Cowboy Alibi

Chapter Two

Black flecks danced in front of her eyes as she tried to take a breath. The flecks grew and joined others in a frightening rush, and Jane struggled to sit up, fighting off the darkness.

She drew a deep breath and her vision cleared.

She wished it hadn’t.

There was blood everywhere. It covered the faded tile of the kitchenette like spilled milk, pooling in the uneven places and crisscrossing the grout. In contrast, Angela’s face was a waxy white, her eyes half-closed, unseeing.

A low noise rumbled from Jane’s chest into her throat.

“I didn’t want to do it. She wasn’t supposed to be here.” The voice behind her was low. Male. Smooth and modulated, with a neutral accent she couldn’t place.

Jane tried to make herself turn and look at the speaker, but she couldn’t move.

“It’s time to go, sweetheart.” The voice was right behind her. Something soft and smothering whipped down over her head, and her vision went dark again. Strong arms wrapped around her, dragging her to her feet.

The urge to survive overcame the lethargy of grief and she kicked back hard against her captor’s solid form, but he held on tight. She kicked again, making solid contact with his shin. With satisfaction, she heard his grunt of pain and redoubled her efforts.

She managed to free herself and ripped at the cloth covering her face. A pillowcase, she realized, tossing it aside as she raced for the door.

He caught her as she grabbed for the door handle. “No, baby. Shh. Shh.” His arms tightened around her, pulling her back against his body. She felt his pulse racing against her shoulder blades. He was breathing hard from the exertion, and she forced down the panic flooding her system. Panic would only weaken her. She had to stay alert. Stay focused. Find his weakness.

She made herself relax in his arms, listening to his breathing, alert to the softening of his grip as she stopped resisting.

His hand smoothed her hair back from where it had fallen in her face. “That’s better, baby. See? It’s time to go home, sweetheart. You know that. You have something I need.”

His voice sounded familiar and foreign at the same time. Confidence tinged every word he spoke. He was a man used to getting his way, unaccustomed to opposition.

She made herself turn slowly in his arms to face him. Hard blue eyes stared down at her from a handsome, even-featured face. A sandy brown mustache and beard covered the lower half of his face. From a distance, it might look real, but as close as she was, she could see that it was a disguise. What she could see of his hair beneath a navy-blue Boise State baseball cap looked to be sandy as well, lighter than the beard.

He wore a black long-sleeved T-shirt and black jeans. Close up, she could see darker spots that were almost certainly Angela’s blood. Her stomach convulsed, and she swallowed hard to keep the bile from rising in her throat.

She forced herself to meet his eyes again. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“Home,” he said.

Fear flooded her veins at the simple word. Wherever this man planned to take her, it wasn’t a place she’d consider home.

She had to get away from him. Now.

“Home?” she whispered, meeting his eyes. She held his gaze, trying to read his mood, his intentions. He didn’t seem to want to kill her here and now, though he clearly had no scruples about murder.

She fought against a rising tide of grief, forcing the sight of Angela’s bloody body from her mind. Not now. She couldn’t think about it now.

“I kept everything just like you left it,” he said, an indulgent tone to his voice. “I watered your jade plant, baby. Just like you used to do it. It’s looking good. You’ll be pleased when you see it.”

The softening of his voice sent a shudder down her spine. He obviously knew her intimately. Was he her husband? Lover? What kind of person had she been, to be intimate with a man who could kill in cold blood?

“I should pack some things,” she murmured, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

His eyes narrowed. “I packed for you.” He waved his hand to his right. She followed the movement and saw a small bag packed and sitting beside the sofa. She hadn’t seen it earlier when she entered from the bedroom. The sofa must have blocked it from view.

“What’s my name?” she asked softly.

His eyes narrowed farther. “Don’t try to pull that amnesia crap with me, baby. I know your games too well.” He turned away from her for a moment, reaching for the bag. It gave her the opening she needed.

As he bent to grab the handle, she pushed him hard, catching him off balance. He lurched forward, hit the coffee table and bounced off the sofa to land on the floor between the two pieces of furniture.

Jane whirled and raced to the door, slamming it behind her as she sprinted down the narrow hallway toward the exit stairs leading down to the hardware store on the first floor. She heard the apartment door open behind her but didn’t look back as she jerked open the door to the stairs.

