Mr. Perfect Read online

  “Is ‘Brick’ his real name or a nickname?”

  “I don’t know. ‘Brick’ is all I ever heard her call him.”

  “Okay, that’s enough. I’ll get back with you when I hear something. Oh—want to meet me for lunch?”

  “Sure. Where?”

  She still sounded scared, but she was holding together the way he had known she would. “I’ll pick you up, if you can get me through the gate.”

  “No problem. Twelve?”

  He checked his watch. Ten-thirty-five. “Can you make it earlier, say eleven-fifteen or so?” That would just give him time to get to Hammerstead.

  Maybe she knew, maybe she caught on then. “I’ll meet you downstairs.”

  She was waiting for him at the front of the building when the guard let him through the gate. She was wearing another of those long, lean skirts that looked like a million bucks on her, which meant there was no way she could climb into his truck without help. He got out and walked around to open the door for her. Her eyes were anxious as she studied his expression. He knew he was wearing his cop face, as emotionless as a mask, but she went white.

  He put his hands around her slender waist and lifted her into the truck, then walked back around to get behind the wheel.

  A tear slid down Jaine’s cheek. “Tell me,” she said, her voice choked.

  He sighed, then reached out and drew her into his arms. “I’m so sorry,” he said against her hair.

  She clutched his shirt. He could feel her shaking, and held her even tighter. “She’s dead, isn’t she,” she said in a trembling whisper, and it wasn’t a question.

  She knew.

  eighteen

  Jaine had cried so much her eyes were swollen almost shut. Sam had simply held her through the initial storm of weeping, parked in front of Hammerstead; then when she regained a bit of control, he asked, “Can you eat anything?”

  She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was thick. “I need to tell Luna … and T.J.—”

  “Not yet, honey. Once you tell them, it’ll be all over the building; then someone will call the newspaper or a radio or television station, and it’ll be all over the news. Her family hasn’t been notified yet, and they don’t need to hear it that way.”

  “She doesn’t have much family.” Jaine fished a tissue out of her purse, then wiped her eyes and blew her nose. “She has a sister in Saginaw, and I think an elderly aunt and uncle in Florida. That’s all I ever heard her mention.”

  “Do you know her sister’s name?”

  “Cheryl. I don’t know her last name.”

  “It’s probably in an address book at her house. I’ll tell them to look for a Cheryl in Saginaw.” He dialed a number on his cell phone, and spoke quietly to whoever answered on the other end, imparting the information about Marci’s sister.

  “I need to go home,” Jaine said, staring through the windshield. She reached for the door handle, but Sam stopped her, holding her in place with a firm hand on her arm.

  “No way are you driving right now,” he said. “If you want to go home, I’ll take you.”

  “But my car—”

  “Isn’t going anywhere. It’s in a secure place. If you need to go anywhere, I’ll drive you.”

  “But you might have to leave.”

  “I’ll handle it,” he said. “You aren’t driving.”

  If she hadn’t been so shattered, she would have argued with him, but tears welled again and she knew she couldn’t see to drive. Neither could she could go back inside; she couldn’t handle facing anyone right now, couldn’t handle the inevitable questions without breaking down. “I have to let the office know I’m going home,” she said.

  “Can you handle it, or do you want me to do it?”

  “I can,” she said, her voice trembling. “Just… not right now.”

  “Okay. Fasten your seat belt.”

  Obediently she buckled the belt around her and sat deathly still as Sam put the truck in gear and negotiated the freeway traffic. He drove silently, not intruding on her grief while she tried to accept that Marci was gone.

  “You—you think Brick did it, don’t you?”

  “He’ll be questioned,” Sam said neutrally. At this point, Geurin would be the number one suspect, but the evidence would have to support it. Even while you played the odds, you had to always be aware that the truth could go against the percentages. Who knows? They might find out Ms. Dean had been seeing someone else, too.

  Jaine began crying again. She put her hands over her face and sat hunched over, her shoulders shaking. “I can’t believe this is happening,” she managed to say, then wondered dully how many millions of other people said exactly the same thing during a crisis.

  “I know, honey.”

  He did know, she realized. In his job, he probably saw way too many scenes of this sort.

  “H-how did—? I mean, what happened?”

  Sam hesitated, reluctant to tell her Marci had been both bludgeoned and stabbed. He didn’t know the exact cause of death, hadn’t seen the crime scene, so he didn’t know if she had died from head trauma or if she had died from the stab wounds.

  “I don’t know all the details,” he finally said. “I know she was stabbed. I don’t know the time of death or anything.” Those three statements were true, without being anywhere close to the whole truth.

  “Stabbed,” Jaine repeated, and closed her eyes as if trying to visualize the crime.

  “Don’t,” he said.

  She opened her eyes and looked questioningly at him.

  “You were trying to imagine what happened, how she looked, if it hurt,” he said, more harshly than he intended. “Don’t.”

  She took a deep breath, and he expected her to lash out at him, transferring the focus of her grief and anger to him, but instead she nodded, trusting that he knew best. “I’ll try, but—how do I not think about it?”

  “Think about her instead,” he said, because he knew she would anyway. It was part of the grieving process.

  She tried to say something, her throat working, but tears welled up again, and she settled for a jerky nod. She didn’t say anything else all the way home to Warren.

  She felt old as she walked across their driveways to her house. Sam went with her, his arm around her, and she was grateful for his support as she ponderously climbed the steps to the kitchen door. BooBoo came meowing, tail twitching, as if asking why she was home so early. She leaned down to scratch behind his ears, taking comfort in the warmth of the sinuous body and the softness of his fur.

  She put her purse on the table and sank down in one of the kitchen chairs, holding BooBoo on her lap and stroking him while Sam called his sergeant and carried on a quiet conversation. She tried not to think about Marci, not yet. She did think about Luna and T.J., and the anxiety they must feel because they hadn’t yet heard from Marci. She hoped Marci’s sister was contacted soon, because when she reported off for the rest of the day, her friends would know something was dreadfully wrong. If they called here to check on her, she didn’t know what she would say or if she could even manage to talk to them.

  Sam set a glass of tea in front of her. “Drink it,” he said. “You’ve leaked enough to be dehydrated.”

  Impossibly, that earned a shaky smile. He kissed the top of her head, then sat down beside her with his own glass of tea.

  She put BooBoo down, sniffed, and blotted her eyes. “Exactly what did you tell everyone at the department about me?” she asked, just for something to talk about.

  He tried for an innocent look. On that rough-hewn face, it didn’t work very well.

  “Nothing much. Just that if you called, to tell you how to get in touch with me. I should have thought to give you my pager number anyway.”

  “Nice try,” she commented.

  “Did it work?”

  “Nope.”

  “Okay, I told them you cuss like a sailor—”

  “I do not!”

  “—have the sweetest ass this side of t