Damaged Goods (6 page)

Brice chuckled, glad he could find some humor in this dreary situation and headed for the Pink Ladies rec center for girls.

Terryn Keller was ticked off and exhausted. This was her seventh straight day at the rec center and her fourth double, since she’d have to work both the morning and evening shifts today. She’d been called in this morning to cover for Katie, who was a no-show. Terryn swore when she got her hands on that skinny little pixie she was going to squish her like a bug.

But as she thought it, she knew she wouldn’t say a word. She loved Katie; she just couldn’t believe that she’d gone and no-showed them like this. Katie knew that someone would have covered for her—all she had to do was ask. Well, Terryn sure hoped her date was worth it, because Trevor was spittin’ mad about this and even though Terryn wished otherwise, she was afraid that this might just cost Katie her job.

Sure, Brian was cute and Terryn knew that Katie had been looking forward to their date all week. The two of them had hit it off like magic and Terryn hadn’t blamed Katie at all for wanting to be alone with him. What she did blame her for, though, was leaving her holding the bag. Terryn had been wallowing in afterglow all morning and just when she was about to indulge herself in a nice long bubble bath for more glowing, she’d been called into work.

To make matters worse, Terryn was fed up with the place right now. She loved these girls, she loved the work and she even loved her bosses. She’d just been living and breathing all things tween for too long without a break. If she had to break up one more argument over who was hotter, Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner, she just might strangle herself with the nearest Miley Cyrus T-shirt.

She bent over the spa chair, tuned out the music and screechy chatter that only teen girls seemed capable of making and tried to focus on the motor and only the motor. If she could get the darn thing working before Trevor came in tomorrow, she’d know that there was a God and He liked her. The center was run one-hundred percent on donations and if she could save them the cost of a repairman it would mean that money could go for more important things. Besides, she liked working on stuff like this; she’d always had a knack for gadgets and motors. One of her favorite ways to burn off stress or relieve a little pent-up frustration was tinkering and today she had stress and frustration in spades. Just as that thought drifted through her mind, a gasket blew and water blasted her right in the face.

“Jiminy Crickets!” she yelled, fighting to get it secured before the room flooded. “Son of a biscuit-eatin’ dog licker!”

Brice and Kent stopped dead in their tracks. They were two seasoned New York cops and yet her choice of cursing left them both dumbstruck. As her G-rated tirade continued to fly while she fought with a chair, the men struggled to maintain straight faces. Words like
scum-sucking
and
toot sniffer
floated around her and completely enchanted them both.

“Excuse me, miss?” Brice interrupted. “Can we have a word?”

She froze with comic suddenness and Brice could all but see the steam of embarrassment pouring up from her as she discovered she had an audience. Then every part of her wilted over the chair and she flopped her hands on the floor in defeat.

“Figures,” she grumbled and pushed herself up to face them. “Of course there’d be someone standing there. Of course. I shouldn’t even be surprised.”

Then she turned around and Brice forgot his own name.

It was her. His redhead from last night. She was clothed in worn jeans and a ratty hoodie. She was flustered, wet and exasperated, and Brice felt every moment of their time together come to life in his body. In less than a second, he was hard and aching to pick up where they had left off, the case momentarily forgotten.

Terryn felt like she’d just been hit in the head. By lightning.

It was him. It was her Dom from last night. She cringed inwardly at what she must look like. It was just her luck that the sexiest guy in the universe would find her on a day when she was looking and feeling about as appealing as a sumo wrestler’s toe jam. She felt a flutter of excitement that he had gone to the trouble to find her so soon, although it was tempered with apprehension. He was with another man and the two of them looked awful serious for a social call.

He gave her one of his smiles and said, “Hello, Terryn. This is my partner, Detective Brandon Kent. I take it you work here?”

Terryn rubbed her hands on her thighs and smiled at them. Wow, he was a cop. A detective, even. She tried not to let the cop fantasy that immediately sprang to life in her brain show on her face and said, “Guys, I feel like I live here. What can I help you with? Please tell me you’re here because the NYPD wants to make a generous donation of their time and money.”

