said she was ready to take on the world.
“You have to talk to him,” Katie was telling Janie. “You can trust him. I promise.”
Janie didn’t appear convinced.
Behind them, his front-desk officer, Candy Riorden, hurried up. “I tried to tell—”
He halted Candy’s admonition, dismissed her with a wave of the hand, and motioned Janie and Katie toward the chairs facing his desk. Without missing a beat, he continued, “They’re here right now. But, to answer your question, Janie’s from Texas. Her sister and brother-in-law run BAA, Bridget’s Animal Adventure.”
“I need her to come here sometime today so we can question her.” Nathan didn’t sound interested in Janie’s connection to wildlife. “I’ve spent the last hour at Adobe Hills Community College, and I’ve got more questions than I have answers.”
“Questions about what? You haven’t exactly said why you want to speak with her.”
Janie was looking at the door as if she were ready to bolt.
“The kind that will help me solve a case!” Nathan snapped, bringing Rafe’s full attention back to the phone.
“Is it about—” Rafe started, but Nathan butted in.
“You’re aware she teaches at Adobe Hills Community College?” Nathan said quietly. “Well, Miss Vincent apparently read something in a kid’s art book last night, a kid by the name of Derek Chaney. I’ve spoken with the chair of the art department, Patricia Reynolds, but apparently your Miss Vincent is who I really need to speak with. Whatever she read might have been a murder confession about our missing coed.”
“Brittney Travis,” Rafe said slowly.
Across from him, Janie pressed her lips together and nodded.
Rafe gripped the phone, hard. He prayed—prayed that it was some kind of mistake, some kind of joke, that Brittney wasn’t dead, hadn’t suffered. He prayed that he could still save her.
This wasn’t the kind of closure Rafe had been hoping for.
“Yes.” Nathan’s voice was terse, guarded.
“Have you had time to—”
“We can’t do anything until we speak with Miss Vincent in person.”
“I’ll escort her myself,” Rafe promised. “I can free up my late afternoon.”
Katie reached across and took hold of one of Janie’s hands.
Nathan immediately snapped, “Late afternoon? I was hoping it would be sooner. And why do you have to escort her? You think she’s the type to skip?”
“No.” Rafe eyed Janie and Katie. “I don’t think that at all.” Katie couldn’t run, not in her condition, and while Janie was the type, she only ran when she felt no one was listening to her.
Well, if what she’d found was a true account of a murder, she’d have plenty of people willing to listen to her. Too bad it wasn’t Katie who’d read the art book. Solid, businesslike and driven, Katie would be the kind of witness cops dreamed about.
Janie, on the other hand, was flighty, whimsical and always believed the grass was greener on the other side. She acted and spoke without much forethought and a bit rashly.
Rafe said to Nathan, “I intend to be involved in every step of this new lead. So, along with you, I’m Janie’s new best friend.”
Janie raised one eyebrow and looked askance at her sister.
Actually, Rafe had a home-court advantage over Nathan. He might not be Janie’s best friend, but he knew her fairly well. He knew things like she only enjoyed coffee if she had French-vanilla creamer to add to it. That she could sit at a table at the Corner Diner and draw for an hour without being aware of anything that was going on about her. That if the very pregnant waitress happened to serve Janie, Janie tripled the tip.
His mother, Lucille, owned the diner and had noticed these traits first. She’d passed every observation on to Rafe, whether he wanted to hear it or not.
Mom had been playing matchmaker for Rafe over a decade now. She wasn’t very good at it, though admittedly, he’d always found both sisters intriguing. Katie Rittenhouse played with tigers. Janie Vincent painted them from a safe distance. Though the scar on the left side of her face indicated that hadn’t always been true.
“Is there something I should be aware of?” Nathan asked. “She ever been in trouble?”
Rafe had twice been called out to Bridget’s Animal Adventure, the animal habitat Janie’s big sister and husband managed, and where Janie spent much of her time. Once, he’d investigated the plight of two tiny bears, declawed and abandoned. On the second instance, he’d had to make sure the big cats were all accounted for, as there’d been a sighting in town. The cougars, leopards and mountain lions at BAA were all in their enclosures. Rafe never did find out whether it had been an actual sighting or whether someone in Scorpion Ridge owned a very large black domestic cat.
“No, she’s never caused me any trouble,” Rafe said.
It was a lie.
Janie Vincent had caused him trouble, but it was not the kind that made its way into a police report. No, it was the kind that messed with a man’s mind.
During the large-black-cat incident, he’d asked Janie out. He’d not been concerned about a conflict of interest because he’d been sure by then that the case was merely mistaken identity.
They’d gone out once, but he hadn’t called her for a second date.
It had been clear from the start that they were too different—she was a free spirit; he was rules and realistic.
He’d also very clearly gotten the sense that Janie didn’t have much use for cops, and that she’d only gone on the date to appease her sister.
“As a matter of fact,” Rafe continued, “she just walked into my office. Seems she wants to help.”
He wasn’t exactly sure want was the right word. More likely felt obligated to help was a better choice.
Nathan muttered a few choice expletives, all having to do with her being there and not in Adobe Hills.
Looking across his desk at the pretty woman in question, as she so impatiently held herself in check, Rafe thought maybe he’d been an idiot not to call her again.
“Okay, it’s good she’s there,” Nathan finally said. “But please see that she gets here, and soon. I don’t want her to forget anything. Apparently Brittney’s name and her death were chronicled in that art book. I want to know what it said, every detail.”
“I want to see this art book—” Rafe said.
Janie shook her head.
Rafe started to protest, but Nathan, still on the phone, gave a long sigh before saying in a tight voice, “This whole thing’s turned into a mess, which is why I need your help. Campus
