Cop by Her Side (The Mysteries of Angel Butte) by Janice Kay Johnson - Cop by Her Side (The Mysteries of Angel Butte) Read Free Book Online Page A

going on with her?”
    “Anything?”
    “Say, trouble with her husband.”
    Some anger fired up on her face. “The husband who is in ICU right now holding her hand and praying for all he’s worth?”
    “Two people can fight and still care about each other.”
    “But you’re suggesting something a lot worse than fighting.”
    Yeah, now that she mentioned it, he was. He couldn’t help thinking of a couple of moments where something had been really off with Drew Wilson. It was a gut feeling more than anything else, but Clay trusted his gut.
    “I’m trying to get a complete picture, that’s all. You’d be doing the same if you were in my shoes.”
    She slanted a suddenly suspicious look at him. “Why were you at the accident site so early on? Is there something you’re not telling me?”
    Clay shook his head. “Nothing like that.”
    “Then why?”
    He moved his shoulders, trying without success to ease the new tension. “I’d come in for a few hours to catch up on reading reports.”
    She nodded. She’d been at work on a sunny Saturday, too.
    “One of my detectives was taking a report from Drew. He’d given his name, and then I heard him talking about Melissa and Brianna. It clicked that he had to be your brother-in-law and that it was your sister who was missing.” He grimaced. “I was curious.”
    Jane studied him, long enough for it to become uncomfortable. Her pupils dilated slightly, as if...he didn’t know. Finally she gave a funny little nod. “Thank you.”
    Which meant she knew he’d stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong because he was worried about her. “If it had been the other way around...”
    “You’re right.” Now she didn’t want to meet his eyes. “I’d have been curious, too.”
    There was a bump in his chest, as if his heart had maybe skipped a beat. Was she implying...? Something else he didn’t know.
    Damn. Focus. Do your goddamn job.
    “You didn’t really answer my question. Was Melissa speaking to you lately? For some reason you want me to think everything was sweetness and light between her and Drew, but I need to know if it wasn’t.”
    She averted her face. He sat through the silence while she struggled with herself. When she finally looked back at him, her expression was guarded.
    “No, we haven’t been getting along well lately. Like I said, we have...tensions. There’s three years between us, and after Mom took off I sort of stepped in as a mother figure. Then Lissa was only seventeen when Dad died and she lived with me until she graduated from high school. Especially once she hit about thirteen, she resented me having any authority over her. Her favorite line was, ‘You’re not my mother and you can’t tell me what to do.’” Jane shrugged. No biggie, she was trying to convince him. What had she said? Ancient history.
    Too bad he didn’t buy it.
    “Rivalry for your dad’s attention?”
    Her expression shut down with the finality of a steel door. He didn’t have to hear the lock to know it had slid into place.
    “No,” she said, and that was all.
    Oh, man, he wanted to pursue the subject, but had an uneasy feeling he was straying into personal territory. Yes, he wanted to know Jane, but right now, the people he needed to know were her sister, her brother-in-law and the missing niece.
    “Drew and I are friends.” Jane didn’t sound as if she wanted to tell him, but felt compelled to. “If they were really having problems, he would have told me. Like I said, there was the job thing and the question of whether they’d move if he found a good enough one, but he hadn’t yet, so—” She lifted one shoulder.
    “Is he good with the kids?” Clay made his tone casual.
    “Drew?” Jane looked genuinely surprised. “Sure. Hey, right now, he’s the one who’s home with them. That’s probably why Lissa took Bree with her. Especially with her two friends having moved away, Bree probably needed some exclusive mom time.”
    She didn’t know that