One, figure out which of the bar rats had keyed Sunny’s truck.
And two, figure out why the hell Officer Darby was following me.
21
Sunny
My hand shook as I poured a glass of wine.
I hadn’t planned on this.
I hadn’t planned on him.
I hadn’t planned on my carefully crafted world getting turned upside down the moment—the freaking moment—I had finally found peace.
Happiness.
Content solitude.
Leaving everything off except for a dim light in the kitchen, I left a trail of flip flops through the living room and sank onto the couch. I stared out the window. The night was young, the moon low in the sky, hiding just below the treetops in the distance. Slashes of black branches swayed against the glowing spotlight. A cool breeze blew in through the open window.
Athena pulled herself off the floor, padded over and licked my hand. Tango and Max were out on their nightly bathroom breaks before coming in for the night. Brutus was still by the river.
Athena never left my side.
I stroked the course, sable fur on the top of her head. “Good girl, baby,” I cooed, to calm myself just as much as to soothe her. “Good girl.”
Athena and I had been through a lot together. New jobs, new houses, new men, new me. Therapists, nights on the bathroom floor, days not leaving the bed. Tears until there were no more. Fear until there was no more.
My stomach rolled at the thought it could be happening all over again. Maybe not in the exact way, but an attack was an attack. Abuse was abuse. Physically and mentally. I’d experienced both in the last twenty four hours. At the City Park, of all places, and then the local watering hole. Attacked physically, then mentally. For the second damn time in my life.
Was it happening again?
Could it all happen again?
I’d spent the last eight years picking up the broken pieces of a life changed forever. Putting one foot in front of the other while realizing the woman I once knew was no more, and having no idea who that new woman was. All I knew was my soul, the very core of me, had changed the instant Kenzo Rees slammed his fist into my jaw.
Funny how life can change in an instant.
There’s no going back after you wake up in ICU and remember you were put there by the hand of someone you loved. Someone you’d given your heart to.
Someone you trusted.
That was what hurt the most, believe it or not. Looking back, it was the shattered trust that did me in. Of all the scars I’d gotten that night, that was the one that never quite healed back correctly. That shattered trust had not only made me question every word and motive out of every man’s mouth from that day forward, it made me question myself. That was the worst. I not only lost trust in other people, but in myself as well. And that’s—that’s—the dangerous part. Once you lose faith in yourself, everything else is like a slow burning ember, gradually fading away over time until it eventually turns to dust. My confidence, gone. My self-worth obliterated.
I remember looking in the mirror a few months after the attack and feeling like my actual face had changed. Physically. My skin, bone structure, everything had changed. How crazy is that?
I didn’t even recognize the woman I’d become. I just knew that a dark hole had formed somewhere in my body, stealing that childhood light that used to shine from me. The darkness was always there, every day, for better or worse.
For better or worse.
It wasn’t until six years after the attack, a year after my mom died—followed by the downward spiral of my father—that I’d decided I was going to turn that worse into better.
I remember the moment like it was yesterday. I woke up on the kitchen floor with a bottle of vodka in my hand, an empty pizza box at my feet, and my first blinding migraine. Ever had a migraine before? Hell on earth. Damn close, anyway. I peeled my torso off the tile and vomited on my lap. When Athena lapped it up, I decided I’d had enough.
I’d gained thirty-seven pounds since the attack. Thirty-freaking-seven pounds, and no, those lbs. didn’t come with a pair of strapping young boys to dote on. It was all booze, pizza, and double-stuffed Oreos. Double, because regular whipped diabetes just wasn’t enough. I’d stopped working out, wearing makeup, feeling pretty—ever. I didn’t date because I didn’t trust men. Didn’t have friends because I didn’t trust anyone. I lived off my father’s money, working part-time at a vet clinic, interacting with as few humans as possible.
I was done wallowing in misery, the disgusting self-loathing that had become as routine to me as the anti-depressants I’d popped throughout the day. I was done accepting the pain, accepting the life mine had turned into.
