Juliet's Law (9 page)

“Hi, Josh.”

“Hi,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Is Desi here?”

“I think she went to work already. Do you want to come in?”

“Um.” He tried to think. The smell of coffee blasted out of the kitchen, thick as a giant arm snaring him around the neck. “God, that smells good. Yeah, I'd love some of that coffee.”

She moved away from the door, leaving it open for him to come in.

As he entered, he saw the pile of covers and pillows before the fire, still rumpled from her sleep, and damned if he didn't feel a little heat in his sex, a wash of awareness over his lower belly, a wish to have her back in those mussed covers, naked, with him on top of her. Kissing. Bare-chested, bare-hipped, legs tangling—

“Cream and sugar?” Juliet asked.

“What?” He blinked, aware of a graininess behind his eyes, in his throat. It had been a long night. “Yes, please.”

“You don't look very well, Josh,” she said. “Come sit down. Is there something wrong?”

He settled on a bar stool. “Long night,” he said, reluctant to go into it just yet.

“This will help.” She came around the counter and
put the cup down beside him, then rested her hand on his shoulder. “Can I get you something to eat? There are eggs, some bread.”

Up close, he smelled her skin, something vaguely meadowlike, the slightest bit spicy, like crushed grasses. He found himself noticing the hollow of her throat, the rise of collarbones on either side, her breasts, with raised nipples burning through the cloth. He felt dizzy with the desire to touch her, weigh her breasts in his palms, taste her mouth, feel her body close to his own.

With a sense of near-despair, he wanted more than anything to just be held, and it shamed him.

“It must have been terrible,” she said. Her voice was smooth and deep, like a hot spring pool, and her hand moved on his hair, as if she petted a dog.

He bent his head, trying to maintain a sense of propriety. Her hand moved on his neck, smoothing the skin over the tense muscles there, and he felt the touch through his whole body.

Josh lifted his head, and Juliet swayed forward and pressed a kiss to his brow, put her hands on his face. “What can I do?” she asked, and there was her pricelessly pretty face, so scrubbed and lovely, and he put his hand up around her neck and pulled her closer, between his knees. Her breasts touched his upper chest, surprisingly full and soft, and their eyes locked for a long, long second, hers smoky and sure and vibrantly blue. Her fingers were cool, almost cold. He put his hands on the small of her back, nudged her closer, and lifted his face to receive the kiss she bent down to offer.

It was one of those moments that would not come
again, and Josh tried to gather as many details as he could. The sway of her back beneath his palms, the smell of her skin, the cold tips of her fingers against his cheekbones.

The very good taste of her mouth. A good mouth. Plump lips, breath that tasted of sugar, a sweetness he expected and a heat he hadn't. He let her lead, let her just do whatever it was she was doing here. One moist kiss, two. His chest ached and he wanted to pull her more closely against him, but something told him not to.

But it was funny how it seemed there was light flowing between them. Not just nerves and excitement and arousal, but actual light, as if her lips flipped on some switch inside of him.

She raised her head. Her thumbs moved on his jaw, sweeping lightly against the bone. “Did that help any?”

“What about your fiancé?”

She pulled a hand from his face and showed him the bare space on her left hand. “We broke up. This morning.”

“I'm glad,” he said, and meant it.

“Me, too.” She stepped away. “Let me get you some coffee and eggs.”

“I need to—uh, tell you something, Juliet. This morning—” His voice, always gravelly, gave out on him. He cleared his throat. “I have something else to talk about. The reason I came here.”

“Okay.” Trouble came over her eyes, clouding the vivid blue. She stepped out of his embrace. “What is it?”

“First, do you know where Desi is?”

“She must have gotten up early. I haven't been up
that long, really.” She glanced over her shoulder at the bed. “Why?” she said suddenly in alarm. “Is she hurt or is there an accident or—”

“No, she's not hurt. When was the last time you saw her?”

“Last night. She was called out to an animal emergency and I went to bed.”

Josh's belly dropped. “What time was that, do you remember?”

A quick shrug. “I don't know. About nine, maybe?”

Mentally, he swore. This would not look good for her at all. It might not
be
good. He had to remember to think like a cop, not like Desi's buddy. What if she had killed him? “And you haven't seen her since?”

“
No.
I already said that. You're scaring me, Josh. What happened?”

He squared his shoulders. “Claude is dead, Juliet. We found his body out on the rez last night.”

Her hand flew to her mouth. “Dead? How? Like murdered? Or in a car accident or something?”

