Look Before You Jump (12 page)

Enter the lion’s dean? Willingly? Oh, heaven
help me. My knocking knees must have made some noise.

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Can you at least wait
here so I can flip it before it’s beyond saving?”

All I could get out as I stared at Jimmy’s
scars was, “Uh-huh.”

The door remained propped open as Jimmy
lumbered across his living room. The rumble of opening sliding
glass doors followed, and I caught a whiff of sizzling steak. My
mouth watered and stomach betrayed me when I realized it was well
into the dinner hour.

One of the benefits to living on the ground
floor was residents had a fenced-in, postage stamp sized patch of
lawn on which pooches could piddle. I rather liked the additional
security of living upwardly mobile, but having a balcony with an
outdoor grill would sure make a nice addition. Maybe the landlord
would take that into consideration when it came time to renovate.
Then again, if my eighties-style kitchen was any indicator,
renovations wouldn’t come anytime soon.

Jimmy returned, dabbing saliva from the
drooping edge of his mouth. Something in his expression had
changed. Softened.

“So what’d ya wanna know?” he asked with a
sigh.

“I’m kinda a friend of the family,” I
said.

“Was the woman here for you that night
then?”

“That’s what has me stumped. I worked that
night and didn’t get home until around three-thirty.”

“Ya do keep interesting hours.”

You know that eerie tingle up your spine just
before the killer in the movies jumps out from the darkness and
slashes a character across the throat? Yeah, me too. Feeling it
right now as a matter-of-fact. Not pleasant.

“Anyway,” I continued, squelching my
imagination. “Some of the family isn’t convinced it was a
suicide.”

Jimmy looked me up and down then sneered. “Do
they think
you
dragged her up and tossed her off?”

“No. Can I ask the questions please?”

The bicep skull winked again as Jimmy glanced
over his shoulder. “My steak’s ‘bout done so make it quick.”

“How would she have gotten to the roof in the
first place?” I quickly asked.

“The stairwell.”

“But I understand the roof access is always
locked ‘cept for maintenance.”

Something connected in Jimmy’s brain as a
light dawned from behind his guarded gaze. “That’s somethin’ I
didn’t stop to think about the other night.”

Stupidity prodded my next question, but I
plunged ahead. “Don’t you have the key?”

“Yeah.”

“Anyone else?”

“Just me and the landlord, far as I know,”
Jimmy said before anger-tinged fire flashed in his eyes. “Wait a
sec. What’re ya saying?”

“Nothing, I…”

“You got somethin’ to accuse me of?” The
beefy body filled the doorframe as Jimmy stepped across the
threshold into the hall, his voice deepening to a thunderous roar.
“Think I’ve been negligent and left the door unlocked? That
I
killed that woman?”

“No, no, I just…”

The fires of Hell scented the hallway as I
backed into it. Smoke rose steadily from Jimmy’s collar and spewed
from his nostrils. No wait – it was in the background. Coming from
his living room.

Jimmy swung around to face his doorway.
“Damnit, woman. Now you’ve gone and made me burn my dinner.”

As I tripped and stumbled my way up the
staircase, the slam of Jimmy’s apartment door rattled it like
Dallas was having an earthquake. I was not looking forward to the
next extermination visit.

Maybe it was time to reconsider my living
arrangements. Could I take in a roommate? I could see the ad now:
Notice – roommate wanted. Must be willing to tolerate a steady
stream of cute guys, a cuddly cat, and quarters with questionable
characters.

Yeah, that’ll bring ‘em crawling. They don’t
call me Scaredy Cat Bohanan for nothing.

You know how you feel in the mornings after
using muscles you forgot you had? Yeah, me too. ‘Cept this time it
was from lifting and dragging boxes across Bobby’s yard and into
the house after I was already sore from shooting. I ached like a
runner training for a marathon. Like a weightlifter for a
competition. Like a – oh, hell. Morning had arrived entirely too
soon and without my brain in tow.

The insistent buzz of my cell phone demanded
attention even though everything in me screamed to throw it at the
wall. But that’d leave me without communication to the outside
world. Hmm. Tempting as the thought was at the moment, I really
couldn’t spend money on unnecessary expenses right now.

