So About the Money (4 page)

Sex was
so
not happening.
 

Still, she didn’t want to be a complete bitch. “I do appreciate your staying.”

He got the rest of the message and dropped his hands. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t too freaked out.” His expression disgruntled, he stepped over to her painting supplies, picked up the masking tape, and spun it around his fingers.
 

From a purely selfish perspective, having him in the house would be good. Someone to talk to. Someone to keep the images of Marcy’s body away.
 

He tossed the tape back onto the pile. It rolled across the floor, gathering dust and cat hair. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “I should head out. Check on the restaurant. I still have to open it tonight.”

Oh, since he wasn’t getting any, it was time to bail? Nice.

She retrieved the tape and brushed at the debris.
Thanks a bunch.
“Your family can handle the restaurant if you’re upset about Marcy.”

“My mother knows Mrs. Ramirez.” He gave a small shrug. “She’ll worry.”
 

About Marcy, Mrs. Ramirez, or Alex? Not that it mattered—Alex’s mother micromanaged both his life and his restaurant. “She’ll have heard about Marcy. She’ll want to know you’re okay,” she said, giving him an out.
 

He’s upset about Marcy too, she reminded herself. And guys never know what to do with their emotions.
 

“Mama gets bossy when she’s worried. If she runs off any more staff, I’ll have to start recruiting my cousins to work as busboys.”

The irritating
brittz
of the doorbell—another item on her long list of Things To Replace—interrupted.
 

“You expecting somebody?” Alex asked.

“I hope it isn’t a reporter.” Shaking her head, she crossed the room. “If my mom heard about this…”

She pushed the curtain aside, peeked through the long sidelight window and recoiled.
 

No reporter.

No mother.
 

JC Dimitrak stood on her doorstep.

She didn’t know why she was surprised. She’d known he’d show up eventually, but
now
? This soon?

He dipped his head in greeting. Even tired and grim-faced, he still looked better than sex on a stick.
 

Where did
that
come from? She scrambled to pull her thoughts together and opened the door.
 

Wait a minute,
her inner teenager shrieked.
I’m not ready.
 

“May I come in?”

“What are you doing here? I mean, at my house?”

“Remember the ‘Can we do this later?’ part?”

Stepping back, she widened the opening. JC wore the same dark slacks and heavy coat he’d had on at the game management area. He unbuttoned his overcoat, revealing the huge pistol clamped to his belt beside his badge. This man—this
stranger
, she reminded herself, because she didn’t know him anymore—was definitely a leader. He had the commanding presence, backed by more than a hint of sex appeal.
 

He’d always had it.
 

Only now he was armed. And undoubtedly dangerous.
 

“I take it this is an official visit,” she said.

He ignored the observation, and instead gave her yoga pants, T-shirt, and wet hair a slow inspection. The twitch of his eyebrow and assessing glance told her he knew she wasn’t wearing a bra.
 

Alex moved into the foyer. “Why are you here?”

JC glanced at Alex. Sex assumptions hung like a cartoon balloon over his head. For a moment, something that might’ve been anger or jealousy tightened his face. Then it vanished. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

She said, “No” at the same time Alex said, “Yes.”

“Glad we cleared that up.” JC’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I need to get your statement, Holly. Before you take off again.”

She propped her fist on her hip. “You know, the way I remember things,
you
walked out.”
 

“Don’t go there, Holly. You don’t know the first thing about me.”

“I know everything that matters.”

Alex stepped up. “We’ve both done everything we can to cooperate, but quit hiding behind your badge. If you have a problem with Holly, you should bow out of the investigation.”

JC gave him a cool examination. “I need to talk to each of you. Alone. We can do that at the station, if you’d prefer.”

“No way. I’m not going to the police station without a lawyer,” Alex said.

“You can leave.”
 

Wow. She
really
hadn’t thought the day could get any worse. “Guys. Break.” She jammed her fingers into a time-out “T.”

“Maybe we should call Phil Brewer.” Alex folded his arms across his chest in universal male posturing position.

While he got points for trying to defend her, she rejected his choice with, “Phil does corporate work.”
 

Alex glared at the detective. “He’d still know how to make this guy quit harassing you.”

JC didn’t say a word, but behind his stiff face he seemed to be enjoying stirring the pot.
 

“Stop. He isn’t harassing me.” Weirding her out, yes. Harassing, no. She knew what that felt like. Right now, JC might be doing the über-cop routine, but if the tension got any hotter, they could roast marshmallows. And nobody was going to sing “Kumbaya.”
 

“Alex.” She touched his arm, finally moving his attention off the detective. “I’m tired. I’d rather get this over with. Go on to the restaurant. I’ll be okay.”

For one long moment, she was afraid he was going to push the issue.
 

