Truth Be Told

33

What was Jane doing here?

Jake had about three seconds before the revolving door deposited him in the lobby, though he was tempted to push around one more time to give himself time to figure out what the hell was going on. Jane? At headquarters? This time of night?

What’s more, that was Peter Hardesty, the lawyer for the Confessor. And there was the Confessor himself-the Lilac Sunday killer, if Jake was correct. Exactly where he’d always wanted him. It was almost too good to be true-but what was Jane doing with those two? Hardesty had better not have told her about Thorley.

Jake pushed the aluminum bar on the glass door more slowly than he ordinarily would, stalling. Going on the offense was the best ploy. They were in his territory. They needed as much from him as he needed from them. If Thorley and Hardesty were here to make a deal, Jake-and Bing Sherrey, he guessed-would be their conduit to the DA’s office. So they’d better play nice.

Would it be a conflict for Hardesty to represent Thorley as well as the about-to-be-nabbed Sandoval? They’d cross that bridge when they came to it. If they came to it.

But why was Jane here?

The glass door deposited him on the black rubber doormat, into the hum of the air conditioning and the crackle of the aging fluorescents. No turning back now. The dispatch radio squawked, pulling him into reality. The desk sergeant, by-the-book Lockerbie, looked up, inquiring. Jane and Hardesty watched him, standing side by side. Thorley, feet splayed and oozing attitude, didn’t even glance up. Cadet McSomething hovered with her clipboard.

Jake acknowledged the cadet, pointing to his own chest, then toward the visitors. I’ll handle. She nodded, taking a step back. Relinquishing command.

“Peter Hardesty, correct?” Jake didn’t hold out a hand, but Hardesty did, which Jake accepted. Thorley got to his feet, his guard rising to block him. Jane just stood there-was there mud on her leg?-silent. She had a funny look on her face, but so did he, probably.

“This is Jane Ryland,” Hardesty was saying. “She’s-”

“She’s a-” The cadet pointed to her clipboard.

“A reporter.” Jake interrupted. “Thanks, Cadet. Miss Ryland, I’m afraid you’ll have to-”

Oh, crap. That’s why she’d had the funny look. Jane thought he was in D.C.

Jake started over.

“Let me say, first, ah, I was just unexpectedly called back from Washington, D.C.” Jake telegraphed a look at Jane he hoped would clarify that he wasn’t a jerk or a liar.

“Unexpectedly,” he repeated. That was about all the time he had for personal communications. “But, Mr. Hardesty, under no circumstances can a reporter-”

“She’s not here as a reporter,” Hardesty said. “She’s a victim.”

“A victim?” Jane? He looked her up and down, almost reached out to her. Victim? The mud. And her hair was kind of-was she hurt? Victim? “Of what? What happened?”

“I’m okay. Really.” Jane took a step forward, held out both palms, as if to prove she was fine.

How could she be “okay”? Whatever happened had brought them all to the police station at eleven at night. No way that was okay. He never wanted to hear “Jane” and “victim” in the same sentence, let alone in reality.

“Of what? Victim of what?” Jake’s throat tightened, he could hear what it did to his voice. Hardesty was looking at him, then Jane, then him again, obviously detecting some sort of subtext. So what. Let the guy look.

“I’m okay,” Jane said again. “Really.”

“That’s why we’re here, Detective,” Hardesty was saying. “About what happened this evening.”

“The Moulten Road incident,” Jake said. “Correct?”

He saw Jane narrow her eyes, give that look she got whenever she’d done the mental math and gotten a curious result. “What Moulten Road incident?” she asked.

Jake winced. Damn. Said nothing, trying to regroup.

“What Moulten Road incident?” Jane looked at Hardesty, looked at Thorley, then back at him. “Detective? What Moulten Road incident?”

Damn. He’d assumed Jane would be up-to-date on Moulten Road, somehow, same way she’d been on Waverly Road with Shandra Newbury’s murder. Maybe gotten a tip. Apparently he was wrong. She seemed to be unaware the police had found a woman strangled on Moulten Road, a block from the Arboretum. Now he’d said too much.

