“I was still hanging around after my interview with him.” He flashed that sardonic grin she remembered. “Yours sounded way more interesting than mine.”

“And you were there . . . Why?”

“Business.”

Huh. Who was this new, older, cleaned-up version of the irreverent kid she once knew? “You eavesdropped?”

A twitch of one corner of those blade-thin lips. “For once I didn’t have to.” He leaned a hip against the side of her Accord. “You were pretty loud.”

“I tend to get that way when I’m passionate about something.” She cringed a little, wondering how many others besides Bentz’s partner and Jason Bridges had heard her.

Again, the eyebrow. Cocked. Silently sarcastic. And irritating as hell.

“Is there something you wanted?” she asked, extracting her keys from her purse. “I don’t think you flagged me down just to catch up for old times’ sake or whatever.”

“I want to help.”

“With?”

“Finding 21.”

Her back muscles tightened. Though she’d take any help she could get in tracking down the 21 Killer, this, running into Jase at the station, having him hear her plea to Bentz, seemed off somehow.

“Why?” she asked.

“I’m a reporter.”

“Not a cop?”

“Not yet, though I do have my app in for the public information officer job that’s coming up.”

“So almost a cop.”

“More like maybe-if-he-gets-lucky a cop,” he admitted. He crossed his arms over his chest, the seams of his shirt pulling as he glanced back at the police station.

“Jase Bridges, lawman?”

“Yeah, hard to imagine. I know.” He snorted at the irony of it all, and she felt the corners of her mouth twitch, her first inclination to smile since she’d found Selma Denning on her porch early this morning.

“But still a reporter.”

“Probably always. No matter what the job description reads.”

Because she was fast running out of options, unable to galvanize Bentz, or the cops in LA or Baton Rouge into action, she was tempted to agree. Why not use this man who was willing to help?

Because deep down, she didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust her feelings for him and heard her mother’s warnings running through her mind. “He’s no good, girls. Not him, not his brother, and certainly not his father.”

So when had she ever listened to Ellen?

She unlocked her car but didn’t get in. “Then you know about 21.”

He gave a curt nod. “It made national news. A bizarre ritual killer usually does. And, of course, I was on the crime beat, so he intrigued me. I was in Savannah at the time, but I kept up.”

“He scared the hell out of me.”

“He scared a lot of people.”

“He still scares me.”

“You don’t think they”—he hitched his chin toward the police station—“got their man.”