Sworn to Be His (The Archer Family Book 3) (2 page)

"And deprive you of the honor? No." He smiled, remembering the horror-struck look on her face when the email had dinged into their in-boxes the day before.

"Good. I have a speech prepared."

"Oh, I'm sure you do." He chuckled. This from the woman who planned speeches to request vacation time. Her soliloquy on the badge was sure to be right up there with the "I Have a Dream" speech.

"You laugh, but are you really going to walk around town with that symbol on you?"

"You're right. You're a freedom fighter."

"Damn straight." She nodded, then grabbed her coffee cup from the counter and made for the door. "What would you do without me?"

"Probably a better job."

She leveled him with a glare before heading out the door, but he hung back, still trying to shake the weird uneasiness that had clung to his chest since the meeting had begun this morning.

This wasn't the first time a feeling like this had plagued him. Way back when it had just been him and his dad and his two little siblings, he'd always gotten this feeling when Andy or Matt was about to get sick or in trouble. And when he'd been in the Army, he'd felt this way, too. Just before trips into Kabul when they could never be sure what they'd find or what might happen.

It was more than apprehension, and less than certainty. Suspicion, but not belief. And whatever it amounted to, the end result was that it made him uneasy.

Maybe he was missing something in this case. Something obvious he'd picked up on subconsciously. He reviewed the notes in his mind and leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, but nothing came.

Nothing.

And that was the worst part of all.

D
errick exed
out of the email from his sister and glanced at the clock in the far corner of the office, just above the wide glass conference room partition. It was nearly noon. The whole morning had passed and this stupid feeling still hadn't gone away.

Worse, his interview had done nothing to assuage the feeling. He'd been assigned to a little old lady, Agnes, who was nice enough and cooperative enough but...there was something else. Something he couldn't put his finger on. It had something to do with the way she almost flinched when he tried to get specifics of who she'd seen. The way she suddenly stopped talking and had to go when she'd finally broken down and told him how the crime had transpired.

He gritted his teeth and glanced at Jade's cubicle. She was staring off into the distance, her blond hair tucked absently into the back of her blouse from where it had fallen out of its haphazard knot. He shook his head. Damn girl was a mess.

Sliding from his seat, he walked over to her and tapped on her shoulder. She gave a little start, then pressed her hand to her chest and shot him a glare. "Hey, didn't your father teach you better than to scare people?"

"Guess not." Derrick shrugged. "Ready for lunch or are you busy solving something?"

He was teasing her, and she knew as much. She almost never came up with epiphanies when she was sitting by herself. She was one of those weird kind of people that had to be talking to someone, working through it, pushing themselves to keep talking until they stopped and the answer was staring them in the face.

Just last month she'd called him on his weekend off to try to talk through a gang-related murder. He'd fallen asleep while they were on the phone, but she hadn't cared. She just needed to feel like someone was there to listen.

"Okay, fine, you caught me spacing out. But yes, I'm starving. Did you bring anything good today?" She pushed out of her seat to walk with him toward the break room.

"Nope. Peanut butter and jelly. The usual."

"Trade you for my lean cuisine." She batted her eyelashes up at him. "It's sesame chick-en."

"Good as that sounds, I'll have to pass." He crossed the room quickly and grabbed his lunch out of the fridge before settling at one of the round wooden tables in front of the half-stocked vending machines.

Jade was slower, carefully reading the instructions on the back of the box and following them to the letter despite the fact that she brought nearly the same thing every day.

"So, how did your interview go?" He asked between bites, and when she clicked the microwave door shut, she shot him a skeptical glance.

"I was going to ask you the same thing."

"Beat you to it." He swigged his iced tea and Jade leaned back against the soda machine. "I got a young woman. She was...less than helpful."

"Not so unusual."

"No, but once people feel like they're safe and can help, they tend to, you know,
help
."

"So what was it? Bad information?" He furrowed his brow, willing her not to answer with what he already knew she'd say.

"She was tight lipped, but she seemed like she actually did want to help. It was almost like..." Jade glanced at the microwave, then tapped her fingers against the ugly green countertop. "It was like someone threatened her."

And there it was. His own suspicions put on the table in front of him.

"Mine too." He rubbed his chin then said, "So, we've got a couple options. Maybe these ladies coincidentally acted odd on the same day in regard to the same crime."

"Which is about as likely as you getting and keeping a girlfriend." Jade cocked an eyebrow.