I made the decision that day, sitting on my kitchen floor covered in half-eaten vomit, that if something can change me, for better or worse, then something can certainly change me back. This time, though, that change was going to be by my own hand, not at the mercy of someone else’s. I was going to be in control of whatever new woman I was going to be.
After throwing away the vodka and pizza box, I shredded dear Daddy’s credit cards, then burned them after I’d taped them back together a split-second later while sobbing uncontrollably. That was the first time I realized the real power of money. Of greed. The false comfort it provided. But you couldn’t be an independent woman while relying on a man to pay your bills, now could you? I joined a gym, made an appointment with a therapist, signed up for self-defense classes, signed-up for firearm training, applied for my concealed carry license, and adopted Max from a rescue facility that took in retired police dogs.
It was just me, Athena and Max, rebuilding a new world together, whatever the hell that looked like.
The days slowly morphed into carefully constructed routines and schedules, down to the minute. I learned this type of structure eased my anxiety and helped bring back that control I felt like I’d lost. I also learned that self-defense, guns, dog training, and martial arts came easily to me. I loved all of it.
But losing the damn weight? That’s another story. Not unlike finding the perfect vibrator—something I’d also realized the power of. The first step is overcoming the mental block, being open to the new adventure. Pun unintended. Then, it takes time, effort, perseverance, and a few unfortunate bruises along the way, but in the end, complete, total satisfaction. Losing the thirty-seven pounds took me six damn months that included a detox off gluten, dairy, sugar, salt, and a wicked case of food poisoning from an organic, vegan by-product called Miso Thorny. I do not recommend the last part, or any health food named after a sexual innuendo from the eighties. Nineties is probably cool. Eighties, no.
It was slow going, but eventually, I began to feel better. Physically first, then mentally. And finally, emotionally. I brought back the full-length mirror I’d once removed from my bedroom, returned the scale to my closet. Flushed the bottles of antidepressants down the toilet and replaced the goblet that I drank my evening martinis in with a much more socially acceptable shorter glass that read Let that Shit Go. Ratted T-shirts and sweatpants were replaced with, well, less ratty T-shirts and sweatpants… turned out the new Sunny had as much interest in fashion as the old one.
Oh well. Can’t win ’em all.
Physically, the old Sunny was back. But in the place of the once naive, rose-colored-glasses girl was an independent, lethally trained, paranoid perfectionist. A deadly combination in any man’s book.
My safe-zone, my comfort zone, was my house, so I started my own business where I could work from home, combining the only two things I trusted—self-defense tactics and dogs. I ate, drank, slept and worked behind the walls I’d built around myself, only leaving when it was absolutely necessary. You know, to get gas, booze, and food.
I was healthy, happy.
Unstoppable.
It wasn’t long before the looks and attention I’d gotten from men before I let myself go, came back. But instead of smiling and giggling at the attention,
this new, improved, smarter Sunny decided to use this to my advantage. Unfortunately, I couldn’t avoid civilization all together, so I learned how to get in and out with what I needed, more often than not, at the assistance of man. You see, I might have built myself into Sunny 2.0, but the scars still remained. All men needed to die, in my humble opinion. Men could not be trusted. I did not let men into my space, into my head, into my bed. It had been six years since I’d had sex, and while most might cringe at that thought, I wore the record proudly as some sort of badge of honor proving my independence. I didn’t need anyone. Celibacy gave me control over every part of my body, and for me, that was an easy adjustment. Well, that and the fact that vibrators had come a long way. Pun definitely intended. In my book, men were stupid, ignorant, easy to seduce and easier to tame. Men were helpful, then disposable.
Forgettable.
Enter Detective Max Jagger and his two-hundred and fifty pounds of pent up rage tackling me like a gorilla in City Park. The moment he’d appeared at the scene of the “Slaying at the Park,”—a title that made me want to run into oncoming traffic, by the way—he’d caught my eye. Controlled my focus. Not because of the gun in his hand, or his six-foot-four beastly frame, or the rugged sexiness that came as effortlessly to him as his disdain for manscaping. Or anything that involved self-care, obviously. But because of the authority that oozed from him. The detective owned the room instantly, so to speak. He was the one I needed to keep my eye on.
