Shadow of Vengeance (16 page)

So why did the thought of Rachel hooking up with Jake bug the living shit out of him?

“She’s yours.”

Owen spun to the right. A tall, gangly man, he placed in his early fifties, stood at the opposite edge of the porch wearing a red and black wool coat and a matching earflap hat. Good God, had the lumberjack been reading his mind? But Rachel wasn’t his, even if he’d like her to be for just one night.
 

“Come again,” Owen said.

“She’s yours,” the man repeated, then nodded toward the driveway.

Owen looked over his shoulder and realized the man had been referring to the Lexus. “Yeah, she’s mine.” Wouldn’t that be a great thing to say when Jake arrived? Rachel’s mine, so stay the fuck away. His stomach soured as the image of Jake touching Rachel emerged again. He had no business staking a mental claim on her, let alone a verbal one to Jake. Still, he wanted to. Last night he’d wanted to grab her bare shoulders and kiss her, then suggest…what? That they should have sex? Date? Do the whole “let’s get to know each other” thing?
 

“She’s pretty,” the man said, then pulled a cigarette and lighter from his coat pocket. “You seen Joy?”

“She went into the basement to do some laundry.”

“Good.” The man slipped the cigarette between his lips, then lit it. After drawing in a deep breath, he released. The smoke caught on the chilly breeze and quickly dissipated. “I’m Walter Eastly.”

“Owen Malcolm.”

Walter took another drag, then said, “I know. Joy told me about you and Shorty.”

For the first time since leaving Rachel’s room last night, Owen cracked a smile. “I wouldn’t call my partner that if I were you. Just ask Joy.”

Chuckling, Walter shook his head. “Joy filled me in already. I’m looking forward to meeting the woman who had the nerve to stand up to Joy. Trust me when I say that don’t happen…ever.”

The front door opened. Walter quickly moved to the farthest corner of the porch, tossing the cigarette into the snow covered bush below the wooden rail.

“Have you seen Walter?” Joy asked from the threshold. “Tall guy, probably wearing a plaid coat and ugly hat.”

From his peripheral vision, Owen caught Walter shaking his head. “No, haven’t seen him. If I do, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.”

She nodded, then narrowed her eyes. “What the hell are you doing out here? And without a frickin’ coat? It’s balls ass freezing.”

“Just needed a minute,” Owen said while trying to fully decipher ‘balls ass freezing.’ “Did Rachel come downstairs yet?”

“Nope,” Joy said, then shut the door.

The cold finally affecting him, Owen rubbed his arm. “She’s pleasant in the morning.”

“Don’t let Joy bother you. Deep down, she’s a sweetheart.”

Sweetheart?
Whatever Walter had been smoking, Owen decided he’d like some.

“Thanks for covering for me,” Walter said, and reached for the wet cigarette, then shoved it into his pocket. “Can’t leave any evidence behind.”

“Do you live here?” Owen asked.

“For the past fifteen years.”

“I take it Joy doesn’t know you smoke.”

“No, she does, but gives me shit when she catches me. I know it’s cowardly, but I’d rather hide it from her than listen to her grief. Know what I mean?”

From the little he knew of Joy, Owen would probably take the coward’s way out, as well. “But she chews tobacco.”

“In her mind, it ain’t the same thing.” Walter moved past him and down the porch steps. “See ya’ around.”

An icy chill ran through him as Walter disappeared around the side of the garage. Glad he’d had Walter and Joy to distract him from thinking about Rachel and how he’d made an ass of himself last night, he headed back into the house. After dumping the cold coffee into the kitchen sink, he refilled his mug.
 

“I can use one of those.”

He tensed. Rachel’s sleepy, sexy voice aroused him. Made him think about what it would be like to wake up next to her, roll her beneath him and bury himself between her thighs. Trying desperately to shove the image from his mind before he embarrassed himself with a full-blown erection, he reached for a coffee mug.

“Morning,” he said as he handed her the coffee.
 

With a nod, she took the cup.

“About last night,” he began, hoping to right his wrong. “I shouldn’t have—”

“Did you finish going through the missing person files?”

Sticking to business.
He should be glad Rachel was blowing off last night, but he wasn’t. A part of him wanted to explain why he’d said what he’d said. That he was a jealous jackass. That he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Thinking about them. Instead, he said, “Yeah, I did.”

“Good. Me, too. There’s no one in the dining room. Why don’t we spread out there and go over what we’ve learned while we wait for…Jake,” she said with a smile that he suspected was meant to be smug, only with the way her full lips curved, and the way he’d been thinking about her, the smile came off sexy as hell.
 

He followed her into the dining room, keeping his eyes on everything to avoid staring at her rear. In doing so, he still managed to conjure up last night’s memory of how those black, stretchy yoga pants had hugged her ass.
 

“Are the files you looked at in your room?” she asked and took a seat.

“Yeah, I’ll go get them.”

 
Hesitating at the bottom of the staircase, he turned. “I want to—”

“Morning, Princess. Was wondering if you were going to sleep the day away,” Joy said as she kicked the basement door closed behind her. She set the full clothesbasket on the floor. “I saved you a couple of blueberry pancakes. If you want ‘em, they’re in the fridge.”

“Thanks, Joy. I’m good,” she said, and raised her coffee mug. “Do you mind if we work at your dining room table? The sheriff is going to be by soon and I thought it would be easier than using one of the bedrooms.”

“Not at all.” Joy picked up the basket. “Besides, the only bedroom I’d like to see Jake in is mine,” she added with a wink, then chuckling, she headed into her first floor bedroom.
 

 
He glanced at Rachel. The corner of her mouth tilted in a wry smile. “Guess I’ve got some competition,” she said, then pulled a file from the box.

