“The forensics team did find a footprint in the dirt behind your condo, and we ran it through analysis. It’s a woman’s athletic shoe-”
“Probably mine, then,” I said, but he shook his head.
“Not unless you wear size eight and a half, and I know damn well you don’t.”
He was right. I wore six and a half; none of the women in my family wore that size shoe. Mom was a six, and Siana and Jenni both wore size seven. I tried to think of any of my friends who might wear an eight and a half and who might also have been behind my condo, but no one sprang to mind.
“I thought you said it probably wasn’t a woman trying to kill me,” I said accusingly.
“I still don’t think it is. Sniper fire and tampering with a car’s brakes just aren’t generally the way a woman would go about it.”
“So the shoe print probably doesn’t mean anything?”
“Probably not. I wish it did.” He rubbed his eyes.
“I can’t hide out forever.” I didn’t say it accusingly, just stating a fact. I had a life, and if I couldn’t live it, then this creep had killed me in one sense even if he hadn’t managed to kill my body.
“Maybe you won’t have to,” Jenni said hesitantly, staring at her spoon as if the meaning of life was written on it. “What I mean is-I volunteered to drive your rental out because I’ve been thinking and I’ve come up with a plan. I could wear a blond wig and pretend to be you and be the bait in a trap so Wyatt can catch this creep and you’ll be safe again,” she finished in such a rush that she ran her words together.
My jaw dropped so far it almost hit the floor. “What?” I squeaked. Never in a hundred years would I have expected Jenni to make such a preposterous offer. Jenni was really good at looking out for number one, and no way was that my number. “I can be my own bait, and I won’t even need a wig!”
“Let me do this for you,” she begged, and to my surprise tears welled in her eyes. “Let me make it up to you for what I did. I know you’ve never forgiven me and I don’t blame you; I was a selfish bitch and didn’t think how much I’d be hurting you, but I’ve grown up, I truly have, and I want us to be close the way you and Siana are close.”
I was so flabbergasted I couldn’t think of anything to say, and that’s not an everyday occurrence. I opened my mouth, then closed it again when my brain remained in neutral.
“I was jealous of you,” she continued, still talking fast, as if she had to get it all out before her courage failed. “You were always so popular and even my friends thought you were the coolest person they knew; they all tried to do their hair like yours, and buy the shade of lipstick you wore. It was sickening.”
Now there was the Jenni I knew. I felt comforted, knowing the aliens hadn’t taken over my little sister’s body. Wyatt was sitting quietly, taking in every word, his gaze sharp. I wished he would go into another room, but I figured I had a better chance of growing wings and flying.
“You were the best cheerleader, you were cute, you were athletic, you were the class salutatorian, you went to college on a cheerleading scholarship, you pulled down really good grades and got a degree in business administration, and you married the handsomest guy I’d ever seen,” she wailed. “He’s going to be governor someday, maybe a senator or even president, and he fell into your hand like a ripe plum! I was so jealous, because no matter how pretty I am I’ll never be able to do everything you did and I thought Mom and Dad loved you more. Even Siana loves you more! So that’s why when Jason made a pass at me, I took him up on it; because if he was looking at me, then it must be because you weren’t that great after all, and I was.”
“What happened?” Wyatt interjected quietly.
“Blair caught Jason and me kissing,” she confessed in a wretched tone. “That’s all it was, and that was the first time, but everything blew up at once and they got divorced. It’s all my fault, and I want to make it up to her.”
“You’ll have to find another way,” he said, his words matter-of-fact. “There’s no way in hell I’d set up either you or Blair as bait. If we used that plan at all, one of our female officers would masquerade as Blair. We’d never risk a civilian.”
Jenni looked stricken that her grand plan should be so summarily turned down, not just by me but by Wyatt, too; in the end, his was the approval that counted, because he had the authority to either nix the plan or put it into motion. He’d nixed it.
“There must be something I can do,” she said, and a tear streaked down her face. She looked pleadingly at me.
“Well, let’s see.” By this time I’d found my voice. I tapped my bottom lip with a fingernail while I thought. “You could wash my car every Saturday for the next year-after I get a car, that is. Or you could regrout my bathroom, because I really hate doing that.”
She blinked at me as if she couldn’t quite make her mind wrap itself around what I was saying. Then she giggled. In the middle of the giggle she hiccuped a sob, and that was a very strange sound combination. It startled me into my own giggle-which I’ve tried hard to stop doing because of the image thing. I’m blond; I really shouldn’t giggle.
Anyway, we ended up hugging and laughing, and she apologized five or six times, and I told her she was family and I’d choose her over Jason Carson any day because he was a lowlife bastard who made a pass at his seventeen-year-old sister-in-law and I was better off without him.
Whew. Family dramas wear me out.
Wyatt had to take Jenni home. They asked me to come along, but I elected to stay because I felt that I needed some alone time to get my emotions settled. I had tried to forgive Jenni and to some extent I had, because the lion’s share of blame belonged to Jason; he’d been an adult, and married, while teenagers aren’t the best in the world at making rational decisions. Still, it had always been there in the back of my mind that my own sister had betrayed me. I had tried to act normally toward her, but I guess she knew there was a difference between Before and After. What surprised me most was that she cared. No, what really surprised me most was that she’d ever been jealous of me; Jenni is gorgeous, and has always been gorgeous, from the day she was born. I’m smart, but not as smart as Siana. I’m pretty, but not in the same class with Jenni. I was sort of middle-of-the-road in our family. Why on earth would she be jealous?
I started to call Siana to talk things over with her, but decided that I’d keep this private between Jenni and me. If she was serious about mending our relationship-really mending it-then I wasn’t going to sabotage the opportunity by maybe blabbing something she wasn’t comfortable with others knowing.
Wyatt was back within the hour. His dark brows were drawn down in a scowl when he came in the door. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you blackmailed your ex into giving you everything you asked for in the divorce? Don’t you think that’s something that could be considered as motive?”
“Except Jason didn’t shoot at me,” I pointed out. “And he thinks he got the negative.”
He did the green-eyed laser look. “He thinks?”