After prying my eyelids apart to stare at a
too-bright screen illuminating my dark bedroom, I counted three
missed calls from Janine.

Wait – why was the phone lighting up my room?
Why was my apartment still so dark? Five in the morning? As in
A.M.? What the…?

“What the hell, Janine?” I yelled into my
phone.

The buzzing continued. It echoed throughout
my apartment and seeped through the open bedroom door from the
living room. I flopped out of bed with a groan and sprawled across
the carpet as my foot tangled in the sheets. Slinky slid off
alongside me then scuttled under the bed with a scowl and
accompanying yowl.

I’m gonna kill her.

Or maybe Nick was at the door looking for a
morning booty call. Couldn’t the guy go a couple of days without
release? I could. Usually. Warmth flushed my skin at the thought.
Someone was about to get the full brunt of some sleep-deprived,
muscle tormented, sexually frustrated female in her skivvies.

I ripped open the front door, which closed
just as quickly when the attached security chain rebounded. In my
frustrated and fumbling state, it took a moment to disengage the
stupid and utterly worthless thing before opening the door
again.

“What the hell, Janine?” I attempted again as
Janine’s disheveled mug filled my doorway.

“Bobby’s been arrested,” Janine wailed.

Have you ever had one of those moments where
a single sentence both wakes you and shuts you up faster than a
tornado rips your house from the foundation?

I plead the fifth.

***

Most Rangers tend to live pretty close to
their respective offices in order to get there at a moment’s notice
– or at least that’s what Zeke led me to believe when we were
dating. But this morning it made all the sense in the world. Even
just after five in the A.M., driving from near Dallas’ West End to
Garland left me snarled in traffic. What was at most a
twenty-minute trip under normal circumstances doubled, tripled, and
quadrupled with the early morning rush hour.

Then again there was little about Dallas that
could be classified as
normal
when it came to traffic
circumstances. Rush hour? What a joke. On both fronts. There was
little
rush
and definitely more than an
hour
when it
came right down to it.

As my Vette inched along toward the I-635
interchange, I snatched up my phone and tried Zeke again. Yes, even
though we’d been split up for years, his number was still firmly
implanted in my cell phone database. Emergencies only. Bite me.

A growl filled my ear. “Unless you’re on the
way over, I suggest you hang up before someone gets hurt.”

I snorted. “I’m on the way over, but not for
what you want, you idiot.”

“The idiot is hanging up now.”

“Don’t you dare, Zeke Taylor. Not after I
dragged my butt out at this ungodly hour.”

“Wait, did you say you’re on your way over?”
Zeke asked with a little more clarity in his question.

“Are you awake now?”

“Yeah, but why are you?”

“Cause Janine showed up at my apartment to
inform me Bobby’s been arrested,” I said. “And she went back home
to get ready for her classes only after I promised to immediately
find out why.”

Two beats later. “Let me make some calls.
What’s your ETA?”

“Whenever I can weed through this
God-forsaken traffic,” I said.

“I’ll have answers and coffee when you get
here,” Zeke offered. “Bring donuts.”

“I’m not your personal waitress.”

“Make sure one’s an apple fritter.”

“Asshole,” I muttered as he hung up and I
tossed the phone into the console.

I’m not a morning person. Never been a
morning person. You want me bleary-eyed and bitchy? Wake me any
time before ten and that’s all you’re gonna get. Zeke was in for a
real treat alright – and its name wasn’t
apple fritter
.

After muscling my way through traffic then
swinging through a donut drive-thru for an apple fritter, bear
claw, and a couple of chocolate iced, I made it to Zeke’s Country
Hoedown by six twenty-five. Pink and orange tinged the sky as I
made my way past the security gate and parked. The high-rise
building offered the latest innovations of modern living space, but
I doubted if Zeke had ever used anything in the kitchen ‘cept the
coffeemaker.

You can take the boy away from the ranch, but
that don’t mean he’ll leave it behind. I’d bet a hundred dollars he
still had the longhorn steer head on the wall for hanging his hats
on the horns. And that nasty deerskin rug in the living room – ugh.
What about that tree ring coffee table resting on the antler stool?
He’d probably gone and killed Bambi’s mother just to get them.