“We're waiting for the autopsy, but it's pretty clear he was shot to death.”

Juliet went so white he was afraid she'd faint. Carefully, she sank down to a stool, and let go of a breath. “Do you have ideas who did it?”

“Not yet.”

She raised her eyes. “It's not Desi, you know. She might seem as if she'd like to kill him, but I know she wouldn't really do it.”

“I know that, too,” he said, and realized it was true. He could see her shooting Claude during a confronta
tion, but not stalking him to shoot him dead, or luring him out to some deserted place. “But it's not going to look good for her, not after that run-in yesterday in front of half the town.”

Juliet pressed her lips together. “Damn.”

“And the trouble is, she has the most motive. Who would blame her for killing him?”

“Right,” Juliet said grimly, and looked at him hard. “I hear what you're saying, but there's no way she did it.” She rubbed her palms on her jeans. “Do you know the land is worth ten million dollars?”

He whistled. “There's motive.”

“Talk that one up,” she said, and he suddenly realized he wasn't dealing with soft Juliet, but a tough lawyer who probably did very well in court, thank you very much. “Let me find my cell and I'll try to call her.”

“I already tried,” he said. A headache throbbed at the back of his skull, low, right over his neck. “No answer.”

“We need to find her.”

Josh nodded and then asked the question he had to ask. “Are you sure she even came home last night?”

J
uliet darted a glance at the bed. What she had not noticed upon awakening was the yellow sweater, inside out and sleeves akimbo, that Desi had flung there last night. Juliet remembered her tugging it off over her head, her hair coming loose in a heavy tumble.

“Maybe she wasn't here last night,” Juliet admitted.

“Did she tell you anything about the call?”

“Yes.” Juliet frowned. “Goats. Some goats were attacked by a mountain lion. She had to take—” Another wave of guilt swamped her and she halted, the salty taste in her mouth.

“Had to take what?”

“Her rifle. For protection.”

Josh pursed his lips. “It's not surprising, considering.” He dropped his head in his hands. So weary.

Juliet didn't know if she should comfort him or protest or weep. She crossed her arms over her chest and waited.

He raised his head. “What do you remember about the call? Do you think it was really an animal call?”

She thought back. “We'd just gotten out of the hot springs, you know. I was tired and not paying much attention.” She narrowed her eyes, trying to recreate the moment in her mind from the things she could remember. The yellow sweater. The fire in the grate. The sound of Desi's voice, murmuring, pausing.

Where did you see him?

In a split second, Juliet chose her sister over any other thing, even the truth. “I'm absolutely sure,” she said.

“All right.” He pulled his cell phone off his belt and punched in a number. “Let's find out who keeps goats.”

 

The only possibilities, according to the main vet office, were Alvin Taylor, Pauline Two Tree and John Crum. The first was a wealthy rancher, sitting on about fifty million dollars in land in a flat strip between the two mountain ranges. He turned out to be on an extended vacation and his ranch manager didn't have a record of anything happening to goats the night before. They had, however, seen the mountain lion several times in the past few weeks.

Two Tree lived on the edge of the reservation. Her goats, used for their hair in her weaving, were fine, as carefully tended as small children.

Which left Crum, an ex-hippie turned farmer on the outskirts of town. Josh turned in to his drive and a dozen creatures skittered out to see who had arrived—dogs, goats, a couple of sheep. Chickens squawked and chut
tered from their coop, protected from prey behind two layers of fencing.

“A mountain lion would have a good time here, all right,” Josh said.

“Poor things.”

He gave a little shrug. “It's just nature.”

A man with a beard combed neatly to his waist came out of the house carrying a rifle. He wore jeans and a cowboy hat and heavy work boots. Juliet wanted to laugh—he looked like a cartoon version of a mountain man. “I didn't think people like him still existed,” she said quietly before they got out.

“Don't you dare make me laugh,” Josh said with a glance.

“I'll do my best.”

They got out of the truck and Juliet held out her hand for a big shaggy dog to sniff. The man stood there suspiciously. “Can I help you folks with something?”

“We're looking for Dr. Rousseau, the vet? Her office thought she might have come here last night,” Josh said.

“Yeah, she was here, but I ain't seen her since she stitched up the goats.”

“Do you remember what time that was, sir?”

“Must been ten, ten-thirty, I guess. I just missed the news.”

