Chapter Nine
Gill kept pace beside her.
The woman walked fast for someone with legs so much shorter than his. She stepped out of the building and into the light. Jo reached for her sunglasses and said without looking, “You don’t have to follow me.”
Gill covered his eyes from the glare, too. “I don’t have to do a lot of things.”
He didn’t invade the place she was inside her head with questions, even though he had a million running through his.
It was obvious she was walking off steam. And from the way she was muttering under her breath, she was battling several demons all at once.
“Don’t you have to be training someone on how to be badass?” Jo threw out over her shoulder.
“Nope. I’m technically done for the day.”
“The day just started.”
He didn’t need to be there at all, he came for the company.
The company that was storming around the building on a mission. He’d been having a hard time getting her out of his head since she walked in the bar in DC. This morning’s little show from the doorway to her bathroom just about undid him. She’d offered him everything the night before, and that morning did her best to show him exactly what he’d said no to.
He had to admit, Jo pissed off was turning him on. He’d rather see her pissed than teary eyed. Seeing a strong woman break down was his Achilles’ heel.
The East Coast sun was doing a good job of heating him up; the humidity had him pulling the collar of his shirt from his neck in search of air.
Jo rounded the building and walked toward the parking lot.
She stopped in front of what looked like a rental car and patted her back pocket. Her lungs deflated in frustration.
“Damn it.” She pounded on the roof of the car and rested her head on her arm.
She was looking a little too weak for his taste.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, was a little surprised she didn’t pull away. “Jo.”
“You know what the kids that ride skateboards call the kids that don’t but who still wear those skinny jeans?”
Her question came out of left field. “I have no idea.”
“Poseurs.” She lifted her head, nodded toward the building across from the lot where her group was training. “That’s what I am in there. I’m wearing skinny jeans and pretending to be something I’m not.” Jo turned her back to the car, dislodging his touch.
Gill leaned against the car across from hers and didn’t try and touch her again.
“You’re not a poseur, Jo.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Have you ever been to River Bend?”
“No.”
“You might think differently if you had.”
He folded his arms across his chest. “I have every intention of seeing River Bend. I’ll let you know my verdict when I do.”
She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off. “What’s this about your dad?”
The thoughts derailed. “Forget it.”
“Mmm, can’t do that. Not part of my DNA. He was killed?”
She nodded once. “The report said accidental shooting. My dad was a good cop, an even better hunter. He was never sloppy with his weapons. Any of them.”
Accidental shootings happened, but when it came to law enforcement, those accidents almost always happened when said officer was with another person.
“Was anyone with him when it happened?”
“No.”
“Where did this accident take place?”
“His hunting cabin. It appeared that he was cleaning his guns.”
“He shot himself with a hunting rifle?”
Jo wiped the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. “His service weapon. Point-blank, to his head.”
Gill winced. “Did your dad always carry his pistol with him when he went hunting?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t really pay attention. The last time I’d gone hunting with him I was probably fourteen. Then I discovered boys and wanted nothing to do with it.”
“You’re convinced he didn’t shoot himself.”
“I know he didn’t shoot himself. Guns were never toys in my home. Not even the plastic orange ones you filled with water. Guns were weapons, period! I was taught gun safety before I was potty-trained. He was always careful with his guns and way too smart to leave a bullet in the chamber while cleaning the damn things.” She spread her hands to the complex around them. “I thought some of this might help. Focus me again . . . I don’t know . . . something.”
Just talking about her father had focused her. Gill wondered if she knew how intensely her eyes displayed her emotions. She was convinced, utterly and completely, that she was right.
“I’ll help.”
Those piercing eyes found his. “You don’t have to.”
“And I didn’t have to follow you out here either.”
A corner of her mouth slid up. “I don’t know.”
“I’m good at what I do, Jo. And from what I’ve seen, you’re good at what you do, too. From what you said earlier, it looks like we’re going to lose a good cop if we don’t find some answers.”
“I never wanted to be a cop.”
“I gathered that. Doesn’t mean you’re not suited for the job.”
She hunched her shoulders, didn’t comment.
He gestured toward the building. “C’mon. You finish this today, and tonight I’ll take you to meet a friend of mine. He might help you focus.”
“Your friend’s an investigator?”
“Not really. You’ll understand when we get there.”
She looked over his shoulder, blew out a breath. “I need to call my deputy. Make sure he doesn’t do something stupid.” Her voice was filled with resolve.
“I’ll meet you at your hotel at six?”
Her smile was his answer.
Jo was becoming quite comfortable on the back of Gill’s Harley. There she could wrap her arms around him and forget nearly everything except the vibrations of the bike and the feel of the man.
