Chapter Eleven
The porch reeked of puke and Owen had to be careful not to step on blood spatter. Still, he flapped the note in Rob and Jessalyn’s faces. “I think it’s safe to say shit just got real,” he snapped.
Rob looked cowed. Jessalyn, though…
“Mrs. Haslom,” he barked, intentionally sharp. “Would you like me to call the Lieutenant? Your Dad?”
Her eyes became so wholly wide and indignant he seriously thought she might spit at him.
“You,” she said, “are such a typical cop.”
“Yes,” he snapped. “Don’t let the beard and hair fool you. And exactly how is me being a cop, typical or otherwise, a bad thing?”
“Because. You’re assuming a lowly civilian like me is too stupid to contact authorities.”
“Jessie!” Rob looked mortified.
Owen almost felt sorry for him, but—“You.” He pointed a finger in Jessalyn’s face. “Didn’t contact authorities. Not about the books.”
“Because I didn’t think it was anything! Now…now I do. Really, Owen!” She cringed and he knew it was because of his face—colossally pissed-off. “I do!” she repeated.
They fell wordless and crickets chirped, peals overly loud in the darkness and reminding them all, he supposed, that sometimes silence was the best option. “Rob?” he cued, after a spate of quiet trailed by.
“On it.” Rob held up his cell phone then disappeared back inside.
Owen re-faced Jessalyn, her face noticeably pale even under the weak porch light. “While he’s with 911, I need to tell you something about your new tenant.”
A ripple of confusion marred her forehead, but she nodded. “Okay,” she said, then glanced at the door. “There’s something I need to tell you too.” Her voice dipped low enough that he needed to crouch down to hear her. “Owen, I have told C.C.—my Dad—about all of this.”
He blinked. “When?”
“Right after you saw the books and got all up in my grill, wagged your policeman’s finger in my face.”
He barked humorless laughter. Shook his head.
“What?’ she demanded, chin jutting out.
“I have a little sister, that’s what. And I’m beginning to believe Mom gave away her twin.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. Then hitched. Then became a full-blown smile. “You know, Officer Brophy, I really do want to like you.”
“Something stopping you?”
“Yes.” She hiked a quick thumb to the foyer. “Him.”
Owen could see Rob, speaking animatedly into his cell.
Jessalyn said “Anything that hurts Robbie is no friend of mine.”
That slapped. Hard. He swiped a hand down his face. “Look,” he began.
“No, Owen. You look. You never got to hear him tell me all about you. Never heard him wonder where you were. Didn’t have a clue that he wondered why you never called or replied to his messages.”
He hung his head, gaze locked on the grim constellation of blood drops at their feet.
“But I did hear all that.” Jessalyn waited, tapping a foot until he raised his face, stopped being a coward. Then she looked him in the eye. “He’s my world. My everything. I protect him, and yeah, maybe that violates some guy code where the dude is always the tough one, but…” She shrugged, let it ride.
He did not crack eye contact. “You have my word that I will never hurt my oldest friend.”
Her set jaw said ‘prove it’. He released a breath. “Is protecting him also why you haven’t told him that you’ve talked with your Dad?”
She glanced over her shoulder. Rob was still on the phone and Owen could hear bits of legal land description, and their fire number.
“You’ve listened to him,” Jessalyn said quietly. “You know how worked up he gets, how frazzled his nerves are when he’s overwhelmed and starts to worry.”
Yes. Earlier, in the grocery store Rob had teetered on obsessive about the damn tiling.
“If he knew I’ve told C.C., knew I truly was scared…”
She didn’t need to say more. ‘Protection’. Jesus. It was a scenario he and Sondra would have scoffed at. They protected themselves, not each other. They were too independent, too tough, to need coddling.
Yet here he was feeling nothing but respect for a woman willing to take emotional bullets for her man. It gentled his tone when he said “What did Lieutenant Chandler say about the books?”
“That I shouldn’t tell the cops.”
He gaped.
Her mouth made a cheerless moue. “I know. But he told me to sit tight, gather everything together, and that he’d planned to be out here after my Vancouver show anyway.”
That sounded nothing like his old instructor Cory Chandler, who had preached from the pulpit of going by the book lest your whole damn case get tossed out in Court. “Does that sound reasonable to you?” he asked.
“No. But…”
They shared a shrug, hers resigned, his baffled, and Rob rejoined them under the puddle of porch light. “Police are coming,” he said.
“Good.” Owen nodded.
“I should go and get the books too,” Rob added and Owen swapped brief eye contact with Jessalyn before nodding. Cory Chandler was off base. The police needed to know everything. About everyone. “One other thing,” he began, but Jessalyn cut him a look that killed the name Natasha Nikoslav before it could escape. Still, Rob peered at him, large eyed and waiting. So damn trusting. Old Man, you’re killin’ me. “This blood,” he said, thinking on the spot and pointing down to their feet. “Is it from either of you, or our puker?”
“Puker,” Jessalyn said immediately, and Rob pulled a face, assessed his strewn tools.
“Maybe someone accidentally shot themselves with my nail gun when they fastened this note to the porch,” he said.
Owen sincerely hoped so. “And puked from the pain or the sight of the blood?” he speculated. It was as good a theory as any.
“Maybe,” Rob agreed. “And if that’s the case, guess where he can find sympathy? Right between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.”
Owen laughed, but this was drowned by a wash of red and blue strobes; the police, headed down the driveway.
“I’ll go get the books.” Rob hurried inside.
Jessalyn nabbed Owen’s elbow the minute he was gone. “I’m sorry I cut you off,” she said, “but…” She glanced in the direction where Rob—Robbie, as she called him—had disappeared.
Protection. Owen sighed and the cops parked in the driveway, headlights trained on the porch.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Jessalyn said quietly. “We can chat about Jakob Nikoslav then. And for the record, he’s raised my eyebrows too.”
Wait. Jakob Nikoslav? Not Sleeping Beauty? “Sounds good,” he murmured, and nodded a hello to the officers. Maybe he and Jessalyn would have to wait to talk about the Nikoslavs till tomorrow, but he was going to skulk by the house they had rented tonight.
©bonnie randall 2005