Diana Palmer - The Maverick - The Maverick / Magnate’s Make-Believe Mistress

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am,” she replied, moving closer. “I need some tape measures and Super Glue and matches and chalk and push pins and colored string and sticky tape.”

“Don’t tell me,” he drawled. “You’re a contractor.”

“Oh, she’s something a little less conventional than that, Harley,” Police Chief Cash Grier said as he came up the steps to the store. “How’s it going, Jones?” he asked.

“I’m overflowing in DBs, Grier,” she replied with a grin. “Want some?”

He held up his hands. “We don’t do a big business in homicides here. I’d like to keep it that way.” He scowled. “You’re out of your territory a bit, aren’t you?”

“I am. I was asked down here by your sheriff, Hayes Carson. He actually does have a DB. I’m working the crime scene for him per his request through the Bexar County medical examiner’s office, but I didn’t bring enough supplies. I hope the hardware store can accommodate me. It’s a long drive back to San Antonio when you’re on a case.”

“On a case?” Harley asked, confused.

“Yes, on a case,” she said. “Unlike you, some of us are professionals who have real jobs.”

“Do you know him?” Cash asked her.

She gave Harley a studied appraisal. “Not really. He came barreling up the steps and hit me with a door. He says he’s a cowboy,” she added in a confidential tone. “But just between us, I’m sure he’s lying. He doesn’t have a horse or a rope, he isn’t wearing a cowboy hat or boots, he says he can’t sing, and he thinks bulls roam around loose in hardware stores.”

Harley stared at her with more mixed emotions than he’d felt in years.

Cash choked back a laugh. “Well, he actually is a cowboy,” Cash defended him. “He’s Harley Fowler, Cy Parks’s foreman on his cattle ranch.”

“Imagine that!” she exclaimed. “What a blow to the image of Texas if some tourist walks in and sees him dressed like that!” She indicated Harley’s attire with one slender hand. “They can’t call us the cowboy capital of the world if we have people working cattle in baseball caps! We’ll be disgraced!”

Cash was trying not to laugh. Harley looked as if he might explode.

“Better a horseless cowboy than a contractor with an attitude like yours!” Harley shot back, with glittery eyes. “I’m amazed that anybody around here would hire you to build something for them.”

She gave him a superior look. “I don’t build things. But I could if I wanted to.”

“She really doesn’t build things,” Cash said. “Harley, this is Alice Mayfield Jones,” he introduced. “She’s a forensic investigator for the Bexar County medical examiner’s office.”

“She works with dead people?” Harley exclaimed, and moved back a step.

“Dead bodies,” Alice returned, glaring at his obvious distaste. “DBs. And I’m damned good at my job. Ask him,” she added, nodding toward Cash.

“She does have a reputation,” Cash admitted. His dark eyes twinkled. “And a nickname. Old Jab-’Em-in-the-Liver Alice.”

“You’ve been talking to Marc Brannon,” she accused.

“You did help him solve a case, back when he was still a Texas Ranger,” he pointed out.

“Now they’ve got this new guy, transferred up from Houston,” she said on a sigh. “He’s real hard going. No sense of humor.” She gave him a wry look. “Kind of like you used to be, in the old days when you worked out of the San Antonio district attorney’s office, Grier,” she recalled. “A professional loner with a bad attitude.”

“Oh, I’ve changed.” He grinned. “A wife and child can turn the worst of us inside out.”

She smiled. “No kidding? If I have time, I’d love to see that little girl everybody’s talking about. Is she as pretty as her mama?”

He nodded. “Oh, yes. Every bit.”

Harley pulled at his collar. “Could you stop talking about children, please?” he muttered. “I’ll break out in hives.”

“Allergic to small things, are you?” Alice chided.

“Allergic to the whole subject of marriage,” he emphasized with a meaningful stare.

Her eyebrows arched. “I’m sorry, were you hoping I was going to ask you to marry me?” she replied pleasantly. “You’re not bad-looking, I guess, but I have a very high standard for prospective bridegrooms. Frankly,” she added with a quick appraisal, “if you were on sale in a groom shop, I can assure you that I wouldn’t purchase you.”

He stared at her as if he doubted his hearing. Cash Grier had to turn away. His face was going purple.

The hardware-store door opened and a tall, black-haired, taciturn man came out it. He frowned. “Jones? What the hell are you doing down here? They asked for Longfellow!”

She glared back. “Longfellow hid in the women’s restroom and refused to come out,” she said haughtily. “So they sent me. And why are you interested in Sheriff Carson’s case? You’re a fed.”

Kilraven put his finger to his lips and looked around hastily to make sure nobody was listening. “I’m a policeman, working on the city force,” he said curtly.

Alice held up both hands defensively. “Sorry! It’s so hard to keep up with all these secrets!”

Kilraven glanced at his boss and back at Alice. “What secrets?”

“Well, there’s the horseless cowboy there—” she pointed at Harley “—and the DB over on the Little Carmichael River…”

Kilraven’s silver eyes widened. “On the river? I thought it was in town. Nobody told me!”

“I just did,” Alice said. “But it’s really a secret. I’m not supposed to tell anybody.”

“I’m local law enforcement,” Kilraven insisted. “You can tell me. Who is he?”

Alice gave him a bland look and propped a hand on her hip. “I only looked at him for two minutes before I realized I needed to get more investigative supplies. He’s male and dead. He’s got no ID, he’s naked, and even his mother wouldn’t recognize his face.”

“Dental records…” Kilraven began.

“For those, you need identifiable teeth,” Alice replied sweetly.

Harley was turning white.

She glanced at him. “Are you squeamish?” she asked hopefully. “Listen, I once examined this dead guy whose girlfriend caught him with a hooker. After she offed him, she cut off his…Where are you going?”

Harley was making a beeline for the interior of the hardware store.

“Bathroom, I imagine.” Grier grinned at Kilraven, who chuckled.

“He works around cattle and he’s squeamish?” Alice asked, delighted. “I’ll bet he’s a lot of fun when they round up the calves!”

“Not nice,” Kilraven chided. “Everybody’s got a weak spot, Jones. Even you.”

“I have no weak spots,” she assured him.

“No social life, either,” Grier murmured. “I heard you tried to conduct a postmortem on a turkey in North Carolina during a murder investigation there.”

“It met with fowl play,” she said, straight-faced.

Both men chuckled.

“I have to get to work,” she said, becoming serious. “This is a strange case. Nobody knows who this guy is or where he came from, and there was a serious attempt to make him unidentifiable. Even with DNA, when I can get a profile back from state—and don’t hold your breath on the timetable—I don’t know if we can identify him. If he has no criminal record, he won’t be on file anywhere.”

“At least we don’t get many of these,” Kilraven said quietly.

Jones smiled at him. “When are you coming back up to San Antonio?” she asked. “You solved the Pendleton kidnapping and helped wrap up the perps.”

“Just a few loose ends to tie up,” he said. He nodded at her and his boss. “I’ll get back on patrol.”