Finding Tessa by Jaime Hendricks (best ereader for comics .TXT) 📗

crisp white one fresh from the dry cleaner’s. Before he left, he checked all the locks and windows—they’d see him leave and he didn’t want them lurking around his property, trying to find a way in, barking about an exclusive from inside the Montgomery home.

“Hey, girl,” Jace said to Candy, as he headed to the door in the laundry room that led to the garage. “Protect the house, okay?” She looked up at him, her eyes so big and innocent, and mushed her head further under his hand, indicating that she wanted him to stay and pet behind her ears. It was something Tessa always did. “I can’t, girl. I have to go.”

He was backing out of the garage when the reporters came barreling toward the edge of the driveway as he made his way down. They didn’t block his way but shouted questions at him as he drove out. He refused to make eye contact and kept his windows up. Don’t give them a reason.

Again.

In his car, he left the satellite radio on, tuned into a Howard Stern on repeat. He didn’t want to put any of the local stations on; God forbid they were in the middle of a talk session and mentioned the “So did you see how that husband with the missing wife went crazy?” He was better off steeling himself after the comments he’d read online.

When he walked into the police station, Solomon was waiting in the lobby. He looked drunk, with that bulbous red nose and lazy left eye, which was on full display, with his glasses tucked into his left shirt pocket next to a pen. The cigarette stench clung to him like week-old milk.

“Mr. Montgomery,” Solomon said, including the Mr. this time as if Jace was finally worthy of respect. “Good to see you. You want to come with me?” His left arm extended in a grand gesture toward a door, one Jace hadn’t been through yet. Solomon walked ahead of him and swiped a keycard and the red light outside turned green, and he opened the door.

This was a different hallway than the one he’d walked through yesterday. It went past office cubicles and a small kitchen with a refrigerator and a microwave, no doubt where some pencil-pusher heated up fish, and then they turned left to a narrow hallway where Solomon opened a door. There was a woman in a smart pantsuit sitting at the long metal table.

A tape recorder was in the center, and a camera was in the corner of the room.

“Have a seat, Montgomery,” Solomon barked.

Jace looked at the woman. Forty, give or take, blond bob with gray roots, and she wore a navy blazer. She stood to shake his hand and she was much bigger on the bottom than on the top.

“Jace Montgomery, I’m Detective Leondra Garvey. I’m assisting Detective Solomon on this case.” She was curt and professional and nodded toward an empty seat, which Jace took.

“Since you’re being so helpful, I’m assuming you don’t mind if we record this?” Solomon hit the button before Jace could answer.

Jace’s mouth was dry. The camera was already on, a light streaming from under the lens. “Sure thing. I have nothing to hide.” How many lies would he have to tell before they all caught up with him, the proverbial snowball that turned into a boulder that fell down the mountain and crushed him?

“Good.” Solomon ruffled through some papers in front of him, then looked at Garvey. “You have that statement? The one from—” He stopped there and raised his eyebrows.

“Yep. Right here,” Garvey said and slid a paper across the table, where Solomon caught it and inspected it.

What could they have been talking about? He hadn’t done anything—

“How well do you know Rosita Morales?” Solomon asked.

Here we go, thought Jace. “We’re coworkers.”

“Mmm. For how long, then?”

“Don’t know. A year or so, I guess,” Jace said with a shrug.

“Mmm.”

Solomon said nothing. Just stared. Waiting for Jace to say something, but Evan’s advice replayed in the back of his head. Don’t volunteer anything. Just answer the questions. Jace wouldn’t lose this round of chicken, and Solomon submitted.

“You didn’t really answer my first question, Montgomery. How well do you know her?” Certain words were accompanied by an index finger slamming on the table.

“What do you want me to say here? That we have a history?” Jace asked. “It’s barely a history. It was one time. And I stopped it before it got too far.”

There was much, much more he could say about Rosita, but chose not to.

“Mmm. And when was that?”

“Before Tessa, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“How long before?”

Jace squirmed, even though he tried not to. He was being filmed. “Right before. Maybe a month.”

The detective nodded.

“Look, I had a girlfriend when it happened. Rosita had been coming on to me for months, but I always said no. And nothing really happened, anyway. High schoolers get more physical than we did. It was a lapse in judgment. That’s all. And again, before Tessa. What does any of this have to do with finding my wife?”

“Ah, I see how this was her fault,” Garvey chimed in. “She ‘wore you down.’ ” Detective Garvey used air quotes in the description.

“I never said it was her fault. It was no one’s fault. It happened once and it was nothing. Some kissing and roaming hands and then I stopped it, against her will to be quite honest. Now, what does it have to do with finding Tessa?” Jace repeated his question.

“We’ll be asking the questions, Montgomery,” Solomon said. “So, there was nothing going on between the two of you? No reason you’d want to get rid of—” Solomon paused with a smirk, then rephrased. “No reason for Tessa to leave?”

“No.” Jace looked directly at him, fire in his eyes. How dare he?

“Do you own a firearm, Montgomery?”

Fuck. Jace paused as Tessa’s voice played on repeat.

Don’t point that thing at me!

“No,” Jace said.

Were they able to see the sweat forming at his temples, or was