Page 82 of Lead Me On
Jane rolled her eyes and punched him in the arm.
“Ouch. Do that a couple more times and I’ll give you what you want.”
“Shut up!” Jane laughed, throwing a few light punches at his shoulder.
“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Do it, baby.”
“I thought I was supposed to be half-naked,” she teased.
“Shit, you’re right. Come ’ere.” Chase unzipped the hoodie she was wearing while Jane pretended to slap his hands away. He was just sliding his hands under her shirt when his cell phone rang. His hands didn’t stop sliding.
“Chase!” she protested as his palms covered her breasts. “Answer the phone.”
“Later.” His hot mouth sucked at her throat.
“It might be important.”
“Thisis important.”
Yes, it was. It really was. Especially when his teeth scraped down to her shoulder. The phone stopped ringing, and Jane sank back into the couch, sighing when Chase followed her down. His body pressed into her….
And his phone rang again.
“Shit,”he barked, pushing up to sit on the edge of the couch and grab his phone. “Don’t move.” He flipped open the phone. “This is Chase.” His back straightened, and Jane heard an urgent male voice speaking rapidly on the other end of the line.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay, we’ll be right there.”
Jane jumped off the couch and began pulling on her shoes. “What is it?” she begged when he closed the phone.
“My dad has something to show us.”
“What is it?”
He shook his head. “Something to do with a police report. He said he’d tell us when we got there.”
Jane grabbed her purse and coat and they were out the door. The fifteen-minute ride seemed to take an hour, but Jane comforted herself with assurances that he must have found something good.
Jane raced up to the door and knocked, but couldn’t make herself wait for him to answer. Horrified with her own rudeness, she pulled the door open herself. “Mr. Chase?”
“Hello, Jane! Would you like a beer?”
“No, thank you. What did you find?”
“Hey, Billy!” he said when Chase pushed past Jane. “Can I get you a brewski?”
“No, Dad.” Jane could hear the edge of impatience in Chase’s voice. Or perhaps she was projecting her own vibrating impatience onto him.
“Mr. Chase,” she pleaded, “did you find something?”
“Oh, I sure did. I already called Ms. Holloway to tell her. You two want to sit down?”
Jane launched herself toward a chair and sat down so quickly it skidded across the linoleum. She counted to ten while Chase approached and took the chair next to hers. She made it all the way to twenty while his father puttered around, straightening out files and rearranging papers.
Finally he sat down and opened one of the files. “As soon as I heard about the last murder victim, I went down there to see if she’d filed a complaint about a stolen purse in the past couple of months.”
Jane swallowed. Maybe it wasn’t good news after all.
“I found the report. It’s all a matter of public record. Her purse was stolen from a place called Steel. Jessie mentioned it in one of his interviews.”
