For the first time in days, Jessica didn’t think about Tony Shaw or Eleanor Lavelle or Alicia Lavelle when she opened her eyes. Only one person had dominated her thoughts, both asleep and awake, for the last eight hours.

Jack Holliday.

Her lips still felt tender and bruised where he’d kissed her. Her skin tingled where he’d touched her. The parts of her body where he hadn’t yet placed his hands ached at the thought of it. She spread her hand over the coolness of the empty space in the bed next to her, knowing it could have been filled with his warmth instead if she hadn’t put the brakes on outside the Tahiti Club.

It wasn’t as though she had taken a vow of celibacy during the time she had been grieving for Tony. There had been men, some more memorable than others. The lonely guy listening to sad songs on a Wurlitzer in a bar on the edge of a small town in Alabama. The cocksure Texas cowboy who’d thought he was doing the seducing when she’d been the one calling all the shots. The professional poker player in Vegas, with a suite in the Bellagio overlooking the fountains, who’d lost all his chips and then the contents of his minibar while he’d slept.

Men with nothing in common, except for being spared that awkward conversation over breakfast about whether they should see each other again. Jessica was always long gone by then, slipping silently into the dawn streets, carrying her shoes and her shame, hours before they stirred in soiled sheets that stank of cheap sex and perfume. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d spent the night with a man when sober or when she had actually liked the guy.

Maybe Jack Holliday would be different.

Maybe, once this was all over, she could find out if he really was right for her.

It wasn’t the kiss that made Jessica hope. Or the crackling electricity that had flowed between them outside the strip bar. It was the way he had held her hand, his fingers interlaced with her own, refusing to let go until they reached her truck.

Back at the motel, he had kissed her softly on the cheek under the glow of the blue neon lighting, and she’d wondered why the hell she wasn’t dragging him into her room. Into her bed.

After showering, dressing, and a cup of black coffee, Jessica sat at the desk and thought about the other man in her life.

Tony Shaw, a.k.a. Rob Young, a.k.a. Brad Ferezy.

Despite Pryce’s unwavering belief in his innocence, Jessica still needed to be convinced. She had to know if his status as person of interest was simply down to splitting town so soon after the murder or if there was more to it.

She needed to speak to Bill Geersen.