Page 69 of Big Bad Wolfe

“Zane,” she said softly as her stomach lurched. “Did your father beat you?”

His mouth tightened. “He smacked us around on occasion—until I got old enough to stop him. But fists weren’t his usual weapon of choice.”

He pivoted and strode toward the door. “We have work to do.”

Chest aching, she caught up and walked beside him toward the building. She’d always been able to depend on Pop for comfort and encouragement. Couldn’t imagine how alone and vulnerable and afraid she’d have been growing up without her father’s devout love and protection.

Rather than trek around to the side entrance, they paused outside the public front door, which Jillian had explained to Zane was always kept locked so visitors had to be buzzed in. Jillian contacted Tala over the intercom, requesting entrance. Inside the office, Jillian paused to speak to the young pregnant girl. “Loucinda’s had a minor accident and hurt her ankle. Please route any phone calls for her to me.”

“Oh thatsucks!I will, Ms. Ramsay.”

Zane followed Jillian into her office, where he sat at what used to be Deb’s desk and booted up the computer. He needed to get his mind off his wife and back on work.

She made it a lot tougher by resting both palms on the desk and leaning toward him. His gaze lifted of its own volition, lingered on the creamy skin beneath her pearls. Her scent tantalized his senses, brought the memory of the honeyed taste of her passion-dampened skin, her rapid pulse throbbing beneath his lips. Every cell in his body went on alert.

He’d wanted to mark her, and he had. But it wasn’t enough.

He battled the urge to sweep everything off the desk and take her. Possess her.

He went painfully hard. He could have her. She’d offered him no-strings sex.

But with a warm-hearted woman like Jillian, there would always be strings. They’d get tangled and then she’d get hurt.

Besides, he didn’t desire just sex with Jillian. He inhaled sharply. He wanted the impossible.

He wanted to stay with her.

“Zane?” Jillian’s sweet voice pulled him out of the swirling blackness.

Zane shook his head. “What?”

“You zoned out on me. You didn’t get much sleep last night. If you want to go home—”

“I’m fine,” he lied.

“If you say so, Champ. I need to go make rounds of the classrooms and say hi to Casey.”

She left, and Zane forced his attention back to the computer. He’d been meticulously searching through months of Deb’s retrieved emails and phone records, both business and personal, but so far had found nothing remotely implicating her involvement with Reynolds. They’d been damned careful.

While she was gone, the capricious Oregon weather changed yet again, and sunshine bullied its way through the dark clouds, eventually vanquishing them.

Thirty-or-so minutes later, Jillian rushed in, closing the door behind her. “I can’t find my cell phone. Did Pop call the office?”

“Not yet. But you know what a zoo the ER can be.”

She patted her pants’ pockets. “I had my phone in my pocket this morning, I don’t know where … Oh, wait.” She hurried her desk drawer and retrieved her purse from the bottom drawer. “I had to turn it off on the plane and I stashed it in here.Whew.I thought I was going to have to call myself again.”

Zane sat up straighter. “What did you just say?”

“You know, when you lose your cell phone and have to call yourself, and pray you left the ringer on so you can find it?”

“Holy shit, that’s it.” His fingers flew over the keyboard seeking re-entrance to Deb’s phone records. He’d combed through hundreds of calls going back six months previous to her death, but nothing had blipped on his radar yet. “Deb’s private cell Reynolds gave her was missing, but if there’s any chance she couldn’t locate it even once and called it from her everyday cell, we’ll have her private number and can access those call records.”

She gasped. “And connect Deb to Reynolds!”

“Maybe. It’s still a long-shot, and won’t prove anything except they exchanged phone conversations, andonlyif we can link the other number she called to Reynolds.”

“But it’s a start.” Jillian turned on her phone, scowled. “No messages or texts from Pop. One unknown voicemail.”

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