"On the slim-jim? Yeah, a couple of partials. It's not wide enough to pick up a complete print."

At least now I knew what I'd found, but why use a lockout tool to vandalize a truck? Why not use it to open the door and steal it? I was too tired to figure out the answers, so I filed the questions away for another time and asked, "And do the prints from the slim-jim match the dead man's?"

Jawarski picked up a piece of pizza, cradling it just so to keep the toppings from sliding off. "They do, but that doesn't really tell us anything. The investigation's just getting started, though. We'll know more by tomorrow."

"In the meantime, you still don't know what he was doing in town."

"Not yet."

"But at least you know he exists," I said with a tired smile. "That's a plus. I was getting tired of you thinking I was nuts."

"n.o.body ever said you were nuts," Jawarski protested. "But I couldn't very well run around searching for a mysterious limping man when there was no proof he even existed."

"Nothing except my word." I leaned back against the couch and let out a sigh. "A couple of other people have seen him, too. He's been hanging around by the Curl. Paisley and her mom have both seen him, and Gavin has, too."

Jawarski's chewing slowed. "You've been asking around about him?"

"Does that surprise you? I couldn't let you talk to the boys, but I figured someone else must have noticed him. If I could find someone else who saw him, you'd have to admit that he existed."

"Hey, I believed you," Jawarski protested again, "but you know how things work. I take orders. I don't decide what I'm going to work on. If my lieutenant doesn't believe there's a mysterious limping man running around out there, it doesn't matter what I think."

I picked a piece of sausage from my pizza and popped it into my mouth. "Then you're forgiven."

Jawarski leaned across what little distance there was separating us and kissed me gently. "Thanks."

I might have returned the favor, but my stomach rumbled insistently. I bit the point off my pizza and closed my eyes as I savored the mix of flavors. Jawarski's a truly masterful kisser, but the Gut Buster Special is truly a pizza masterpiece, so you understand my dilemma.

I could feel Jawarski watching me, so I opened my eyes again and rejoined the regular world. "So what are you going to do now?" I asked.

"About-?"

"Finding out who the dead man was."

Jawarski polished off one piece and reached for another. "We'll keep looking. Keep trying. We've got a couple of guys checking missing persons reports, and that may turn up something."

"There's always a chance that he was staying with someone who lives around here," I pointed out. "Somebody was waiting for him at the recreation center, you know."

"Somebody in a dark-colored SUV? Come on, Abby, you know how many SUVs there are around here. If you'd seen even a partial plate, I'd have something to go on. As it is now . . ." He broke off with an expressive shrug and put his beer bottle on the coffee table. Slipping an arm around my shoulders, he pulled me close. "What do you say we stop talking about the murder for a while and do something more interesting."

I admired his ability to switch gears at will, but I couldn't make the jump so easily. He and I hadn't slept together yet, but we'd been drawing relentlessly closer to turning that corner. On the one hand, I wanted nothing more than to see if he was everything I'd built him up to be in my imagination. On the other, once we crossed that line, we could no longer pretend that we weren't involved. Besides, finding dead bodies isn't so commonplace for me that I can just tune out the images. The idea of making out with Jawarski while the dead guy limped unrelentingly through my head didn't exactly turn me on.

"Have you talked to local restaurants, the grocery stores, and gas stations? Somebody must have seen this guy around."

Jawarski tensed. "I know how to do my job, slick."

"I never said you didn't. It just seems to me that you're giving up without much of a fight."

Frowning, he pulled his arm away. "Who said I was giving up? I just don't want to talk about it anymore tonight, is that okay with you?"

I shrugged and pretended not to care. "Sure, that's fine."

"But?"

"But what? I said it was fine, and it is."

Jawarski shook his head and put some distance between us. "Right. Except that you're still thinking about the dead guy. Call me crazy, but I'd rather have you thinking about us."

"Then humor me. Answer a few more questions so I can."

Jawarski tossed a wadded paper towel onto the coffee table and stood. "Okay. Hit me. What do you want to know?"

Half a dozen questions had been building themselves into a list, but the look on his face made them all evaporate. "If you really want me to think about us, maybe you should try being a little less hostile."

He put his hands on his hips and paced a few steps away. "I'm not hostile, Abby, I'm frustrated. I thought we'd turned a corner in our relationship, but now I'm not so sure."

There it was, the R word we'd been avoiding like the plague for months. It fell into the s.p.a.ce between us and rolled around for a while in the silence. "I think we have turned a corner," I said, still unable to say that word aloud. "But shouldn't there be some give and take? I know you don't want to talk about the murder. You've been at it for hours, nonstop. But I'm the one who ran into the guy on Tuesday night, I'm the one who saw him vandalizing a car I was later accused of damaging, and I was there when his body was found. I'm still wound up, and I can't just shut that off because you want to get friendly."