She’d nearly lost it after the call from Glynis. All the reasons she wanted to find her father’s killer and search for a new life for herself rose up and slapped her in the face with that one call. Dogs. Dogs were the emergency in River Bend, and it took calling her deputy and heading him off before he could make a mess out of things to settle the nerves of her so-called dispatcher. When Jo contacted Cherie, the woman thought it was a social call. It took ten minutes to get through the gossip on her street before Jo managed to get a word in. Cherie agreed to keep the dogs inside at night so the neighbors couldn’t complain about their inability to sleep because of the barking. Jo also went on to say that her property wasn’t licensed for a kennel, and if the neighbors wanted to make a big deal about the amount of dogs, they could, and Jo would have no choice but to have the dog pound in Waterville step in.
Cherie was agreeable, but Jo knew it was only a matter of days before the complaints would start in again.
By then she’d be home, and hopefully be able to smooth things out.
Until then, she’d enjoy the feel of Gill on the bike and the freedom being away from River Bend was giving her.
Gill followed along the twisted back roads off the interstate until he slowed his pace and turned into a suburban driveway lined with trees. The modest one-story home looked to sit on a half-acre lot. The mature landscape consisted mostly of trees and hedges, with several rhododendrons in various shades of red.
Once Gill cut the engine, Jo climbed off the back, the pattern of removing the helmet and raking her fingers through her hair becoming more than a little comfortable.
Gill smiled at her as she handed him the helmet.
“The ride relaxed you,” he said.
“A little,” she admitted. Jo snuggled into her windbreaker and knew the ride back would probably be much cooler. “Who lives here?”
“An old friend.” He took her hand and led her up the walkway to the front door.
He knocked once before opening the door.
“Better be a good friend,” she murmured. Since Gill was letting himself in, Jo had to assume they were expected.
The smell of something savory filled the house and made Jo’s stomach rumble.
“Lee?” Gill called once they stepped inside the foyer.
“Back here.” The smoker’s voice sounded young, if not a little gruff.
Gill led her through the house like he knew the way until they emptied into a family room that connected to a kitchen.
In front of the stove was a tiny Hispanic woman in her late thirties. She placed a kitchen towel on the counter and walked around to greet them.
Jo’s eyes traveled to the man behind the gruff voice. He might be close to forty, but not much past. His upper body stretched the confines of his T-shirt, suggesting he spent time working that part of his body out. The rest of him sat in a wheelchair, which Jo forced her eyes away from the moment she realized she was staring.
Gill released her hand to embrace the woman and kissed her cheek before offering introductions. “Consuela, this is my friend, Jo.”
Consuela had long, dark hair that fell over her back like a drape. “Any friend of Gill’s is a friend of ours.”
Jo extended a hand and shook the woman’s. “Thank you for having me.”
“And this lucky bastard is Lee.” Gill did one of those slamming handshakes, followed by a bent-over man hug.
“You’re the only one with big enough balls to call me that,” Lee said, pushing Gill aside to move his chair closer to Jo. “Let’s get a look at her.”
Jo offered her hand to shake his and was met with the two-hand shake men did when they wanted to flirt. “Nice to meet you.”
Lee held on and looked her up and down. “You’re a bit tiny to be taking on this behemoth.”
“Excuse me?” Jo managed to get her hand back and look at Gill.
“Ignore him.”
“You can’t ignore me, I’m the elephant in the room. Hey, baby, how about some beer?”
Consuela stirred whatever was in the pot and turned toward the fridge. “You okay with beer, Jo? I have wine. Not good wine, but it was made with grapes.”
“Beer is fine,” Jo said.
“How is my bike running?” Lee asked Gill.
Gill sat on one end of the sofa and patted the space beside him while he looked at her.
“Like a dream. One of these days I’m going to convince you to sell her to me.”
“Wait,” Jo said. “That bike isn’t yours?”
Gill shook his head. “Whenever I’m this close to Lee, he makes sure I get her out to stretch her legs.”
Lee laughed, and Jo found herself looking at the man’s legs. Legs that obviously didn’t work for walking on.
“Someone has to,” Lee said, chuckling.
“I refuse to drive that thing,” Consuela said as she brought their refreshments.
“Did you think I drove it all the way out from Oregon?” Gill asked Jo.
“I didn’t even think about it.” She was slightly disappointed the hog wasn’t his.
Gill twisted the top off one of the beers and handed it to her.
“Gill told me you’re training this week,” Lee said to Jo.
“I am.”
“Thinking of joining the Feds?”
She shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
“Jo’s the sheriff of River Bend, Oregon.”
Lee swept her again with his stare. “Young for a sheriff.”
“It’s a small town.” Jo felt she should just as soon have that tattooed on her forehead for all the times she’d said that during this trip.
“Jo’s father was the sheriff before his death.”
Lee lost some of the grin he’d been wearing since they arrived. The man was attractive enough, with what looked to be a burn scar on the left side of his face that covered a quarter of his cheek and half of his jaw. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s been ten years, it’s okay.”
Lee stared at her now. “So your father passed, and you stepped in.”
Gill placed a hand on her knee and kept it there. Unlike when they were surrounded by those at Quantico, he didn’t hold back the fact they were more than just acquaintances around his friends.
“You could say that.”
“Did you know you were going to be a cop?” Lee asked.
Jo glanced at Gill before answering. “No. It wasn’t on my bucket list.”
Lee nodded a few times before turning his attention to Gill. “Interesting.”
There was some kind of nonverbal communication going on between the men, but Jo wasn’t clued in to what it was.
“How do you two know each other?” Jo asked, trying to get the conversation off of her.
“One of those biker fundraisers put on to raise money for kids at Christmas,” Lee said.
Gill laughed. “Lee had this badass wheelchair with a Harley plate. I knew we had to meet.”
“Gill?” Consuela called from the kitchen, her hand on a tray. “Can you put this on the grill? Five minutes each side, no more.”
Gill patted Jo’s knee and pushed off the couch. “Anything for you.”
Once Gill walked out the back door, Lee continued as if Jo hadn’t changed the subject. “Let me guess, your father would have wanted you to take over for him.”
“Nothing would have made him happier.” Jo pulled on her beer.
“But not you, I’m taking it.”
She tried to deny it. “It hasn’t been that bad.”
“Or that good.”
She moved to protest, shrugged her shoulders instead.
“You know what happens when you live your life for other people, Jo?”
Jo couldn’t think of an answer, so she remained silent.
“You end up in some godforsaken sand trap, an M-14 strapped to your back, while your buddy steps on a bomb. There aren’t enough pieces to pick up of your friend, and you end up spending the next six months on your back in some deathtrap hospital, knowing you’ll never walk again. But you were the lucky one. You made it out alive.” Lee revealed what sounded like the CliffsNotes version of how he ended up in his chair without venom, just straight facts.
“What branch of the service were you in?”
“Army. Dad joined right after high school. Met my mom somewhere after he’d worked his way up the ranks to private first class. By the time I was in the picture he was a sergeant dragging us from one base to another. Like most army brats, I wanted nothing to do with it.”
“You enlisted anyway.”
Lee nodded, drank from his beer. “Tried to avoid it. Went to college for two years, hated it. Floated around for another year trying to figure out life. Finally I conceded to the old man. Wanted him to think I was doing something good with my life. Little did he know that all hell was about to break out in the Middle East and my boots were some of the first to hit the ground.”
Jo looked at his chair. “This happened over there?”
“Yeah. Six months before my term was up. All because I was trying to make someone else happy.”
Jo saw Gill’s back through the sliding glass door at the back of the house. She knew then why he had brought her to visit Lee and his wife.
“What do you think of Jo?” Gill asked his friend.
Consuela and Jo were sitting by the fire pit in the backyard while Lee smoked his cigarette a distance away.
“Looking for my approval?”
Gill leaned forward on his knees, kept his voice low. “We haven’t known each other long.”
“Considering you haven’t spoke of her, I assumed as much.”
Gill glanced her way, enjoyed the way the flames from the fire danced over her face. “She’s too good for such a small town.”
“She doesn’t seem to want anything to do with her job.”
Gill wasn’t convinced. “I thought so, too, then I saw her in action during this training. She’s good at what she does. I just don’t think she’s doing it in the right place.”
Lee pulled in a drag from his smoke. “It’s hard to stop chasing ghosts once you start. While she might be good at what she’s doing, it doesn’t mean she should be doing it.”
“I thought you would say as much. Once she puts some closure to her father’s death, I think she’ll move on.”
Lee narrowed his eyes. “What’s up with that?”
Gill explained Jo’s theory and added that he wasn’t convinced the death was accidental either. “I need to see the files, scope out where they found him.”
“Open a cold case?”
“The case is completely closed. But for Jo, it’s open every day of her life. And it’s strangling her.”
Lee crushed out his cigarette. “For someone who just met this lady, you seem to know a awful lot about her.”
Gill felt Jo’s eyes on him. “Not nearly enough.”