Veil of Night: A Novel Read online

  Eric hadn’t even tried to pass himself off as Jaclyn’s date. Not only was it not necessary in this particular crowd, but she wasn’t alone here; her mother and the other two women from Premier were here, and if he’d begun acting all lovey-dovey with Jaclyn he figured the three of them would try to take his head off. He’d have to do something about that, he thought as he did yet another narrow-eyed scan of the people in the church.

  Did they think it was easy to do his job and keep an eye on her at the same time? He was doing double duty, literally, because Garvey could only occasionally put a uniformed officer on Jaclyn. Eric had to shower and shave, he had to eat and sleep, and, damn it, he had to work. Only Garvey’s agreement that the person who’d tried to kill Jaclyn was almost surely the same one who’d killed Carrie had gotten the lieutenant to approve this duty, but if it hadn’t been approved he damn well would’ve done it anyway, and they could kiss his ass. Probably Garvey knew that, and had asked Lieutenant Neille to do what he could.

  After tomorrow, things should get easier. Franklin would be back to work in the morning. If necessary, Eric could hand over the Edwards case and take on guarding Jaclyn full time, though it would be better for continuity if he stayed on the case. But Franklin would be there, Garvey could go back to the sergeant’s desk, and they’d get a little slack in the schedule.

  Today though, today was hairy. Senator and Mrs. Dennison were here, guests at the wedding. Eric had no idea what would happen if the senator saw Jaclyn or she saw him, but so far neither had happened. The church was big, and Premier had all four women working, plus the Dennisons were seated at the front of the church. The enormous sanctuary had stadium seating so everyone had a good view of the altar, but people sitting at the front literally couldn’t see what was happening at the very back of the church. He’d like to maneuver Jaclyn so she had a good look at the senator—without telling her what was going on—to see if actually seeing him again triggered enough memory for her to identify him. What he didn’t want, under any circumstances, was for the senator to see her.

  It helped that people on the Dennisons’ level almost never paid attention to how things got done around them. They noticed only that the things were either done or not done.

  At the moment Jaclyn was talking to the wedding party, arranging the line at the door of the reception hall, giving them last-minute instructions. Diedra and Peach were overseeing the layout of the food, and Madelyn was talking to the bandleader. She was safe enough for now, with the bulk of guests outside awaiting entrance.

  The reception hall in Hopewell was very nice, yet this one in Buckhead almost put it to shame. The main hall was more than twice as large as the one where Carrie Edwards had been murdered. The parking lot was three times as big and surrounded by trees, providing precious shade on a hot summer day, and from the front entrance the hall looked like an antebellum mansion. If they’d been going for the look of Old South and Old Money, they had definitely achieved it, on both fronts. At the moment the room was decorated in the same colors that had been used at the wedding. It was all a little froufrou for his tastes. Personally he’d preferred yesterday’s barbecue at the farm, a confession he wasn’t about to share with Jaclyn. But this was nice. For froufrou.

  The bride and groom were still being held hostage by the photographer, who insisted on snapping a jaw-dropping number of pictures, so there weren’t many people in the reception hall yet. Soon the doors would be opened to the crowd for a well-mannered celebration. He could relax for a few minutes, at least until the doors opened. Nothing was going to happen right now, with no one other than the wedding party and a few workers present. He figured the Premier bunch would all be even busier once things moved into full swing, but now was the perfect time to do something about the hostile situation he found himself in.

  Madelyn shook the bandleader’s hand and turned away. She took a deep breath and surveyed the room with a critical but approving eye. Eric took his own deep breath—fortification was needed for this confrontation—and headed in her direction. As he got closer, she turned that critical eye on him, and there was nothing approving in it.

  “Everything looks great,” he said in an attempt at an icebreaker. “I like the orange.”

  Her chin came up, and ice filled her gaze. “It’s peach and salmon, not orange,” she said, as if he’d just presented her with a pile of dog shit on his outstretched palm.

  Okay, so peach and salmon looked like shades of orange to him; so sue him. It was obvious beating around the bush wasn’t going to get him anywhere, and just as obviously he was a failure at small talk, at least as far as Madelyn Wilde was concerned. Eric figured he might as well take the metaphorical bull by the conversational horns, or something like that. “I like your daughter,” he said bluntly. “When this is all over, I’d like to take her out, see where it goes.”

  Her mouth fell open. “Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?” she snapped.

  “It’s possible,” he agreed, “but I don’t think so.”

  Amusement was the last thing he wanted to see on Madelyn’s face, but there it was, chasing out the astonishment. “Do you really think Jaclyn will go out with you after the way you’ve treated her?”

  Eric had to tamp down the rush of anger. It wouldn’t help his case to go off on Jaclyn’s mother. But at the same time … to hell with it. “The way I’ve treated her? I’ve busted my ass to make sure she was cleared and protected, and done the best I could in a bad situation. Because we dated once, I—”

  Madelyn’s head jerked back. “Dated? What’re you talking about? Jaclyn would have told me if she’d dated you.” The tone was very much the same she would have used if she was telling him her daughter would have told her if she had a fatal disease.

  Probably Jaclyn had kept the news of their night together to herself because it hadn’t really been a date, and because she wasn’t the kiss-and-tell type—not that he could say that to Madelyn. “We’d just met,” he explained. “But because I knew Jaclyn personally, I had to be even more objective with her than I would have with anyone else, or I’d have been jerked off the case faster than you can spit. We’ve been shorthanded, so I did what I had to do. That doesn’t change how I feel. I’m interested in her—hell, I care about her—and when my partner gets back from vacation tomorrow, if I have to, I’ll take myself off the Edwards case so I can keep an eye on Jaclyn full time until the killer is caught.”

  Was it his imagination or was there a subtle softening of Madelyn’s eyes? She was easy to read, more open in her expressions than her daughter. “Will the Hopewell P.D. approve that particular duty?”

  “If they don’t I’ll take my vacation and do it on my own time.” And he would, too. He just hadn’t realized it until the words left his mouth. Like it or not, Jaclyn had become important to him.

  Maybe Madelyn saw that, because her mouth relaxed, though a touch of sadness filled her eyes. “All right,” she said, then repeated it more firmly. “All right. I believe you. Go for it, young man, but I think you should know that Jaclyn has real trust issues.”

  A jolt of anger made Eric’s spine stiffen, because too often, in his world, “trust issues” were directly related to physical abuse. “Her ex?” he growled.

  Madelyn sighed and shook her head. “Nothing so dramatic, just a lifetime of dealing with her father. Maybe she’d have been better off if I’d divorced Jacky when Jaclyn was still a baby. I knew even then that, well, let’s just say that Jacky Wilde is a walking emotional disaster. Not to himself—Jacky always looks after number one—but to everyone around him. All her life Jaclyn has been collecting broken promises from her father, and that’s something that’s hard for a child to get past even when she’s all grown up. Then her own marriage fell apart so fast … She’s afraid to trust herself, much less a man.”

  And in Jaclyn’s eyes, he hadn’t exactly proven that he trusted her, or that she could trust him. In fact, the opposite was true, not that he could have handled the situation any