Juliet felt a sense of mingled dread and relief. Relief that Desi actually had been called out to tend some wounded animals, dread that she had been out all night. “Did she say anything about what she was planning to do when she left here?”

“Yup.” He lifted his hat, pulled it down tighter over
his ears. “She was gonna go track that blasted cougar while the tracks were fresh.”

“Damn,” Josh muttered under his breath. Then, more loudly, “Where?”

“She headed out to the reservation. Said she thought she might know where it had its den.”

“By the reservation,” Josh repeated dully.

The man hawked and spit. “Wasn't that she wanted to kill it, you know. I shot it. She was afraid it might be dangerous.”

“All right.” Josh held out his hand. “Thank you.”

For a moment, the man just stood there, then abruptly stuck out his hand and stiffly shook Josh's. “I gotta protect my critters.”

“I understand, sir. A rogue cat can take down a lot of livestock.” He tipped his hat. “Take care now.”

Back in the truck, Juliet put her hands in her lap, clasped tightly together, and started straight ahead.

“I'm scared,” she said, and looked at Josh. “Where is she?”

His mouth could never look tight, but there was grimness to it. He shook his head slowly. “We found the body out there. It was mauled by a big animal. Could have been a cat.”

“Maybe somebody shot him accidentally, aiming for the cat?”

“Sure, I mean, it's possible.” He seemed to notice her fear and reached across the seat to take her hand. “We'll find her. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation she's missing. Keep the faith.”

She nodded.

“Try her cell phone again.”

“Good idea.” Juliet pulled the phone out of her pocket, jabbed the speed dial. It rang once, then again. Again. Again. The answering machine picked up, and Juliet left a message. “I'm getting seriously worried, Desi. Call me.” She hung up and looked at Josh. “Now what?”

“I'll take you home.”

The phone rang shrilly and Juliet answered urgently. “Hello?”

“Juliet,” Desi cried, “Where are you? It freaked me out to get home and find you gone.”

“Where am
I?
Where are
you?
I've been worried to death about you.”

“I'm fine. Are you in town? Where did you go?”

It suddenly occurred to Juliet that her sister did not yet know the news, of course, that she was still living in a world where Claude Tsosie was a pain in the neck, but still alive. “I'm with Josh,” she said. “We're on our way back there. Don't go anywhere, okay?”

“No way. I chased that lion halfway around the world last night.”

“Did you get him?”

“No.” She sighed, and Juliet could imagine her rubbing her hand across the back of her neck, a gesture she'd repeated at moments of exhaustion since childhood. “He's wounded, and likely very dangerous, and I'm really worried that he could be a problem. I want to get some wildlife officials out there to sedate him and bring him down so we can fix him up.”

“Will they do that?”

“I don't know. We'll see.”

“I'll be there soon, sis.”

Josh held out his hand for the phone. Juliet handed it to him, and he spoke to Desi. “I'm beat, Desi. Make some coffee, will you?”

Juliet couldn't hear her sister's reply, but Josh clipped the phone closed and handed it back to her.

“Listen,” Josh said, “I know this is kind of weird, that life is all in a tangle, but before we go in there and face the way your sister is going to feel about her ex getting murdered, I'd like to know if that kiss this morning means maybe we can figure out a way to see each other. Sometime. Soon.”

“It is kind of weird,” she said. “But, yeah, I'd like that, too.”

He smiled. “Have I told you I have a weakness for blondes?”

“That's because we are princesses,” she said, and promptly felt guilty. But there was something about him that made her want to just stop struggling, stop building up defenses, and just rest with him. “I mean, of course there are brunette princesses as well—”

He laughed, the sound as rich as coffee, as chocolate, all things dark and tasty. “Now you know what kind of trouble I get into liking blondes. It's
so
politically incorrect.”

Juliet laughed softly and as it rolled out of her chest, she realized it had been a long time since she'd heard it, her own laughter. How odd that it should arrive now, when there had been a murder, when she was dreading the look on her sister's face when she heard her ex was dead.

And yet, why not? Something about this gentle giant
eased her, and she'd been tense so long she was starved for that simple pleasure.

“I won't be able to leave Desi today,” she said. “Let's play it all by ear.”

“Maybe Glory and I can make supper for you one night. How about that?”

“I'd like that.” Juliet smiled. “Glory. What a kid. How did she get that name?”

His nose wiggled in amusement. “My ex liked the song, ‘Angels We Have Heard On High.'”

She laughed.

“She was a little strange,” Josh acknowledged, “even before she started drinking.”

