“Finley Creek’s death toll has risen to forty-six, last that I heard.”
“Yes. They’ve asked for any spare deputies we have. I’m sending Jeremy and Ralley in the morning.”
“And me?”
“No.” Clay shook his head. “I need you here. On the murder case. Just because we had a damned tornado rip through doesn’t mean everything can just stop.”
“Then let’s eat and get to work.”
“You need to take a break.”
“I will when you will.” Blue eyes met his. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here as long as you need me.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
He’d probably need her forever.
Now Clay just had to find a way to convince her of that.
He wanted to say more than that, but Veri ran in, notepad in hand. “Another body’s been found.”
Clay grabbed his holster and phone. “Where?”
“Down at Bracker’s Mill, Clay. Bridge inspector found her.” Veri hesitated. “It wasn’t the storm. Girl is wrapped in plastic wrap.”
The hamburger he’d just eaten threatened to find its way back up. “In the water?”
“Yes.”
“Call Elliot Marshall. See if he has anyone from forensics to spare.”
Clay looked at Bailey, knowing what she was thinking.
If this was the same killer, his cooling-off period had just gotten a hell of a lot shorter.
***
Three people Bailey recognized from her time at Finley Creek met them at the bridge. Haldyn Harris, Charlotte Fields, and Madi McAlister waited in the bright sunshine next to the bridge, Haldyn and Madi in the white paper overalls that were going to be Bailey’s future uniform of choice.
“They have a team available?” Clay asked.
“I don’t know. Madi looks a little beat up. She’s the smaller redhead on the left. Next to Haldyn.” Bailey walked toward her future colleagues.
Haldyn nodded at her. “Hey, Bailey. Glad to see you are ok.”
“We were blown off the road and flipped over, but other than being a bit banged up we’re both fine. How are things in Finley Creek?”
Haldyn’s face pinched. “It’s slow going. We lost the brand-new annex again. And two people are still in the hospital. We’re working double shifts in our department, and short staffed. It’s going to take a while to get back to normal.”
Bailey knew the numbers—they’d lost several road officers as well.
“What do we have down there?” Clay asked.
“Confirmed DB. She’s still in the shallows. Chuckie pulled the short straw and has to retrieve.” Haldyn pointed to the woman around Bailey’s age who was dressed in green coveralls with TSP: Evidence Recovery emblazoned across the back. Charlotte Fields was quiet, a recent transplant to Finley Creek from the Houston area. She nodded at Bailey before zipping up the coveralls.
Bailey didn’t envy Charlotte at all. She would have to wade into the water and guide the body to the shore, where the ME’s team could process from there.
“What’s the initial report?” Clay asked from behind Bailey’s shoulder. “Who found the body?”
“The state bridge inspector. He was onsite to evaluate the damage from the storm—and from the sabotage. Another close call, Bailey.”
“We got lucky. Lucky to get off the bridge in time and lucky no civilians went across it before us. That would have been devastating.”
“No doubt. We’re just about to send Chuckie in now.”
Bailey and Clay waited while the painstaking process began. When the ME gave the all-clear, Bailey leaned over the victim.
She had blond hair, but other than that, at this point they didn’t have much more than that.
The plastic wrap around the body had hopefully preserved some of the evidence. What the water hadn’t destroyed.
“I wonder if she drowned?” Bailey looked at the ME “Is there a way we can tell now?”
She didn’t think there was, but the ME confirmed it. “We’ll have to check for water in the lungs.”
“It would be a deviation from his previous victims,” Bailey said. “I’ll bet she was washed down here from the rains. I’d say we have another burial site nearby.”
“It’ll take some time to find it,” Haldyn said. “If we had access to the lab—which we don’t at this point—I could run some calculations, see how far the water may have brought her. Right now, we’re working out of Wichita Falls and sharing facilities.”
Which meant it was going to take twice as long to get evidence processed. Most likely longer, considering the damage the storm had caused in that city as well.
“She’s missing her fingers,” the ME said as he lifted the arm into the body bag with latex-glove covered hands.
“Scavengers?” Bailey remember one case she’d seen when she’d been assigned to forensics before.
“Not unless they used a knife. Cuts are too clean. I’ll know more when I get her back to the morgue. But it’s going to be a while. We’ve been slammed with victims of the storm.”
The death toll was up to fifty-one now. Everyone was holding out hope that number wouldn’t rise again.
“Get us what you can when you can. We need to stop this guy. He’s escalating, and he’s not going to just go away,” Bailey stood and looked at Clay. “We need to connect our victims to a list of possibilities. And fast.”
And with everything Clay had to juggle now, that was going to have to fall to her.
Chapter 117
It took hours for them to process the river scene. Clay had gotten called away, and left Bailey with Dr. Harris. The other woman and her team had promised to drop Bailey off at the Value TSP on their way through.
Clay was kept busy with the rest of the county, but he worried about her while she was out there.
He probably always would.
When they finally brought her back near nine at night, she was beyond the point of exhausted. But he had good news for her.
