Page 16 of The Creekside Murder (Pacific Northwest Forensics #1)

“She did protect me, but it was at her expense. She figured as long as she could keep the attention of Mom’s sleazy boyfriends on her and away from me, she was doing her job as a big sister.

I mean, it only makes sense she would turn to drugs and sex work after a childhood like that.

” Jessica’s eyes watered and she sniffed, but it wasn’t due to the spicy beef she’d just popped into her mouth.

“It makes sense. Tiffany was a hero. Hey—” he aimed a chopstick at her “—I discovered something interesting today, or rather some one interesting. Did Tiffany ever mention a guy named Deke Macy to you?”

“Deke Macy. Doesn’t sound familiar. Who is he?”

He explained to her how he’d checked out the greeting cards in the student store and landed in Deke Macy’s office.

Finn said, “He had a creepy attitude toward the young women on campus.”

“Sounds like a loser, but what would he have to do with Tiffany?”

“I found out from the accounting supervisor in the office, Nia, that Deke has been working at the university for about twelve years, and he started in food service…like Tiffany.”

“Oh my God, yeah. If he was still working food service ten years ago, he would’ve worked with my sister. Did he mention Tiffany?”

“No, that’s the weird thing. We were discussing the current campus murders, so you’d think he would’ve brought up the fact that he’d worked with a previous murder victim.”

“Maybe, but why be so obvious about his attraction to the young women on campus? He had to know that would be a red flag for you, or anyone. You didn’t hear him laugh, did you? There would be no mistaking that laugh.”

“Nope.” Finn maneuvered a piece of chicken with his chopsticks. “He must already have a reputation on campus. Why try to pretend or hide it now? The kids seem to call him Dick instead of Deke.”

Jessica started to smirk and then stopped. “Wait. Dick does sound familiar. Tiffany used to talk a lot about her coworkers because it was her first real job, and I remember her joking about some guy named Dick. What are you going to do with this information?”

“Already done. I reported my conversation with Deke to Detective Morse. I mean, there’s more.

Both Morgan and Missy worked on campus in the university bookstore complex.

The student employees who open and close the registers have to pick up and drop off the cash at accounting.

Deke’s office is in the accounting area. ”

“So Morgan and Missy were in that office, near Deke?”

“That, I don’t know. Nia, the accounting manager, doesn’t remember either of the girls being regulars.” He took a sip of wine. “Doesn’t mean they weren’t there, and Deke didn’t know them. What did you discover today?”

She jabbed a finger at him. “You uncovered a person of interest. I just remembered my sister’s favorite color.”

“What’s the significance of your sister’s favorite color?” He wiped his mouth with a paper towel and crumpled it in his hand. “I have those files you asked for, by the way. I pulled them out of my garage when I got home.”

“Red. We found red fibers on Missy, just like at Morgan’s crime scene.

Missy had them under her fingernails, and I discovered more in the area.

Tiffany’s favorite color was red. The sympathy card references red.

Maybe there’s some significance there. Neither of the women was wearing anything red, so it didn’t come from them. ”

Finn said, “It’s a reach.”

At least he hadn’t rolled his eyes. “I know that, but I’m looking at everything through the lens of Tiffany’s case.

For whatever reason, whether this guy murdered Tiffany or not, he’s got a thing for her homicide.

He duplicated it with these two victims—same manner of death, same location, and he’s involving me in his crime spree.

He aimed his chopsticks at the kitchen counter behind her. “More food? I forgot I bought egg rolls, too.”

“No, I’m good.” She stretched and finished her glass of wine. “I’ll clean up in here while you bring in the box. We can look at it on this table?”

“That works.”

Finn pushed back from the table, and she collected the dishes, rinsed them and put them in the dishwasher. Jessica closed up the boxes of leftover food and stacked them in the fridge, which seemed fairly well stocked for a bachelor.

Bodhi kept her company, hoping for a stray morsel of food, and she obliged with several. As she held the paper bag, greasy with the eggrolls inside, Finn walked past her and snatched the bag from her hand.

“I’m gonna need at least one of these with my second glass of wine.

