“I’m coming, but…I’m two hours away.”
“I thought you had a motel here in Prescott.”
“I’ll explain when I see you.”
“Hurry,” he said.
Jonah punched the end button and let himself out of the laundry room. Francesca had only been sleeping for two and a half hours. But he was confident that she’d want to visit the scene. In any case, he wasn’t going to leave her behind. The timing and placement of the body made him far too nervous that it was connected to the man who’d visited her last night.
7
Francesca rolled over to escape the hand that was shaking her shoulder, but the persistence of the person trying to wake her eventually pulled her through the dense fog of unconsciousness.
“Hmm…what?” Opening her heavy eyelids, she blinked at the blurry face above her, recognized Jonah and smiled. He was so handsome. The strength of his arms and the warmth of his body made her eager for his touch, so eager that she took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. It’d been so long….
Then she remembered what he’d done. They weren’t lovers anymore. They weren’t even friends.
Pushing his hand away, she scrambled up against the headboard, out of reach, and tried to collect her muddled thoughts. The salvage yard. Jonah striding toward her. The mannequin. Investigator Finch’s anger. Butch by her pool. Those weren’t easy memories to confront but they were what reality had waiting for her. Rested or not, she had to deal with the situation she’d fallen into yesterday and find a way out before it was too late.
“It’s time to wake up already?” she mumbled to cover her lapse in judgment.
When he didn’t answer right away, she checked to see if he was gloating over that moment of weakness. But he didn’t seem to be. A stark expression appeared on his face—until he realized she was watching. Then the mask of indifference he’d worn ever since she’d learned about Adriana fell into place. “We’ve got work to do,” he said. “Do you need a shower?”
“Shower?” She yawned. “Wasn’t it you who said I should sleep while I can?”
“That was before Investigator Finch called to tell me there’s been another murder.”
Those words dispelled her fatigue. “Do we know the victim?”
“We don’t have a name yet. But, from the description, it could be April Bonner.”
April’s death was nothing more than Francesca had expected, and yet she didn’t want to believe it. “No…”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And all because she was lonely. All because she took a chance on the wrong guy.”
He said nothing. In a way, Francesca had taken a chance on the wrong guy, too. Him.
“Was it Butch?”
“Might’ve been. The body was found in Skull Valley, which is only fifteen minutes from Prescott, even closer to his place. And we both know he was active last night.”
“How does he do it? How does he slip out of his house without anyone noticing? He’s got a wife, a family. Don’t they wonder where he goes at night?”
“Maybe they’re too afraid to face what he might be.”
“Skull Valley’s near the location of the burial site you’ve been working on, too, isn’t it?” she said. “Don’t tell me he dumped her in Dead Mule Canyon.”
“Not quite. She was discovered on the sidewalk in front of a shop.”
“Butch loses his favorite dumping ground and has to come up with an alternative, so he shoves her out in downtown Skull Valley?”
“That makes it sound like he acted out of desperation or had nowhere else to put her. I don’t think that’s the case. Skull Valley was probably convenient. It’s small and remote, which lowers his chances of being seen. But he had other choices. There’s always the desert, where he’d have even less chance of being seen.”
Jonah was right. Butch had had plenty of choices. So why did he make that one? It wasn’t as if he’d been in a hurry last night. He’d put the body in a public location on purpose.
“He’s angry.” She’d felt it, hadn’t she? He was furious with all of them, especially her. “And he’s trying to make a statement.”
Jonah stood. “What kind of statement?”
“That he’s not afraid of the police.”
“That’s the same message he was trying to send you last night.”
“Exactly.”
He motioned for her to get off the bed. “Come on. We’ve got a two-hour drive ahead of us.”
She scooted past him. “Just give me five minutes to shower.”
Francesca’s eyes felt as if they were filled with sand even after her shower. She didn’t have time for makeup, but she took a few seconds to rub some aloe vera on the backs of her arms and legs where the hot ground had scraped and burned her skin yesterday. She also put up her hair and swiped on some lip gloss. Then she dressed in brown linen capris with a turquoise blouse, got her Gucci sandals and went to the kitchen, where she could smell food.
It’d been a long time since she’d had a man in her house, let alone one who cooked. “Smells good. What’ve you got?”
Jonah stood at the window with his back to her. When he turned, she saw how bloodshot his eyes were and realized he was tired, too. The beard growth on his jaw was more pronounced than usual, but his exhaustion showed even more in a certain lethargy. Such sluggishness wasn’t characteristic of someone who possessed as much energy and athletic grace as Jonah.
“Eggs,” he said. “That’s all you had, unless you count a six-pack of yogurt that expired three months ago. Don’t you ever eat here?”
“I’ve been on the fly.”
“Looks like it. You hungry?”
“Starved.” He’d set her plate on the table across from where he’d obviously eaten. Tossing her shoes beside her chair, she headed to the coffeepot first. “But if I plan to get through this day, I need to start with a jolt of caffeine.”
“You’ve actually got options,” he said.
Although she tried not to pay attention, the pectoral muscles flexing beneath his T-shirt as he moved showed her that his chest hadn’t really changed much. Maybe he was a little more muscular than when they’d dated, but he was still lean. And she had to admire the fit of his jeans. They rode low on his hips, molded perfectly to his butt and legs.