“Glory is a pretty name, and it suits her. She's such a glorious little girl.”

“She is.”

They stopped at a traffic light. “Her kidnapping…that had to be pretty hard for you.”

He touched his nose with the pad of his thumb. “It was brutal. Every single minute.” He shook his head. “Who knows what it was like for her?”

“She seems all right, though.”

“So far so good. She's with me now, and that's the important thing.”

A vision of Desi's face crossed Juliet's imagination, and she pressed a palm to her belly. “I'm so worried about how Desi will take this news. She really did love him, at least she did at one time. I think it's going to break her heart.”

“I'm a lot more worried that she might be arrested for it.”

“Arrested!”

“Yeah. She has no alibi, and there really aren't many leads at the moment.”

Feeling airless, Juliet pressed harder against her stomach. “That would be
so
bad.”

“I agree.” He cleared his throat. “Let's not cross that bridge just yet. One thing at a time.”

“All right.” Fingering her phone, Juliet said, “I guess I'm going to have to call my other sister, let her know what's going on. She gets very upset if she gets left out of the loop.”

“The artist sister, right?”

“Yes, Miranda. She lives in New York.”

He turned on the road toward the cabin. “Shakespeare, huh? Miranda, Juliet and—what's Desi short for?”

“Desdemona.”

“Ah.” As if he sensed her nervousness, he said, “Is Miranda older, younger?”

“Youngest. The redhead. There's a blonde, a brunette and a redhead. She's the fiery one. More the child of our parents than we are, really.” The truck rocked over a deep rut, and Juliet grabbed the door. “Not that she ever sees them. I get the impression that she does everything she can to distance herself from them.”

“It's not like you and Desi are living in the old family home, producing grandchildren.”

“That's true.” Juliet thought of her mother, Carol, her long dark hair and piercing eyes, and felt a pang. “They weren't the best parents. And probably Miranda got the worst of it. They went through some drama when she was in high school. I've never really heard the whole
story, but it wasn't pretty for her.” She glanced at him. “Sorry, I'm babbling.”

“It's interesting. Desi doesn't talk about your family, except you.”

“We were pretty close as kids. She was the brave one and I was the coward.”

He grinned. “I don't believe that.”

“Trust me, it was true. I was afraid of everything—snakes, spiders, all the outside stuff. Desi never was.” The cabin came into view. “Oh, dear. Here we go.”

They pulled into the circular drive and Juliet couldn't help but think about the first day she'd come here, when Claude had been trying to coax Desi into seeing things his way, and she'd been promising to kill him if he took another step.

What if Desi really had done it? Killed Claude?

No. Juliet set her jaw and got out of the truck. No, she wouldn't allow that possibility. As they came in, she called out, “Hello! Anybody here?”

Desi sat by the potbellied stove, drying her hair. “Just us elves.”

Juliet paused, letting one more placid moment pass in Desi's world before they shattered it. Desi sat on the floor, on a pink and paisley cushion. Sitting Bull, glum as ever, sat beside her. Desi's hair, her glory, fell in splendid lushness over her shoulders and down her back. Juliet forgot, because Desi kept it braided, how beautiful her sister's hair was. Yards of it, deep brown like earth or bark, shot through with gold and threads of copper. It flowed down her back like the hair of some medieval queen.

“Desi,” Juliet said. “I have some bad news.”

Something in Juliet's voice must have conveyed the depth of the bad news, because Desi put down the brush and looked up. There was a scratch on her cheek and marks on her forearms. Pale blue bruises ringed her eyes.

“Well, don't just stand there,” she snapped. “
Tell
me!”

Behind Juliet, Josh tensed, as if waiting, and the lawyer in Juliet knew he was probably going into cop mode. What would Desi do? How would she react?

Juliet sank down on her knees. “Claude is dead.”

“What?” Desi sounded irritated, impatient.

“Claude is dead,” Juliet repeated. “I'm sorry.”

For a long moment, Desi waited, as if for the punch line, some other words to change the reality of what Juliet said. Her brown eyes, luminous as the moon, searched her sister's face. “He's dead?”

“Yes.” Juliet felt relief rippling through her at Desi's bewilderment.

“Which means what, exactly? Does that pseudo-sale go through and I lose half the land?”

“I don't know. Desi, what does that matter right now? He's dead.”

“I heard you.” Suddenly, she crumbled forward. “How? Car accident?”

“Murdered,” Josh said, that grizzly bear voice making the word even more harrowing.