Speak of the devil.
“Aren’t you a little overdressed for the beach?” he asked by way of greeting.
“No more so than you, Detective Hatton,” Sherry responded. She felt at a distinct disadvantage being so far down near the ground with him towering over her. She couldn’t see his face well because of the sun, but her brain was more than happy to fill in from memory whatever she couldn’t physically see.
“Yeah, well, I’m not on vacation, as you so definitely are,” he said.
The use of the word vacation seemed almost venomous. His entire frame radiated tension.
“Is that a problem?” she asked.
“Evidently not to you.”
It didn’t take a genius to see that the detective was mad. And his anger seemed to be directed at her.
“Is there something I can do for you, Detective Hatton? Some sort of problem?”
She could feel her fingers moving with the pencil over the paper, real shapes taking form this time, but she didn’t pay it any mind. It wasn’t the first time she’d drawn something without giving the paper her direct attention.
Her focus was on Hatton, who was still standing so she had to crane her neck to look up at him. No doubt it was on purpose. The man was too intelligent, too insightful, for it to be anything but a deliberate measure on his part.
It was kind of making her mad. And...hot.
Not a sexual hot, but a regular, healthy, overheated hot because she was sitting on a Texas beach in the late-afternoon June sun in long pants and sleeves.
“Really?” he said. “You can’t figure it out?”
God, it felt good not to be icy. Even if it took being around a jerk to do it. Evidently her attraction, or whatever she’d had for him in the first few moments she’d seen him yesterday, was way off base.
Sherry sat straighter in her chair. She wasn’t just going to sit here and let him talk down to her, literally and figuratively. She got up from under her umbrella, tucking her pencil behind her ear, sketch pad down at her side.
At nearly five foot eight, Sherry was used to being pretty close to eye to eye with a lot of men, but not to Hatton. She hadn’t realized how tall he really was. He had to be at least six foot three, because she still had to crane her neck to look up at him. Not something she was used to.
“What is it that you want, Detective Hatton?”
She studiously ignored how the blue in his shirt brought out the blue specks in his eyes, especially in the late-afternoon golden sun.
“What I want is to know why you didn’t let me know about that.” He pointed toward her waist.
She looked down at herself. Was he still talking about her clothes? “I get cold, okay? It’s no crime to have on long sleeves at the beach.”
“No.” He closed the few feet between them and took the sketch pad that she held in her hand. “This.”
He was studying the sketch pad. Sherry felt a flush creep across her cheeks. She didn’t want to explain the random lines and doodles that covered her sketch pad. Didn’t want to go into the whole story about her drawings or lack thereof. Whether he knew she was an artist or not, she didn’t want to have to explain the lack of talent evident on that pad.
“Give it back to me.” She reached for the pad, but he took a step backward so she couldn’t reach it, still studying it.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this yesterday?” He briefly shook the pad in his hand.
That she’d lost her ability to draw?
“Look, it’s difficult to explain...”
“Really? What’s so difficult about saying, ‘I’m a forensic artist. Maybe I can help with the situation’?”
He turned the sketch pad around so what she had drawn was facing her. Sherry was already cringing, preparing to explain, until she got a glimpse of the drawing.
She had drawn Detective Hatton in almost perfect likeness.
“I guess I’m flattered,” Jon continued, holding the sketch pad.
Sherry just stood there, looking at the drawing. It wasn’t her greatest work, by any means. Really it was just in the preliminary stages—rough lines and edges—but it was definitely him. It was the first work she’d done that wasn’t just absolute crap in weeks.
She’d drawn it subconsciously. Not only was it not bad, but she hadn’t gotten any chills when she did it. As a matter of fact, now that she was out from under the protection of the umbrella, she was downright hot. She took off her shirt and tied it around her waist. The sun on her back and shoulders felt wonderful.
But she wasn’t quite sure exactly what conversation she was having with Jon Hatton.
“Why are you here?” she asked him.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were a forensic artist yesterday at the hospital?”
“Believe it or not, I don’t generally make those the first words out of my mouth when I’m talking to a complete stranger.” She grabbed the sketch pad out of his hand.
“You saw what was going on with that woman yesterday, how poorly Frank Spangler was handling the interview for the composite drawing, and you did nothing. You ran away.”
Sherry’s mouth fell open before she closed it again. What was she supposed to say? It had been all she could do yesterday to just keep it together. The last thing on her mind had been to offer to help.
Yes, she had run away. She wouldn’t have been any use to anyone anyway. She’d been shaking so hard she’d hardly been able to get her keys in the car door to unlock it.
But, damn, if she had to explain any of that to him. Jerk.
“Believe it or not, I don’t walk around hospitals offering my services to everyone. I was there to pick up my friend. I just happened upon your situation accidentally.”
She could tell right away that wasn’t going to appease him.
“You were so busy with dinner plans that you couldn’t help a woman who had just been through the most traumatic event of her life?”
“You know what, Detective Hatton? There was nothing I could’ve done yesterday. By the time you got in there and got your man out, the damage had already been done. That poor woman wasn’t going to talk to anyone, no matter who the artist was.”
“He’s not my man,” Hatton replied.
“Whatever. He’s on your police force. Your team.”
“No, I’m—”
Sherry held up a hand to cut him off. She wasn’t really interested in discussing the idiot who’d further traumatized that woman. As far as she could tell, everyone employed in law enforcement in Corpus Christi was a jerk.
“Who told you I was a forensic artist? Caroline?” Sherry didn’t think her friend would say anything, but maybe she had done so.
“No.” He shook his head. “I knew we needed a different forensic artist since Spangler has been taken off the case, so I made a call.”
“I’m glad to hear that Detective Spangler won’t be doing any more damage.”
“Me, too. He has no business being around any victims, as far as I’m concerned.”
That made Sherry feel a little better. At least Hatton didn’t defend Spangler. Sherry