“We wish.” Brice didn’t return her smile. Now that she’d pulled herself together after the surprise wore off, she could see he wanted to get this done. It made sense to her. If he was coming with bad news, she wouldn’t thank him for spending ten minutes flirting with her before springing it. “Is Trevor or Riley around?” he asked.

Terryn shrugged. “No. Not today. I’m next in the chain of command if you’re looking for someone in charge.”

“Who’s on with you right now?” They were in the salon room, which was empty and relatively quiet, but the game room and lobby they had passed to find her had been full to busting with squealing, giggling girls.

“I’ve got a couple of volunteers out in the main room somewhere, but I’m the only paid employee right now. We’re short today, one called in sick and my friend from last night no-showed on us.” She gave him a smile and an eye roll. “Guess they really hit it off, huh?”

“Is this a good place to talk?” Kent asked. He was looking at Brice with a frown and Terryn guessed that Brice hadn’t told him about her. Since he had seemed just as surprised to see her as she had been to see him, she could understand why.

“Sure,” she answered, “as good as any. Girls could come in any minute no matter where you go here. There is no hiding.” This time her smile was a little forced as she caught on that this might not be a pleasant conversation. Dread turned her stomach into a cold hard ball and Terryn quickly started doing a mental roll call of all the girls who had come to the center this morning, trying to remember if one was missing.

“Terryn, your no-show, your friend, that’s Katie Jernigan, right?”

“Yes.”

“Katie was killed last night.” As Terryn’s eyes filled with tears and her bottom lip quivered, Brice looked as though he wanted to reach out to her, but then he fisted his hands instead and kept them at his sides.

“I’m sorry. What?” Her voice was strangled from the effort it took to hold back the tears but they fell anyway. “What? You don’t mean our Katie? Not Katie Jernigan. What does your Katie look like? You must have them mixed up. Katie’s a very popular name.” Her lip continued to quiver and her hands clutched around her middle while she looked to them with the hope that they were indeed mistaken.

“I’m sorry, Terryn,” Brice told her. “There’s no mistake. It’s her.”

She stumbled back into the spa chair, her knees came up and her arms clutched around her legs as she buried her face in them and let the grief take her. Her small shoulders shook while she rocked and cried quietly.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled after a moment.

“Sorry? What are you sorry for?” Brice asked.

“You said you ha…ha…have questions,” she managed to get out.

“It’s all right,” Detective Kent answered in a soft voice. “You take a couple minutes. Don’t worry about us.”

Terryn had known Katie for years. They’d become close pretty quickly and had spent a lot of time together both on and off work. She had a million memories of her, but all she could think about right now was that she’d been angry at her for not showing up today. Katie had been lying somewhere dead and Terryn had been thinking about squishing her. Guilt, regret and sorrow made a cocktail of misery in her chest that she knew she’d never shake.

She slowly became aware that one of the detectives wanted her attention. Her couple minutes must be up, she thought. She could feel him at her side, crouched down next to her. After a sniffle and a deep breath, she turned her head to face Brice and his questions.

“We need to ask you our questions and then we need to get someone in here so you can go home,” Brice said softly.

Terryn thought he had the voice of an angel. It was deep and soft and had such a rich tone to it that she wished he’d just keep talking so she could focus on that instead of the fact that her friend was dead.

Brice had to clench his fists in order to keep from reaching out to her. Her wild hair was a copper blaze around her face and grief had made her emerald eyes sparkle like polished jewels. Her freckled nose was red from crying and if she didn’t stop that bottom lip from its quivering he didn’t think he’d be able to resist scooping her up and cuddling her the way Kent had held Angie.

It was disconcerting to him. He’d never been in a position where work overlapped his personal life like this. He’d looked into things for family members before, but work had never involved a woman he was seeing. She looked adorable and heartbreaking right now and every dominant male gene he possessed was clamoring for him to carry her off somewhere where she’d never hurt again.

“I don’t need to go home. I don’t want to. There’s no one there and nothing to do, so I’d rather just stay here and keep busy.”

