Raven's Cove - Jenna Ryan (21 page)

“I never said I did.”

“Then why…?”

“Because he was here, and we need to know what he saw, heard, smelled, et cetera. The smallest clue can break the biggest case wide open.”

She watched a visibly restrained Boxman scowl at her ex. “I have no idea what possessed me to marry that man. And right now, given your attitude, I’m starting to wonder why I fell— What it is I see in you.”

A hint of a smile played on Rogan’s lips. “I knew you’d come around eventually, love.”

“In terms of Daniel or you?”

“Take your pick.” He opened the door. When she didn’t move, he pulled her outside. “You don’t want him, Jasmine, and I promise you, you wouldn’t want me for very long.”

“Who says I want you now?”

The smile widened, bringing an odd glimmer to his eyes. “There you go, then. You’re seeing the light already.”

“What I’m seeing, Rogan—” she yanked her hand free “—is a man who uses his career as a reason to avoid personal relationships.”

He crouched to probe the contents of an untied trash bag. “Are you talking about me or Daniel or both?”

“I don’t want Daniel, remember?”

He looked up. “Finish it, Jasmine.”

“Finish what? Do you want me to tell you to go away, that I don’t want you in my life?” She lowered her lashes. “Or is it closer to the truth to say you don’t want me in yours?”

When his eyes locked on hers, something jolted in her mind. She didn’t know what it was exactly, but she knew Rogan was the source, and there was pain and sorrow and regret all tangled inside it.

He regarded her from his crouch. “I want you, that’s not the problem. And maybe I am making excuses for the choices I’ve made, for the choices I’m still making. …”

She regarded him closely, not an easy thing to do with a clearly out-of-sorts Boxman flicking a colored light off and on behind them to intimidate Daniel. “I sense a but coming. What is it?”

“Buts lead to excuses. You deserve better than that.” Keeping his eyes on hers, he stood and walked to her at the top of the stairs. Taking her face in his hands, he brushed his thumbs over her temples and set his mouth on hers.

The light continued to blink off and on, but for one dizzying moment, she saw fire rather than a flashing stop sign.

When Rogan lifted his head, she summoned a small smile. “If you did that to shut me up—it worked.”

His eyes roamed her face. “I did that for me, Jasmine. And because—” he shifted their position so she could see the object sitting on the porch rail “—I found the murder weapon.”

* * *

A
NOTHER MURDER SHOULD
have helped. It always helped. Why hadn’t it helped tonight?

He pressed his hands to the sides of his head, fought for control. All his excellent ideas, his planning, everything he’d done to confuse and confound. It would all be for nothing if he couldn’t lock the worst of himself away.

He’d see her dead, of that he was certain. That’s what this was about—him living and her dying, or more correctly, her dying so he could live without fear of dying twice.

Moving his hands to his ears, he shut out what he didn’t want to hear, and reminded himself that she had three feathers. He could be rid of her anytime now. Any time at all.

The realization helped where tonight’s murder had failed.

His hands dropped. His mind and his heart hardened.

The tortured raven of death had done his job. All that remained was for him to do his.

Chapter Sixteen

The knife, likely one from Wesley’s kitchen, rode off to the county seat along with Daniel’s gun, a bullet that had been removed from the sofa and a sheriff who promised to put the lab work through ASAP.

Rogan didn’t foresee any surprises in terms of the test results. Neither did he expect a clear set of fingerprints to magically appear, but rules were rules, so he, Boxman and Costello went through the ritual dust, sweep and search drills. They left the snake with a neighbor, secured the scene and finally, at 2:00 p.m. the following day, fell into their respective beds.

As he’d known he would, Rogan dreamed about Jasmine. He made love to her while ravens watched and feathers fell, and a young woman shouted in the background.

“She has nothing to do with us, Rogan.” He felt Jasmine’s hands on his face, saw her eyes in his head. “You need to let her go.”

She was right. He knew that, too, but the table was always there, on the edge of his mind. As the ravens came closer, the table rolled in, and the shouts turned to tears.

“It was my fault,” he told her. “I should have done something. I should have done more.”

