Hotshot P.i.. B.J. Daniels

more that for some reason Dex Westfall had dressed in a hurry.

      “I guess he didn’t need them,” Tadd said. “No place to spend money and he sure couldn’t drive anywhere. He probably took one of the island trails to Ms. Jones’s.”

      “You don’t know how he got there?” Jake asked, surprised.

      “Does it matter?” Tadd said. “He got there. We know that.”

      Everything mattered, Jake thought. What Dex hadn’t done was drive. There were no cars or roads on Hawk Island. That left two other options: he could go by boat around the island to Clancy’s. Or he could take one of the many mountain trails. Because the sheriff hadn’t found a boat at the scene didn’t mean Dex hadn’t had someone drop him off. And that meant maybe he’d planned to have that same someone pick him up again.

      Dex was last seen with Clancy after the resort café closed on Friday night. That meant there wouldn’t have been any place on the island for Dex to spend money. But Jake still thought it odd Dex hadn’t taken his wallet. Most guys would grab their wallet, keys and watch out of habit. Some things you just felt naked without. Like underwear.

      The wallet, according to the report, contained less than thirty dollars. He glanced through the photocopy of the items—a Montana driver’s license, a few credit cards. Jake frowned. No photographs. Not even one of Clancy, the guy’s girlfriend. No family photos. No receipts or junk like most people carried in their wallets. No mementos.

      Dex Westfall’s belongings reminded Jake of a new subdivision. No feeling of history. Everything of Dex’s had been marked on the sheriff’s list as in new condition. Jake found himself wondering just who the hell this guy was and what Clancy had seen in him as he glanced at Westfall’s driver’s license photo again. The guy was almost too good-looking. Jake had never figured Clancy for that type, but then, he reminded himself, he didn’t know Clancy anymore. He looked over at her. For instance, what was she thinking about right now? He realized how little he knew about her. It worried him. A lot.

      Taking out his notebook, Jake jotted down Dex’s social security number and address from his driver’s license, and took down the credit card numbers. He put everything back in the envelope and looked up at Tadd.

      “What do you know about this guy?” Jake asked.

      Tadd shrugged. “No more than what’s here, and we won’t know until his next of kin are notified.” Jake noted Clancy’s sudden rapt attention and wondered why this subject would interest her when nothing else about her case had.

      “There’s one other thing,” Tadd said. Jake felt the bad news coming even before Tadd opened his mouth. “You should know the sheriff has two witnesses who overheard Westfall and Clancy arguing at the marina café the evening Dex Westfall was murdered. Both said they heard Clancy threaten Dex.”

      Jake groaned inwardly.

      “One is a waitress at the marina café,” Tadd continued. “The other is Frank Ames. You remember him?”

      Yeah, Jake remembered the tall, pimply-faced kid six years his senior. Frank had always had a major chip on his shoulder, one that Jake had more than once wanted to knock off. Jake’s father had given Frank a job at the resort, wanting to help him. But Frank’s hostile unfriendliness had forced Warren Hawkins to let him go, making Frank Ames all the more bitter.

      “Frank owns the resort now,” Tadd said. “Maybe you’d heard.”

      “No, I hadn’t.” Jake hadn’t heard anything about Hawk Island since the day he promised his mother he’d never say his father’s name in her presence again. It had been the day they left Flathead Lake, right after Warren Hawkins had been convicted of embezzlement, arson and one count of deliberate homicide. They’d left town on the whipping tail of a scandal that had rocked the tiny community. Kiki had been right; his mother had insisted they leave without stopping at the Montana State prison in Deer Lodge to see his father even one last time.

      Jake had kept his promise to her; he’d never mentioned his father’s name. But several times a year he’d visited Warren Hawkins in prison. Jake had wanted to reopen his father’s case and do some investigating on his own, but Warren had asked him not to. Jake had left it alone, not wanting to hurt his mother any more than she had been.

      But now she was gone. And he was back in Montana thanks to Aunt Kiki. Back on Flathead Lake. And that hunch of his was knocking at the back of his brain, demanding to be let in. Demanding that he follow it, no matter where it might lead. Clancy was his ticket as surely as Tadd Farnsworth was a born politician. It was just going to be harder to get the truth out of Clancy than he’d first thought.

      “Can I get a copy of this and the autopsy report?” Jake asked, tapping the envelope with his finger.

      Tadd nodded.

      “Give me call when it’s ready.” He gave Tadd the number from the cellular phone Kiki had given him.

      “Here’s my home number,” Tadd said as he took out a business card and wrote on the back. He handed it to Jake. “In case you come up with something.” He sounded more than a little doubtful that would happen.

      Tadd pushed his intercom button and instructed his secretary to make Jake a copy of the Dex Westfall case, including the latest on Clancy’s sleepwalking defense.

      “What?” Jake snapped, telling himself he must have heard wrong. He glanced over at Clancy; she met his gaze for an instant, then looked away, her body suddenly tense. Jake cursed under his breath. What else had Clancy and her aunt failed to tell him?

      “I guess you didn’t know,” Tadd said, smiling sympathetically at Jake. “Clancy was sleepwalking the night Dex Westfall was killed. That’s why she doesn’t remember what happened.”

      Jake stumbled to his feet, feeling the weight of the world settle around his shoulders. He took Clancy’s elbow and steered her out into the hall.

      “Sleepwalking?” he demanded the moment the door closed behind them. He couldn’t believe what a chump he was. Even when she’d lied on the stand, he’d figured she only did it to protect her own father. If Tadd was opting for a Twinkie defense like sleepwalking, it meant only one thing: Clancy’d killed Dex Westfall and she damn well knew it.

      “Sleepwalking?” Jake demanded again, trying to keep his voice down.

      “I guess I shouldn’t expect you to believe me,” Clancy said, jerking her elbow free of his grip. She started down the hall, but he grabbed her shoulder and whirled her around to face him.

      He let his gaze rake roughly over her, telling himself not to be fooled by that face of hers with its cute little button of a nose or the crocodile tears in those big brown eyes. He pulled her into the first alcove and blocked her retreat with his body. “Another murder and you just happened to be sleepwalking again?”

      Clancy found her gaze locked spellbound with his. There was something commanding about him. He demanded her attention, and ever since she was a girl, she’d been unable to deny him. She looked into his eyes; they darkened like thunderheads banked out over the lake. Everything about him, from his eyes to the hard line of his body, warned her of the storm he was about to bring into her life. Jake Hawkins was a dangerous man, one she’d be a fool to trifle with.

      “I walk in my sleep. I have ever since I was a child.”

      He stared at her, suspicion deep in his expression. “Sure you have.”

      She wanted to slap his smug face. “I assume you’ve never walked in your sleep.”

      “No.” He made that one word say it all.

      She reminded herself that people who’d never sleepwalked didn’t understand, couldn’t understand. But she wanted Jake to, needed Jake to.

      “It’s frightening, because when you wake up you don’t know how you got there. You don’t recall getting up. Suddenly you are just somewhere else, and you don’t remember anything. Not even