Swallowing the apology he’d been ready to give her before Joy had interrupted, Owen went up the staircase, taking two steps at a time. Now, he realized, he could add vindictive to Rachel’s list of
quality
traits. So he’d screwed up, had been a jerk about Jake. He wanted to right his wrong, but it looked as if she had no interest in hearing what he had to say.
   

After grabbing the files off the desk in his room, he slammed the door shut and headed down the hall. As he rounded the corner near the stairs, Rachel laughed. Curious, he snuck a quick peek, then quickly drew back and flattened himself against the wall, his earlier jealousy morphing into irrepressible bitterness.

Fucking Jake.
The man sat close to Rachel, too close, his arm draped over the back of her chair as if they hadn’t just met yesterday and had been intimately acquainted for years.
 

Irritation gnawing at his insides and making him regret that last cup of coffee, he stomped down the steps.
He
was the one who’d known Rachel for years. He understood her, and despite her abrasive approach and unforgiving temperament, he cared about her. Although at this moment he questioned why. She had a body he wanted to sink into, but an attitude that could use some serious adjusting.
 

“Morning,” Jake said as Owen set the files on the table. “How do you like the House of Joy?”

While
shut the fuck up, asshole
sat at the tip of his tongue, Owen took the seat opposite of Rachel and said, “No complaints.”

“Good to hear. I was just telling Rachel about last night’s meeting with the town council and Bola business owners. Professor Stronach showed up and instead of talking about the festival and what we should expect, he gave us a crash course on Bigfoot.”

“Because…”

“He’s an idiot.”

Owen couldn’t agree more. Stronach had chosen to hold a festival at a time of year when everyone living in Bola and at the university expected Wexman Hell Week to happen. His stupidity and arrogance could cost them. With hundreds of people milling around Bola during the festival, chances of running a clean investigation could be jeopardized.

Rachel released a giggle.
A giggle?
Seriously?
She wasn’t the giggling type. This phony, flirty crap didn’t work for her. Didn’t she realize she didn’t need to try so hard to gain a man’s attention? She’d captured his interest the first day she’d walked into CORE. Her intelligent, green eyes had twinkled with amusement and confidence, an intriguing combination that had him constantly on alert whenever he’d been around her. Just like now, within the first few days of meeting her, he had wanted to explore something with her outside of CORE. During the years they’d worked together, she’d given him the impression she felt the same until about a year ago. That was when her tongue turned to barbed wire and she started giving him all kinds of crap, not to mention the ridiculous douche bag nickname. To this day he had no idea what had happened to change her mind or if she’d really been interested in him or not.
 

For four years now, he’d tried to pretend she had no effect on him. So he dated and kept himself busy with the job. Kept his mind off of Rachel and his tarnished past. Now, though, he was tired of pretending and worried that if he didn’t overcome this strange obsession he had for her, their work relationship could become strained and awkward.
 

“Your insightful observation of the professor is spot on,” Rachel said and flashed the sheriff a flirty smile.

Jake continued to hover too close and grinned back at her. Although he had no claims on Rachel, if Jake didn’t back off, strained and awkward would become an understatement.

“We have an appointment at the university,” Owen said, hoping to refocus Rachel and Jake’s attention back to the investigation and off of each other. “Let’s fill Jake in on what we learned yesterday.”

“Already done,” Rachel said.

When? He’d only been upstairs for a couple of minutes. If she’d managed to inform Jake about Bill Baker, Sean’s dorm room and Professor Stronach in that short of an amount of time, he could only imagine what could have happened if he’d been gone any longer. They’d likely be married with four kids.

“Just now?” Owen asked.

Cocking an auburn brow, Rachel said, “No, last night.”

When last night? Before he’d gone to her room? After?
 

Fucking Jake.

“You two had a busy evening,” Jake said. “What Bill told you has me wondering, though.”

“About?” Rachel prompted.

“Why drug him, but take the boys after they’d left the dorm?” Jake looked to him. “Rachel said you two were thinking that the kidnapper drugged Bill in order to go back to the boys’ dorm room to clean up whatever evidence might have been left behind. That seems awfully risky to me.”

To Owen, too. He glanced at the notes he’d taken while going through the files last night. “I’ve been thinking about that, as well. Do you remember seeing a security camera anywhere at the dorms?”

Rachel and Jake both shook their heads.

“I don’t either. After we meet with the dean, let’s go to campus security and see if they have anything from that night.”

Taking the pencil from behind her ear, Rachel put a line through an item on the list in front of her. Apparently they were on the same page.

“Can I see your files?” she asked.

After he pushed them toward her, she began to pull out all the photos of the missing students. She arranged them in a line, then did the same with the photos from her files. “What do you see?” she asked.

Owen already knew the answer and could once again cross the topic off his list. “All the missing students have the same hair color and build.”

Jake studied the pictures, then with a sigh, leaned back into the chair. “I’ve been over this dozens of times. Besides having similar traits, the only other thing these missing kids have in common are that they’d pledged a fraternity—and not necessarily the same one—and the Hell Week note. They all have different backgrounds. Some came from money, others got into the university with the help of scholarships and financial aid.”
 

“What about the first victim, Tim Simmons?” Rachel asked and pointed to a photo of a young man with longish blond hair. “Dr. Stronach told us that he’d been blackballed from the university’s fraternities and that he was basically an outcast.”

Jake snorted. “Stronach’s an idiot who has his head so far up Bigfoot’s ass he can’t seem to grab hold of reality.”

Owen couldn’t help cracking a smile at Jake’s assessment of the professor. Too bad Jake had his eye on Rachel, otherwise Owen could see the two of them bullshitting over a couple of beers.

“I’ve investigated Tim’s case.” Jake lifted the picture of Tim Simmons. “I’ve investigated them all. Other than a bad haircut, this boy had everything going for him. Grades, girlfriend, came from a good family…”