had to reserve for suspects. She realized he knew why she left Baltimore. Not surprising. Made sense that someone would check up on her. She’d have checked up on her. “Who did you talk to in Baltimore?”

His hand rested on the conference table, his thumb tapping. “Not me. Georgia. She’s a suspicious sort.”

That jostled a laugh. “Smart gal.”

Any humor evaporated like ice on a hot Nashville day. “Why the leave?”

She held his gaze, refusing to look away. She’d done nothing wrong. “Job just got to be too much. I couldn’t handle the pain anymore.” She sat back in her chair. “I needed to take a break and get my head together.”

He studied her, jaw clenched. “The Baltimore case of the little girl, that hit a huge nerve with you. Why?”

The door opened to Bishop and Deke who entered the room, shattering the tentative connection Jenna and Rick had forged. They rose.

Relief flooded her body. A moment ago, she’d been ready to drop her guard and talk to Rick. Openness was not a trait she enjoyed and she was glad now for the disturbance. She armored herself in as many professional layers as she could scramble around her.

Rick’s ease had also vanished. His was the expression of a man with much to prove to his brother, his partner, and himself. “Detective Deke Morgan, Jenna Thompson. She’s our forensic artist. As you may have guessed by the name, Deke is my brother.”

As Deke reached out a hand to her, she found herself cataloguing the similarities between Rick and Deke. “You two look alike. Is Georgia the outlier?”

The brothers exchanged a glance and then Rick said, “She’s adopted.”

Bishop’s expression held no hint of emotion but she sensed a keen interest in him.

“Like me,” Jenna said. “Explains the connection when we met.”

Deke studied her a beat but, without commenting, picked up the image and held it out so all could see. “Hell of a job.”

“Thanks.”

“Flip the sheet and you’ll see her with a closed-mouth expression,” Jenna said.

Deke turned the page and showed it to Bishop.

“I like the first better,” Detective Bishop said.

“Me too,” Deke said.

“We need to get the image out to the media,” Bishop said. “The sooner, the better.”

“Susan Martinez is on board,” Rick added. “We just need to get a copy to her and she’ll put it on air.”

“She said yes, just like that?” Deke asked.

Rick shook his head. “She’d like to interview Jenna. I didn’t commit.”

Jenna had assumed she’d be behind the scenes. It had never occurred to her she’d take center stage. “That really necessary?”

“No. But she said it would get the story more air time.”

Jenna had arrived in Nashville with little purpose other than to understand where she came from and why Ronnie had taken it all away. She had researched the town and her family through old news clippings, but she’d stayed under the radar, basically hiding behind her sketchpad. So stupid to come this far and hide. She was no coward.

Maybe now it was time to let Nashville know she was here. “Okay.”

“Okay what?” Rick asked.

“She can interview me. Shouldn’t be that hard to explain what I do?” She looked like her mother and her sister. If Shadow Eyes was watching, he’d recognize her.