She took the steps at breakneck speed, listening for the sound of pursuit behind her. By the time she reached the first floor, she realized she hadn’t heard anyone behind her at all.

But she didn’t dare pause to investigate. She burst through the exit door and into the hardware store, her breath coming in short, keening gasps.

Harold, the clerk at the tool desk, looked at her as she ran up to him. His brown eyes widened. “My God, Jane, are you hurt?”

She looked down at her T-shirt and realized it was wet with Angela’s blood. The sight made her head swim, and she grabbed at the tool desk, trying to keep her balance. Her hand slipped, painting a crimson streak across the shiny wood as she slid to the floor.

Her world narrowed to a tiny pinpoint of light in a churning sea of darkness. Vaguely, she was aware of Harold’s voice as he barked information into the phone. He must have called 911, she thought, struggling not to drown in the darkness.

Somewhere in the void, a low, familiar voice murmured her name. “Jane.”

She stirred, looking toward the voice. The darkness began to recede, and she found herself gazing into the wintry gray eyes of Joe Garrison.

Chief Garrison, she amended mentally, tears burning the backs of her eyes as she met his hard scrutiny.

Unbidden, the words came from somewhere deep inside her, a place she had long feared existed. A place where wariness and suspicion were old, trusted friends.

“I didn’t do it,” she said.

JOE SLIPPED a pair of plastic covers over the soles of his snakeskin boots and entered the crime scene, crossing to the kitchen alcove where the investigator from the coroner’s office was doing the preliminary examination of the body.

Joe introduced himself to the crime scene investigator, Sanderson. “What’ve we got?”

“Deep incision from the carotid to the jugular. She’d have been dead pretty damn quick.” Sanderson glanced up at the rangy lawman standing beside Joe. “Never thought I’d see this in Trinity, Hank.”

Chief Hank Trent shook his head. “Neither did I.”

Sanderson reached across the body and picked up something lying half-hidden by the body. It was a large filet knife, sticky with blood.

Joe looked up at the kitchen counter and spotted a knife block. There was an empty slot.

“Weapon of opportunity,” Chief Trent murmured.

“Guys, I don’t want to make your case more complicated, but I’m not sure Jane Doe could’ve done this,” Sanderson said quietly. “We’ll know more after the autopsy, but this cut looks like it was done in one stroke. Not sure a slip of a woman like the roommate could’ve made that happen. It probably would’ve taken a man.”

Trent exchanged a look with Joe. “I don’t think Ms. Doe needs to know that just yet.”

Joe nodded in agreement. “I want to question her.”

Trent narrowed his eyes. “This happened in my county, Chief. I get the first crack at her.”

“Let me in on it, then.”

Trent looked inclined to argue, but after a moment he gave a nod. “I take the lead. Let’s not muck this up with interagency squabbling.”

“You take the lead,” Joe agreed.

“CAN I change out of these clothes?” Jane asked, her posture stiff, as if the feel of the bloody clothes against her skin was painful.

“Soon,” Hank Trent promised.

Joe leaned against the wall of the interrogation room, keeping his distance as Hank Trent had requested. He’d listened for the last half hour as the police chief took “Jane Doe” back through the events of that afternoon. It was hard to stay silent with so many questions still unasked, but he wouldn’t appreciate an outsider interfering with one of his own investigations, either.

Besides, sooner or later, he’d have his turn with her. And she’d think dealing with Hank Trent was a walk in the park in comparison.

“There was a man in your apartment when you arrived,” Trent said for the third time since the interrogation started.

“I told you that already.” Her voice rose in frustration. “I’ve told you what he looked like. I’ve described his voice. I told you that he had packed a bag for me and expected me to go with him. I told you everything I remember. Can I please just get out of these bloody clothes? Please!” She smacked her hand on the table between them.

“Why’d you bypass the front entrance?” Joe interjected, unable to remain silent any longer.

Both Jane and the police chief turned to look at him.

“You didn’t enter the front,” Joe said. “I know. I was in the hardware store, watching for you.”

Jane’s eyes narrowed. She looked back at the chief. “I couldn’t find my key,” she answered smoothly.

She was a good liar, Joe thought. Believable. But then, he knew that already.

He pulled up a chair and sat by Chief Trent, who shot him a glare. Joe ignored it. He didn’t have the time or inclination to play nice with the locals on this case. “Your key was in your purse. Want to try again?”

