Truth and Consequences

For Carol, because you know this book wouldn’t be without you, my IR.

To Elisabeth, because Jason has always been her favorite.

Finally, for Mary. I’m hoping this one will bring you completely over to the dark side!

Kathleen Palmer put the car in park and stared at the chaos. In the distance, heat mirages danced on the Georgia highway, an ebb and flow of nonexistent water. Patrol cars from two counties lined the two-lane blacktop road, and a battered, gray S-10 pickup slanted into the ditch at a wild angle. She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel, nerves jumping in her stomach.

Her partner Altee Price smoothed the collar of her navy polo shirt, emblazoned on the left chest with the emblem of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Altee smiled, temporarily creasing skin the color of polished pecan wood. “It’s me and you and a bunch of white country boys. What do you think?”

“Can you actually smell the testosterone?” Opening the door of the unmarked Crown Victoria, Kathleen grinned. With the number of male law enforcement officers milling around, the hormone would be in ample supply.

“That would be a good thing if we were at the Cue Club.” Altee slammed her door. “Here, it makes me nervous. Real nervous.”

Kathleen made sure the back of her own polo was tucked into her khakis. “You want to be in charge this time?”

“No, I’ll leave it to you. That way if it does blow up in our faces, I can blame you.”

“Thanks.”

Altee nudged Kathleen’s shoulder with her own. “What are partners for, girl?”

Around the patrol units, deputies stood in two groups and exchanged territorial glares. Muttered curses and insults filled the hot, still afternoon air. “Why don’t you just go back to your own county, Farr? Go chase a chicken or something. You might actually catch one of those.”

Kathleen sighed. A pissing contest. Just what she wanted to deal with today. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

Blue lights whirled atop the cars, while headlights sparked in an alternating pattern. As she drew closer to the wrecked truck, her stomach clenched. Blood and bits of bone spattered the cracked windshield. She straightened, walking taller. This situation was going to be ugly and she couldn’t afford to show any weakness.

As she and Altee approached, the hostility quieted. Kathleen stopped a few feet away and nodded. “Gentlemen.”

The murmured responses to her greeting held subdued resentment. She refused to respond to the antipathy and eyed the men. The April sun glittered off brass decorating crisp tan uniforms. They appeared to be Georgia’s finest, ready to protect and serve.

Two-thirds of them were corrupt sons of bitches.

“Something we said?” Altee murmured, her lips barely moving.

“More like the fact we have breasts to go with our badges.”

She glanced down the highway, the sign marking the Haynes County line within sight. Why couldn’t this chase have ended in Chandler County where it started? A tingle shivered down her neck and she looked up to find a deputy staring at her. He leaned against a Haynes County patrol car, arms folded over his chest, face expressionless.

A frisson of awareness slid along her nerves. She didn’t know him, and that made her nervous. She knew every man here on a first-name basis. The watchful look in his green eyes left her feeling naked, exposed. Cold and hot all over at the same time.

With a deliberate motion, she turned her head away. She didn’t have time to waste on a Haynes County deputy. She glanced toward the officers assembled from Chandler County. “Calvert, you want to tell me what happened?”

Before the tall investigator could answer, Jim Ed Reese, Haynes County’s chief deputy, stepped forward. “They crashed the truck, got desperate and blew their brains out.”

Visible tension tightened Tick Calvert’s lean frame. “I think the lady asked me, Reese.”

Jim Ed shook his head and spat into the weeds along the roadside. “You’re not a Fed anymore, Calvert. You’re not in charge.”

Kathleen shoved down the urge to wipe the smirk from Jim Ed’s face. She didn’t have to join in their little alpha male party—she
was
the one in charge. The GBI investigated any death occurring while a suspect was in custody or during a pursuit.

Ignoring Jim Ed, she looked at Calvert again. “Tick?”

He jerked a hand through his dark hair. “They held up the stop-and-rob out on Highway 19. Troy Lee cut them off at the Flint crossroads—”

“Condensed version, please.”