"What would I need a girlfriend for?" he shot back, then shook his head. "Beside the point. Anyway, so either they were living in bizarro world today
or
Scaglietti's guys tracked them down and told them not to talk."

"So what do we do? We can't risk their lives."

"No, we can't." Derrick took another bite of his sandwich and willed his mind to work harder. "If they knew these two were coming in, it's likely that they got everyone who witnessed it."

"How is that even possible? They'd have to have access to the security cameras and some serious face recognition software."

"Which they don't have because they short circuited  the electric, including the security cameras before they set foot in the restaurant itself." Derrick sighed.

The microwave beeped and Jade slid into the seat opposite him. "It doesn't make sense."

"No. It doesn't. But if we think about this, we can probably figure it out. Okay, how else would they know who all the witnesses were."

"They could have threatened them at the time of the crime."

"The average person would know they couldn't keep their word like that. No, these ladies seemed like there was a very serious threat of follow through." Derrick sipped his iced tea again, but when he looked at Jade he found that her blue eyes had glassed over, her jaw slack.

He followed her gaze to find Zac Flynn entering the room.

"Hey guys." He smiled. "Hell of a case you've got going for this Scaglietti guy. They weren't kidding when they said it would take me all week. How long you been working on it?"

"Better part of two years," Derrick answered since Jade seemed so clearly incapable of doing so.

"Damn, that's a lot of work." Flynn shook his head, then crossed the room, opened the fridge, and grabbed a yogurt.

Strawberry.

It would be strawberry.

"Word around the unit is that you were some big shot in the Army," Flynn said.

"I did my part," Derrick said. "You Navy?"

Flynn nodded.

Called it.

"I hope we can try to work past our differences," Flynn offered a friendly smile and Derrick answered in kind, though the effort hurt his muscles.

Jade, meanwhile, seemed unable to determine whether she should stare down at her meal or follow along with the conversation—a condition only made evident by the way her gaze darted back and forth like she was watching a particularly sporting tennis match.

Flynn apparently didn't notice this, and asked her, "You guys get anything good from your witnesses?"

"Nah. Not yet. We might, though. With, you know, time. Effort." She stabbed her piece of sesame chicken and bit her bottom lip. Derrick's stomach twisted just watching her.

"She's being modest," he stepped in. "We haven't gotten to go over everything just yet."

"I'm sure," Flynn offered another of those too-casual smiles and nodded. "Well, I'll leave you guys to it."

Derrick nodded and then the other man turned on his heel and headed for the door. With every passing step, he watched as Jade's face turned from green to grey and finally to a deep, glowing red.

When the door had closed at last, she buried her face in her hands and Derrick asked, "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"I...Look, it's better if we don't talk about it."

Derrick wasn't about to let her off the hook so easy though. "You're a 28-year-old woman. You don't know how to talk to men?"

"I know how to talk to men. You've seen me talk to men."

"I thought I had, but I don't know what the hell that sorry display was."

"Me neither." She groaned. "Can't we just talk about the case?"

"I would, but this feels like that's suddenly way less interesting than it used to be." He grinned, though a part of him wasn't sure if he wanted to know what was going on or if he was just doing his best to ignore the growing ache in his stomach.

"Oh shut up." She curled her lip.

"Jade and Za-ac sitting in a tree—"

She tried to hush him and threw a napkin in his face, but he caught it before it hit him.

"K-i-s-s-i-n-g," He singsonged.

She rolled her eyes. "What's it going to take to get you to shut up about this?"

"Details." He spread his hands out in front of him. "Pretty simple. What makes the ball-busting detective I know and tolerate turn into a stumbling, fumbling—no offense—but total buffoon?"

"Little harsh." She glared.

He shrugged. "You gonna tell me or not?"

J
ade wanted
to dig herself a hole right there in the middle of the break room and bury herself in it. At least there she'd be free of this feeling like everyone could see her heart pounding out of her chest, her thoughts written out on her forehead.

"So, I know him. Sort of."

"I gathered as much." He nodded.

"We went to high school together."

"Did he get in your pants?" Derrick asked.

Heat rushed to her cheeks. "What? No. I wish."

"
Ew
." He grimaced.

"
You're
the one who asked. No, he was never with me. I barely ever got up the guts to talk to him."

"That is clear to all of us."

Jade frowned. "Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Fine, fine. You're right. Continue."

