Tess shook her head.
Mason waved over at Wilhelmina. “We’re doing just fine. And don’t worry. If Tess needs something, I can handle it.”
The other deputy pursed her lips. “Sounds fair, Mase. Let me know if you change your mind, sug, yeah? You too, Mrs. Sullivan. Take it easy. Sheriff’s gotta be coming back soon.”
“Thanks, Wil.”
“Thank you,” Tess echoed.
She liked the older woman. Wilhelmina probably had a good twenty years on the other two deputies. There was a matronly air about her, with her platinum-dyed hair permed into fluffy curls and a swath of blue eyeshadow that peeked over the edge of her thick cat’s eyeglasses. She carried some fluff around the middle, though Tess would call her husky before anything else, and moved around the station like a clucking mother hen.
She was the fourth member of their four-man law enforcement team, though Wilhelmina confided that she was more of an overpaid, underworked secretary. Despite Hamlet’s small population, there was always the inevitable paperwork. That was her responsibility. Mason, Sly and Caitlin traded off on the majority of patrols.
Sly was already gone when Mason brought her back to the station. Mason went off duty right after, though she seemed to think that wasn’t his idea. He returned shortly after the sheriff finally concluded her interview session, but both Wilhelmina and Mason assured her that Sheriff De Angelis left clear instructions that she had to remain in the station house for the time being. She wasn’t under arrest, so she didn’t have to stay in the cell. That was one thing Tess insisted on herself.
Even she knew it was pathetic that the hard bench beneath her was the only tangible thing in her life at the moment. She couldn’t help it. Part of her realized that while she’d been struggling to get comfortable on that bench last night, her husband died in a hotel bed. Alone. The discomfort in her back and legs were the only thing that reminded her that she was still alive when he wasn’t.
Who knows what would have happened if she hadn't gone to the bar? That thought made her stomach retch. If she hadn’t already thrown up the water Sly offered, plus the bile that burned her throat as it came up, Tess would’ve heaved again.
Mason tried to get her to take a seat in one of the comfortable visitor’s chairs. She stubbornly refused. Rather than leave her alone, he grabbed a deck of cards from one of the desk’s drawers and joined her in the cell.
Which was how she ended up playing a half-assed game of gin rummy while everyone around her pointedly ignored the blinking neon elephant in the room. Except for her interrogation, none of the others so much as mentioned Jack. She sure as hell didn’t. If she didn’t acknowledge it, it didn’t happen.
Or something like that.
Mason took his next card, the tip of his t
ongue sticking out as he concentrated. He’d already won the first two games, even though she suspected he was trying to lose to her on purpose. Feeling guilty, she tried to focus all of her attention on her cards.
In between laying down another set, he twitched as if he’d been electrocuted. She gasped and he chuckled. Unclipping his radio, he immediately showed it to Tess.
“Boss just buzzed me,” he told her. He threw his cards face down on the bench before standing. “I’ll go see what she wants. Wilhelmina will keep you company. Keep you honest.” He winked, his attempt at humor just another subtle way to put her at ease. “No peeking at my cards.”
She probably should have laughed. He was trying so hard. The silence echoed around them as Mason loomed over her. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, glanced at his radio, changed his mind. Almost apologetically, he backed out of the open cell.
“I’ll be right back, Willie.”
“Sure thing, Mase, sugar. I’ll hold the fort for you. The little sug will be just fine.”
Wilhelmina liked to call people sugar, and Tess thought the older deputy was just as sweet. When the sheriff wasn’t drilling her earlier, Wilhelmina let Tess sit with her at her desk. She had one of those portable DVD players and an entire storage case full of movies. During lunch, she let Tess pick. It was a relief to watch something as familiar as The Wizard of Oz and pretend that Jack wasn’t lying in a morgue somewhere, being worked on by that handsome doctor.
The doctor… between flashes of Jack, the way he looked, the way she found him, Tess couldn’t push the memory of the dark-haired doctor out of her mind. She felt drawn to him, though she couldn’t for the life of her explain it.
It might’ve been because he hadn’t looked at her the way that some of the others had been doing since she made that terrible discovery. Like she was either guilty as sin, a wave of trouble that rolled into their idyllic town or so very fragile, she would simply shatter. In that one instant when they locked eyes, Tess had a feeling that he saw her.
That’s when Mason glanced back at her as he left the room. He most certainly saw her, though Tess still couldn’t figure out why. Sparing a small smile for her, he twisted the knob on his radio to set it to the proper channel before stepping out of her earshot to answer the sheriff’s summons.
Wilhelmina clicked her tongue, drawing Tess’s attention her way. The smile that pulled her painted pink lips was indulgent.
“Mase is a good boy,” she confided warmly. “If you let him, he’ll take care of you. You’ve got nothing to worry about, sug.”
Tess knew that Wilhelmina was trying to reassure her. If she thought she was in trouble last night when she first encountered the deputy, that was nothing compared to the mess she was in now. Her husband was gone, she was trapped in this place, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do. Apart from giving consent for Jack’s autopsy, all she’d done was answer the sheriff’s endless questions until she nearly confessed to the crime just so the insistent redhead would finally shut up.
As far as Tess was concerned, worrying was the only thing she could do. And she didn’t want Mason’s help. She’d spent the last year letting Jack take care of her. It was her turn to do some of the caring.
“I just want to go home,” she said. “Will I be able to go soon?”
“‘Fraid not, sugar. Can’t spring you until we get the sheriff’s okay.”