eyes sparking at him and—yeah, baby—he started to sweat. Slowly, knowing exactly where his mind had gone, her lips eased into a smile that should have dropped him like a solid right hook. Bam!
“Nice to see you, Jenna,” he said.
Very nice.
She stood and he moved to the end of the table, holding out his hand. She took it, gave it a firm but brief shake. “Hello, Brent. Always a pleasure.”
“It’s like a reunion in here,” Penny said.
Penny. Right. They had company. He unbuttoned his suit jacket and took the seat across from Jenna, leaving the head of the table open for Penny. Her meeting, her power spot.
He waited for Penny to get settled and then angled toward her. “Thank you for doing this.”
“It’s the least we can do. You know I hate to get mushy, but you mean a lot to us. If we can help you get some kind of closure, we’ll do it.”
Brent slid his gaze to Jenna. Talking details about his mom in front of people he barely knew never came easy. The basic stuff about her murder and the case still being open, he’d gotten used to. Now he’d have to get comfortable with Jenna real quick. And not in the way he wanted.
He swiveled his chair to face her. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s been twenty-three years. The case is as cold as they get.”
“I don’t mind a challenge, and if we can figure this out, well, I suppose we’d all be...satisfied.”
“I’d be more than satisfied. But listen, there’s no pressure here. If you can dig up some leads, it’ll help. A fresh look might crack it.”
“Maybe,” Jenna said.
“Where do we start?” Penny asked.
“I can tell you what I know, take you to the crime scene, go over whatever notes I have. The sheriff is a good guy. I can’t see him being subversive. Right now, he’s got an unsolved murder messing with his violent crime statistics.”
Jenna’s eyebrows hit her hairline. Yeah, that statistics line sounded harsh. He sounded harsh. After spending eighty percent of his life wondering what happened to his mother, he’d forced himself to detach. Emotional survival meant burying the pain. Stuffing it away.
Coping 101. Brent style.
The phone at his waist buzzed. “Excuse me, I need to check this.”
Text from his boss. They had a tip on a federal fugitive. He shot a text back, stood and buttoned his flapping suit jacket. “Ladies, I’m sorry. I need to go. Jenna, call me with your schedule. Outside of work, I’m at your disposal.”
She gave him that slow smile again—simply wicked—and his chest pinged. Son of a gun. In a matter of minutes, she’d figured out how to distract him from thoughts of his mother.
Whether that was good or bad, they’d soon find out.
* * *
THAT EVENING JENNA rode shotgun in Brent’s SUV while they drove the sixty miles south to Carlisle, Illinois, a place so foreign to city girl Jenna that she wasn’t sure she’d even speak the same language.
Maybe that was a tad extreme, but Brent had exited the tollway and immediately engulfed them in miles and miles of farmland. Could she get a Starbucks? A Mickey D’s? Anything commercial?
Not even six o’clock and the late October sky suddenly had gone black. She smacked her legal pad against her lap. Marshal Hottie had taken off his suit jacket and rolled his shirtsleeves a few times. The slightly messy look fit him. The suit look fit him, too. He was one of those men who could wear anything and still look good. Not fussy, pulled-together good, but rugged good.
She smacked her pad against her leg again and he glanced down at the offending noise before going back to the road. The man had an amazing profile. Strong. Angled. Determined. Even the bump in his nose added to his I’m-in-charge persona. She’d like to see his hair—those fabulous honey-brown strands—a little longer, but he was working the short, lawman look nicely.
“I’m not great with sitting,” she said.
“Not the worst thing. We’re only five minutes out.”
“Can you give me a quick overview? Are you okay with that? I don’t want to upset you while you’re driving.”
“Jenna, it’s been twenty-three years. If I need to, I can recite the facts of my mom’s case in my sleep.”
“I guess after a while it becomes...what? Rote?” Ugh. What a thing to say. “Wait. No. Bad word choice. I’m so sorry.”
Brent shifted in his seat, switched hands on the wheel. “First thing, you’ve got to get over that.”
“What?”
“Worrying about offending me. I’m fairly unoffendable. And when it comes to my mom, if finding her killer means dealing with you speaking freely, I’m on board. Do your thing, Jenna. Don’t get hung up on my emotions. If it’s too much, I’ll remove myself and let you work. I need you focused on my mom, not me. Got it?”
Well, hello, big boy. “I sure do.”
“Good. I called the sheriff this morning and let him know we were coming. He’ll meet us at the house—the crime scene—so you can take a look.”
Jenna jotted notes. “This is the house you grew up in?”
“Yes. My father still owns it.”
“Does he live there?”
“No. He’s off the grid. Haven’t seen or heard from him in nine years.”
She stopped jotting. “What’s that about?”
“Wish I knew. When I was in college, he paid off the house and left me in charge of Camille, my then seventeen-year-old sister. I was on a football scholarship and had to figure out how to stay in school, play ball and get my sister through high school. My aunt and uncle lived next door so they helped until Camille graduated and went to college. Now she lives in the city with her newly acquired husband.”
And, wow, Marshal Brent was a machine with the way he recited his life history. “Who lives in the house?”
Brent cleared his throat. “We lived in it until Camille left for college and I could afford to move to the city. Now it’s empty. It’ll stay that way until we figure out who killed my mother. I pay all the bills and the house needs major work, but I don’t want anything painted or repaired. There might still be evidence somewhere.”
In an odd way, it made sense. Who knew the secrets buried in the floors and walls? Any major construction would wash away potential evidence. “I understand. It’s smart. And amazing that you’ve maintained the house on your own.”
Not to mention the fact that at nineteen, an age when most young men were focused solely on the number of women they could sleep with, he’d managed to help raise his younger sister. “Your dad, is he a...um...”
“Suspect?
