His strong fingers awkwardly trapped hers when he took the mug’s handle, big but careful, so careful of her. She made sure he had a good grip on it before she pried her own fingers loose.
“Real security-conscious around here, aren’t you, deputy?” he asked. He took a sip, just like the perfectly normal prisoner he was. “I could’ve thrown hot coffee in your eyes, or had you against the bars and my arm around your throat, and be out of here before you could think.”
He sounded like a city boy. Swarthy, not like the local Latin or Native American population so much as Greek or Italian. Lorenzo. Duh. The collar of his blue shirt was unbuttoned enough to reveal a triangle of dark, hairy chest. His trousers had once been pressed, but not recently enough.
“Most speeders aren’t moved to such acts of desperation,” Jo noted, feigning boredom. “And I’m the sheriff. Sheriff James.”
“Ted Bundy only got caught when cops picked him up for traffic violations,” Lorenzo reminded her, clearly an annoying, last-word kind of guy, before sipping the coffee again.
Then he went still, mug to his lips. At least he didn’t choke. “James?”
“Yup,” said Jo, heading back to her desk.
“Joe James?” Jo could hear the “e” in his incredulity.
She paused, not liking that he knew her name. The ridiculous word he’d used earlier—zombies—pounded in her head, but she pushed it away. “That’s me, Mr. Lorenzo.” Again she consulted Fred’s now-stained report. “Zaccheri Lorenzo?”
“Zack. Lady, you’re the reason I came to this hellhole! But I was expecting a guy. No offense.”
Deep breath—again with the breathing. Jo turned to face him, folding her arms across her chest. “Am I the reason you came to this hellhole at ninety-three miles per hour?”
“Some cars gotta go fast,” he dismissed. “I’m a private investigator, Miss James. My partner found a statement you once made to the press, and I want to ask you some questions about it.”
Spur didn’t have a supermarket, much less a press. It wasn’t a statement Jo had made anytime recently. And that other time…
She stiffened, her stomach protesting the coffee, but knew she could hide it. She’d learned to hide it. Living in the middle of nowhere helped. “What statement?”
Better a hypocrite than a basket case.
“The reporter told us his source was a Joe James. Seven years ago you were in a mining accident in New Mexico, right?”
Oh. That statement. “And if I was?”
“You made some unusual claims about the cause of the cave-in.” Damn, but he had an intense way of looking at her.
Maybe she didn’t feel so safe around him, after all.
“I’d been trapped underground for almost two days with no food or water, diminishing air and dead co-workers.” One who had been far more than a colleague. “I think it’s safe to suppose I might have been disoriented after my rescue.”
Zack Lorenzo leaned on the crossbar of his cell, as casually as on a fence. He was almost too large to be graceful, but he did have a distracting ease about him. “It’s safe to suppose that,” he agreed dryly, but his eyes were more insistent than his voice. “Were you?”
“What business is it of yours?” Jo sat in her chair and leaned back, deliberately propping her cowboy boots on the desk. Let the man rot…at least until his fine was wired to him.
“Look, I know this is out of the blue. But I’ve got my reasons for asking,” he insisted. Now the look of incredulity she cast toward him was legitimate. “That’s right,” he defended with macho peevishness. “And I’m here to get your…”
She waited, intrigued. She had something he wanted?
He had to look away and swallow to choke the word out. “Your help. By getting your story.”
Jo didn’t want to think back to the cave-in. She had too much trouble with nightmares as it was. It had been a hallucination. She’d just been disoriented.
But this man struck a chord she’d forgotten, and she drew yet more charged air into her lungs. “Help?”
He grinned. It might be a good-looking grin if it weren’t so damned superior. “Yeah. Against the forces of evil.”
Fred had been pretty accurate. A smarty-pants.
Jo no longer felt guilty for thinking the man was riding a stirrup short. She let her boots and the front legs of her chair thunk to the floor, and she picked up Fred’s report again. The blotchy photocopy of Lorenzo’s P.I. license looked legit…for what she knew about official documentation for the state of Illinois, which wasn’t much.
She took a swallow of coffee and wished it were tequila. “Says you’re on a case, next town up the road.” Almanuevo was only a few years into its boom as a center for New Age revelations and so-called vortexes. But Jo saw a pretty clear distinction between exploring one’s past lives and hunting down evil.
“I am. Missing persons.” This time his grin was positively grating. “That’s where you come in.”
“You want me to help fight evil or find a missing person?”
He snorted. “Neither. I just want you to tell me about the missing persons you ran into during that cave-in.” His tone took on a patronizing edge. “I wouldn’t want to put you into any scary situations, lady.”
The fact that she didn’t challenge his disrespect proved how upset she was. Jo stood. “Whatever I said to that reporter, I was mistaken. I’m afraid you wasted a trip, Mr. Lorenzo.”
He swore beneath his breath. “Helluva trip to waste! You know how far Almanuevo is from here?”
“Over an hour away.” Jo paused on her way to the filing cabinet, then qualified herself. “Going the speed limit.”
“Real scenic, too,” the prisoner groused, while she opened the top drawer and looked for something, anything, to keep her busy and official. And normal. And sane. “Sand. Cactus. More sand. More cactus. A few rocks. And hey—”
“Don’t you go sassin’ the sheriff,” drawled Deputy Fred as he walked in, two McDonald’s bags in his hand. But Jo had gotten the gist.
“More sand,” finished Lorenzo with a snarl, flopping back onto the cot. “It’s a garden spot, all right.”
“It’s West Texas,” clarified Jo, taking one of Fred’s bags. She fished out an Egg McMuffin and tossed it neatly between the cell bars. “Have some breakfast.”
He easily caught it one-handed. “This is cold.”
“The McDonald’s is in Almanuevo, near the Western Union. The lady who runs our diner is on vacation at Tahoe for three more days.” Jo aimed her own superior smile toward the prisoner. “West Texas.”
Then she turned to Deputy Fred, who was looking mighty uncomfortable. “Did his folks wire him the money?”
He nodded, and Lorenzo whooped. “I get out of this hellhole, right?”
Fred started to say something and stopped. Jo had to lean close before he’d divulge it. “They done sent him one thousand dollars. In cash! I put it in my shoe, just in case I got jumped.”
Jo tried not to smile. Fred was, to put it kindly, a stocky man. In his tan uniform, star on his pocket and gun on his hip, he shouldn’t have to worry—especially not around here. Sand, cactus, etc. What was going to jump him, a jackelope?
Still, it was a pretty piece of money, and at least he cared. He was one of the good guys.
“Good