The brash, unapologetic detective inserted himself into my life despite my every attempt to keep him at arm’s length.
Jagg was everything I didn’t like in a man. A cocky, controlling, bulldozing alpha male. Jacked-up testosterone on the brink of self-destruction.
He was nothing I’d known before… and everything I never knew I needed.
From the moment he’d pinned me to the grass in the park, I’d felt something. Drawn to him in a way I didn’t understand. Although his grip around my wrists had loosened and eventually released, it was like the touch never left my skin. The heat and tenacity of the hold tightening every time I saw him. Every time I heard his voice. Every damn time he looked at me in that way.
And then he had to go and be my knight in shining armor.
Forget the attack, forget my keyed truck, Max Jagger was like an EF5 tornado, blowing into my life and turning everything I’d so meticulously placed onto its head.
I was mentally prepared for an attack, prepared for the violation of my privacy. I’d lived through it once, I’d do it again. But Max Jagger? No, I wasn’t prepared for him.
I wasn’t prepared for the way he had me questioning if I could trust a man. Or even let one into my life again.
I wasn’t prepared for the guilt I felt for deceiving a man with as many trust issues as I had. If Detective Max Jagger knew the secrets in my closet, there’d be no going back.
For either of us.
I pushed off the couch and stepped onto the deck, into the cool evening air.
I took a deep breath, then another. While my thoughts were as muddled as a Mojito, I knew two things for certain: One, I had a decision to make.
And two, I wasn’t ready.
22
Jagg
I walked through the front door into a wall of air-conditioned air scented with fresh bacon, coffee, and a cloud of discount perfume strong enough to singe nose hairs. It was Wednesday night in the south, otherwise known as church night. Donny’s Diner was packed to the gills with men and women wearing their Wednesday night best, pretending to be meditating on the daily word, when in fact, they were gobbling up the daily gossip as fast as Ms. Booth’s fresh apple pie. A plate of steaming flapjacks passed me by sending my stomach growling. There were many things I loved about the south, but top of the list was the fact that coffee, bacon, and waffles were an acceptable meal no matter what time of day.
I glanced at the clock on the wall, a ridiculous black and white cartoon cat.
8:07 p.m.
Typically, Donny’s closed its doors promptly at nine o’clock, whether you were finished with your meal or not. But, as with every other small business in town, Donny’s was staying open later to cater to the influx of tourists flocking to the Moon Magic Festival. Two days away and the town was already overflowing with tourists. Calls to the station had gone up more than fifty percent. Everyone was hyped up, on edge, fueling an energy flowing through the sleepy town like nuclear vibrations. The current heatwave and impending full moon only added to it.
I was operating on exactly forty-eight minutes of sleep, thanks to a pain pill that had kicked in somewhere after three in the morning. I’d gone to sleep with visions of Sunny Harper in my head, dreamt of her legs around my waist, her curls bouncing on my shoulders, and woken up with a raging boner that was embarrassingly easy to remedy.
After following Sunny to her house, I’d gone back to Frank’s and was as welcomed as a bad rash. Not surprisingly, though, my little display had unnerved people enough that I was able to get a confession in under five minutes. According to Sandy, the waitress, the fat redneck was the asshole behind keying Sunny’s truck, and I was a bigger asshole for never calling her back after taking her home a few weeks earlier. After that slap in the face, I drove to the redneck’s house where I pulled him out of bed by his hair and slapped him with a misdemeanor and five-hundred dollar fine. Because the broken nose I’d given him when I slammed his face against the counter just wasn’t enough.
I was quickly becoming the least popular guy in town.
An old shoe. Without the tassel.
