“You don’t have to.”
“They’re pictures of my wife. My deceased wife.”
“You carry snapshots of your naked wife around with you, in your pockets?” she snapped. “I hope to God that you’re in counseling, Carter, because that’s pretty damned weird. Maybe borderline obsessive.”
He didn’t respond, but his eyes narrowed.
She shoved her hair from her eyes with one hand, and from the corner of her eye glimpsed the daybed, the pillows tossed carelessly onto the floor, a quilt and sheets torn from the mattress. Again she thought of their hard, hot coupling, the fact that she’d never used any protection, and the cold realization that Shane Carter could have done what he’d done with her with dozens of women.
“There are things you don’t know,” he said, and winced as if it sounded lame, like something out of an ancient soap opera.
“Obviously.”
“The pictures mean nothing.”
She snorted. “Yeah, I run around with photographs of things that I really don’t care about all the time.” Before he could come up with another useless, see-through excuse, she began straightening the daybed, tearing off the sex-scented sheets and rearranging the pillows. “Listen, you don’t owe me any explanations or apologies or anything.” Gathering the sheets in her arms, she turned to him. “Just catch the damned stalker, okay? That’s your job. That’s why you’re here.”
She carried the sheets to the laundry room as the back door opened and Turnquist appeared. Carter stopped and talked with him for a few minutes as she stuffed the sheets into the washer, turned on the water and added soap. She didn’t watch him leave, heard the back door open and close, and collapsed against the dryer.
Don’t do this, Jenna. It was just sex. It happens all the time.
But not to her. She’d never let this kind of thing happen to her. Because she’d been guarded. Wary. Careful of her heart.
Until now.
Until she’d met that damned lawman.
Carter’s back teeth ground so hard that his jaw ached. He’d blown everything. Now that someone had seen the pictures of Carolyn taken from Wes Allen’s house, he’d jeopardized the investigation. “Damn, damn, damn!” he growled, pounding on the steering column as he drove home. The roads were still dicey, some plowed and graveled, others still covered with last night’s snowfall. What had he been thinking, making love to Jenna Hughes?
He hadn’t been. That was the problem. Blame his stupidity on too many months without a woman, too many hours without sleep, too many worries about the investigation, but it all boiled down to the sorry fact that he’d been horny as hell, half in love with the Hollywood princess anyway, and the opportunity had presented itself. What red-blooded American male would have done differently?
“Shit,” he muttered as he pulled into his lane and the four wheels whined against the accumulation of snow. He made it home and burned the damned photographs, making sure, as he added more firewood, that every scrap of evidence had literally gone up in smoke. He checked his e-mail, searched the Web again for Leo Ruskin, and found several scant, old entries. More searching online for White Out did little to help him except to come up with the name of the company that did the makeup work on the unfinished movie. Why the hell did he think the movie was connected to the killings? Because of Jenna? Because of the damned cold weather? Or because he was sick to death of the snow? He couldn’t find the makeup people listed anywhere in his first search and he didn’t have any time to waste. In a dark mood, his tired brain still running over the information and trying to insert Wes Allen into everything he knew about the case, Carter fried bacon, eggs and frozen potatoes, ate the meal with one eye on the news before he dumped his plate into the sink and climbed the stairs to his loft.
Wes Allen never had anything to do with makeup. He wasn’t directly or indirectly involved with any of Jenna’s movies. It could be the lowlife is innocent.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered and stripped off his clothes. Nothing about this case was easy. None of it made sense. But someone, some bastard who had access to her house, was linked to her films. Her husband? No—they’d checked and he was still in L.A. An old boyfriend? As far as the police could determine, Jenna had none. Few dates and nothing serious. Not so much as a one-night stand.
Except for you.
What the hell did that mean?
While showering, he thought of Jenna and couldn’t stop the erection that sprouted at the memory of making love to her. She’d been as beautiful as she’d been in all of her movies, maybe even more so. Eager. Supple. Hot.
“Jesus.”
So you nailed a Hollywood actress, literally star-fucked, so what? You gonna brag about it? The fact that she chose you, over all the men drooling after her, to sleep with? And you messed that up, too, didn’t you? Just like Dr. Randall predicted. Anything you really want, you screw up, don’t you?
Ignoring the damning questions, he washed, rinsed, stepped out of the shower, and wrapped a towel around his hips. He scraped the stubble from his face with a razor and stared angrily at his image in the fogged-over mirror. He looked as tired and frustrated as he felt, but knew it was another day of powering up on caffeine and maybe some nicotine.
Because today was the day that Wes Allen was going down.
He felt another sharp niggle of doubt about the bust, but didn’t examine it too closely.
Innocent until proven guilty, Carter—remember, innocent until proven guilty.
“Allen’s alibi checks out,” Sparks said from his end of the cell phone connection.
Driving through town, Carter passed by the theater and noticed there were no cars in the lot. Ice and snow had piled over the parking spaces, and no illumination streamed through the stained-glass windows. “The night Sonja Hatchell was abducted, Wes was at the Lucky Seven, sipping suds until well after midnight. The waitress remembers him because she has a thing for the guy.”