Veil of Night (19 page)

The minister’s car was still there, of course, and her Jag—and Eric’s car was parked right beside hers, but he wasn’t in it. No, he was leaning against her Jag, easy as you please, just as he’d been that morning, a bunch of papers rolled up in his hand.

Jaclyn took a deep breath and walked toward her car, her spine straight and her heart pounding. She’d love to tell him off, to rip into him and vent all the frustration and anger that had been eating at her all day, but she couldn’t. He wasn’t just Eric Wilder, one-night stand gone wrong; he was
Detective
Eric Wilder, and ripping into him might land her in jail.

At any other time, the satisfaction might be worth the risk, but not this week; her schedule was just too hectic.

She stopped in front of him, her key in hand. “Do you have more questions for me, Detective?”

He sighed, maybe because she’d called him “Detective,” maybe because he was as tired as she was. “Yes, I do. The gray-haired man you saw going into the reception hall yesterday afternoon: Can you give me any more details about him? The make of car? Anything?”

“No,” she said briefly. “Gray-haired man, silver car. That’s it. I was having a bad day and my mind wasn’t on scanning people in the parking lot. There’s really no reason to harass me while I’m working, Detective. I have your number, and if I remember anything new I’ll call and let you know.”

“I’m not harassing you.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.” She jingled her keys as a hint, but he remained where he was, solidly blocking her from getting into the car. He’d probably chosen that position on purpose. Instead of trying to force him out of the way—yeah, like she’d have any luck trying that—or looking desperate by opening the passenger door and inelegantly climbing over the console, she stood her ground.

Damn him. Looking at him, she couldn’t help but be yanked back to the other night, when he’d made her feel better than she’d felt in years, when he’d made her laugh, made her cry out, made her forget everything except being a woman. He’d been a night of escape, a momentary slip, and yet right now she’d give anything to have him tell her that he knew she couldn’t have killed Carrie or anyone else, that he believed in her and would fight for her.

Yeah, right. She was wasting her time there.

After a moment of silence, he said, “I have those copies you asked for.”

“Oh.”

Well, damn him, how dare he do something nice for her when she had a good mad worked up against him? “Oh” wasn’t good enough; now she had to thank him. Again.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly, taking the roll of papers he held out to her.

“I’ll need you to come in tomorrow and look at some photographs—”

Tomorrow?
She was so horrified, thinking of everything they had going on tomorrow—it would be their busiest, most hectic, absolutely insane day—that for a moment her mind went blank and all she could hear was a sort of white noise. Then she felt her mouth move, and what came out of it was: “Look, Studly Do-Right, either arrest me or leave me alone!”

Chapter Eighteen

“WHAT DID YOU CALL ME?” HE ASKED, HIS TONE STIFLED
.

Jaclyn covered her mouth with her fingers. Oh, God, surely she hadn’t said that out loud! Surely this was a nightmare and she’d wake up in a few minutes nice and snug in her bed, instead of standing with Eric Wilder in an almost deserted parking lot lit only by the stark, weird tones of the sodium vampire security lights, which was nightmare inducing if she’d ever seen anything that was.

“
Studly Do-Right
?” he repeated.

Why couldn’t the pavement just open up and swallow her whole? Why couldn’t she have been struck mute before she opened her mouth? Why couldn’t Eric Wilder have stayed at least sixty miles away from her and never bumped into her in city hall?

“You can be arrested for hostile acts toward a law enforcement officer,” he said, still in that stifled tone, as if he could barely speak.

“Then why don’t you arrest me?” she flared, goaded beyond control. She was so angry that she stuck out her hands, wrists together, daring him. “Why don’t you cuff me and drag me to jail right now, huh?
Huh?
Go ahead! Charge me with the heinous crime of calling you Studly Do-Right, and let’s see you get laughed out of court, Mr. High and Mighty Law Enforcement Officer!” Some moronic woman she didn’t know had taken charge of her body, and her mouth. The same moron thrust her shoulder into the detective, pushing him back. “Go ahead! Arrest me!” Then she lowered her shoulder again and gave him one more shove, just for good measure.

“Jaclyn,” he said, sounding as if he were strangling. Then he began howling. Literally. Well, not actually baying at the moon or barking like the Georgia fans, but bent over at the waist, red in the face, howling with laughter.

If she could be sure he wouldn’t charge her with assault, she’d have punted him into next week. “Go away!” she shouted. “I regret ever meeting you! I hope you get scurvy and your teeth fall out! I hope you get rickets! I hope you get
beriberi!”

“You don’t even know what beriberi is,” he managed to say, before going off again.

“It’s a dread disease that turns you into a stupid jerk
man!”
She couldn’t remember ever being so beside herself with rage before, and it was all the worse for being so impotent. She couldn’t pick him up and hurl him through a plate-glass window, which would have been hugely satisfying. She couldn’t shoot him or stab him, because she didn’t have any shooting or stabbing weapons. She couldn’t kick him, because she was wearing open-toed pumps and she’d only hurt herself. She couldn’t even hit him with the rolled-up papers, because that wouldn’t do any more damage than swatting a fly. All she could do was yell at him with the mouth that was still under the control of the moron woman she didn’t know.

