Cuff Me(15)

“About your height,” Vincent said.

Jill nodded. “Okay, so if she’s my height and the railing hits me here…” She continued to hold her hand off before taking a couple steps back. “Let’s say I stumble…”

She mimed a stumbling motion, and Vincent shook his head. “Nope. Even if she stumbled against the railing, there wouldn’t be enough force.”

“You’re right,” Jill said. “So in order for this to have been a fall…”

She went on her tippy toes and dipped forward.

Vincent swore sharply, and a hand pulled her back from the railing by the waist of her pants.

“What the—” She turned to give him an incredulous look, but his face was stark white, and realization dawned.

“Ohhh,” she said knowingly. “I forgot about that little height thing you have.”

“Shut up,” he said, rubbing a hand over his face.

Jill wisely hid her smile. Vincent may have the reputation as one of the toughest, hardest-to-rattle cops in the NYPD, but he had one teeny-tiny weakness…

He was scared to death of heights.

She wouldn’t have thought a second-story railing even qualified, but judging from the slightly nauseous look on his face, it definitely did.

“Sorry,” she said, patting his arm. He was wearing his usual work “uniform.”

All black.

She didn’t judge, as she wore more of the same. Black pants. Black turtleneck. Black shoes.

Jill used to dress up more when she’d first gotten promoted to detective, but now she only busted out the skirts when they were talking to the families of victims or questioning people.

And then, only to soften the fact that Vincent didn’t dress up. Ever.

“Okay, so it’s reasonably certain that this couldn’t have been an accident,” Jill said, deliberately steering his attention back to the case.

He shook his head, color returning.

“I know we’ll need to look into her mental state,” Jill said, because they had to explore all options. “But even if Lenora Birch was depressed and the public didn’t know it… I don’t think she would have done it like this.”

“Why do you say that?”

Jill lifted a shoulder. “A person who was once said to be the most beautiful woman in the world wouldn’t want to be found like that.”

She gestured toward the floor below.

Vin blew out a breath as he snapped off his gloves and handed them to a passing tech. Jill did the same, although she did it with a smile and said thank you.

“Start with the housekeeper?” he asked.

Jill nodded. “Hopefully she’s still waiting in the kitchen like we asked.”

The housekeeper had been the one to find the body and call 911. She’d been too distraught to get out more than sobs when they’d first arrived, but Jill was hoping the worst of the shock had worn off and they could at least get some sense of where to start.

Jill felt a little shiver of anticipation roll through her. Not at the death—never the death. But at the thrill of the chase. Of the puzzle. She loved the entire process of putting the pieces together and coming up with the best prize of all:

Justice.

“I’ve missed this,” she said, more to herself than to Vincent, who wasn’t exactly known for being Mr. Chatty on the job. Or ever.

But to her surprise he studied her. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“That why you spent three months on the beach getting wooed by a millionaire while I got stuck with a Goddamn detective in training?”

“Hey!” she said, stung. “I wasn’t sitting on a beach, and you know it. I was making soup for my mother and vacuuming up year-old dust bunnies and going to the pharmacy every other day for her pain meds, and—”

“I know,” he cut in gruffly. “Sorry.”

She stopped her rampage, mollified only slightly.

He started to head back down the stairs, but she stopped him. “Vin.”

He turned around, and she glanced at her shoes, feeling silly for what she was about to say but wanting to say it anyway. Needing to say it so that they could be mavens and focus on work.

“Yeah?” he asked.

“Okay, so I was thinking,” she said, licking her lips. “We never talked about… you know, me getting married.”

He jolted. “You want to talk about it now?”

“Well, I mean, we don’t have to make a wedding scrapbook together, I just… thought it was weird that we haven’t really acknowledged it.”

He said nothing.

“You never even said congratulations,” she said quietly.

He stared at her blankly. “What?”

Jill licked her lips, feeling more ridiculous than ever. “I just… my engagement. Your entire family was happy for me. But you… you didn’t say one word.”

“Congratulations,” he said flatly.

Jill rolled her eyes. “The navigator on my phone’s map app has more inflection than you. I don’t want you to say it because you’re supposed to, I want you to say it because you mean it.”

“That is such a girly thing to say,” he stated gruffly.

She ignored this. She had no problems being girly.