Carla Cassidy - Her Colton Lawman

She nodded and moved to get a cup. After pouring her coffee, she carried her cup to the table and sat down across from him.

She took a drink of her coffee and then set the cup back on the table. “I feel like I’m living somebody else’s life right now.”

“I wish I could tell you that this was all just a bad dream,” he replied. Despite the paleness of her features, she looked pretty with the artificial light over the kitchen table dancing in the strands of her hair and highlighting her delicate features.

“This is such a nightmare,” she replied with a tremulous sigh. “And I still haven’t quite realized that I’m not going to wake up and find out that everything is fine.” She took another drink and then looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes. “If you think I’m going to hole up here and not go into the diner today, then you’re sadly mistaken.”

“I was just thinking about the logistics of this protective-custody position that you find yourself in,” he replied. “And trust me, I figured there was no way I could keep you from your work. Besides being here in my house with me, the diner is probably the only other place I think you’ll be safe. Bittard wouldn’t kill you in the diner when he’d be leaving behind dozens of more witnesses.”

He couldn’t imagine that her face could have grown more pale, but it did, and he mentally cursed himself for his bluntness. But it was important she understand the severity of her situation.

She wrapped her fingers around her cup and stared down into the warm liquid. “Do you cook?” she asked and looked back up at him.

He sat back in his chair with surprise. Of all the things he’d expected her to say, her words weren’t even close to being on the short list. “Frozen pizza, microwave meals. Cooking has never been a big priority of mine. Why?”

“Then it’s not all gloom and doom. If I’m going to stay here then you can expect a home-cooked meal every night. I’ll either whip up something here or bring home-cooked meals from the diner. It’s the least I can do.”

“I’m not going to argue with you,” he replied with a smile. He was pleased to see some of the color coming back into her cheeks. “But if you cook all day long, why on earth would you want to cook for me when you’re off duty?”

She shrugged. “Cooking is what I do, it’s what I love. It makes me happy to cook for other people.”

“Then we probably need to work in a stop at the grocery store before the day is done. My refrigerator and pantry aren’t stocked with much of anything but canned soups and bologna and cheese.”

She took another sip of her coffee and eyed him over the rim of the cup. “This is going to be weird. I’m sure you aren’t used to sharing your space with anyone, and I’m definitely not used to sharing mine. I’ll try to be as unobtrusive as possible.”

“Nonsense,” he scoffed. “I want you to feel at home here for as long as you need to be here.”

She lowered her cup and flashed him a smile. “I’m sure it will only be a day or two and you’ll get Bittard in custody, and we can both go back to our own lives.”

With the warmth of her smile swirling around in the pit of his stomach, Flint almost hoped he didn’t find Bittard so soon. But it was a wayward, foolish thought. His first priority was keeping Nina safe. His second was to get the murderer back behind bars where he belonged, and so far Bittard had remained effective at remaining on the loose.

She got up to pour herself another cup of coffee and when she returned to the table, they lined up the schedule for the day. He would take her to work and then he’d go to work. He’d pick her up sometime early evening, and they’d stop to get her some clothes and things she’d need and stock up on some groceries before landing back here.

They left his house at just after seven, and he dropped her off at the diner, comforted that she assured him there were at least three people already there ahead of her and two of them were male cooks who came in at six each morning to prep for the day.

They had exchanged cell phone numbers earlier, and he told her he’d call her before picking her up that evening. From the diner he headed straight to the place where Jolene Tate had been murdered.

Officer Patrick Carter’s patrol car was parked next to the corner where bright yellow crime-scene tape marked off the area where Jolene’s body had been found.

Patrick got out of his car to greet Flint. “I’ve been sitting on the scene all night, and Officer McGlowen is at the house that Jolene has rented for the past month as it appears the confrontation between her and Hank started there.”

Flint nodded as he focused on the body form displayed on the ground and the markers that noted potential evidence that had already been collected. Jolene hadn’t had a stellar reputation in town, but nobody deserved to die the way she had. He gave himself a moment to grieve the dead and then looked around once again.

His team had done a good job, as he’d trusted them to do while he’d dealt with Nina the night before. “The coroner report should be on your desk sometime this morning, but the cause of death was definitely strangulation by rope,” Patrick said.

“That’s exactly what Nina described. I’m going to check out the house. I’ll be right back,” he said to Patrick. Flint headed up Cherry Street where two houses from the corner Jolene Tate had lived alone for the past month in a small bungalow.

Officer Dana McGlowen sat on the front porch and stood at his approach, her brown eyes looking like a puppy dog eager to please. She was a relatively new hire but had already shown herself to be highly motivated to do a good job. She had quickly become a valued member of the team.

“Have you been here all night?” Flint asked.

“Yes, sir,” Dana replied. “The crime scene boys were here last night and collected some things but intend to be back here this morning. They didn’t want to do too much before you had a chance to check things out.”

She stepped aside so he could enter the small living room. “It looks like a fight started in the kitchen, and then Jolene managed to run out of the front door in an attempt to get away. The front door was standing wide-open when we arrived last night to check it out.”

Normally, Flint would have been at both scenes immediately, overseeing the evidence gathering and leading his team, but Nina’s arrival at the station had forced him to allow his men to do their jobs without him. He could have assigned another officer to sit on Nina, and he had to admit that his desire not to had been strictly emotionally-driven. He’d simply felt he was the best man to stay with her.

He followed Dana into the kitchen, where it was obvious some sort of brawl had taken place. A kitchen chair lay on its back near the table, and broken glass littered the floor. A half-empty bottle of cheap wine sat in the center of the table, with a single glass. Flint suspected the other glass was what crunched beneath his feet.

“Any sign of forced entry?” he asked.

“None.”

“Then she must have invited him in,” Flint said thoughtfully. “If it was Bittard, then why in the hell would she let him inside? Why wouldn’t she call for help?”

“They were lovers before he got arrested. Women do stupid things when they’re in love,” Dana said as if she’d had personal experience in the matter. “He was probably trying to talk her out of testifying against him, making promises to her that she wanted to believe. Maybe he was trying to talk her into going on the run with him, and as soon as the quarantine was lifted, they could get out of town and be together with a fresh start.”

Flint shook his head. “She saw Hank kill Donny Gilmore in cold blood. What could Hank possibly say that would make her change her mind about testifying? Make her even think about hiding out or going on the run with him?”