She wasn’t hungry in the least. In fact, Jodi wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold anything down, but Cameron’s gesture touched her. “You remembered I have a sweet tooth,” she said.
“Hard to forget it. I remember having to wrestle some chocolate cake away from you once when we were kids.”
Jodi nodded. “And I had to wrestle them from Lauren and your sister, Gilly.”
She caught the slight change in Cameron’s expression and knew she’d hit a nerve. Two of them, actually. From what Jodi had heard, Gilly had died during childbirth, and Cameron was raising her child. Since that’d happened only a few months earlier, the grief still had to be raw.
However, there was another rawness, too. One that might never go away, as well. Once, Cameron had been in love with Lauren. And vice versa. But again, those feelings of young love had all been shattered the night of the murders because Cameron had been a deputy then, and Lauren had blamed him for not preventing her parents’ deaths. It probably wasn’t logical for Lauren to feel that way, but those sorts of raw feelings weren’t always logical.
“Yes,” Cameron said as if he knew what she was thinking.
His smile stayed in place a moment longer before his attention shifted to Gabriel. “The CSIs are processing the knife right away. We should know soon if the blood belongs to the victim and if there are prints that match our suspect.
“Sorry,” Cameron added to Jodi. “This kind of talk doesn’t exactly go well with coffee and doughnuts.”
“It’s all right. I want to know what’s happening with the case. Has the kid said anything?” she asked. “Or has his lawyer arrived yet?”
Cameron shook his head to both of her questions. “Nothing from him, but you do have a visitor, and he’s demanding to see you. It’s your boss, Hector March.”
Gabriel shot her a glance, one that seemed like an accusation. “I didn’t call him,” Jodi insisted. And she looked to Cameron for answers. “The murder is already on the news?”
The deputy nodded.
Good grief. That hadn’t taken long at all, but then, she hadn’t expected it to stay quiet. Still, she hadn’t wanted to deal with Hector when her nerves were this close to the surface.
Jodi stood, trying to steel herself up by taking some deep breaths and flexing her hands. “Where is he?”
Cameron hitched his thumb toward the squad room. “I had him wait out there. Something he’s not very happy about. Apparently, he’s not the waiting-around sort.”
No, he wasn’t. But if Jodi tried to put Hector off, that would only make him dig in his heels even more. She reminded herself that Hector had been the one to help her get back on her feet when she’d been just nineteen and devastated from the knife attack. He’d been the one to offer her a job and train her. She would probably be in a psych ward somewhere if it weren’t for him.
She put the coffee and doughnut bag on Gabriel’s desk and went out in the hall and toward Reception. Gabriel was right behind her, of course. And Hector was exactly where Cameron had said he would be. Her boss was dressed in his usual black cargo pants and black T-shirt. He’d once been special ops in the Marines, and he still looked as if he were in uniform.
Hector immediately went to her, ignoring Gabriel’s scowl. Heck, Cameron was scowling now, too. Apparently, neither approved of Hector’s shades-of-gray approach to his business and justice.
Hector didn’t touch her. He hadn’t in years, since she usually went board stiff when someone put their hands on her. But he did get close enough to whisper, “Are you all right?”
She managed a nod. “Neither of us were hit, and Gabriel has a suspect in custody.”
Hector turned to Gabriel then and extended his hand. “I’m Hector March, owner of Sentry Security.”
Gabriel didn’t shake his hand. “I know who you are.”
Hector gave a crisp nod. “And I know who you are, too, Sheriff. Why the hell would you let Jodi get anywhere near that house after we got those threatening emails?”
That grabbed Gabriel’s attention. “We? You got an email, too?”
“Yes.” Hector frowned as if annoyed that he would have to take the time to address this. “It came this morning. But Jodi got hers the day before yesterday, right after she told a reporter that she was remembering some more details of her attack. I’m sure she explained that to you, and that’s why you shouldn’t have let her go to the house.”
“I didn’t let Jodi do anything.” Gabriel’s voice was as crisp as Hector’s nod had been. “When I saw her car, I stopped to see what she was doing. She trespassed onto private property and then stumbled onto a crime scene.”
Suddenly, all eyes were on her. Even the emergency dispatcher at the reception desk and the other deputies were looking at her. Maybe they were waiting for some kind of logic from her that they would understand. But it wasn’t something they’d be able to grasp. Because they’d never been left for dead in a shallow grave.
“I wanted to see if being at the old house would trigger any other memories of the night of my attack,” she admitted. Best not to tell them she had also wanted to draw out the snake who’d knifed her.
Hector pulled back his shoulders, clearly not approving of that. “And did it? Are you actually remembering new details?”
“No.” In fact, the only thing it had accomplished was nearly getting Gabriel, Jameson and her killed along with giving her a new set of nightmarish memories.
All that blood on the pantry floor.
Mercy, another dead body.
She prayed the man wasn’t dead because of her, but Jodi had to accept that he could be.
“Did you give the FBI the email you got?” Gabriel asked Hector at the same moment that Hector asked him, “Is Jodi free to go? I can drive her to her apartment in San Antonio.”
“I don’t want to go home,” she insisted. “I want to listen when Gabriel talks to the suspect.”
Hector’s mouth tightened. It was yet something else he didn’t approve of. Tough. She was staying put.
“And yes, I gave the FBI the email,” Hector answered Gabriel, but he kept his attention on her. “Apparently, it’s not traceable since the person who sent it bounced it around through several foreign internet providers.”
Not a surprise. Jodi hadn’t figured it would be so easy to find out who was doing this. But then maybe their suspect would spill it all. Not just about the emails but about the person who’d hired him.
“You think the guy in custody is the one who attacked you ten years ago?” Hector asked.
She didn’t jump to answer. Because she wasn’t sure how much Gabriel wanted to reveal about this investigation.
“No,” Gabriel finally said. “He’s too young. Plus, I believe the man who attacked her has already been caught and is in prison.”
Hector made a quick sound of agreement. He always did when it came to her father. It was the one thing he had in common with the Becketts—they thought her father was guilty.
“Several other people got threats,” Hector went on. “Apparently, all of you did.” He glanced at Gabriel, Jameson and then her. “But so did Russell Laney and August Canton.”
Judging from the soft grunt of agreement Gabriel made, he was already aware of those last two. Jodi certainly wasn’t, and she looked at Gabriel for him to provide some details.
“There are probably others who got the emails, too,” Gabriel said as Cameron stepped away to take a call. “The FBI figures some folks just deleted them as a hoax. But, yes, I suspect anyone