“You can’t always stop death.” Jasmine’s tone and her touch were gentle, but he felt her fading away. He couldn’t hold on to her, couldn’t stop her from leaving. Even love couldn’t keep her there.

Fog slithered in and out. Three feathers appeared on a dusty floor. They led him to the table. Fists pounded his back, but when his eyes finally adjusted, he no longer felt them.

He knew now where Jasmine had gone. Where he’d somehow sent her.

He stood and stared at her lifeless body on the no-longer-empty table, while a solitary raven circled in silence and shed its long black feathers over him.

* * *

J
ASMINE WATCHED
R
OGAN SLEEP.
She understood that nothing about it was restful, but short of waking him every hour to drag him out of whatever nightmares seemed determined to suck him in, all she could do was let them play out and trust his mind to get him through the worst parts.

By the time he woke up, it was after 8:00 p.m. and dark again. The wind outside Blume House was a swirling horror, a precursor, apparently, to the autumn storm that was thrashing its way northward from the Carolinas.

Although he hadn’t said anything, Jasmine knew it was Rogan who’d made it possible for her ex to avoid a ride in the sheriff’s car. She also suspected he’d thwarted Boxman’s repeated attempts to question Daniel on his own.

“You want the truth, Rogan, you badger and hound.” Boxman gave the top of Wesley’s counter a frustrated whack. “Corey was on the premises in the company of a corpse. You ask him a few questions, then get a woman and a dog to babysit the guy while we give this place far more time and attention—your fault, Costello—than it requires. I want a shot at him.”

“Chewing up and spitting out pieces of puppy wasn’t in any academy manual I ever read. Not—” Rogan’s eyes slid to Jasmine “—that I wasn’t tempted.”

She slid the look right back before bouncing a finger between the two men. “This is why Rogan’s a lieutenant and you’re not, Sergeant. It’s all about control.”

“That’s naïveté talking, angel face. It’s really about the cool factor, lucky breaks and getting someone like Gus Ballard to bump your ass up the promotion ladder.”

She smiled. “You’re as transparent as glass, Boxman. Daniel doesn’t interest you. What you really want to do is take Cyrus apart again.”

He tightened his headband with a snap. “Bowcott’s a killer, I can feel it. Where is he anyway, since nobody in this damn town is currently under arrest for anything? Costello at least should be watching him.”

“Heard that, Sergeant.” Costello’s gray head popped up from behind the kitchen counter. “It may be a self-imposed task, but as I’m up to my elbows in filth and gunk, I’d welcome guard duty at this point.”

While Boxman went over to snipe at him, Rogan rubbed tension knots from the back of his neck.

“If you’re worried Daniel might sneak off and cause trouble, you can relax.” Jasmine knuckled his stomach. “Between Boris and Riese, he won’t be leaving Blume House.”

“Daniel’s not involved.”

She stopped knuckling to stare. “If you believe him so completely, what was all that stuff last night?”

“I thought we agreed it was me being an ass.”

When he pulled out and checked his iPhone, she grinned. “Come on, Rogan, you know that a watched cell never rings. It’s a Murphy’s Law thing.”

“Like it always rains after you wash your vehicle?”

“You wash your vehicle?”

“You don’t?”

“I thought that’s why God created car washes.”

“And neighbors named Gunther?”

A series of wind gusts battered the small house, sending a chill over Jasmine’s skin. She walked to the front window. “I have a love-hate relationship with storms, or I’d be all over you about Gunther.”

He came up behind her. “Does the hate stem from the fact that Wainwright’s men attacked the safe house during a storm?”

“Partly. But you showed up during a storm, too.” She wanted him to touch her; however, she wasn’t sure enough of his mood to initiate the contact. Instead, she drew a picture of a raven on the dusty pane. “What is it you’re not telling me? And I’m not talking about the case.”

Turning her from the glass, he studied her face. “Did I say something in my sleep last night?”

She stared for half a moment, then breathed out. “You said it was your fault.”

“That’s it? That’s all?”

“No, but it’s the only thing that made sense. I heard the words
table
and
raven
and the name Diana. Then later, a lot later, something about pearls.”

The clouds in his dark eyes cleared with the last thing. “Pearl,” he corrected. “Cyrus’s grandmother. I’ve been trying to reach her.”

