The hint of fear in her blue eyes stabbed deep. This was one time he wished his instincts hadn’t been right.
Maybe they’d catch a break with the DNA, but he wasn’t banking on it. The real problem would be trying to find a way to keep Jenna safe while she continued to do her job as a SWAT team member.
An impossible task, at best.
“Wait a minute. What’s that?” Jenna asked with a frown. She bent down next to the porch, tucking the peas under her arm so she could lift something out of the dirt. She stood and held up what looked to be a shiny bracelet.
“Is that yours?” he asked, when she simply stared at it with a troubled expression in her eyes.
“Shine your phone on it,” she said in a hoarse tone.
He did as she asked. She peered at the item of jewelry. From what he could tell, it was a silver chain with a small heart-shaped charm dangling from it.
“That’s odd,” Jenna muttered.
A warning tingle skated down his spine. “What’s odd?”
“This looks like mine, but it’s not.”
“Well, maybe it belongs to a neighbor?” Griff wasn’t sure why she was so unnerved about a piece of jewelry. “Some kids might have been running around the neighborhood and accidentally dropped it.”
“No, you don’t understand. The letter C is engraved on the heart, see?” She lifted her head to look at him. “I have the exact same bracelet with the letter J engraved on the heart-shaped charm. It was a gift from my mother.”
The warning tingle became a full-fledged wave of apprehension. He couldn’t help turning and sweeping a cautious gaze around her front yard, searching for anything else out of the ordinary.
After being a cop for the past ten years, he didn’t much believe in coincidences.
His instincts were screaming at him that this bracelet was somehow connected to the mysterious attack on Jenna.
As Griff drove to the hospital, Jenna stared at the bracelet that he’d tucked into a clear plastic bag. Weird that it was identical to hers in every way, except for the engraved initial.
Offhand, she couldn’t think of anyone who lived nearby whose first name started with a C.
There was no reason to believe the bracelet was an indication of something sinister. It didn’t look especially unique or rare. There were likely dozens sold every month. Every year. But she couldn’t seem to shake off the prickle of warning that danced along her nape.
Was the attack connected to it? And if so, how? Why?
There were no answers, so she tucked the bracelet into the front pocket of her jeans and tried to shake off the remnants of the attack. Glancing at Griff, she tried to think of something to say. Idle chitchat wasn’t something that came naturally to her.
And apparently not to Griff, either, as he made no attempt to break the strained silence stretching endlessly between them. Everything seemed way more awkward than normal because he was her boss.
She forced herself to look away from his ruggedly attractive features and tried to think back over her most recent cases. There were literally dozens of them, but most of the criminals they’d apprehended were small-time crooks. For several long seconds, she’d assumed the attacker was her father, since he’d just been released from prison and was out on parole. But the guy who’d grabbed her was much larger than her father. She had the sense he was younger, too, although that was just a fleeting impression.
No, the attack had to be related to her work, either on the SWAT team or through the shelter. In the past month she’d helped Shelia and Janet get away from their exes by driving them personally to Ruth’s shelter. There was one major drug ring that she’d assisted her colleague Nate Freemont with right before Christmas. Was it possible this attack was related to that in some way?
She glanced over at Griff’s chiseled profile, wondering if she dared broach the possibility. Griff hadn’t been very happy with her—or with Nate, for that matter—because they hadn’t come to him at the first sign of trouble. Nate, in particular, had gone off on his own, determined to protect an innocent woman and her daughter. Because she’d agreed to help Nate and Melissa get the evidence they needed to expose a murderer, Griff had reamed Jenna out, too.
And placed a formal reprimand in her file.
She was tempted to keep her theories about the connection to Nate’s case to herself, but since Nate was out of town with his fiancée, Melissa, and still on medical leave, she wasn’t sure who else she could confide in.
She’d never told Griff that Melissa and her daughter had reminded her of the women and children who lived in fear at the shelter. She knew there were rumors among her coworkers about why she cared about the shelter so much, but she didn’t bother to comment on them. Her past wasn’t any of their business.
Griff’s, either. As far as she was concerned, none of the guys she worked with needed to know how she spent her free time.
The hospital wasn’t far, and soon the impressive building loomed before them. Griff parked the car and glanced over at her. “Ready?”
“Sure.” She pushed open the door with her left hand and slid out of the seat.
“Hopefully we’ll be in and out quickly,” Griff said. “We need time to review mug shots.”
She didn’t think reviewing photographs of suspects would help, but arguing with her boss wasn’t exactly an option. “I was thinking that maybe this attack is related to the Brookmont case,” she offered, as Griff held the door open for her. “If you remember, I’m the one who took down the crooked police chief, Randall Joseph, the night Nate was shot. Maybe he’s carrying a grudge.”
Griff’s dark eyes pierced hers. “Good point.” He surprised her by agreeing. “You and Nate broke open the drug-trafficking ring and solved a twelve-year-old murder. Although I’m sure the former police chief is still in prison awaiting trial.”
“I know, but it wouldn’t take much for him to hire someone to come after me,” she pointed out. “And if that’s true, then Nate is in just as much danger.”
Griff’s reply was little more than a grunt as he walked with her up to the triage desk. She could see the nurse’s eyes widen with interest as she took in Griff’s short blond hair, dark brown eyes and broad shoulders. For a moment Jenna had to squelch a flash of jealousy, which was ridiculous. She didn’t want to date her boss, or anyone else she worked with, for that matter. In her opinion, the other deputies on her team didn’t always take her seriously now, and it would be ten times worse if she actually went out with one of them.
Which was part of the reason she’d thought Eric Krause was a good choice. They’d met at a fund-raiser for abused women and children, and she had thought they shared the same ideas and morals.
She’d never anticipated his verbal abuse and pathological need for control, and she had broken things off the night he’d shouted at her about how stupid she was. There had been a brief moment when she’d had a flashback to her father screaming the same words at her mother.
Thankfully, she hadn’t dated Eric very long and none of her coworkers had known about him. Most of her fellow deputies already had women in their lives. Well, except the new guy who’d replaced Aaron Simms. She couldn’t deny she’d been happy to see Simms leave the team. He’d been a challenge to work with.
And she hadn’t told anyone the truth about what had transpired between them. How much he’d hated knowing she could outshoot him. One night, he’d