Cowboy Alibi. Paula Graves

an exaggerated huffing sound.

      “Chief Trent has arranged for your room to be next to mine,” Joe said softly, drawing her gaze. His cool gray eyes held hers, full of challenge.

      “I just bet he did,” she muttered.

      “We don’t have officers to spare, with a murderer at large,” Chief Trent said, his tone annoyingly reasonable. “Chief Garrison was kind enough to offer his services as your security guard. You won’t get a better offer.”

      Jane tugged at the neck of her T-shirt. “What’s keeping me from packing my bags and getting the hell out of this town? If I’m not under arrest.”

      “We can hold you for twenty-four hours without charging you with anything, you know.” Trent’s voice hardened. “I’d prefer that you cooperate voluntarily.”

      “I’ve told you all I know.”

      “Then consider this,” Joe interjected, pulling up the chair across the table from her. He turned it around and straddled it, resting his arms across the rounded back and pinning her with his hard gaze. “There’s a guy running around out there who didn’t think twice about slitting your friend’s throat because she got in his way. And from what you tell us, he wants you. Do you really want to be out there on your own right now?”

      Jane looked down at the scuffed table, running her finger over a nick as she tamped down a flood of fear at his words. “No.”

      “Then the Buena Vista it is.” Trent slapped his hand on the table, sealing the deal.

      Jane bit her lower lip, her insides twisting into a painful knot. She felt trapped, shackled by the iron will of the lawmen and by her own blank memory.

      “I’ll make the arrangements.” Trent rose and headed out of the interrogation room, leaving Jane alone with Joe Garrison. Joe gazed at her over his folded arms, clearly content to let her squirm beneath his scrutiny.

      “Do you usually get your way?” She couldn’t keep a thread of bitterness out of her voice.

      “No,” he answered.

      “I don’t believe that.”

      “If I always got my way, my brother wouldn’t be dead and I wouldn’t be here in Trinity babysitting the last person to see him alive.”

      “Who was I to your brother?” she asked, fearing the answer.

      Joe dropped his gaze for the first time, focusing on the nicked wood tabletop. “You worked for him.”

      “Doing what?”

      He looked up sharply at her wary tone. “You kept his house for him. Helped him with the business end of the ranch. Odd jobs—whatever he needed done.”

      She took a deep breath and asked the question she dreaded most. “Were he and I…”

      Joe shook his head. “No. He was a recent widower. Not over his wife’s death yet. You were…friends.”

      She didn’t miss the bitterness of his tone. “Or so he thought, huh? Isn’t that what you’re thinking?”

      “You tell me.”

      “I don’t remember.”

      “I don’t believe you.”

      She slapped her hands on the table in front of her, venting her frustration. Her palms stung and she balled her hands into fists. “Why? What did I do to you to make you believe I’d kill your brother? That I’d lie about not remembering?”

      “Because you lied about who you were, for one thing.” His voice was quiet. Calm. But she heard anger roiling beneath the placid surface. It made her feel queasy.

      “How do you know?” She couldn’t help but lean closer to him, eagerness overcoming wariness. “Do you know who I really am?”

      He leaned away from her, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the back of his chair. “No. I just know you’re not someone named Sandra Dorsey. The Social Security number you gave Tommy belonged to a deceased woman by the same name.”

      “Do you think I killed her, too?”

      The corner of his mouth quirked. “No. Sandra Dorsey died in a car accident in Trenton, New Jersey, four years ago. I think you paid someone to give you a new identity, and they stole her name and Social Security number to make you into a new person.”

      Jane looked away from his hard gaze, her chest tight with tension. Why had she gone to such obvious trouble to change her identity? What kind of woman was she?

      “The man you saw at your apartment—did he seem familiar to you?” Joe asked.

      “No. But he knew me.” She forced herself to look at him. “Do you know who he is?”

      Joe shook his head. “No. I don’t.”

      “Maybe he’s the one who killed your brother.”

      “Maybe that’s what you’d like me to believe.”

      “And you won’t even entertain the possibility that I wasn’t the one who killed him.”

      “You disappeared the day he died. You were gone by the time the neighbor found Tommy’s body.” He stumbled over the words, his gaze dropping away.

      Jane felt the ridiculous urge to reach across the table and put her hand over his, to lend him what little strength and comfort she had.

      He took a deep breath and continued, his voice threaded with steel. “Your bags were gone. Your clothes. Everything. It was like you’d never been there in the first place.”

      “That was eight months ago, right?”

      Joe nodded.

      “So, where was I between then and this past December when I showed up here in Trinity?”

      “I don’t know yet.”

      “How’d you find me?”

      “I got a fax from the Trinity Police Department, seeking information on a Jane Doe.”

      The door to the interview room opened, and Chief Trent walked in before Jane could respond. “All set. I’m afraid we have to keep the bag we found packed in your living room. For evidence.”

      “What do I do for clothes?” she asked.

      “My sister Erica runs clothing drives for one of the local churches. She’s agreed to raid their stash for a few things your size,” Chief Trent answered. “She’s left it for us at the hotel.”

      “Ready to go, then?” Joe asked.

      She frowned at the impatience in his voice but gave a swift nod, falling in step in front of him as they followed the police chief out of the room.

      

      BY THE TIME Joe led Jane from the police station, the sun had dipped behind the Sawtooth Mountains, leaving only a faint orange glow in the western sky. Streetlamps along the town’s main streets had already come on, battling the chilly gloom of twilight.

      Joe motioned toward his truck, parked in a visitor slot in front of the station. Jane managed a weak smile. “Did you drive over from Wyoming or did you rent that truck at the Boise airport?”

      “I drove,” he answered tersely.

      Her forehead creased. “Did I say something wrong?”

      “No.” He couldn’t exactly tell her that she used to tease him about his truck and his Stetson and everything that went with being a Wyoming cowboy. Back then, she’d said it with such affection he found himself laughing with her. Now he wondered if it had all been an act, all the smiles and the jokes and the easy charm. He hated not knowing what was real and what was a lie.

      Maybe the smartest way to deal with her was to assume everything that came out of her