“And Diana?”

“Someone I knew once. She’s dead.” And he’d tightened right up, she realized. He squeezed her arms briefly, released her and stepped back. “It was a long time ago.”

Not long enough, apparently. But she nodded and didn’t press. If he wanted her to know, he’d tell her. Simple as that.

The wind howled through the rafters. The lamps and overheads flickered.

“Gonna need battery lamps,” Costello predicted.

“What we need,” Boxman said, “is our heads examined. We went through this garbage all last night and half of today. There’s nothing here. Badgering and hounding’s the way to go. Before one or both of our star suspects skip town. We all know my money’s on Bowcott, but I’m not dismissing Corey or Wainwright.”

“Or Dukes,” Costello said from behind the counter.

“You told him?” Jasmine asked Rogan in surprise.

“A theory’s a theory, love. Doesn’t matter whose it is. And the ‘dead’ aspect of the calls you’ve gotten fits.”

The lights fluttered uncertainly.

Boxman waded through the clutter. “I’ll get us some battery backup. No need to trouble yourself, Lieutenant.” He yanked the door open, almost got blown off his feet, closed it again and slapped at one of the wall switches. “Someone’s out there. Costello, kill the kitchen light. Rogan?”

“Got him. He’s in the trees behind the shed.”

“He’s also nothing if not persistent,” Jasmine muttered.

“In the house, doors and windows locked, with Costello, no matter what you see or hear.”

It was the safe house all over again. On a smaller scale, but still a potential night attack. Only this time, instead of Dukes and two other officers going out, it was Rogan and Boxman.

Rogan caught her chin. “Promise me you won’t leave.”

“I won’t leave.” She accepted the gun he handed her and the kiss he pressed to her lips.

He was gone with the next powerful blast of wind.

Costello set a hand on her arm. “We need to lower the blinds. Long as there’s power, I want light in here.”

It amazed and unsettled her how a situation could go from relatively normal to completely surreal in under half a minute. But it had, and she was going to cope with whatever happened.

Just not with Rogan’s death.

Costello’s penlight guided them from window to window. Once all the blinds were lowered, he switched on a small desk lamp and motioned her to the rear of the house.

Although her teeth wanted to chatter, Jasmine forced herself to follow his instructions and tried not to visualize any mutant combinations of Malcolm Wainwright, Donald Dukes and ravens with death on their minds.

She paced because moving helped, and left Costello to inspect the door bolts.

The wind began to swoop as well as gust. Tree limbs hit the roof. She heard the first drops of rain start to fall. So far, the predicted thunder and lightning hadn’t materialized, but they would come, eventually, and turn a volatile situation into an explosive one.

“Can you tell me anything the killer said that I might not know?” Costello asked.

She wrested her eyes from the window. “He said I’d see him, but it wouldn’t really be him because he hides himself away. He insisted he wasn’t going to die again, and that when I was gone, he wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”

“Riddles.” Costello flexed his arthritic left wrist. “They’ve never been my strong suit. Probably part of the reason I never made captain. Murder can be a riddle or a jigsaw puzzle, both or neither. Motives vary from payback to gain to personal gratification.”

“And none of us knows which one applies here.” Her gaze went to Wesley’s raven-shaped wall clock. She couldn’t make out the position of the hands by the desk lamp alone. “How long have they been gone?”

“Ten minutes.” Costello set his gun on the table. “There’s a lot of ‘there’ beyond these walls. Woods go on for miles.”

So did the treacherous coastline, she thought, tapping her elbows with her palms.

The rain fell harder, slanting against the walls at near gale force.

“This is exactly how it felt when Wainwright’s men rushed the safe house.”

“Yet despite the attack, here you are today. Rogan slipped you out from under enemy noses while Victor and I provided cover and Boxman and Prewitt held the front line. Funny the things that go through your head at a time like that, but all I kept wondering was—how did they find us? Someone must have informed.”

Jasmine glanced at the clock again. Still unable to see the hands, she used the switch by the front door to turn on the lamp beneath it.

A red siren light gave the room an eerie look of possession, which, while appropriate, provided little comfort.

Ten-ten. Rogan and Boxman had been outside for more than fifteen minutes.