“Wichita Falls called. They may have a match to three old cases that remain unsolved. Their machines are down—whatever that means—but the service tech will be there at six a.m. And they want you up there by nine. The detective on the cold cases is retiring, and he wants to talk to you in person. I think he’s wanting to hand it over to someone young and enthusiastic. I’ve got business up there myself—we’ll take my jeep.”
She nodded then sank into the chair next to his desk. Clay just studied her for a moment. Her hair was falling down, she had clay and mud caked on her uniform pants beneath the knees. “The ME thinks she’s only been dead a few days. Probably not even time to report her missing.”
Something tickled his brain. “Unless she’s one of the names on Jake’s list of missing from this town.”
“Unless she came from Finley Creek. Someone going missing here would be almost too noticeable. And anyone that woman was with or seen in contact with would be more easily identified. But Finley Creek...forty-five thousand people actually make it easier for someone to disappear.” Bailey grabbed for the bag of M&Ms off the corner of his desk.
He’d put them there for her hours earlier.
***
Someone would have to drive her home. Bailey considered just camping out on the couch in his office again, but that idea didn’t appeal.
She wanted to go home for a while. A place to forget everything the last few days had brought. “I need to find a ride. I’m exhausted.”
He immediately stood. “I was planning to drive you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“I’m going to go change out of these pants first. I don’t want to get mud all over your jeep.”
“It’s a jeep, honey. It’s made for mud.” He stepped up beside her, his warm hands going to her shoulders. He rubbed.
Then tangled his fingers in her hair. “You have mud in your hair.”
“One of the trees had evidence of the
flood. I brushed against it.”
“You need a shower.” He smiled down at her. “Let me drive you by the diner. I’ll run in and grab you something to eat. Then I’ll take you home and tuck you into your bed.”
“Bert may have something to say about that. Sometimes he makes Cam sleep on the couch—just to mess with him.”
“I don’t think Bert will mind. He’s too busy wrangling Veri.”
“What is going on with them? Is it just the storm?”
“She made a comment about them having slept together eighty years ago not giving him any rights over her life. Deb, Jeremy, and Ralley were speechless. But Bert convinced her she was going with him tonight—by kidnapping her cat. Said the cat was going home with him and she could follow. Last I saw her she was climbing into the passenger side of that older truck of his.”
“That’s so weird.”
“No kidding. And Celia Lake is still out there with Jake. Her house took some damage, and the roof will need to be repaired. It’s right over their bedrooms, Jake said. She and her son are with Jake—and not her sisters.”
“Really?” That was a surprise. She hadn’t had much time to talk to Jake in several days. It felt like weeks. Apparently, some things had happened in his world that she didn’t know about.
Life kept going around them, didn’t it? Bailey lowered her head to his broad chest, right against his heartbeat. “I’m exhausted.”
His hand trailed up her spine. “Camp at my place. I’ll feed you, loan you some clothes, and run these through the wash. Then you can sleep a little later. I think you need it. Come home with me.”
Bailey found herself nodding. She didn’t want Bert and Jake, or even Liam, at the moment. She needed a buffer, from what she’d spent the last six hours doing next to Bracker’s Mill Creek, and what she’d done in the six hours before that.
Bert and Jake and the baby, and Celia and her son, and Veri and even the cat. It would be too real, too much like a family.
And that would bring obligations she wasn’t ready to meet tonight.
“We’ll get back to normal in the morning.”
Yeah, people just kept saying that.
Bailey wasn’t certain she believed it.
Chapter 118
Lou staked out the sheriff’s office. There were too many damned people everywhere. It happened every time that something major happened. People would come out to gawk or talk or gossip. Getting in everyone’s way so that the people who had jobs to do couldn’t do them.
Bailey wasn’t one of those people. But that damned sheriff was.
Lou had a gun. He thought about just taking that sonofabitch out right where he sat. That was the only way fix everything. Everything.
He just had to get Clay Addy away from Bailey. Then Jake Dillon and Bailey could live together the way they were meant to.
He hadn’t meant to fight with Charlie the way he had. Charlie was his friend. He hoped he hadn’t hurt the other man too much.
Charlie had been the one to help him save Bailey back in April. Lou hadn’t forgotten that debt. He never would.
Lou would admit he’d thought about removing Charlie’s niece from Bailey’s path toward Jake, but he’d stopped those lines of thought.
That girl had never hurt him, and Bailey would hate him even more if he hurt an innocent woman like that. Not to mention that little boy needed his momma.
It was better to take out the sheriff. Then Jake would step in for Bailey the way a good man would.
It wasn’t serious between the librarian and Celia Lake.
Lou knew that. Knew it well.
A blond walked by, in a muddy uniform. Her shoulders were slumped, and it was obvious his girl was tired.
Lou knew what it was like for a deputy when a natural disaster like this hit. He remembered a fire that had raged around Value for days back before Bailey could walk. It had been hours of labor for their entire staff.
But they’d gotten through.
Bailey headed inside. Lou just watched.