“We’ll see how you feel when we’re done. I’m going to call Trevor and Riley, get them in here.”

“Oh, do you have to?” Terryn asked. “They have been working so hard lately—it’s the first weekend they’ve taken in a month.”

Brice knew they worked hard at both this girls’ center and the one down the street for boys, but this wasn’t something that could be delayed. He looked at Kent with a raised eyebrow. Kent shrugged, letting Brice know it was up to him.

“Terryn,” Brice looked back to her. “If we don’t get them in here, there has to be someone we can. If you don’t want to leave, that’s fine, but you are going to need some help dealing with this.”

With a shuddering breath, Terryn gave in and fished her cell out of her pocket. As she dialed she told them, “I’ll call Barb, I guess. She’s the other manager here and she wouldn’t mind coming in.”

“Terryn, I know this is hard, but I need to know everything about last night up until we met,” Brice said as soon as Terryn hung up her cell phone.

Terryn looked at him with horror leeching all the remaining color from her face. “Am I a suspect?”

“No, Terryn, no,” Brice rushed to reassure her. “The M.E.’s already confirmed time of death and since that time was when we were together, I think you’ve got a pretty solid alibi.” He saw her process that and then she seemed to take herself in hand with a deep breath and began.

“Well, we met at her apartment so we could get ready together.” Her voice was so thin and quivery that it was broke his heart.

“What time was that?”

Terryn answered him quietly and clearly. Then she took them through each step of the night the same way. She answered every question without wanting to know why they asked and never batted an eye when she had to repeat herself. Brice lost count of the number of times she pulled herself back from the brink of hysterics. She handled the whole ugly questioning without losing it, though, and Brice felt inordinately proud of her for it.

After every possible angle of the night had been exhausted, Brice said, “I think we have enough for now. I’ll have more questions for you later. For now, let’s just see if that other manager is here.”

By that time the sweet, motherly Barb had come in and had taken over. Barb’s hazel eyes were puffy from crying, but other than that she held it together and was in control. In a matter of minutes, she had Terryn ensconced in the theater room with a small group of girls and enough junk food to make them all sick.

“She’ll be best in there,” Barb said. “Movies are her drug of choice and I picked a good tearjerker for them. They’ll all lose themselves in the movie and cry together. Also, the girls I sent in there are some of her favorites. They’ll bolster each other and keep their hands and minds busy in the meantime.”

On the way to the door, she patted and stroked girls as they passed, reaching out with the loving strokes of a mother that so many children lacked at home. Brice noticed how each and every one she touched responded to the petting like well-fed kittens and thought that Barb was well suited to this work.

“Be sure and tell Trevor and Riley I’ll be here all day today and tomorrow.” Her voice was as soothing as her touch when she said to them, “As long as they need, I’ll be here. You tell them I’ll take care of everything and not to worry. I’ll be praying for those sweet girls and their families.” She shook her head sadly and closed the door behind them on her way back to Terryn and the children.

Brice took comfort in his surety that he was leaving them all in the best possible care. Then he steeled himself for what had to come next, telling Riley and Trevor that one of their own was dead.

One a.m. was not the ideal time to shop for groceries. Unfortunately, Brice had let work take over his life so completely that he’d even run out of toiletries, so he was out of options. He knew he had to compartmentalize, if he let every case consume him he’d be burned out before he hit forty. Knowing that, however, did not make this particular case release its death grip from his throat. As he loaded items into his cart from the toiletry aisle and rounded the corner to the medicine section, he tried to force thoughts of the case to their proper compartment, and there was Terryn.

Suddenly the case went away and his mind was his own again. He smiled as he realized it.
Leave it to a Marshall
, he thought,
all we need is a beautiful woman and everything’s right in our world.

She was dressed in those clingy workout pants that women wear to yoga class and a tank top. He watched as she tucked her hair behind her ear while she read the labels in front of her and worried her thumbnail between her teeth. She wasn’t biting it, but he could tell that it was a close call. If the stress didn’t let up, he’d give her perfectly groomed nails two days, tops. She tilted her head to the side and closed her eyes. He could see the misery and tension on her as clear as day.