I can’t drink the stuff without food.” He dumped the egg rolls onto a plate and popped the lids on the sweet-and-sour sauce and spicy mustard.

He then grabbed the bottle of wine from the fridge and returned to the table to fill their glasses.

Her pulse jumped when she saw the cardboard box on the floor next to the table. Wiping her hands on a dish towel, she said, “I’m ready.”

As he sat next to her at the table and kicked the lid off the box, he said, “I have…crime scene photos in here. I can separate them, if you like.”

“I’ve seen them before, but you can leave them in the box as long as there’s a list of Tiffany’s clothing.” She took a gulp of wine.

“There is. I’ll have a look at the people the detectives questioned, too. Maybe Deke’s one of them.” He bent over, shuffling through the files in the box. He dropped a couple of folders on the table, and little puffs of dust made her sneeze.

“Sorry about that.” He hopped up from his seat and grabbed a few paper towels from the kitchen. When he sat down, he wiped down both folders, front and back.

He shoved one toward her with his finger. “You should be able to find her clothing in there.”

Her hand trembled slightly when she reached for the file. Holding her breath, she flipped it open. Words, just words. Neatly typed words on a page to summarize a whole life.

She skimmed the first few pages until she came to a description of the body at the scene. She skipped the gruesome details, which she could recite by heart anyway, and zeroed in on the items her sister was wearing. Pictures of the clothing followed.

Jessica smiled at the skinny jeans with embroidery on the pocket.

Tiffany loved those jeans. She’d paired them with a white midriff top, which superthin Tiffany could carry off, and a denim trucker jacket with more embroidery on the back—none of it in red.

She finished off the outfit with a pair of white wedge sneakers.

Jessica slumped in her chair and took another slug of wine. “Nothing red. No red fibers found on her body, either. Did Deke’s name come up?”

Finn held up a piece of paper with names printed out in different groups. He shook it in the air. “He’s listed under coworkers.”

“Wow, so he did know Tiffany. This is significant. Any notes on his interview?”

“Looking at this, it doesn’t seem as if her coworkers were grilled. Probably someone talked to them in a group—Tiffany complain about anyone, anyone hanging around her—those kinds of questions. Unless one of them had something interesting to add, they probably weren’t questioned further.”

“If Deke killed her, he wouldn’t have been drawing attention to himself. It could be him, Finn.”

“When I called Detective Morse this afternoon, I did mention that Deke may have worked with Tiffany back when she was murdered. He’s a good detective. He’ll discover this. My guess is that Deke has an interview with the sheriff’s department in his future.”

“You should’ve never given up police work.” She pinched an egg roll between her fingers and dipped it in the red sauce.

“Wasn’t for me. You know better than anyone, I couldn’t follow the rules.” He swirled his wine in his glass. “After all, I broke them for you.”

“I don’t think you’re the kind of person who would do something unless you wanted to do it. I didn’t think it then; I don’t think it now.” She crunched into her egg roll with her teeth.

“Oh, I wanted to do it. I wanted to do it for you. There was probably nothing I wouldn’t have done for you…at the time.”

She dabbed her mouth. “And now?”

“I think it’s clear nothing’s changed.”

She should’ve never eaten that greasy egg roll. She wiped her hands with a paper towel, swished a sip of wine in her mouth and stood up, all while keeping contact with Finn’s blue eyes.

She skirted the table, placed her hands on his shoulders, leaned over and kissed him. His mouth opened, and his soft lips caressed hers, gentle at first and then pressing with an urgency akin to her own.

She murmured against his lips, “That’s more like it.”

He acted on her encouragement, slipping a hand into the strands of her hair, cupping the back of her head and drawing her in closer.

This time his kiss scorched her lips, branding her somewhere deep inside, taking possession of her soul.

If she’d had any doubts before that the boy had grown into a man, this kiss torched those doubts and turned them to ash.

He pulled her into his lap, and she straddled him, the tip of her shoe resting against the box that contained her sister’s case files. As she toyed with the edge of his T-shirt, she asked, “Do you have a bedroom in this hideaway?”