After that, I’d gone home, dreamt of Sunny, beat off, and was behind my desk with a cup of coffee before the sun came up. I’d spent the morning catching up, and the afternoon watching Julian Griggs’ autopsy. The temperature had hit a sweltering ninety-eight by noon, making the dress shirt I’d changed into before the autopsy feel like a strait jacket. Funerals and autopsies were the only two times I wore button-ups. It was my ridiculous way of showing respect. Although I’d unbuttoned my top button and rolled up my sleeves sometime during the Y-incision down Griggs’ torso, no amount of extra air helped the constant state of damp I’d been in all day.
I’d attended countless autopsies through the years and while nothing was worse than a child’s, attending one where the victim’s face had been blown off had a way of setting the tone for the day. True to form, Jessica Heathrow, the medical examiner, hadn’t shielded the audience from the gore. Helps light a fire under the investigation, she always said. Jessica didn’t believe in sugar-coating shit—one of my favorite things about her.
The autopsy hadn’t revealed much more than we already knew. Julian Griggs died of a gunshot wound to the head. Several scratches and bruising on his torso suggested a physical altercation, backing Sunny’s story that he’d attacked her. Unfortunately, it did nothing to confirm the part of her story that a mystery third person had emerged from the woods, engaged Julian, and in the end, was the one to pull the trigger.
We were still waiting on ballistics to confirm if the pin markings of the casing found at the scene matched Sunny’s gun.
The Cedonia Scroll art investigator, Briana Morgan, still hadn’t called me back, nor had Sunny’s dad, Arlo Harper, or the warden of the prison where Kenzo Rees was caged. I felt like my hands were tied behind my back. To top all that off, I was no closer to finding the damn Black Bandit.
It had been a hell of a day and the last thing I wanted to do was listen to more gossip about voodoo, witches, or the Slaying in the Park.
Unfortunately, that was exactly what I got.
I’d just made it to the corner of the counter when—
“Detective Max Jagger.” The southern accent was as thick and slow as the syrup on the plate next to me. I turned into the wart on ol’ Mrs. Berkovich’s face.
“Ma’am.”
“Don’t ma’am me now, son. What’re you and the other police boys doin’ to keep these hippies under control? Saw two of ‘em sleeping on th
e square last night. Right there against the fountain. Probably smoking dope and conjurin’ up some spell for another Slayin’ in the Park. I spent this mornin’ cleaning my shotguns.” She squinted. “Unrelated. Anyway. I want them out of here. The whole goddamn town smells like patchouli.”
My gaze flickered to the gold cross around her neck. A forgiving God, indeed.
“Are they bothering you personally, Mrs. Berkovich?”
She lifted her eye brows with an attitudinal shrug. “All I know is ever since these beatniks came to town, something’s been eating the flowers on my front porch. All my plants, close to death.”
“You think the hippies are eating your front porch flowers?”
She scoffed. “They eat all sorts of natural shit.”
“So do deer, Mrs. Berkovich.”
“Well, in that case, I’ll shoot to kill next—”
“Hold on there, Annie Oakley. I’ll drive by your house the next few evenings. Keep your sawed-off shotgun away from the windows and under your pillow where it belongs.”
She lifted her chin and nodded. “Thank you, son. By the way, I ran into Patricia yesterday.”
I stilled, no way on earth had I heard that correctly. I turned fully.
“You say Patricia?”
“Yes, sir.”
“My mother?”
“You got more than one, son? Hell, wouldn’t surprise me these days.”
“What was she doing in town?”
“Ahhh, guess you didn’t know.” Mrs. Berkovich’s eyes sparked, sensing gossip like stink on pig. “Said she was lookin’ for houses.”
God himself could have walked through the door and I wouldn’t have been more surprised.
“Looking for houses? Here?” I asked, although the voice in my head was telling me to shut the hell up.
“Yep. Mentioned she tried to call you a few times, no answer. Asked how you’ve been doin.’ I figured she’d paid you a visit after that.”
Jagger (Steele Shadows Investigations) Page 17