Jawarski hung his head and shook it slowly. "I can't talk about the case with you, Abby. You're not a member of the force. I can't give you cla.s.sified information, and I'm not going to let you know what the investigators on the case are thinking. That's not how it works."

"I'm not asking you for cla.s.sified information."

"How do you know?"

I had my mouth open, ready to argue some more, but his question stopped me in my tracks. "Well, I don't, but-"

"Then don't take offense where none is intended. I'm not shutting you down, Abby. I'm not that kind of guy. I'd think you would know that by now."

That shot a hole in my self-righteous sails. Feeling about two inches tall, I stood to face him anyway. "I know you're not. I'm sorry."

I have to hand it to Jawarski. He knows how difficult those two words are for me to say, and he accepts them in the spirit they're intended. Without another word, he closed the distance between us and pulled me into his arms. A heartbeat later, his mouth covered mine, and I knew that we were okay again. At least for now.

It took some effort, but I even managed to shut out the images I didn't want to see so I could concentrate on the man in front of me, and that made us both happy.

Chapter 15.

"I can't believe you found a dead body," Liberty gushed as she stocked the display case with blueberry fudge the next morning. "And right down the street, too."

She'd been gazing at me for more than an hour while I worked on a candy mosaic background in autumn tones for the shop's display window. Somehow, finding John Doe dead in the bushes had transported me to rock star status in her eyes. She seemed barely able to focus on the work she was supposed to be doing.

I couldn't explain why, but her att.i.tude made me faintly uneasy. I glanced around for Karen, thinking she might save me from this conversation, but she'd disappeared into the office to take care of some paperwork. "It happens," I said with a nonchalance I didn't feel. "Even in Paradise."

Liberty straightened from her task, her upper lip curled slightly. "Believe me, I don't have any delusions about Paradise. This town is no different than anywhere else."

We might all say it, but Liberty was probably the only other person inside city limits who actually believed it. With its granite mountain peaks, dense forests of aspen and pine, and clear mountain streams nearby, Paradise looks as if it belongs on a postcard. Those of us lucky enough to live here understand just how fortunate we are. I couldn't say that out loud, though, so I followed the unwritten script my relatives had been using for years. "People are people no matter where you go. There are good and bad everywhere."

Liberty stopped just short of rolling her eyes. "Right. So who do you think killed him?"

A little surprised, I paused with a shard of candy in one hand, a brush loaded with edible glue in the other. "I don't even know who he is."

"I know. That's weird, isn't it? Around here, I mean." She seemed to remember that she was supposed to be working and scooped up two squares of fudge with a spatula. "It's hard to imagine that n.o.body knows the guy."

"I'm sure someone does." I pressed the candy shard into place and eyed the effect critically. I was becoming bolder when it came to designing the display windows at Divinity, and this one was the most daring yet. "I'm also sure the police will find the answers to everyone's questions soon."

Liberty looked up in surprise. "What? You don't want to talk about it?"

Again, an uncomfortable feeling slithered up my spine. "A man's dead," I said, my voice flat. "I don't get off on speculating about what happened."

From somewhere behind me came the sound of Karen snorting in disbelief. "Don't let her fool you, Liberty. She's not as immune to gossip as she tries to pretend."

I glared at the open doorway. Karen should know what I meant. I might have talked about murder with family and a few close friends in the past, but I barely knew Liberty. Karen should be able to understand the difference.

Liberty grinned and carried the empty fudge pan into the kitchen. She'd done something to her hair that morning that made her whole head look as if a skunk had nested on top of it. "It makes you wonder, doesn't it? I mean, I know what made Rutger want to come here, and you and I just came home again. But what brings somebody like this guy to Paradise?"

Terrific. Apparently, Karen had been gabbing about me with our new employee. "I suppose we'd have to know something about him to know the answer."

Liberty leaned against the counter and studied the mosaic closely. "Maybe finding out what he was doing here would help tell us who he was. Have you thought of it that way?"

"I haven't really thought about it at all," I said. And that was mostly true. Okay . . . partially true. I'd been trying not to think about it. That had to count for something.

Karen appeared in the office doorway, a scowl on her narrow face. "She has a point. You could have pa.s.sed the murderer somewhere along the road. Did you see anyone you recognized?"

I shook my head slowly. "I've thought about it a hundred times, but I don't remember anyone in particular, other than Marshall. I was too busy chasing Max." And trying to breathe, but I saw no reason to mention that.

