“Was he addicted to sex?”
“How do you define an addiction?” she asked flippantly. “Almost every man I know is addicted to sex.”
“Enjoying sex and being addicted to it aren’t the same thing. Did he want it once a day, twice a day, more? Did he talk about it excessively?”
If anything, Oliver had the opposite problem. More often than not, he’d preferred to take care of his own needs. She figured he used Miranda’s photos to help him with that, which really bothered her. But she supposed that wasn’t so unusual. Plenty of men fantasized with girlie magazines. “No.”
“Once a week?”
Reluctant to say it was only once a month or so, for fear the detective would wonder if she was lacking in some way, she looked over her shoulder at the shop—and saw Danielle standing at the door, ostensibly smoking but watching them curiously. “That kind of stuff is none of your business. I’ve gotta go,” she said, but Willis’s next question held her as surely as if he’d reached out to grab her.
“How often did he shave his genital area?”
Pivoting, Jane lowered her voice. “Wh-what?”
Willis seemed to notice Danielle, too. Turning his back to her, he leaned closer to Jane. “You heard me. Come on, Jane. I’m only asking for the truth.”
“You’re twisting the truth to destroy an innocent man!” she whispered harshly. “And you’re destroying me along with him!”
“Are you sure he’s innocent?” It wasn’t a question he expected her to answer. But the way he was looking at her, as if he could read every doubt, made even her teeth ache.
“Leave me alone.”
“How often did he shave himself?”
“A lot of men shave. He was a cyclist.”
“Cyclists shave their arms and legs.”
She twisted her fingers together so tightly they hurt. “It’s popular to do more than that these days.”
“Then what harm could it do to tell me?”
Little warning bells were going off inside Jane’s head. But they couldn’t retry Oliver on the Kellerman attack. That was double jeopardy….
“Help me out,” he said.
When he used that line, Jane figured just about any woman would sell her soul to give him what he wanted. And she wasn’t as different as she would’ve liked. “Every now and then,” she admitted.
“Did he refuse to let the hair grow back? Or was there a regular pattern—like shaving every other day or every weekend?”
She considered lighting another cigarette, decided against it. The nicotine calmed her. But she didn’t want the detective to interpret the action as an invitation to stay longer. She was beginning to feel as if he was her friend, and that was very dangerous indeed. “He didn’t shave all the time. There was no pattern.”
Folding his arms, Willis glanced away and cleared his throat. “Did he want you to…you know, shave the same area?”
Jane found his obvious regret at having to ask such a personal question as unexpected as it was appealing. Not only was Willis sexy as hell, he came off like a decent guy, and that decency was at odds with the blame Jane laid at his feet. “No. Whether Oliver shaved or not, or when he shaved, didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. He did it just like he was…I don’t know, clipping his nails. Why?”
Willis didn’t answer. He withdrew a card from his pocket. “Call me if you notice anything unusual. Particularly if he’s shaved the same day.”
She laughed in disbelief and exasperation. “You’re convinced my husband is a murderer!”
“Completely,” he said and handed her his card.
6
“Some of you have probably been told that guns are not for women.” Fighting the fatigue that plagued her after another sleepless night, Skye stood before fifteen students in the small classroom at the shooting range. For many of these women, today would be the first time they’d ever held a gun, so she always started by dispelling the myths that surrounded their use. “You’ve heard that women are too timid or frightened to handle a gun. Women don’t have the upper-body strength to become efficient marksmen. Women don’t have the ‘guts’ to manage such a powerful weapon.” She paused, made eye contact with each person. “Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard something like this.”
Several hands went up.
“Don’t believe it. I won’t discuss the sexism inherent in this kind of talk, but I will address the only one of those statements that is, at least partially, true. Women often lack upper-body strength, which can put them at a disadvantage when handling a gun. Most of our strength comes from our legs. But with the right technique, almost any woman, no matter how small, can learn to shoot and do it well.”
Turning away to cover a yawn of exhaustion, she moved closer to a diagram she’d drawn on the board. “First, it’s important to get the correct-size gun for your hand. Make sure it fits comfortably and that you have a good grip. In this picture, the gun is too big. See how the line of the wrist has to be broken for the finger to reach the trigger? You don’t want that. You want the backstrap to fit perfectly in the web of your hand so that it lines up with the bones in your forearm, like this.” She pointed at the ideal fit in the second diagram. “It’s easier to use a gun that’s too small than one that’s too large.” She circled a third picture showing a tiny gun held by a large woman. “You’ll just have to be careful not to put too much of your finger on the trigger while you’re firing.”
She approached a table where she’d placed a variety of unloaded handguns. “Now, let’s look at the differences between pistols and semiautomatics, and why one might work better than the other in certain circumstances.”
A hand went up.
Skye motioned for the woman to ask her question.
“How long have you been shooting?”
“Four years.”
The brunette in the third row raised her hand.
“Yes?”
“Did it take a while to become good at it?”
Skye hid a sigh. She hadn’t prefaced her lecture with her usual bio because she wanted to get through the material as quickly as possible. Her mind wasn’t on teaching. It was on the threatening call she’d received, on Burke’s impending release, which was getting closer and closer, Sean Regan’s sudden disappearance, Jasmine and the child she was searching for in Ft. Bragg and the financial difficulties they were facing at The Last Stand. The list was getting long….