“Hey,” Annie said, taking a step forward.
It took all of two seconds to realize that Jake was giving her the silent treatment. He was stone-faced and sullen, his pen flying across the paper.
Annie rounded the counter.
“Hey,” she said again, standing over him, and he gave the subtlest of nods. She set her keys on the desk with a sigh. “Jake… look at me.”
He swiveled in his chair to face her. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, his jaw lined in fine stubble, and Annie’s words of defense died in her throat.
There was a terrible well of pain in those eyes, deep and gut-wrenching.From his perspective, what he’d seen last night must have looked like an utter betrayal. He had caught her in the enemy’s camp on the eve of battle.
Maybe she should have told him before all of this that she was seeing Daniel, but she hadn’t, and now that decision was blowing up in her face.
There was too much to explain, and Annie didn’t quite know where to start, so she sank silently into her chair instead, bringing her hand to her temple.
“Where is he?” she asked quietly, and Jake turned back to his paperwork.
“There’s a holding cell in the basement of the church. The building used to be a courthouse before they built a steeple on it in the forties.”
Annie balked. “You put him in abasement?”
Jake turned slowly to look at her again. “It’s better than the cell he’ll have in real prison.”
She couldn’t tell if he was saying the words to wound her or not, but they hit their mark and her anger flared.
“For your information,” she said icily, “I took the canoe out on the water last night to see if I could piece things together by re-creating the crime. On my way back, I capsized it and soaked my clothes. The splash woke Daniel, and he offered me something to change into. Nothing else happened.”
Annie stopped short, leaving theso thereimplied, and Jake blinked up at her, surprised.
“I thought…”
“I know what you thought. And we weren’t… but… but we…” Her bravado faltered and broke. The truth was written on her face, she was sure of it, and Jake must have found it there, because he nodded slowly and leaned back in his chair.
“I see…”
Annie met his gaze for another moment, but the hurt there was too deep, and she looked away.
“I’m going to see him,” she said, standing again.
“Fine.” The etching of his pen picked back up.
Annie turned her back on him. If he wanted them at odds, so be it. She didn’t have time to waste sitting around the station bickering.
When she reached the door, she remembered and turned back, smoothing her features into casual nonchalance.
“Oh, before I forget.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the lighter. “Is this yours?”
She held out her hand, and for a moment, half a heartbeat, she saw it, the spark of recognition in his eyes as Jake stared at the lighter. And then it was gone.
He shook his head. “No.”
Annie waited, keeping her arm outstretched for a few moments.
“Why?” Jake asked.
Annie stepped forward and set the lighter down on the desk, hard enough to make him flinch in his seat.
“I found it last night on a path that cuts through the briars from the lake to the woods. The path Jamie’s killer used when he dumped her body.”