"The killer must have known where to find him, don't you think?" Liberty said abruptly. "Unless it was just a random act of violence."

"I don't think it was random," I said. "It's too much of a coincidence that he'd pretend to be killed one day and actually turn up dead a few days later."

"Then it had to be planned," Liberty pointed out.

"Maybe not," I said. "Maybe someone just saw an opportunity and took it."

Liberty c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Someone who just happened to carry a knife with him in case he came across someone he wanted to get rid of?"

"Obviously the dead guy had some kind of connection to Coach Hendrix," Karen said, changing tactics. "Maybe he can identify the dead guy."

I covered another sheet of candy with paper towel and shattered it using a rubber mallet. "I hope you're not suggesting that I should ask him."

Liberty picked up a stray sliver of candy and slid it into her mouth. "Are you talking about Kerry Hendrix?"

Intrigued, Karen came further into the room. "Yeah. Why? Do you know him?"

"I used to. We went to high school together, but I haven't seen him in years."

My stomach dropped. "You and Kerry were friends?"

Liberty laughed. "I wouldn't say that. He was in the popular crowd. I spent most of my time in the parking lot or behind the bleachers."

I hoped she was telling me the truth; otherwise, I was going to have a really tough time letting her stick around.

"Popular crowd? No wonder he's so c.o.c.ky," Karen muttered. She came all the way into the kitchen and sat at the table. "So why did this guy want to destroy Kerry's truck?"

"Unless Kerry's changed, it could have been anything," Liberty said as she joined Karen at the table. "When I knew him, he always got his own way. He p.i.s.sed a lot of people off."

"He hasn't changed a bit," Karen said with a rueful grin. "People like him never do."

Liberty seemed genuine, at least. I wondered who Kerry's friends were now that he was older, and if any of them might know what connection he had with the murdered man. Not that I had any intention of asking. The more distance I kept between Kerry Hendrix and myself, the better I'd feel.

Coach Hendrix and I didn't exchange more than a dozen words at Wednesday afternoon's practice. Apparently, he was still convinced that I'd vandalized his truck. I was still offended that he'd think so and more than a little uncomfortable around him.

With the two of us taking such pains not to interact any more than we had to, practice dragged on until I thought pulling the hair out of my arms with tweezers would have been less painful.

Finally, eight o'clock came around, and I led Brody and Caleb to the Jetta. While we'd been at practice, snow had started to fall, and the parking lot and cars were already blanketed with a thin layer of sparkling white.

Brody and Caleb reacted like boys always do, sliding on the ice that had formed under the surface and trying to pack the dry powder into s...o...b..a.l.l.s. Like generations of adults before me, I walked with my head down, trying to keep my shoes dry and my hair from frizzing.

Brody and Caleb reached the car a few steps ahead of me. Caleb opened the car door and climbed into the backseat, but Brody came to a wobbling stop at the end of an ice slide and pointed toward the other side of the parking lot. "Hey. Lookit that. Isn't that the car that guy got into the other night?"

I followed his finger and saw a dark-colored SUV idling next to Coach Hendrix's truck. I could see Coach's shadow behind the wheel of the truck, and someone else's behind the wheel of the SUV. "I don't know. It might be, but I didn't see it well enough the other night to be certain."

"It is the same car," Caleb said, practically tumbling out of the Jetta in his excitement. "You wanna know how I know?"

Brody and I turned to look at him at the same time. "How?" I asked.

"Look at the lights in front. The one on this side is broken."

Sure enough, where the headlights wrapped to the side of the SUV, one of the lights was missing its yellow plastic covering. My heart thumped hard against my rib cage, and my hands grew clammy. "Are you sure that's the same car?"

Caleb's chin jutted out stubbornly. "I'm not a baby, Aunt Abby."

"I know you're not," I a.s.sured him. "I just want to be very sure it's the same car. Next time I see it, I'll give the license number to the police. Now get in the car and let's get out of here."

Brody reached for the door handle, but he stopped there. "Do you want me to sneak over there and write down the number?"

"Absolutely not. We're leaving."

Caleb didn't seem to mind, but I could tell Brody thought I was being a sissy. "How are you going to get the license plate number if we leave?" he asked.

It was a good question, but I couldn't take chances with the boys. We weren't just dealing with a suspected carjacker anymore. A man had been murdered. Whatever these people were doing in Paradise, they meant business.

I herded the boys into the Jetta, swept away a layer of snow so I could see to drive, and got the car running. Leaving the headlights off so we wouldn't attract attention, I drove around the building so I could leave the lot by the front entrance. We might have been perfectly safe driving past the SUV, bold as bra.s.s, but it was a risk I didn't want to take.