“Miss Wilde?” the minister asked hesitantly from several yards away, having left the church by the side door and witnessed her pitching a hissy fit. “Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right!” She stomped her foot, threw her keys on the ground, and would have jumped up and down on them with both feet but at the last second destroying her remote struck her as self-defeating, so she clenched every muscle in her body and screamed a wordless sound of fury.

Eric was laughing so hard he had to lean against her car for support, his hands braced on his knees. Still whooping, he recovered enough to bend a little farther to pick up her keys, but it took him three tries to actually grab them.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” the minister persisted. He was visibly perturbed, perhaps because he thought there was some threat to her, but more than likely because the ladylike Jaclyn Wilder had turned into a raving maniac in front of his very eyes.

“Yes!” she roared, and pointed at Eric. “Punch him in the nose! Punch him as hard as you can, and then I’ll feel better.”

“I can’t do that,” said the minister, aghast.

“Then
don’t volunteer!”
She snatched her keys out of Eric’s hand and hit the remote to unlock the door. Some glimmer of sanity was returning to her rage-fogged mind, and it struck her that the best thing she could do was get out of there before she really did end up arrested for something, probably disturbing the peace, because she’d certainly done that.

Choking and wheezing with laughter, Eric slapped a hand against her car door and prevented her from opening it. “Jaclyn … stop,” he managed to say, his shoulders heaving.

She pushed her face close up to his and snarled,
“Make me.”

“Oh, God.” He sucked in a huge, shuddering breath, looked at the minister, and said, “Sorry, padre.”

“It’s okay,” said the minister, smiling a little. “I think I understand.”

“She’ll see you tomorrow, and she’ll be so calm you’ll think you dreamed this.”

“I doubt that, but I’ll give it a try. Now, young man, is she going to be all right if I leave her with you?”

“She
will be. I’m not so sure I’ll survive.” He began snickering again.

“Stop giggling,” Jaclyn snapped. The presence of a third party had given her time to catch her breath, a little, though it hadn’t done a lot to ease her temper. She
never
lost her temper like this, but she couldn’t think of anyone who had ever made her so angry before. Even when Carrie had slapped her, she hadn’t thrown a full-scale tantrum.

Eric scrubbed his hand over his face. “Cops don’t giggle. I’m a cop, therefore I don’t giggle.” He was teary-eyed, red-faced, and breathless from laughing so hard. The minister gave them a warm smile—what was up with
him?
—and walked back to his car, leaving them alone.

In the deep well of silence that followed, Jaclyn could hear herself breathing hard, too. The unreality of the past five minutes seized her as the cool voice of reason began to make itself heard again. She
never
acted like that, especially not in public. The way she felt went beyond mere embarrassment; a mixture of horror and sheer mortification froze her in place. She’d been out of control, acting like a child, and she hadn’t been able to stop.

A buzzing in her ears warned her that she needed to breathe, though she honestly would prefer not to; she’d rather just drop unconscious to the ground and lay there until Eric left. The problem with that was, he wouldn’t leave. He’d stay with her, maybe take off his jacket and put it under her head, call 911, things like that. As uncomfortable as remaining conscious was, it was probably her best option. She gulped in a breath of air. “I’m sorry,” she forced herself to say. She had to clear her throat before she could get the words out. Even then her voice was hoarse and kind of hollow; she didn’t sound like herself at all.

“That’s okay,” he said lazily, settling his ass against her car again.

A simple “sorry” wasn’t good enough, she thought fuzzily, not after everything she’d said and done. Her face burned, and her voice took on a ragged edge in addition to the hoarseness as she said, “No, it isn’t okay. The way I acted was appalling. I embarrassed you—”

“I wasn’t embarrassed. I was entertained. That was one of the best hissy fits I’ve ever seen. For sheer inventiveness, it even tops the time my mom dumped a canister of flour on top of my dad’s head. Mom is more into action. She never would have thought of beriberi.” He crossed his arms and smiled at her; for an instant she was caught in the same tractor beam of chemistry or hormones or pure insanity that had gripped her the first time she’d seen him. She could feel it start dragging her in, which horrified her almost as much as her loss of control. She had to tear her gaze away from his before she could resume her apology.

Doggedly she plowed on. “Well, I embarrassed myself. I’m truly, deeply sorry.”

“Jaclyn.” His deep voice flowed over her. “I understand that you’re under a lot of stress. I’m sorry to add to it, but I do need you to look at some photographs.”

He only thought he knew what her stress level was. “I have a wedding
and
a rehearsal tomorrow, and I personally have to handle both because Mom has a wedding and a rehearsal, too. We’ll be running from one place to another all day long. I know you can force me to look at photographs instead, I understand that—”

“Murder trumps weddings,” he pointed out.

“Making a living is pretty high on the list, too,” she snapped, feeling her self-control begin to fray again. “Besides, I couldn’t identify the man I saw if he were standing next to me.”

