Capturing Cleo. Linda Winstead Jones
dead.”
Syd’s eyes got wide, and she leaned forward in her chair. “What happened?”
“He either jumped or fell or was…pushed, from the First Heritage Bank building this morning.”
Syd’s mouth dropped open. “I heard about that! They didn’t give the victim’s name, but I saw it on the news when I got home, and there was a small article on the front page of the evening paper. Oh my God, that was Jack?”
Cleo nodded. She got cold again, and shivered. “I hated him,” she said. “I really, really hated him. But I used to love him. I was young and stupid,” she added, “but…”
“I know.” Syd rose from her chair, set her juice on the coffee table and sat beside Cleo, placing a comforting arm around her shoulder. “You probably don’t know whether to be mad or sad or happy, and I can’t blame you. Jack really did a number on you.”
Cleo shook her head. “It’s a shock, that’s all. I didn’t love Jack anymore, hadn’t for a very long time, but…but hearing he was dead made me remember a lot of old stuff.” She could still remember loving him, or, rather, loving the man she’d thought him to be. That first rush of what she’d thought was love had been so powerful, so beautiful. So false.
She had defied her family for Jack, had run away with him with her head and her heart filled with dreams and hope and love. Within three years he’d managed to kill them all. Heaven help her, she didn’t dare to dream anymore.
“No wonder you slammed the door when you got home,” Syd said, giving her a friendly squeeze. “Shoot, I thought I’d find the thing off its hinges when I came over to see what was wrong.”
“I didn’t slam the door on account of Jack,” Cleo said, her sadness quickly being replaced with anger. “This…this cop showed up tonight to give me the news, and I swear, I’m pretty sure he thinks I killed Jack.”
Syd snorted as she left the couch and returned to her chair, snatching up her juice along the way. “Moron. If he knew you at all—”
“And I am not finished with this guy,” Cleo interrupted. “He’s coming by tomorrow at ten to take me to the station to finish his interrogation.”
“Want me to come with you?” Syd asked, wide-eyed. “I can close the shop for a few hours.”
“No thanks. I can handle Malone.” I think.
“So, this Malone is the man who made you slam your door?”
“He wouldn’t let me drive home,” Cleo said, looking for confirmation that she’d been right in being incensed. “He said I was too upset and it wasn’t safe, and then he took my keys right out of my hand and insisted on bringing me home.”
“Oh,” Syd crooned, “that actually sounds kind of sweet.”
“Sweet?” Cleo took a swig of her own juice. “Malone is not sweet, not at all. He’s a…he’s a macho jerk.”
“Good-looking?”
“Syd!” Cleo shook her head in dismay. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“That’s a yes,” Syd said, with a small smile.
Cleo shook her head. “All right, if he wasn’t a cop, and if he didn’t think I’d pushed my ex-husband off a tall building, I might think he was…relatively handsome.” Gorgeous, actually, if only his dark eyes hadn’t been so tired. “But the man has a serious testosterone problem,” she added defensively.
“Too much or not enough?” Syd teased.
“Too much,” she muttered.
Syd leaned forward, hands spread wide. “All right. On the Barney Fife-Bruce Willis scale of masculinity, with Barney being one and Bruce being ten, where does this cop fit?”
Cleo sighed but didn’t hesitate. “Fifteen.”
Syd fell into peals of laughter, and Cleo couldn’t help but smile.
“I’ve got to meet this cop,” Syd said as she fell back.
“You do not.”
“A fifteen! I’m impressed. I need to judge for myself.”
“This from a woman who’s looking for a man who will slide along the scale to fit her every whim.”
Syd straightened her spine defensively. They’d had this discussion before. “What’s wrong with looking for a man who will rub your feet and cook dinner when you need a four, and be a warrior when you want a ten? Or a fifteen,” she said, with a waggle of her red eyebrows.
“Nothing,” Cleo said, “except that such a man does not exist.”
“Of course he does.”
Syd was so optimistic, and Cleo had given up on winning this argument long ago. Some things a woman has to learn for herself.
But Cleo would do anything to keep Syd from learning the lesson the way she had.
Last night it had been too dark to see much of anything, but by morning’s light Luther got a good look at Cleo Tanner’s place. She lived in a neat duplex in an old neighborhood, with tall, ancient oak trees by the curb and bushes growing wildly around the front porch. Those bushes would flower in the spring, he was almost certain. The yard was neat but not precise. There were spots of green in the dormant grass.
It was two minutes after nine when he left his car and made his way to Cleo’s front door. He could hope otherwise, but he didn’t expect she’d be happy to see him.
Too bad.
He knocked once, then rang the bell. Someone inside the place shuffled, then shouted “Just a minute” in a sleepy, huskily sexy voice that made his innards tighten. Luther smiled, but made sure the smile was gone before the door swung open.
Last night Cleo Tanner had been all vixen: slinky black dress, high heels, red lipstick. This morning she was straight from the bed. Curling black hair going everywhere, lips au naturel, though still lush and enticing. And instead of a slinky black dress she wore a T-shirt that hung to her knees. The T-shirt was purple and had a grinning spread-eagled cat in the middle of it: a paw rested over each breast.
She was yawning, but when she stopped yawning and realized who had awakened her, her golden eyes went wide and she slammed the door in his face.
“You’re not supposed to be here until ten!” she shouted through the closed door.
“I said nine,” Luther said, leaning against the closed door.
“I said ten!” she said, and then he heard her stomp away.
The door next to Cleo’s opened, and a petite redhead wearing jeans and a too-large denim shirt stepped out. She looked him over suspiciously.
“Detective Malone,” he said, lifting his jacket to flash his badge.
She was not intimidated. “I figured as much.” She mumbled something as she reached tentatively past him to try Cleo’s front door, finding it locked. “Fifteen, huh?” she muttered.
“Fifteen what?”
“Nothing.” She circled around him to the mailbox, which hung on the wall not two feet from the front door. In a few of these old neighborhoods, the mailman still came right to the door. The redhead reached behind the mailbox to grab a small magnetic box on the underside. She opened the container and took out a key, using it to unlock Cleo’s door.
Luther’s urge to smile disappeared. Not only did the woman not have a peephole in her front door, or the common sense to ask who was there when someone knocked, but she stored her spare key in such an obvious place that any self-respecting criminal would find it in a matter of seconds.
The redhead flashed him a small smile and slipped inside. A moment later she