“Really? Because you look kind of—”
“Can we just focus on the case?” Jill snapped, interrupting whatever insult Vincent likely had at the ready.
He was silent, and for a moment Jill had the strangest sense that maybe her rejection had hurt him. That maybe he wanted her to talk—to confide in him.
And then he shrugged. “Works for me. Got any new thoughts?”
No.
No, she did not have any new thoughts on who freaking killed Lenora Birch, and it was starting to get ridiculous.
Worst of all, their lack of progress had led to other investigators being assigned to the case. Something that had never happened in Jill’s career. Or Vincent’s.
“Why aren’t you more upset?” she asked as they headed toward their car.
“’Bout what?”
“About the fact that they had to bring in extra resources for the case because we can’t do our job.”
He shrugged. “Whatever catches the killer.”
She jumped in front of him, holding up a hand so he had to stop. “Okay, my turn to ask. What’s going on with you?”
“Don’t know what you mean.”
“You’re seriously okay with the fact that this case is destroying our perfect record? That there’s a very real chance someone else will solve this before we will?”
Vincent shrugged. “They can throw as many resources at this as they want, but it’s still going to be us that finds the guy. Or the woman.”
She narrowed her eyes. “How can you be so sure?”
He grinned, completely confident. “Because we’re the best, baby.”
Baby? Jill watched in puzzlement as he moved around her and continued down the sidewalk.
Something was weird with him. Definitely.
Jill darted after him. “Okay, well then, what’s our next move because I can only talk to the same people so many times. Should we go back to question Holly Adams? She’s the only one who—”
Vin shook his head. “I don’t want to make that trek again until we have something else to go off of.”
“So then what?”
He rocked back on his heels. “We start over.”
“Sorry, come again?”
“We start the case all over. Repeat from the very beginning when we arrived at Lenora’s house.”
“Sort of hard to do a do-over in a homicide investigation case,” she said. “The whole lack of body, and whatnot.”
“So we’ll pretend.”
“And the point of this exercise?” she asked as she jerked open the car door.
He glanced at her over the hood, tapping his fingers against his cup thoughtfully, looking very serene, and very un-Vincent-like.
“We missed something, Henley. It’s the only explanation. Think about it: we’ve never had this much trouble on a case. It’s never taken us more than a couple days to have a solid list of suspects, and most of the time we’re leaning toward one suspect—the right one. But this case… we did something wrong. So let’s go fix it.”
He lowered himself into the car, and Jill rolled her eyes, following suit.
“Why do you think we missed something?” she asked as he turned the ignition.
“We were off our game. Unused to each other after your three months away.”
“Ah,” she said, understanding why he was so Zen about all of this. “That’s why you’re okay with this. Because you’ve transferred the blame to me. I was the one who left. I was the one who was gone for three months. I’m the one who messed up our routine…”
He said nothing as he headed toward the Upper East Side—to Lenora Birch’s house, which was still lined in yellow tape.
“Please, stop with all fervent denials,” she muttered.
He glanced over at her. “I don’t blame you for going to Florida to take care of your mom, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Just the getting engaged to another man part?”
Jill hadn’t meant to let that last part out. She heard the way that it had come out and cringed. Why had she thrown in the “another man” part. It made it sound like she and Vincent had some history—
He said nothing for several moments. Not until he’d pulled up to the curb a couple blocks down from the Birch home.
He pivoted in his seat, one hand going around to the back of her headrest as he studied her.
Still, he was silent, and Jill’s temper snapped. She leaned forward and plucked the damn glasses off his face, tossing them none-too-gently up on the dash.
But seeing his eyes did nothing to diffuse the strange tension in the car. If anything, their eye-to-eye contact made it worse.
What the hell was going on here?
Also, why was it so damn hot in this car? It was winter, for God’s sake.
He jerked his eyes away then, and without a word climbed out of the car, slamming the door.
Jill’s temper was good and truly bubbling now, and she was out of the car in record time, just as he was coming around the front of the car.
“Listen, Moretti. You don’t get to just walk away when I’m talking to you, you—”