“You don’t know until you try,” he said, straightening from her car and reaching to open the door for her. “Go on home now, and decompress. I’ll be in touch.”

She got in the car, still clutching the roll of papers. From those parting words, she thought she could safely assume he was going to completely wreck her schedule for the next day.

Bright and early the next morning, Friday, Eric made it to work without getting involved in any robberies that ate up half his day. The solution was simple: he made coffee at home, scouted around and found an old thermos, and brought his own coffee. When even a McDonald’s drive-through wasn’t safe for his coffee hit, it was time to come up with another way of doing things. He’d make his own damn coffee from now on. God knows he wasn’t having any luck getting good coffee any other way.

The first thing he saw when he approached his desk was a manila folder that hadn’t been there the afternoon before when he and Garvey had come in, but it was there now, on top of the stack. No one was in the lab at this hour, so someone must have placed the paperwork on his desk last night.

That was what he’d been waiting for. Maybe he should’ve swung by the office after he’d left Jaclyn, but he’d been in an irritable, pissy mood after watching her drive out of the church parking lot, and he’d headed straight home so he could lie in bed and not sleep for a few hours.

The pissiness wasn’t because of her temper tantrum, but rather because he’d been hamstrung by the case and couldn’t do anything about her tantrum—and he’d really, really wanted to. Man, how he’d wanted to. He’d had to fight to keep from simply grabbing her, kissing her until they both fell down, and then he’d kiss her some more. God, who knew a temper tantrum could turn him on so much? It wasn’t the tantrum itself; it was
Jaclyn
—losing her ladylike cool. Even then … she really hadn’t.

She hadn’t used a single cuss word. She’d stomped her feet, thrown her keys down, yelled some inventive and amusing … hell, he couldn’t even call them insults, because saying she hoped he got beriberi wasn’t an insult, it was more of a complete lack of good wishes. She’d jammed her shoulder into him—twice—and though technically he could have charged her for that he’d have felt like a fool if he had, because he outweighed her by at least eighty pounds, maybe even a hundred. But she hadn’t poked him, hadn’t hit him, hadn’t tried to bite him. It was as if she had no idea how to physically attack someone, even though she’d admitted being an inch away from punching Carrie Edwards, but that was different because she’d been physically attacked first.

Making Jaclyn Wilde lose control was fast becoming his favorite thing in the world to do.

So he’d gone home and not slept while he was thinking about sliding into her, her pussy all wet and slick and swollen, those fuck-me legs wrapped around him, her head tilted back and all but screaming as she came—yeah, that was a good way to not sleep, the best, but he’d paid for it because now he was tired and the day had just begun. Finally he’d tried to get some shut-eye by using the oldest method known to the male persuasion, Mrs. Thumb and her Four Sisters, but while jacking off had relieved some pressure it was a far cry from being as satisfying as coming inside Jaclyn.

He dropped heavily into his chair and picked up the folder, wrenching his mind from the X-rated fantasies that kept popping into his head.

He knew what he’d find inside the folder, and still he hesitated for a split second before opening it. The tests would clear Jaclyn; if he’d had any doubt at all about that, last night would have cured him of it. His gut
and
his brain told him that she couldn’t have killed Carrie Edwards, so the hesitation worried him.

Maybe he was too certain. Maybe he’d broken his own rule and let his emotions cloud his mind. Maybe—oh, shit!—maybe she’d sneaked in under his guard and he was more than halfway to falling in love with her, like some stupid kid getting a crush in the matter of a few minutes. He was too old and too smart to let one night of great sex affect his thinking … well, maybe not all that smart, since like it or not, he
was
affected.

He couldn’t be falling for her like that. He wasn’t ready to give up the single life. He
liked
being single.

But … damn. Jaclyn. Long legs, classy, surprisingly funny in an off-the-wall kind of way that he never would have expected. Could he just walk away, give her up, not even try for something more?

Fuck, no. He was going after her with every ounce of determination he had, and as his mother would attest, when he set his mind to do something then, come hell or high water, he’d do it. He had a mountain to climb in convincing her to give him a chance, but he liked a challenge. And maybe the mountain wasn’t that high; he figured if she truly didn’t give a damn, she wouldn’t get so hot under the collar at him.

Deeply satisfied with his decision, he poured some coffee from the thermos into his cup, took a sip, then flipped the file open, leaned back, and began to read.

On television a person could walk into a room and start shedding telling skin cells that would conclusively tie them to the crime, but in real life it wasn’t so easy. The first page of the report recorded greater detail on the trace evidence that had been collected at the scene. The crime techs had found numerous carpet fibers that had clung to people’s shoes and been transferred to the reception hall floor. They’d also found dirt, grass, unidentified fibers, and hair … lots and lots of hair, a shitload of hair, from animals as well as humans. Evidently people had been sneaking their Fluffys and Fidos into receptions, which didn’t surprise him in the least. Cat and dog hair was to be expected. It was when the hair came from goats and other livestock that he began to go a little cross-eyed at the possible scenarios.