“Troy Lee lost them at the Hopewell city limits because his engine ran hot, but one of their city units picked up the chase. Haynes had units waiting for them when they crossed the line and Hopewell dropped out there. Reese radioed that the suspect vehicle had gone 10-50. When I got here, the boys were dead.”

Jim Ed’s square chin jutted at a pugnacious angle. “You left out the part about them shooting at your boy. They were young, stupid and scared, and it was easier to eat a gun than face up to what they done.”

Kathleen glanced over her shoulder at Altee. The theory Jim Ed offered seemed plausible enough, but she’d learned a long time ago to look beyond surface explanations, especially where Jim Ed or any other Haynes County deputy was concerned.

She caught Altee’s calm gaze. “Radio Moultrie, please, and have them send the van over.”

“I told you what happened.” Jim Ed’s voice lowered, vibrating with tension. “We don’t need the crime scene van here.”

Still very much a politician’s daughter, Kathleen smiled at him. “Maybe you don’t. I do.”

And that’s what counts.

As she turned toward the truck, her gaze clashed with that of the unknown deputy again. His pale green eyes glowed against his tan. Admiration flashed across his face before the expressionless mask returned.

Pulling her attention back to her responsibilities, she walked away from Jim Ed and Tick, being careful to keep her gaze on the truck. Not looking at him didn’t help—her mind conjured pictures of him, light glinting off his sun-streaked hair, his eyes hot and stormy.

Focus. And not on him.

The fascination was ridiculous. She didn’t fall prey to instant attraction—ever. Hell, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d fallen prey to any type of attraction. She didn’t allow it. And he was a Haynes County boy. The dictionary definition of a corrupt cop.

The scene inside the small truck wiped away all thoughts of inappropriate attraction. She suppressed a horrified gasp, knowing she was still in the men’s auditory range. For a second, she forgot to breathe through her mouth and the overwhelming smell of drying blood swamped her. A fly buzzed along the edge of the open window and she brushed it away.

Slumped in the cab, the two boys wore jeans and T-shirts. One no longer had a face; the other was missing half his head. Two teeth, bloody roots pointed toward the sky, rested on the dashboard. Bile pushed up in Kathleen’s throat. Always the same reaction to a violent crime scene, always the same procedure. Lock the shock and horror away and do the job. Focus on the facts. Give in to the revulsion later, when no one was around to witness the weakness.

“The crime scene van’s on the way.” Altee spoke behind her, and Kathleen nodded.

“Would you start taking statements?”

“Sure thing. Who’s first?”

Kathleen looked across the gulf of the ditch. Tick Calvert leaned against his car, smoking a cigarette and talking to a young deputy. Jim Ed had gathered his deputies and seemed in the middle of a lecture, shooting occasional glances at the truck. “Reese. Just don’t expect to get very far. Give me a second here and I’ll start on the other Haynes boys.”

“Take your time.”

With a deep breath, she took a visual inventory of the truck cab. A high-powered rifle lay between the two boys. Among the fast food wrappers littering the floorboard, a small handgun rested next to the passenger’s foot. Blood-spattered CD cases lined the dash. Kathleen eyed the massive wounds, the blood spray and the rifle.

Suicide, my ass.

Tension tightened every nerve in Jason Harding’s body. The sensation recalled memories of being a green army private, sitting in the sands of Kuwait and Iraq, and waiting. Waiting for something to happen, being afraid of what that something would bring.

If anything, the arrival of the two agents from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation increased the tension. Jim Ed still espoused the belief that women belonged in two places, the kitchen and the bedroom, and Jason suppressed a grin, watching his cousin chafe under Agent Price’s questioning. Judging from her expression, she knew Jim Ed was pissed off and she enjoyed his discomfort. Maybe that was why his interview had taken longer than any of the others—the entire thirty minutes until the crime scene unit from Moultrie arrived.

