Adrienne Giordano - The Marshal

He’d started calling his cousin James when they were kids and the nickname had stuck. She never seemed to mind.

Obviously done ranting, Aunt Sylvie waved at Barnes, who’d finished digging a file box from his car and had set it on the trunk. “Sheriff, how are you?”

“I’m good, Sylvie. You all right?”

“Oh, we’re just fine.” She shot Brent the stink-eye. “Wouldn’t mind seeing my niece and nephew a little more.”

Guilt, Brent had enough of. Hell, he had enough guilt to fill the Chicago River. “You know how to drive. And Chicago is only an hour.”

As usual, her mouth dropped open and she gasped. “Look at you with that smart mouth.”

“Merely an observation.”

Jamie cleared her throat. “What’s in the box, Sheriff?”

The sheriff glanced at Brent, unsure how much to reveal, so Brent took that one. “That’s for me. Copies of Mom’s files.”

With that bright spotlight shining down on her, Aunt Sylvie whipped her gaze between Brent and the sheriff. Brent knew right where her mind had gone. “Has something happened? A lead?”

Dang. He’d been insensitive. He knew her. Knew how her mind worked and the slow-curling panic that fired every time the sheriff pulled into one of these driveways.

And Brent hadn’t warned her.

Gave her zero notice about Jenna investigating. Moron.

Brent touched her arm. “No. But there’s someone I’ll introduce you to in a minute. She’s inside talking with Uncle Herb. I think she can help us.”

“Who is she?”

“An investigator. Remember the lawyer I helped last spring?”

“That adorable little blonde?”

Adorable. Penny would hate that. She’d like Uncle Herb’s description better. “Yes. The investigator works for her law firm. They offered to help with Mom’s case.”

Aunt Sylvie cocked her head. “She’s good, this investigator?”

“She is.”

And she’s got a body that drives me insane. Not that he’d say that, but he was a man, and men had needs. Needs that Brent had been sorely neglecting lately. Needs that maybe Jenna could help him with.

When they were done finding a killer.

Because as much as Brent fantasized about a long night with Jenna in his bed, his priority was catching his mother’s killer. If he and Jenna got involved, something told him it would get ugly when he walked away. And walk away, he would. He liked coming and going as he pleased and not having to explain himself to anyone. He didn’t see that changing anytime soon.

The snick of the front-door latch sounded and they all turned toward the house. Jenna came down the porch steps.

She walked toward them, her coat flying open to reveal her blouse and the slacks that fit her curvy body in all the right ways.

“Wow,” Jamie said. “She’s pretty.”

Aunt Sylvie gave him a bored look. “This is your investigator?”

Brent grinned. “Yep!”

“Which body part made this decision?” she whispered.

“Well, look at you with that smart mouth,” he said in his best Sylvie voice.

Without giving her an opportunity to respond, he waved Jenna over. “Come meet my aunt and cousin.”

After doing the introductions, Brent turned to Aunt Sylvie. “Jenna will be poking around. Don’t freak when you see a car in the driveway.”

“Yes,” Jenna said. “I’d like to chat with both of you, at your convenience, of course.”

Aunt Sylvie pressed her lips together, and then shot a look at Uncle Herb who nodded. She didn’t like talking about her sister. Ever. Growing up, Brent had craved stories about his mom, but the memories were too painful for his aunt and she typically ran from the room sobbing. Over the years, Brent had been conditioned not to talk about his mother. Which pretty much stunk.

“Of course,” his aunt said. “If it’ll help. I’m available anytime.”

“Thank you. I’d like to read through the sheriff’s files first. Would it be all right if I call you in a day or two?” She looked at Jamie. “Both of you?”

“Sure,” Jamie said. “Anytime.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, have you eaten?” his aunt asked Brent. “I could fix you something.”

A meal would serve him good right now, but the night had dragged on and, as hopeful as he was about the new energy Jenna brought, talking about his mother, reliving that night, had drained him. Time to get back to Chicago, where the sounds of the city would drown the noise in his head. Silence, he’d learned long ago, was his enemy. During high school and college, football helped smother it. With football, the energy it took to step to the line and get his head beat in was all the distraction he needed. When he became a marshal—nothing boring there—silence was no longer an issue. Pretty much, the US Marshal Service was involved in everything from judicial and witness security to asset forfeiture. If it involved federal laws, US marshals were there. One day he could chase down a fugitive, the next make sure a witness didn’t get blown away by someone they’d just testified against.

Out here, in his childhood hometown where the streets were desolate after six o’clock and the only outside noise came from birds or cicadas or blowing leaves, the quiet created emotional chaos.

Gotta go.

He leaned down, kissed his aunt’s cheek. “We need to get back to the city. Maybe on the weekend.”

“Saturday,” she said. “After church.”

He laughed. By now he should know better than to throw out a maybe. His aunt took a maybe and turned it into a definitely.

“You could come early and go to church with us.”

Now she wanted church too. Years since he’d done that. Which was a shame. He used to enjoy church, but now it gave him too much time to reflect on things he shouldn’t reflect on. “Don’t push it. Saturday for dinner. I’ll be here. I’ll see what Camille is doing. Don’t worry. I’ll channel the guilt from you.”

She waved her hands. “Oh, with the sass.”

He kissed her again. “I love you. Good night.”

“I love you, too. Drive carefully. No speeding.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He turned to Jenna. “All set?”

Please let her be all set.

She nodded. “You bet.”

He shook hands with the sheriff. “Thank you. I’ll call you with any updates.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

On the way to his SUV, he grabbed the file box off the back of the sheriff’s cruiser, the weight of it, as always, easy to handle. Most of what was in that file he’d probably seen already. Except for the photos. Being a marshal, he’d learned to take emotion out of a case. Even when it came to his mother. He could read the forensics reports, investigator notes and the autopsy report. All of it, he could handle. Even some of the crime scene photos showing the exterior of the house or certain pieces of evidence were tolerable. But not the ones of his mom’s body. Those were a different damned beast, and he couldn’t find a compartment big enough to control the massive anger those pictures would unleash.

Balancing the box against the SUV, he opened the back door, shoved the box on the seat and walked around to get Jenna’s door. By the time he’d gotten there, she already had her hand on the handle.

“I’ve got it,” he said.

“Again with this?”

When he’d picked her up at her apartment, she’d teased him about the gesture. What she didn’t know was his aunt would skin him if he abandoned his manners. Plus, he liked doing it. “Yeah. Again with this. Get used to it and don’t argue.”

He held open the door and waved her into the car. To that, she tilted her chin up and saluted. “Yes, sir.”

And the look on her face, so serious with her cheeks sucked in and her gaze straight ahead, made him laugh. Really laugh.