Page 83 of Jessica, Not Her Real Name
“What have we got for food?” she said. Not waiting for an answer, she went to the cupboards over the sink, opened them, found nothing but a few stacked plates and mugs. The refrigerator was unplugged and filled only with a musty odor. A pantry by the oven yielded more promising results: a couple of cans of chicken soup, another of beef stew and one can right at the back with no label.
She pulled out the mystery can and gave it an experimental jiggle. “What’d you suppose this is?”
He came closer and took it from her. Turned it over to exam the bottom of the can. “Whatever it is, it expired three years ago.”
She spied something amber glinting at her from the back of the cupboard. A bottle of whiskey.That might come in handy later.
The chest freezer was plugged in and switched on, so she went to it and cracked it open.
She immediately dropped the lid and skipped back from it.
“Oh my God,” she yelped. “It’s a body. And it’s been…” she swiveled to look at the marshal, her face aghast, “chopped into pieces.”
* * *
Ryan closed the distance in two quick strides, instincts kicking in before thought. The air in the kitchen was cool, but he felt the warmth radiating from Jessica as he stepped beside her. A faint scent clung to her—something floral, a contrast to the sharp, damp chill of their surroundings.
Ryan forced himself to focus, pushing aside the distraction. He lifted the door, the cold air rushing out in a cloud of frost. He leaned in and pulled out a plastic bag containing a frozen slab of meat.
Jessica came close enough to peer over his shoulder. “Is it a…person?”
He dropped the bag with a clunk onto the rest of the dismembered carcass. “Venison’s my guess.” He shut the freezer door. “I hope you’re not a vegan.”
Jessica exhaled sharply. “Oh good. Just a hacked-up woodland creature.” She gave him a look. “Next time, maybe lead with ‘don’t worry, it’s not a corpse.’ Just for me.”
Another enormous gust of wind shook the house from floor to ceiling. Heavy rain hammered the iron roof. He left the kitchen and walked through to the derelict living room that overlooked the front drive.
Two of the three windows were already boarded up, probably the causalities of previous hurricanes. He went to the one that wasn’t and looked down at the yard. Everywhere there used to be grass was now water. The wind was making a constant assault on the house. It wasn’t strong enough to turn the items on the lawn into missiles, but it was getting there.
He tried to guess how far away they were from the coast. Five miles, maybe six? Far enough away to escape a storm surge? He knew they should have kept driving, kept pushing as far from the sea as possible. But he also knew that being swept away in a car while trying to outrun a hurricane was one of the leading ways people actually died in hurricanes.
Jessica joined him at the window. He kept his gaze locked on the glass, though his peripheral vision was doing a damn good job of reminding him she was right there.
He hadn’t meant to stare when she came bursting through the door, but the wet t-shirt had made it physically impossible not to. The rain had plastered the sheer fabric to her skin like a second layer, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. And clearly, bras weren’t part of her emergency weather protocol.
He cleared his throat and tried to focus on the storm outside. If she noticed the flush creeping up his neck or the way he’d suddenly forgotten how to breathe properly, she didn’t let on. Calm as ever, she followed his gaze out the window.
“How long do you think we’re going to be stuck here?” she asked, as if she wasn’t standing there dressed like a goddamn temptation in a disaster movie.
He forked dripping hair off his forehead with his fingers. “At least tonight.”
Lightning, thin and mean, sliced across the sky.
Her eyes moved apprehensively to the ceiling. “This place is gonna hold up, right?”
As if to underline the dubiousness of that prospect, thunder boomed overhead. It was so loud it seemed to shift the air in the room.
They glanced at each other, and he succeeded at holding her gaze. “God willing,” he said grimly. “And the creek don’t rise.”
TWENTY-SIX
Jessica had dreamedof being cold for weeks, but now she couldn’t remember what it felt like to be warm.
Inglis had made two mad dashes back to the shed to retrieve their things from the car. He’d left her soaked suitcase in the hall, beside his equally sodden duffel.
She dug through it and pulled out a sweatshirt—an old Nirvana hoodie she’d swiped from a guy she’d lived with back in Florida. Fifty-seven days, her longest relationship to date. He was a musician, the kind who gigged all night, smoked all day, and left the fridge empty. She’d liked his tattoos, and the sex had been decent, but it had ended the way they always did—with him calling her a slut and a bitch, and her leaving with his drugs and his sweatshirt.
She yanked it over her head, mostly for warmth, but also to end the marshal’s misery. He was going to give himself whiplash with his effort to keep his eyes off her chest.
