Cowboy Alibi. Paula Graves

time to go home, sweetheart. That’s what he’d said. Home. Was he her husband? Her brother?

      No. Not a brother. His gaze had made her feel naked. Exposed. As if he knew everything there was to know about her, inside and out.

      What kind of monster had she brought into this sleepy little town?

      Footsteps approached her cramped holding cell and came to a stop. Jane forced herself to open her burning eyes, dashing away her tears with her knuckles. Joe Garrison stood just outside her cell, gazing through the bars at her with an expression as intense and knowing as that of the mustached man who’d been waiting in her apartment.

      When it became clear he had no intention of speaking first, she asked, “Who are you?”

      “You know exactly who I am.”

      She pushed off the cot and crossed to the bars. He was several inches taller than she was, forcing her to crane her neck to meet his hard gaze. “I know your name. Now I know your job. But I don’t know you.”

      “You’re really good, you know?” He raised his arms and gripped the bars over her head, leaning toward her. He seemed to fill all the space in the narrow cell, even though he remained outside. “Even I can’t tell if you’re lying about not remembering.”

      Jane gripped the bars in front of her, trying not to let his imposing presence shake her. “Even you?”

      His smile was an awful thing. “We go back a ways, Jane. Or is it Sandra?”

      Sandra Dorsey, she thought, remembering the name on the papers in Joe’s hotel room. “Maybe it’s Sandra. I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

      “That’s convenient.” His tight smile widened but grew no warmer. “But unfortunately for you, I don’t think it’ll be a convincing defense.”

      “Defense for what?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know the answer.

      Joe leaned forward, his face pressed between the bars. “Eight months ago, in Canyon Creek, Wyoming, you killed my brother.”

      Chapter Three

      Jane’s face blanched. She backed away from the bars, groping behind her for the cot, and sat with a graceless thud on the lumpy mattress. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

      “How do you know?” Joe asked, unsurprised by how guileless she sounded. The woman he’d known as Sandra Dorsey had raised sincerity to an art form.

      “I couldn’t,” she insisted, her voice ragged. “I know I couldn’t.”

      The uncertainty in her voice caught him flat-footed. He lowered his voice to a sympathetic murmur. “You don’t really know what you would or wouldn’t do, do you? Since you don’t remember who you are or what life you’ve lived.”

      She looked down at her hands, clasping them together to stop their nervous twisting. “I just wouldn’t,” she muttered stubbornly.

      “I’ve asked the Trinity police to transfer you to my custody for further questioning in Wyoming, but they’re not ready to let you out of their jurisdiction yet. Not while there are still questions about your roommate’s murder.”

      She put her hand to her mouth, her face growing even paler. “Angie,” she whispered, tears spilling down her cheeks. “It’s my fault, isn’t it? He was after me.”

      Joe gripped the steel bars and watched in silence as she pressed her hands to her face, fresh tears spilling down her cheeks. He hated the rush of sympathy burning a hole in his gut as he watched her obvious distress, hated that even now, he wanted to believe her.

      She had a vulnerability about her that drew a man’s interest, like a lost little lamb that needed protection. It’s what had drawn Tommy to open his home to her and give her a job, no questions asked.

      It’s what drew you to her, too, he mocked himself, tightening his grip on the bars.

      “Has Chief Trent found anyone who saw the man in my apartment?” Jane asked, her voice hoarse.

      “Not yet.”

      She looked up at him, biting her lower lip. “You don’t think there was a man at all, do you?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      “You didn’t have to.” She knuckled away her tears, a childlike gesture that made Joe’s chest tighten. “You think I killed your brother. What’s one more murder?”

      He didn’t answer, though his gut churned with the need to tell her exactly what he thought of her, what he’d been thinking of her for months as he chased hundreds of dead ends searching for Sandra Dorsey.

      “Too bad it messes up your plans to haul me back to Wyoming, right?” A thread of steel hardened her voice as she pushed herself up from the cot and stood to face him. “Were you even going to take me back there? Or were you going to mete out a little frontier justice?”

      “I’m not the criminal,” he answered tightly, angry at her for even suggesting he’d do such a thing. She knew him better than that.

      Or she had. Hell, what if she really wasn’t faking the memory loss?

      A door opened behind him, dragging his attention away from Jane’s hard gaze. Chief Hank Trent entered, a uniformed officer on his heels. He gestured with his head to Joe. “Let’s talk.”

      While Trent pulled Joe to one side, the officer unlocked the holding cell.

      “What’s going on?” Joe asked.

      “We’ve found a corroborating witness to Ms. Doe’s account. I’ll explain everything.”

      “A corroborating witness?” Joe watched Jane exit the holding cell. She met his gaze, her expression tinged with an odd mixture of relief and fear.

      “A neighbor saw a man matching the description Ms. Doe gave us. He exited the apartment building by the fire escape,” Trent said. “Becker, take Ms. Doe to room three. I need to speak with her further before she’s released.”

      Joe waited until Becker and Jane were out of the room before turning to glare at Hank Trent. “Released?”

      “I don’t have grounds to hold her.”

      “Then release her to my custody and I’ll take her back to Wyoming on the murder charge.”

      “There’s no murder charge yet. You said that yourself.”

      “So she just walks around Trinity, scot-free, while two people are dead?”

      “She didn’t kill Angela Carlyle.”

      “She killed Thomas Blake.”

      “You suspect she did.”

      “She had the means and the opportunity. And she ran off the day he died.”

      “What about motive?”

      “I don’t have to prove motive.”

      “And I don’t have to turn her over to you.” Trent’s hard expression softened. “Look, I’m not playing hardball here just to yank your chain. I need her to stick around because she’s our best witness in this town’s first murder in decades. But I can’t keep you from talking to her while you’re both here in town.”

      “You’re assuming she’ll stick around just because you tell her to.”

      Trent smiled. “Well, I’ve arranged a little something for Ms. Doe that just might interest you.”

      

      “THE BUENA VISTA HOTEL?” Jane stared at Hank Trent as if he were crazy. She glared at Joe. “This is your idea, isn’t it?”

      Joe shook his head. “You’re a murder witness and the perpetrator is still at large. You need protection,