Without missing a beat, Finn stood up with her legs wrapped around his waist. Bodhi thumped his tail a couple of times as Finn stepped over him on the way to the bedroom.

Finn nudged the door open with his foot and turned slowly in the middle of the room, so she could get the full effect of the large wall of glass facing the dark ripples of the bay.

As he placed her on the bed, she huffed out a breath, curling her legs beneath her. “Anyone could be out there in a boat, peering into your house.”

He reached across her and fumbled with a remote. A set of dark drapes automatically slid across the window, casting the room in blackness. He tapped on a small bedside lamp. “Is that better?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.” She gathered handfuls of his shirt and tugged.

He raised his arms, and she sat up on her knees to pull the shirt over his head. Running her hands along the hard ridge of muscle on his chest, she planted a kiss on his collarbone. “How does a professor get this hard?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute.”

Giggling like a tipsy sorority girl, Jessica fell back on the bed and pulled her phone from the pocket of her sweater. She placed it on the nightstand, next to the light highlighting all the bulges and planes of Finn’s half-naked torso.

She shrugged out of the sweater. “I need to catch up.”

“I can help you with that.” Placing his knees on either side of her hips, he peeled her shirt from her body and yanked it over her head. He tossed it over his shoulder as she scrambled out of her bra.

He caught his breath and whispered, “Beautiful.”

She arched her back, and he fitted one hand against her spine while he pressed a trail of kisses from her throat to her belly. She squirmed beneath him, heat searing through her veins.

Hooking his finger in the waistband of her jeans, he said, “You’re gonna have to stop wriggling around like that. I’m only human.”

“Prove it.” Her fingers clawed at the button on his fly, but her impatient hands couldn’t do the deed.

He unzipped and yanked his jeans and briefs down his muscled thighs. He rolled off the bed to kick them off, and she took the opportunity to shimmy out of her own jeans and the socks still covering her feet.

Bodhi’s soft head brushed her foot as he absconded with one of her socks, but the dog was in luck tonight as she had other things on her mind.

When Finn joined her on the bed, he stretched out beside her, and their busy hands explored each other’s bodies. They punctuated their exploration with hungry kisses, prolonging the buildup to excruciating heights.

She waited ten years for this; what was five or ten minutes until ecstasy?

Her cell phone buzzed on the nightstand. She laced her fingers through Finn’s hair as he imprinted a row of kisses down the inside of her thigh.

“I have to see who it is, in case it’s my boss.”

Finn growled in the back of his throat, but he rolled to his side as she scooted up and reached over to slide her phone from the nightstand.

Finn’s rough voice came from somewhere near her left hip. “Is it your boss?”

She stared at the name and bit the inside of her cheek. “It’s Ashley King. It might be important.”

Finn grumbled. “It’s after ten.”

“That’s why it might be important.” She tapped the incoming call. “What’s wrong, Ashley?”

“Sorry to bother you, sweetie, but you wanted me to tell you if I remembered anything else about the time Tiff died.”

“I did.” Jessica’s heart, which had just started to slow down from Finn’s attentions, ramped up again and she put her phone on speaker, so Finn could hear. “What did you remember?”

Ashley coughed her smoker’s cough. “Something else was stolen from the apartment with that damned doll.”

“What was it?” She glanced at Finn, a stack of pillows propping up his head, his gaze sharp.

“Her knitting.”

“Knitting? Tiffany didn’t knit.”

“Crazy, I know, but she was trying to give up smoking and decided to learn how to knit. She was working on something—something for you at the time, and I swear it was taken with the doll because when you came over to collect her stuff, I asked you about it.”

“I don’t remember that at all.”

“You were kinda messed up, sweetie. You hadn’t found any knitting needles, so I figured they were taken like the doll. She worked on that damned red scarf every night.”

Jessica’s fingers curled into the bedspread beneath her. “Tiffany was knitting a red scarf at the time she was murdered?”

“That’s right. You can ask Denny. Click, click, click those damned needles. She was working on that red scarf for you…and somebody stole it.”