"The only time I got to talk to him was in debate club. He used to be able to argue like nobody you've ever seen. I'm telling you." She sighed and when Derrick raised his eyebrows, she tried to pull herself together again.

"Anyway," she went on, "everyone wanted to date him. He was sort of a big deal, but he had this...reputation."

"You like bad boys? Is that why you're a cop? Do you have some fantasy of pulling someone over and—"

"No, nothing like that. Now interrupt me again and I'll punish you."

Derrick closed his mouth and folded his hands on the table in front of him.

"He had a reputation for only dating girls he couldn't have. He had, like, this
thing
about him. I think he liked the pressure of it, dating other guys’ girls. Anyway, I think that's why half the girls in the school wanted to date him. For the suspense of it."

"He only dated other men's women? Isn't that sort of...what a scumbag does?"

Jade shook her head. "It wasn't like that. You know how high school is. Besides, I'm sure he doesn't do that anymore."

"Okay, so if you're interested in this guy, why don't you just ask him out?" Derrick asked.

She paused. There was no easy way to explain it without sounding like an idiot or worse, a pathetic idiot. But then, this was Derrick and if anybody was going to understand, he would.

"Have you ever been around someone in your life where you just know they don't really see you that way?" She asked.

He considered her for a minute, then said, "I'm trying to be supportive, but to be honest I have to say no."

She shook her head. Not that she was surprised. She's seen the way women looked at Derrick—no, not looked. Ogled. Like he was a juicy, rippled piece of meat and they hadn't eaten in months. Of course, the women he tended to date also looked like they were used to not eating.

"Well, when you look like a normal person with more than 3 percent body fat, sometimes people put you in what's called the 'friend zone.'"

"No such thing as the friend zone. It's in your head." He tapped his temple with one finger, knowingly. Like he was some kind of Jedi master of hooking up. Which, thinking again of the line of girls she'd seen him with, might also have been the case.

Nevertheless, she rolled her eyes. Okay, how would she explain this to Johnny Depp? She tried again, "Well, regardless,  sometimes people don't see
me
as a, you know..." She searched for the words, then mumbled "sexual being." As quickly and quietly as she could.

"People don't see you as a semblance beaming?" He raised his eyebrows.

"No, not that. They don't look at me and think,
wow, I'd really love to give her a bit of the old...hokey pokey
."

Derrick's eyebrows inched so high up on his forehead that they almost disappeared behind his shaggy black bangs. "It might have something to do with the fact that you call it that."

"Only in front of you. You don't count."

Derrick laughed. "Gee, thanks."

"You know what I mean." The heat in her cheeks scorched hotter and she pressed a hand to one to cool it down.

"I do." He took a  drink and raked her over with something that looked curiously like appraisal.

"Well?" She asked when he stayed silent.

"Well, what? You want my input on why men don't see you as a
sexual being
?"

"You
are
a man."

"So I count as a man, but not really?"

"Exactly." She nodded.

Derrick sighed and threaded a hand through his hair before sitting back and studying her again. "I don't know. I've never looked at you like that, but I guess...You've got a nice rack."

"Thank you?" She wanted to cross her arms over her chest just hearing the words aloud, but she fought the urge.

"You're welcome. Your hair, too, is nice."

"Thanks."

"But it might be nicer if you did something to it. You wear it in that bun every day. It's...pretty when it's down." He said the word "pretty" awkwardly, like it was a slippery fish he was trying to catch with his bare hands.

"Okay, okay."

"Your clothes too, are..."

"What?" she almost snapped.

He frowned. "Do we have to do this?"

"I need to know."

"Okay, so you maybe could dress sexier. This is from an objective point of view, mind you."

She glanced down at her blouse and slacks and quirked her mouth to the side. "Like how sexier?"

"I've never seen your legs, for starters. Not that I want to. Those things are probably so white they'll blind you."

She bit her tongue, ashamed that he was pretty much on the nose with that one. "Okay. Right. So, tan and wear skirts."

"Or at least pants that don't have those 70's pleats down the middle."

"Wow. Harsh." She winced.

"You asked for the truth. You could probably get away with showing some cleavage, too."

"Right. Okay. I can do that." She thought again of the frightful whiteness of her skin, even despite the Hawaiian heat her fair skin never managed to do anything but burn. But she could try again. For Zac.

"If this guy is into girls who are taken, though, it seems like your best bet is just to get a boyfriend and see what happens." Derrick snorted and took a bite of his sandwich.