I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to see Jerry, over and over, floating in his hot tub. I wanted Weathers to do that. I wanted him to take over and fix everything. But that was just the problem. No one else was going to fix it for me. All of my adult life, I'd had to face this same realization, time and time again. I always fixed everything.

At first, I'd been mad about it. There was no Prince Charming and I wasn't Snow White or Cinderella. Then, somewhere along the line, I got to feeling proud. I was Maggie Reid, and I could take care of myself. Still, when things got a bit much, like now, I found myself wishing for a knight in shining armor. Weathers was merely pointing me back to reality. He'd come when I'd needed him, but I was going to have to pull the killer out of the hat to save myself. Doggone it!

I closed my eyes and willed my mind back to Jerry Lee's phone message, then to his house. The gate had been open. Why? Was it always that way? He was expecting me, in a general way, but he had no idea when I'd show up. Had he expected someone else? What had he found out about the mobile home lot? The reality of Jerry's death was dawning on me. I'd asked him to look into Jimmy's lot. He'd found something, and now he was dead.

I gasped softly and my eyes flew open. Weathers was pulling into the underground garage of the police department. He reached a hand over and touched my arm lightly.

"Stay with it, if you can," he said. "Don't try and make sense of what you remember, just go for the details, the little things that might not seem to matter."

"You don't understand," I said. "He's dead because of me. I sent him to audit the Mobile Home Kingdom and he found something."

Weathers didn't react. "Let's go on up," he said. He opened the car door and stepped out into the gloomy underground parking lot. It was deserted except for the two of us, but we were not alone. From every corner, covering every angle, cameras watched and reported back to their monitors. The place was probably wired for sound, too.

Weathers walked quickly to the door, punched in a series of numbers, waited for a dull click, then pulled the heavy metal door open. He held it, ushering me through with a motion of his hand. He didn't want to talk here. We would talk where he said and when he said, and that was probably for good reason. I walked by his side, struggling to match his quick, long-legged stride, my mind rushing in all directions.

We rode the elevator in silence. He stood so close that had I moved merely an inch, I would've been touching his arm. I remembered how it had felt when he held me for that one quick moment after he'd arrived at Jerry Sizemore's. Stop it! How can you think about that now? I yelled silently. But I couldn't not think about it. The attraction that had simmered before threatened to boil over and consume me.

I brought my hands together and pinched the flesh in between my left thumb and forefinger, hard.

"What'd you do that for?" Weathers had been watching.

"To get my attention," I answered.

He raised an eyebrow and shrugged his shoulders. Now he could add dingbat or crazed to the list of adjectives I was sure he carried in his head to describe me.

"Guess that's a woman thing, huh?"

I glared at him. "Like men don't do anything to keep their minds on a task?"

"Don't usually need to," he said.

I thought of Vernell, reciting mobile home statistics to himself while we made love. Weathers was right. Men were the exact opposite of women.

"So what were you thinking that took your mind off Mr. Sizemore?" he asked.

The elevator jerked to a stop, pushing me against his arm. "Nothing," I said, jumping toward the door.

As the elevator door slowly pulled apart, I could've sworn I heard a slight chuckle from Marshall Weathers. I didn't look back. I walked ahead of him, down the long hallway to the CID offices. It was going to be another long night.

Chapter Twenty-Four

It was long past midnight.

Plastic cups littered the table between us. The room smelled of stale cigarette smoke, burned coffee, and Marshall Weathers's cologne. I'd had about all I could take of repeating the details of how I came to discover Jerry Lee Sizemore's body. I wanted out.

"I've told you everything I can remember," I said finally. It was not the first time I had made that statement, but I had hopes it would be the last.

Marshall Weathers was just as tired. His eyes were bloodshot. He stared into the bottom of his coffee cup, as if hoping it would offer him more than bitter dregs and caffeine.

"You're right." He sighed and pushed the coffee cup away. "Let's call it a night."

He pushed back against his chair, brought his arms up, and laced his fingers behind his neck. For a moment he closed his eyes and I watched him. His face was pale beneath his tanned skin. The lines around his eyes had deepened.

"All right," he said, bringing the chair legs down on the ground and startling me. "I'll take you home, or wherever it is you're staying." The little sarcastic tone was back in his voice. It bothered him that I stayed with Jack. He probably figured we were having a torrid affair. The idea tickled me and I tried not to smile, but couldn't help it. He really didn't like that.

"What about my car?" I asked.

"Give me your keys. I'll see that it gets delivered."

"All right. Let's go." I stood up and grabbed my purse. He moved slower than I did, with more deliberation. He moved, I thought, like a panther, always looking for his next opportunity, always thinking three steps ahead.

Neither of us spoke again until we were seated in his car with the engine running.

"Where to?" he asked. "The warehouse district?" He put the car into reverse and started to leave the garage, assuming.

I let him assume. He pulled out onto Washington Street, heading for Jack's on Elm, and I let him drive almost to Elm before I spoke.

"My place."

"How's that?" Weathers reached over and cut the radio down, as if he hadn't heard me.

"I'm back at my place," I said.

"Huh." A little sound that spoke volumes. About time, it said. "Well good… shouldn't have been with that hippie harmonica player in the first place," it said.

He made a left on Elm and cut over to Friendly, clearly pleased to be heading away from Jack's.

He waited until we were rolling up in my backyard to speak again. "I don't want you to be paranoid," he said, "but you need to be cautious until we catch this guy."

It was the first true indication I had that he believed I wasn't a killer.

"Whoever killed your brother-in-law, and now your accountant, doesn't know that you're in the dark. He could be thinking that Sizemore got to you with his information."

I hadn't put all of that together yet, at least not consciously. But I was scared to death suddenly, so I knew in my heart he was right.

"All I'm saying is, don't take any unnecessary risks. Don't go out alone at night. Have someone walk you to your car after work. Don't go down to the mobile home lot anymore. The usual precautions." He threw that last one in almost as an afterthought, but I knew it was his main point. He'd said the words more slowly: "Don't go down to the mobile home lot."

"You take care of yourself and let me go to work on this."

I was about to say something sarcastic, but found I couldn't say anything. I was too scared to say a word. I looked up at my back deck, the light shining over my back door, every light in the house on, and realized I was terrified to go inside. What had seemed like such a perfect idea earlier in the evening now seemed foolhardy.

Weathers read me and cut the car's engine. "How about I come in and check around with you? Just put your mind at ease before I go?"