Confessions. JoAnn Ross

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СКАЧАТЬ settled over them on the short drive. Suddenly exhausted and emotionally drained, she leaned her head against the passenger window.

      When he pulled up in front of the lodge office, she unfastened her seat belt and opened the door. “Thanks for the ride.”

      “No problem.” She was already on the curb. “Oh, one more thing, Ms. Swann.”

      Mariah glanced back over her shoulder and found herself staring into a rigid, determined face that was a dead ringer for Dirty Harry. His heavily lidded eyes were hard gray stones, his poet’s mouth was pulled into a grim line.

      “Yes?” Her voice was neither as strong or self-assured as she would have liked.

      “You don’t have to worry about me bowing to political pressure.” Deep hash marks like goal posts slashed their way between his dark brows. “Because if the senator does turn out to be the one who killed your sister, I will personally nail his balls to the jailhouse door.”

      “I’m glad to hear that.” Mariah refused to flinch at the crude cop language she suspected he’d deliberately chosen to shock her. “And when you do,” she shot back, “I want to be the one swinging the hammer.”

      With a toss of her head, she turned on her heel and marched away.

      * * *

      Trace returned to the Fletcher ranch, where the evidence team was methodically continuing their investigation.

      The crew would never be given a Good Housekeeping award for neatness. Papers and other items were strewn throughout the house, fingerprint powder clung to furniture and doorframes.

      He climbed the stairs to the bedroom, careful not to touch the bannister. The room, which had been messy earlier, now looked as if a hurricane had blown through it.

      He bent down, picked up the towel he’d noticed on the floor the first time he’d been in the room, and lifted it to his nose. An exotic oriental scent rose from the still damp terry cloth.

      “Shalimar perfume,” a female voice offered behind him. Trace turned around and saw Jessica Ingersoll, Mogollon County Attorney standing in the doorway. She looked cool, crisp and professional in a white linen suit.

      “There were bottles of bath oil and cologne in the bathroom,” she informed him. “Along with some talc. It appears to have been the late lady’s signature scent.”

      He bagged the towel. Then, using the edge of his hands, he carefully unscrewed the top of a turquoise jar atop the dresser. The scent of the fragrant pink cream matched that on the towel.

      “Does that mean it’s the only one she wore?”

      “Very good, Callahan,” she said with a nod. Her hair, the tawny hue of autumn leaves, had been pulled back with a gold filigree clasp at the nape of her long, slender neck. More gold gleamed warmly at her earlobes and wrists.

      A Philadelphia-born graduate of University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law, Jessica Ingersoll was thirty years old and as smart as a whip. She was also a tigress in bed. Their affair had begun his first week in town. It had been as hot as it had been brief and when it was over they’d remained friends.

      She glanced around the room with disdain. “Christ. It’s a good thing Fletcher’s going to be able to afford an army of maids when he gets out of the hospital. This place is a pigsty.”

      “It wasn’t all that neat before the ETU guys got here.”

      “So they tell me. So, what do you think we’re looking at? A B&E gone bad?”

      “Perhaps.” He squatted down and began going through Laura Fletcher’s underwear again, lifting each piece to his nose. “Perhaps not.”

      “Gracious, Callahan,” she drawled on the unmistakable Main Line accent that always reminded him of Katharine Hepburn in Philadelphia Story, “if I’d known you were so kinky, I wouldn’t have let you get away.”

      “Give me a break. I’m looking for the nightgown the victim wore to bed.”

      She arched a brow. “I was told she was nude.”

      “She was when we found her. But I’ve got a hunch.... Jackpot.” He held the seafoam gown out to her.

      “Nice,” she murmured, running her fingers over the sheer lace insert. “But not my size. In case you’ve forgotten, sweetheart, hidden beneath my staid, Philadelphia lawyer suits are breasts Miss Universe would kill for.”

      “And she’s modest, too,” he muttered, feeling that familiar tightening in his groin. “Would you quit trying to turn me on for old time’s sake and just smell the damn thing?”

      “Kinky,” Jessica repeated, even as she did as instructed. “Shalimar,” she murmured. She rewarded him with another smile. “I knew you had a clever head on those wide, manly shoulders.”

      He stuffed the silk nightgown into an evidence bag. “The question is, why did she take it off?”

      “Why, Callahan,” the attorney said with mock shock, “surely it hasn’t been that long since you’ve bedded a woman. Why the hell do you think she took it off?”

      Although he wasn’t about to admit it, it had been a long time since he’d gotten laid. Too long, if the way just looking at Mariah Swann’s jean-clad ass sashaying across the parking lot had made him hot was any indication.

      Remembering the raunchy sex he and Jessica had shared, he considered that perhaps there might be some advantages to this case, after all. While what he and the winsome prosecutor had was admittedly a long way from love, there’d also been a lot more involved than casual fucking.

      What it had been, Trace decided, was affectionate lust.

      “My guess would be that she wasn’t alone all night.”

      “And I’d guess that you’re right.” She shook her head with regret as she took in the bloodstained mattress. “You know, as good as sex can be, it sure as hell isn’t worth dying for.”

      “Amen.” He pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket and tagged the evidence. Smiling, she patted his cheek. “But if any man could make the choice a close one, Sheriff, it’d definitely be you.”

      The contrast between her cool looks and uninhibited attitude had been one of the things that had attracted Trace to Jessica Ingersoll in the first place. “Thanks. I think.”

      “Any time.” Her voice was throaty and every bit as seductive as the rest of her. “And I mean that literally.”

      For the first time since Cora Mae had called him with the one-eighty-seven code, Trace found something to laugh about, just as she’d intended. Relaxing slightly, he shared what he’d learned so far.

      “I think I might have an idea who your writer is,” she said when he got to the letters. “You may want to go talk to Clint Garvey.”

      The name rang a bell. Trace knew Garvey to be the Fletchers’ nearest neighbor.

      “The woman who does my hair used to have a thing going with Garvey,” СКАЧАТЬ