‘Course I completely missed all that when
Zeke greeted me with nothing but a towel hanging low on his hips.
Chiseled abs and cut pecs begged me to run my fingers through the
dark mass of chest curls. Did the air just spike a hundred degrees?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Ignoring my hot and bothered state, Zeke
grabbed the donut box, shoved the apple fritter into his mouth,
then headed toward the kitchen with a mumble of what I can only
assume was some sort of hello. I shut the front door and let my
nose lead me by the scent of fresh-brewed coffee. A full cup with
milk added and what I hoped was two sugars sat waiting on the
modern cement countertop. I didn’t even have to ask if it was mine.
Now Zeke? He drank it straight – black like any good cowboy. Or as
God intended. Or whatever other reason he’d come up with for the
day.

When he gravitated toward one of my
chocolates after inhaling the fritter, I slapped his hand away.
“Chocolates are mine.”

“The bear claw’s for me?” Zeke asked with a
frown.

“Thought it fitting since you growled like
one on the phone,” I replied. “What’d you find out about
Bobby?”

“So much for sparkling breakfast
conversation.”

“Hey, you’re the one who ordered and received
a free breakfast.”

“But I don’t like bear claws.”

“Too bad. Can we get back to Bobby
please?”

In my experience, most guys will eat anything
you place in front of them. Zeke was no exception. After grousing
like a ten year old, he got down to business around a bite of bear
claw.

“Bobby was arrested late last night,” Zeke
offered.

“Tell me something I don’t know. Why?”

“For his wife’s murder.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I exclaimed. “Bobby’s
not a murderer.”

“I’m only the messenger.”

“But why do they think
Bobby
killed
her?”

“Because they discovered an empty bottle of
that sleep-aid found in Amy’s system sitting in his curbside
trash.”

Yesterday’s events replayed over in my mind,
but I couldn’t recall seeing any sort of bottles during my cursory
glance into the bedrooms. ‘Course, I hadn’t dug through their
cabinets or anything. Why would I? They’d barely moved into the
house before Amy’s death. The curb had held a myriad of boxes when
I’d pulled up and more by the time I’d left.

“There were a ton of moving boxes by the curb
yesterday,” I mused. “Anyone could’ve simply driven by and added an
assortment of crap to the pile.”

“True,” Zeke said.

“The real murderer could’ve planted it.”

“It’s possible.”

It didn’t make sense. We were out there
together most of the day. Bobby never acted like he had anything to
hide. Matter of fact, he’d been pretty open about Amy’s family
background. He hadn’t said anything about the police contacting him
again. So what had changed?

“When did the police reopen the case?” I
asked.

“Yesterday.”

“But why’d they go after Bobby?”

Zeke didn’t hesitate. “Apparently you asked
too many questions that didn’t have adequate answers.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, taking the time to
chew and swallow the last of my donut while I wrapped my brain
around what Zeke didn’t say. “You’re blaming me for Bobby’s
arrest?”

He tossed back the dregs of coffee like a
shot of Jack. “You do have a tendency to get people into
trouble.”

I didn’t even have to work up a glare at that
and wished daggers would come shooting out of my eyes into his rock
hard, beckoning chest. Maybe Nick would be up for a call tonight so
I could work out my frustrations with him.

The empty coffee cup cracked as I smashed it
down on the countertop and turned to leave in a huff. Zeke’s firm
grip didn’t allow me to get very far.

“Would it help to know what I think?” he
asked.

I didn’t trust myself at the moment and
shrugged instead of allowing my disease-ridden mouth to take over
the conversation.

In my silence, Zeke continued. “I think the
police acted far too rashly by arresting Bobby on such thin
circumstantial evidence. This isn’t going to stick without hard
evidence. And no. I don’t think Bobby’s a murderer.”

“Really?” I asked. “So what
do
you
think?”

“That there’s someone out there who wants us
to think he is.”

***

Guilty or innocent, there’s something so
wrong about walking into the lockup – and willingly too. It’s like
a sense of guilt by association. Like they’re never gonna let you
leave once you step past the gates and hear that ominous clang when
they slam the doors shut.