“Moulten Road? That’s out by the-” Jane stopped. Tilted her head slowly to one side, then back the other way. Jake could almost see the click-click-click as the slot machine sevens lined up in her brain. “Out by the Arboretum?”

Why had Jane said that? Picked up on the Arboretum connection?

If Hardesty had told her, there’d be another homicide in the works. Jake himself would kill the guy.

Did she want to go inside with Aaron? The last time he’d taken her to such a place… Lizzie sighed, looked out the windshield of Aaron’s car at the apartment building, feeling her hopes evaporate. Maybe tonight hadn’t been a good idea after all.

“No, thanks.” Lizzie fussed with her seat belt, running a thumb up and down between the black webbing and the front of her navy bank blazer. Aaron had parked in a dark patch, out of the glow of the orange security lights. She was grateful he couldn’t see the indecision and disappointment on her face. “If you’ll only be gone a minute or two? It’s okay. I’ll wait in the car.”

She wasn’t handling this well, whatever this was. She needed to be clever and winning, feminine and desirable. She had to be the confident one. This wasn’t high school.

“I’ll babysit the lovely champagne until you come out.” She tried to toss her hair, but then stopped, mid-gesture, embarrassed. Trying too hard. “And the Cinzano’s box. Do what you need to do inside. I’ll be fine.” Big smile.

Aaron now stood outside the open car window, both palms on the roof, leaning in over the driver’s seat. She could see down the front of his unbuttoned shirt. He didn’t wear an undershirt, she saw, and then tried not to look anymore.

“Ah, Lizzie, Miss Lizzie,” Aaron said. “You kill me.”

He paused, staring at her so intently she fidgeted in the seat, wondering how anyone ever was comfortable with another person, wondering why she was so attracted to him, although that wasn’t difficult to explain, he was so handsome, and could be so sweet, even though some of his activities weren’t the most… whatever. And some of his lines were laughable. But it wasn’t like she was going to marry him, right? It was just tonight. One random Tuesday in May. No one else but them even knew.

She realized, in a tumbling wisp of a thought, no one knew where she was.

“Okay. My bad.” Aaron slapped both palms on the roof, from the sound of it, and got back into the car, slid behind the wheel, yanked his seat belt across his chest-then stopped, holding the buckle in front of him. “I confess. I just-I could use your advice.”

“Advice?” She tried to read the look on his face. Tried to keep her own face composed. Tried to predict-advice about what? Could he know she’d talked to Maddie Kate Wendell and Mo Heedles? If so, what would he make of that? What would she tell him?

“I know you understand the bank, like I do,” Aaron was saying. “It’s in your blood, in a way, right?”

She supposed it was. With her dad and all. But where was this going? “Sure, yes, I-why?”

“So I was wondering if you might be able to help me. With a kind of project I’m working on. It’s secret, though, so you’d have to promise it’s just between us for now.” He let the seat belt go, and it snapped back into place. He turned to her, touching her shoulder again for the briefest of seconds. She felt the exact place, even through her jacket, even after he took his hand away.

“Kind of-a surprise for you,” he said.

Sitting in a car, in an empty parking lot, in the middle of the-well, not exactly the middle of the night. She wanted him to like her, she admitted, she did, but her brain was full and confused and-what did he mean by “surprise”?

“And thing is”-Aaron was still talking-“I had hoped… you’d come upstairs and come see it. You’ll be the first, you know? Because I trust your judgment, and I trust your skills. You’re my soul mate, Miss Lizzie. I feel it-” He touched his chest. “Right here.”

Despite her misgivings, she could feel herself melting. Soul mate? No one had ever-ever-said that to her before. Maybe it was bull. One of his lines. But what if it wasn’t?

“So, okay?” he said.

“I admit you have me curious,” she said.

“As long as I have you.” Aaron smiled at her, that smile.

She heard the whir as her seat belt retracted, watched Aaron reach into the back seat for the champagne and Cinzano’s box, felt the car shift as he opened the door and got out, waiting for her in the quiet parking lot. A soft breeze rustled the leaves of a big maple above them, the lowest branches tangling against her hair as she got out of the car.

Taking the champagne inside? Why not. She was trying a new life now, her new life, and the lovely wine would seal the deal.