With a sharp snort of irritation, he turned, strode across the room, and grabbed his jacket. Thrusting his arms into the sleeves, he headed for the door. He made a move like he intended to kiss her.
 

She froze. The oh-God-not-in-front-of-my-mother cringe warred with the in-your-face-JC snub.
 

And from the half-smile on JC’s face, he’d caught her hesitation, even if Alex didn’t seem to notice.

“I’ll call you in a little while.”
To make sure JC’s gone
, bristled from his scowl. Alex brushed his lips across hers and vanished through the front door.

Alrighty.
 

JC Dimitrak.
 

She drew in a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”
 

He crossed the foyer. His hard soles rapped against the bare subfloor. “Love what you’ve done with the place.”

Silently counting to ten, she decided to interpret the comment as a compliment, although he clearly hadn’t intended it that way. “I’m working on it. The guy who used to own the house opened up the interior. I don’t know what they were thinking back in the 70s, but the original house completely ignored the view, which is its best feature. It had those narrow, clerestory windows that kinda remind me of bunker openings.”
 

She stared at the living room’s new, oversized panes and forced her mouth to close. Babbling wasn’t going to keep them from talking about Marcy.
 

Talking about Marcy’s dead body would make her murder so much more real.

“What’d he do? Get in over his head?”

“The guy who owned it? Yeah. The bank foreclosed.”
 

JC gestured at the buckets and painting supplies. “Weekend project?”

“I planned to paint.” She wasn’t sure what to make of his tone or the question. Was he assuming she was a cold-hearted bitch for planning to paint
today
, the day she’d found a friend’s body?
 

Well, she already knew where he stood on the bitch-meter, but he could’ve at least asked
when
she set out the paint instead of figuring she was breaking out the roller
today
.
 

She planned to paint because it was normal. Because it was what normal people did. Normal people whose friends weren’t dead.
 

No way was she admitting any of that.
 

“The carpet installer’s scheduled for next week. He recommended I paint before he replaces the rug.”

They both glanced at the hideous shag carpet.

“Good idea.” A grin tugged at JC’s mouth.
 

She bit her lip to keep from smiling—the shag was truly awful—but the tension in the room dropped by ten degrees.

He looked at her, studying her expression. “Actually, I’m impressed you took on the renovation.”
 

She raised an eyebrow.
 

“I thought you said you’d never live in Richland again.”

“You heard what you wanted to hear.” One of the reasons they’d broken up was he’d wanted a stay-at-home wife, stuck behind a picket fence. She’d had no interest in playing the Stepford Wife role. Any chance they’d had of creating
any
kind of home crashed and burned when she came home from college after one of their arguments—about her being in Seattle and her plans to stay there after graduation—and found him with another woman.
 

But here she was, in Richland.
 

With a house.
 

An empty house.
 

Whatever.
 

“The house is an investment. Most of my friends think I’m nuts for renovating it myself.”
 

His lips tightened around a smile.
 

If she didn’t know him, she’d have missed it. One of the things he’d loved about her—
said
he’d loved—was her tendency to throw herself into projects other people thought were crazy. She always pulled them off, though.
 

“This place
is
butt-ugly on the outside, but you have to admit the view is stunning.”
Keep him focused on the externals.
The last thing she wanted was for him to look at her too closely. To see inside her the way he used to.
 

JC didn’t need to know she loved the ugly little house. Everything about the house and the renovation was tangible. Did she fix the water heater or not? Get the room painted or not? There were none of the murky gray areas like there were in the rest of her life, where maybe she succeeded—or maybe she didn’t.
 

He moved past her to the window, then turned and leaned against the wall. “I heard you were back.”

She gave him an
and-your-point-is
? look. What had he expected? That she’d call him? Show up on
his
cheating, black-hearted doorstep?

“Why’d you move back to Richland?”

She wasn’t going to tell him her father had suffered a midlife brain fart and taken off with his yoga instructor, or that she’d made a deal with her mother to bail out the family accounting business, a decision she regretted on practically a daily basis. And at a deeper level, his question pissed her off because he knew damn well
exactly
why she was there. She’d seen the cop powwow information exchange out at Big Flats, where the deputies had brought JC up to speed. All he was doing now was digging for personal information.
 

She crossed her arms and ignored the way her body heated up just because he was in the room. Stupid body. If it heated up, it was because she was mad. Period. “You know why I moved. And if you were really interested, it would take you about two seconds to find out when I changed the address on my driver’s license from Seattle to Richland.”
 

He smiled and two dimples appeared.
 

She caught her breath. Oh, man. How could she have forgotten about his dimples?
 

It didn’t matter how many times she told herself they were just a simple indentation of flesh. Dimples made serious, grown-up men look like they still had a mischievous little boy inside. The kind who sledded down the forbidden steepest slopes, dyed the dog green for St. Patty’s Day, or knew how to be especially devilish in bed.