“I didn’t see it in my purse. Why does that matter?” She didn’t look so fragile anymore, vibrant color rising in her cheeks and her voice growing hard and tight. She looked more like the woman he remembered from almost a year ago. Images flitted through his mind, daring him to remember her as he’d known her then.

He gritted his teeth and held her angry gaze, replacing the unwanted memories with the stark mental picture of Tommy’s lifeless body.

Jane Doe looked at Chief Trent. “Who is this man?”

She didn’t say it like someone who wanted an answer, Joe realized. She knew who he was already.

So she did remember.

Anger burned in his gut, mingling with the black coffee he’d drunk at the River Lodge Diner. He was beginning to regret skipping breakfast and lunch.

“Chief Garrison is here in Trinity because of you, Ms. Doe. Says you’re his prime suspect in a murder in Canyon Creek. Ever been to Canyon Creek?”

When she turned her eyes to meet Joe’s gaze, a zing of energy caught him by surprise. Even pale and wary, as she was now, she still possessed the vibrancy he’d noticed the first time he set eyes on her a year ago.

He hated himself for still feeling it.

“Where’s Canyon Creek?” she asked.

“Wyoming,” Joe answered.

“I hear Wyoming’s pretty.”

Hank Trent shot a glare at Joe. “I hate to interrupt the travelogue-”

“You spent almost a year in Canyon Creek, Wyoming,” Joe continued, ignoring Trent. “You worked for a rancher there. Thomas Blake.”

He watched closely for her reaction. Her gaze didn’t drop, but he could see her mind working behind those soft green eyes. Was she remembering Tommy’s laughter-lined face? The way he could make people feel like family the second he met them?

Was she remembering his body, slumped and still on the stable floor, drenched in the river of crimson flowing from the three bullet holes in his chest?

“We’re getting off track here,” Hank Trent said firmly. “Chief, unless you’d rather wait outside-”

Joe sat back, knowing he’d crossed a line. This was Trent’s territory, and Joe had just trampled all over it. That was no way to make allies of the locals.

And like it or not, he needed allies on this one. He had only the spottiest of evidence against Sandra Dorsey or Jane Doe or whatever the hell her name really was.

But he knew, gut-deep, she was involved with Tommy’s murder right down to her pretty little toes.

JANE TUCKED her knees up to her chest, trying to stop crying. Beneath her, the cot was wobbly and hard, but they’d finally let her shower and change into clean clothes. The jail-issued T-shirt and jeans were too large, but at least they weren’t covered with Angela’s blood.

She closed her eyes tight against the fresh flood of despair. Angie. Why had he killed her? Just because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time?

My fault, she thought, rocking back and forth. The mustached man had been there looking for her, not Angie.

It’s time to go home, sweetheart. That’s what he’d said. Home. Was he her husband? Her brother?

No. Not a brother. His gaze had made her feel naked. Exposed. As if he knew everything there was to know about her, inside and out.

What kind of monster had she brought into this sleepy little town?

Footsteps approached her cramped holding cell and came to a stop. Jane forced herself to open her burning eyes, dashing away her tears with her knuckles. Joe Garrison stood just outside her cell, gazing through the bars at her with an expression as intense and knowing as that of the mustached man who’d been waiting in her apartment.

When it became clear he had no intention of speaking first, she asked, “Who are you?”

“You know exactly who I am.”

She pushed off the cot and crossed to the bars. He was several inches taller than she was, forcing her to crane her neck to meet his hard gaze. “I know your name. Now I know your job. But I don’t know you.”

“You’re really good, you know?” He raised his arms and gripped the bars over her head, leaning toward her. He seemed to fill all the space in the narrow cell, even though he remained outside. “Even I can’t tell if you’re lying about not remembering.”

Jane gripped the bars in front of her, trying not to let his imposing presence shake her. “Even you?”

His smile was an awful thing. “We go back a ways, Jane. Or is it Sandra?”

Sandra Dorsey, she thought, remembering the name on the papers in Joe’s hotel room. “Maybe it’s Sandra. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

“That’s convenient.” His tight smile widened but grew no warmer. “But unfortunately for you, I don’t think it’ll be a convincing defense.”

“Defense for what?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

Joe leaned forward, his face pressed between the bars. “Eight months ago, in Canyon Creek, Wyoming, you killed my brother.”