Cold Case Manhunt. Jennifer Morey

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       Chapter 2

      “So, the Ice Queen isn’t as icy as you thought.”

      Cal glanced over at Roman Cooper, who had finished moving his things into his office next to Cal’s at Dark Alley Investigations. He wished he hadn’t told him about the drastic change in Jaslene.

      “No. We ended up having a great time.” Cal shook his head. “She was a completely different woman.”

      “She liked the news of you coming over to DAI, huh?”

      “Maybe that’s all she liked. She hired me.”

      Roman chuckled. “Don’t take it too hard. My bet is she’s like you and something happened to make her turn away from love.”

      Had he turned away from love or just accepted that in his line of work it would take a rare woman to stick it out with him?

      The front door opened and Jaslene appeared, wearing black slacks and a white-and-black-patterned blouse with a V-neck. Dressier than the last time he’d seen her, than any other time he’d seen her. Maybe something other than new hope for progress in the Everett case had changed her perspective. Had she worn this for him? While excitement over what could come zinged him, he held on to caution.

      Someday, though, he’d like to see her in a little black number.

      She looked around the new DAI office. He and Roman had rented a small space on Main Street, in the middle of a row of old, connected commercial spaces. It had a single door and window in front with room for a table where they could meet with clients. Two doors in back led to their offices and a hallway between led to a door that opened to a dark, creepy alley. They planned to do some upgrades but it would do for now.

      As Jaslene approached Cal, he sensed her walls had gone back up. She didn’t smile and he saw none of the sparkle that had been there a few days ago. Did she mean to keep this professional? They had started to get pretty personal.

      “Come on into my office,” he said, seeing Roman watching, an amused upward tilt to his mouth.

      She followed him and he closed the door, ignoring Roman’s mock shiver and rubbing of his arms. Ice Queen. Except Cal didn’t think she was icy anymore. When he had told her about his grandfather, her sincere sympathy had touched him. He wondered what losses she had suffered to make her so compassionate.

      Jaslene sat on the only chair before his desk. His bookshelf and desk took up most of the space.

      “Have you made any progress?” she asked.

      So they were back to that, with her barking at him to get things done. She may have dressed for him but she was in attack mode. Good thing he had news for her. Potentially big news.

      “As a matter of fact...” He leaned to one side of his desk and found a report he’d printed yesterday. “Remember when I had Payton’s house searched?”

      “Yes.”

      “Well, I didn’t tell anyone that I thought it had already been searched.”

      Her brows lowered. “Why not? That seems like an important detail.”

      “It is.”

      “Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you tell me?”

      “I wanted to be sure first. I also didn’t want the press to leak it out.” He felt like asking her if she remembered when he almost kissed her at her Jeep the other day.

      “Oh.” Her brow smoothed. “What is that?” She indicated the report.

      “This is what Forensics recovered from Payton’s computer. I asked them to do a deeper dive to search for evidence.” He put it in front of her. “There were several emails deleted from her inbox, including some from her sent and trash folders. Forensics was able to recover enough to show Payton was in contact with a man named John Benjamin.”

      “She never told me about anyone named John.”

      Payton had kept it secret that she’d been corresponding with a man? Why? Why hide that, especially from her closest friend?

      “Then it’s possible she was the one who deleted everything.”

      Jaslene shook her head. “Why not just delete her received messages from her inbox? She must have had a reason she didn’t tell me, or anyone, about him.”

      “And maybe that reason got her killed?”

      She nodded, reading the report.

      “John Benjamin is a local physician,” Cal said. “A married physician.”

      Jaslene looked up sharply from the report. “Payton was seeing a married man?”

      “It’s hard to say what the nature of their relationship was, but it was more personal than a doctor-patient relationship. Go to the third page.”

      She did and he let her have time to read the email correspondence. Payton had started the chain by thanking him for lunch and saying they should do that again sometime. The doctor responded with an offer for dinner and Payton had agreed. The doctor said he would call her.

      “They made arrangements to meet,” she said.

      “Yes. We just don’t know why.”

      “If she was seeing a married man, I can see why she didn’t tell me about him. It must have bothered her.” Her eyes widened. “Do you think he may have killed her because she planned to tell his wife?”

      “Like I said, hard to say. Dr. СКАЧАТЬ