Page 400 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“From the smoke?” He headed down the aisle where coffee was located and added a pack to his basket because he forgot some when he’d been shopping with Addie. No point in ever risking running out of that life-saving brew. “Or the police interrogation?”

“Please tell me what that was about.”

“They aren’t telling you anything?”

“They know we’re connected.” Addie sighed. “It’s not that they’re deliberately shutting me out, but I’m not one of them. I’m federal. Add that to the connection between us…” She left that statement hanging.

“Maybe everyone else thinks that’s bad.” He perused the tea even though he wasn’t going to buy any, this time or any other. It wasn’t as though his mother ever visited his place. “ButIlike the sound of it.”

“Me, too.”

“I don’t have a lot of connections.” He hoped she understood what he meant. “Not since you. It’s nice to know it’s still there.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“Do you wonder if it ever left?”

“Sure.” Her voice softened. “Maybe we should’ve done better. Figured it out and stayed together.”

“You figure we’d be married with four kids by now?”

“And a dog.”

“Ha.” He barked a laugh. “No way, two cats. That’s non-negotiable.”

“Maybe it wouldn’t have worked, and we’d have wound up another statistic of divorce. Given your hardline stance on pets.” He could hear humor in her voice.

Jacob found himself smiling. Considering the day he’d had, that surprised him. After his livelihood was damaged and almost destroyed, he was labeled the suspect in a murder. Now Addie had him laughing.

He could hardly believe it was possible.

Thank You, Lord.

Her being back in his life might have changed things, but maybe they weren’t all for the worse. Some might have been for the better.

He found himself saying, “I guess we’ll never know.”

He figured there was a chance still that they might find out. If she stuck around. If they worked at it, and this developed into something. Sure they had chemistry. That was basically all their relationship had been before. Now, if they were going to get intoa relationship, he wanted more substance. Except with a murder charge between them, was that likely?

It could be too late for them or just the beginning of something new. With a shadow of what-always-should’ve-been.

She said, “Hmm,” then changed the subject. “Are you okay, after the interview?”

Jacob told her about the fingerprint on the body.

“I hadn’t heard that.” Her tone wasn’t one he could read. He’d need to see her face for the truth.

“I guess the onus is on me to prove someone else planted it there if the police aren’t going to investigate anyone else. Maybe they’ll just pile all the evidence they have on me, so it looks like I did it.” He squeezed the phone, now hot against his cheek. “They might not ever find the real killer. They’re so determined to put this on me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I know you’d help if you could.” Maybe that was an assumption, but he figured it was true enough.

“I should just walk in tomorrow and pull jurisdiction.” She hesitated, purposelynotsaying something to him. “Make it my case because it is.”

She was investigating cold cases, according to Hank. Jacob didn’t know why they’d be related to a murder that only happened a couple of days ago.

“That’s sweet, Addie. Thank you for wanting to help. But it’ll look too obvious that you’re trying to save me if you do it.”

---