His fingers tightened on the old WWII .45 that had been in his family for generations. Lou had found it in some of his daddy’s old things weeks ago. He’d went to the small farmhouse his parents had once owned down on Bracker’s Mill Road.
It had been abandoned for decades. Kimberly should have gotten the place—for Bailey—when Lou had been in prison, but for some reason she hadn’t. It had been sold for back taxes, then sold again when that new owner died.
It must have changed hands three or four times since his parents’ deaths. They’d passed within a year of each other—right after Lou had gone inside.
They hadn’t had any contact with Bailey after Lou’s arrest—they hadn’t ever welcomed Kimberly or the baby into their lives the way they should have—and she apparently hadn’t wanted anything of theirs.
Not even for his baby.
But he had the gun now. It had been buried in the middle of the barn, where he’d watched his daddy put it when Lou had been all of nine.
He’d never asked why. Nor had he ever disturbed it.
But he’d cleaned it well, and with the serial number filed off—something not uncommon with military-issued pistols this old—it was as untraceable as it could be.
He’d just wait until Addy was alone, kill the bastard, and then plant the gun in Glen’s belongings.
Then call in an anonymous tip like a good citizen.
Bailey came outside again, and this time the sheriff was right on her heels. Lou held his breath as they got into the man’s jeep.
When they pulled out, he waited a few car lengths. And followed.
Addy pulled into the driveway of his own damned house. Lou watched as the man carried Bailey’s bag for her, as he held her hand and pulled her inside.
Then Addy closed the damned door, and Lou couldn’t see what happened inside at all.
But he could imagine.
Chapter 119
Clay gave her soft sweatpants that were way too big and a warm FCU baseball jersey and shooed her toward his shower. They’d stopped off at the grocery store and he’d grabbed a frozen pizza and soda while she’d napped in the jeep.
It had taken him a moment to wake her when they’d pulled in at his house.
He had plenty of hot water, and Bailey felt herself almost drifting off beneath the soothing spray. When she finally stepped out of the large shower, she wrapped up in the thickest bath towel she’d ever seen—apparently Clay liked some luxuries in his bathroom—and tried to breathe.
What was she doing? She should have gone home.
This felt too real.
Everything they hadn’t talked about was starting to hit her now. As was the uncertainty.
She had no idea if her position was going to still be open at Finley Creek. She had no idea what was going on at Bert and Jake’s.
She didn’t know who the killer was. Or who had tried to destroy the bridge over Bracker’s Mill Creek.
Or even what tomorrow was going to bring for her.
But what now was bringing was Clayton Barratt Addy.
She had made a decision when she went home with him tonight. Maybe she hadn’t made it consciously.
But by going home with him she’d chosen him.
When the entire world seemed sideways, she’d chosen him.
Clay was her truth.
And she didn’t know what she was going to do about that.
He was waiting for her in the massive dining room, a room too big for only a single man. “The pizza’s ready.”
“Thanks. And for the clothes.” She’d passed his laundry room on her way through to the dining room. It had seemed so mundane. So normal.
Yet it felt far from normal now.
Clay had changed his own clothes. He was in faded jeans and another FCU T-shirt. The green cotton made those shoulders look ridiculously broad. Strong.
Able to keep the world at bay.
He looked at her and a smirk hit his face. “Love the outfit.
”
She looked down. Clay’s pants bagged considerably. And the shirt hit her knees. “It’s all the rage.”
“Sit. Eat.”
She did. They did. Within half an hour she was drooping again.
Bailey didn’t protest when Clay’s hands went around her waist and he lifted her into his arms. One arm slipped beneath her knees. Bailey rested her head against his shoulder. “Where are you taking me?”
“I know where I want to take you. But that’s for another time. And that decision is entirely yours.”
“I think I’d like that very much. If I wasn’t so tired.”
Clay carried her down the hall. “I have a spare room.”
He lowered her to the bed. Bailey didn’t want him to let go. Her arms tightened around his shoulders.
“Bai?”
“Just...hold me, Clay. Nothing else. Just hold me.”
“I won’t ever let you go.”
Chapter 120
When Bailey opened her eyes, it was the middle of the night, and there was a strong man wrapped around her. Sound asleep and snoring softly.
She brushed her fingers across his cheek, feeling the slight stubble that was there. It had been a long time since she laid this close to a man. She could feel his warmth surrounding her—just like the arms he had around her.
She hadn’t intended this when she’d asked him to hold her. But Bailey didn’t care.
It felt right.
Exactly where she was.
Green eyes opened. The moon was shining right through the window. His eyes widened. Then he smiled. “Hey.”
“It’s two a.m.”
“Everything seems peaceful at two a.m. Most of the time. You been awake long?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted him to hold her. “Just a few minutes.”
Bailey sat up, pulling the comforter up around her. “Is it raining again?”
“I don’t think so. I...do you want me to go to the other room? Let you sleep alone?”
Bailey stared at him for a long moment. The last thing she wanted was to be alone tonight. She shook her head.
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