“Deputy? I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Still leaning against his unit, he glanced at Agent Palmer. The sunlight picked out golden streaks in her shaggy copper hair. He figured she had a temper to go with those fiery strands.

He dropped his gaze down her trim form and another grin quirked at his mouth. If the standard issue GBI uniform of khaki slacks and navy polo shirt was supposed to hide her femininity, make her just another one of the boys, it failed. Firm breasts pushed at the cotton fabric and the khakis nipped in at a small waist above slim hips. All the uniform did was make him want to find out what was underneath.

He glanced up, meeting narrowed eyes the color of rich coffee. An angry flush danced along her cheekbones. She knew what he was thinking and she didn’t like it. That was plain and Jason glanced away, shrugging off the sensation that he’d joined a long line of jerks who’d given her the same once-over. Apparently she hadn’t thought much of him already and now he’d dropped a couple rungs in her estimation. That was fine—just the way it was supposed to be.

But he still didn’t appreciate the way she looked at him, like something beneath her, gum smeared on the bottom of the expensive loafers she wore. How many times had he seen that expression before? The admiration he’d felt earlier watching her handle Jim Ed faded into a cold, hard lump of disappointment in his gut.

Resisting the ingrained urge to respond to her authoritative stance, he crossed his arms over his chest and maintained his negligent posture. “Ask away.”

Those dark eyes narrowed further. Obviously, she was accustomed to men snapping to at her approach. She inclined her head toward the truck in the ditch. The technicians from Moultrie’s crime scene lab swarmed the vehicle. “Tell me what you know about that.”

He shot a glance at the truck. “It’s two dead boys in a really ugly truck.”

Irritation pinched her full mouth. “I suppose if I ask you how they got that way, you’re going to say because of a gun.”

This time he let the grin curve his mouth. “Well…”

She didn’t appear amused. “When did you arrive? Before or after they crashed?”

Arguing with the woman would be a rush, almost as good as making up after. Jason smothered the images taking over his mind. Unlikely he’d ever get the chance to have a real argument with her, let alone make up. “After. I was second on scene for Haynes County. Jim Ed got here first.”

She flipped open a small notebook, her long, slender fingers caressing the leather. Her nails were short, a practical length, but lacquered a passionate red. Another image flashed in his brain—those slim, red-tipped fingers sliding over his skin. He cleared his throat.

Palmer glanced up at him. “Before the Chandler County units.”

Jason shrugged. “Yeah. They showed up right after I did.”

She shot a look at his nameplate and jotted a note. “What did Deputy Reese say on the radio?”

“Nothing much.”

“Which means he said something.” Palmer shifted her weight, her relaxed manner stating she didn’t mind standing here all day if he didn’t. He could think of worse things than looking at her, letting her voice wash over him, a cool contrast to the heat. Sweat trickled down his back, his undershirt clinging to his skin beneath the bulk of his bulletproof vest.

“He asked Chandler what he needed to do to stop them.”

“Who responded?”

Jason gestured toward the youngest Chandler County deputy. “The kid. He said the suspects shot and wounded a store owner and had been shooting at his unit.”

The pen scribbled across the pad again. “What was Reese’s response to that?”

“10-4.”

“This was just before he radioed them 10-50.”

“Right.”

“Do you think they committed suicide?”

The question came at him with the same rapid-fire, no-nonsense delivery of the others and almost caught him off-guard. Admiration stirred in him again. She would be lethal in an interrogation.

Jason met her watchful, dark gaze, sure she’d seen more in his face than he’d wanted her to. “Jim Ed says they did.”

She snapped the notebook closed. “What’s your first name, Deputy Harding?”

“Jason.”

She nodded and glanced over her shoulder at Jim Ed, still being questioned by her partner. His face was red, jaw set with anger. “How long have you been with the sheriff’s department?”

“Six months.” He straightened, bringing him a step closer to her. Some elusive scent, clean and old-fashioned, tickled his nose. Ivory soap. She smelled of Ivory soap. “How long have you been with the GBI?”