“That’s very public-spirited of you.”
“You have a problem with that?”
“Not at all,” he replied. “If the public interest is your actual objective.”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you really interested in getting a warning out there, or do you just want to get a headline with your name under it?”
She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, I’m a real glory hound, writing for the Eden Gazette.”
“Big stories get picked up by bigger papers,” he observed.
Her heart hammered. “And do you think this could be a big story?”
His lips firmed. “I think you might make it into one. If it suited your purpose.”
She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. “Look, I’m not acting from sinister motives here. I just don’t like secrets. I especially don’t like the police keeping secrets.” Boy, there was an understatement. She pushed away a sixteen-year-old memory. “And I don’t appreciate you standing in the way of a story.”
“Understood. I don’t like secrets, either.” His eyes, cool and steady as rain, met hers. “And I won’t tolerate anyone standing in the way of an investigation.”
Mark DeLucca had a face like an archangel on a cathedral wall and an assassin’s flat, black gaze. It was a look likely to appeal to a lot of women, Jarek figured. Daring ones. Dumb ones. It remained to be seen if the victim, young Carolyn Logan, fit into either category.
“Your sister mentioned that Miss Logan spent a lot of time at the bar last night,” Jarek said.
Mark continued to brush paint on the bottom of a skiff with sure, even strokes. Around the graying wooden dock, sunlight sparkled on dark water. The wind swayed the pines and tattered the white clouds high overhead. The whole scene was straight out of one of Pop’s fishing magazines or a glossy Great Lakes travel brochure.
DeLucca looked almost as at home in this environment—a fallen angel in Eden—as Jarek felt out of place.
The younger man dipped his brush in a can of blue paint. “She was there.”
His response didn’t make it clear whether he meant his sister or Carolyn Logan. But at least he was talking.
Yeah, and if he said something incriminating and Tess found out about it, she’d likely murder them both.
Jarek shook his head. He had enough troubles with this case without worrying about Tess’s reaction to him questioning her brother.
“Did you serve Miss Logan?” he asked.
Mark’s mouth twisted with bitter humor. “I don’t violate the underage drinking laws, if that’s what you’re asking. I carded her.”
“And?”
“I gave her a Coke. She was nineteen.”
A baby, thought Jarek, and imagined his daughter, his Allie, reaching nineteen. Damn it, Eden was supposed to be a safe place to raise children.
“Notice anything else?”
“It was an Illinois license, and she lied about her weight.” Mark DeLucca shrugged. “Nothing unusual about either one.”
“What about her conversation with your sister?”
“What about it?”
“Do you remember what they talked about?” Did you talk with Carolyn Logan? Flirt with her? Rape her?
“Why don’t you ask Tess?”
“I’m asking you.”
Mark DeLucca’s eyes glittered with black amusement. “Well, now you can ask her. Because she just got out of her car, and she’s coming over.”
Jarek turned. Tess’s car was parked in the shadow of the boathouse, and Tess herself was striding down the dock.
His headache returned with a vengeance. But despite his pounding head, he admired the picture she made, flying toward them with all the elegance and wicked intent of one of those black-necked geese defending its young. She wore jeans, and boots that were more suited to Michigan Avenue than a dock in the lake district, and an expression between hope and fury.
He caught himself stuffing his hands deeper into his pockets and smiled in wry recognition. Look, don’t touch.
She stopped beside them, her breath quick through parted lips, her golden eyes bright and narrow with suspicion. “Mark.”
Her brother straightened, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans. “Tess.” His dry tone was a parody of hers.
Not a lot of love lost there, Jarek thought. But then she reached out and touched his jacket sleeve, and his hand covered hers in quick reassurance before they both turned to face Jarek. Now he saw the family resemblance he had missed before: the dark, straight hair and the dark, arched brows and the go-to-hell tilt of the jaw. Only Tess’s mouth was full and soft, and Mark’s eyes were black and cold.
“You didn’t waste any time getting over here,” Tess said to Jarek.
He met her gaze and her accusation calmly. “Neither did you.”
“Do you two know each other?” Mark asked.
“We’ve met,” said Jarek.
Tess’s mouth flattened. “He pulled me out of a cop and groupie bar on Wednesday night.”
Mark went as still as a coiled snake.
“Just keeping her out of trouble,” Jarek said evenly.
“That’s usually her job,” Mark said.
Jarek raised an eyebrow. “Is that what she does? Keeps you out of trouble?”
Mark slanted a sharp grin at his sister. “When we were growing up, yeah. Not so much since I got back to town.”
“You were away?” Jarek asked, deceptively polite.
“Six years.”
He didn’t elaborate.
“Prison?” Jarek asked.
The grin broadened. “Marines. So I figure I’m big enough to watch out for myself now.” DeLucca looked at Jarek, and the amusement left his face. “And for her.”
He was being warned off, Jarek thought. Fair enough. If his sister looked like Tess DeLucca, he’d bristle, too. But, Nora, bless her, had never been the black leather pants type.
Tess elbowed her brother in the ribs. “Stop it,” she said. “So, what did you tell him?”
“Same as you, I bet. I met the girl last night. I didn’t know her personally. I’m sorry some son of a bitch hurt her, and I don’t know who did it.”
Jarek persisted. “You can’t remember who else she spoke with?”
“A bunch of rich kids came over from the Algonquin. I thought she was with them at first.” His shoulder jerked. “Frankly I was more concerned with what my customers were drinking than who they were groping on the dance floor.”
“And was Miss Logan groping anyone?”
Mark DeLucca’s dark brows drew together in thought. “No,” he answered at last, slowly. “No, she wasn’t. She shot down Carl Taylor.”
Who the hell was Carl Taylor?
“Taylor’s Gas-N-Go,” Tess offered before he could ask. “Married, two kids.”
It was the kind of background information that Jarek desperately needed and sorely missed. And, because