A few rapid blinks and she dropped her gaze to the maroon carpet squares.
He continued to stare at the top of her head, almost daring her to look up again, until Anissa’s face filled his vision. Her cheeks were still damp from the tears she’d shed with Mr. Littlefield. Her hazel eyes brimmed with understanding.
Anissa’s head bobbed. One quick nod was all he needed and he knew if it came to it, she would take the case for him.
Not that he intended to hand it over.
But he wouldn’t put anything past that obnoxious reporter. It wouldn’t surprise him if she started bad-mouthing him to the Littlefield family before their son was officially dead. Poisoning their thinking. Questioning whether he could find their son’s killer.
And when she finished with the family, she’d do a story about it on the local news. Complete with a grainy photograph of Gabe—probably from his undercover days so he would look as disreputable as possible.
Paisley Wilson was no friend to the law enforcement community in Carrington.
And they were no friends of hers.
The door opened again. This had to be Mrs. Littlefield with her puffy face and a tissue clenched in each hand. She walked straight to Anissa and pulled her close. “Thank you.” She had no tears. Probably because she had none left.
She glanced at Gabe, then at Adam and Ryan. “Thank you all.” With a dry sob, she turned and all but ran to the door.
Ryan blew out an audible breath—probably in an effort not to hit something. Adam pinched his lips together, nostrils flaring, anger simmering. Anissa turned around and this time there was something different in her eyes.
Panic.
She bolted past him and out the door they’d entered, leaving Ryan and Adam looking as confused as he felt. She’d been acting weird since they’d pulled Brooke and Jeremy from the lake. Not that any of them were okay with what had happened, but this was different.
Almost like it was personal.
Fragments of past conversations clicked into place in his mind. Comments about stupid mistakes. Words that hadn’t meant much at the time took on new meaning.
Anissa had secrets. He knew something in her past haunted her. He had no idea what it was, but he had a feeling he was about to find out.
“I’ll check on her.” He didn’t give Adam or Ryan a chance to respond. He went through the same door Anissa had taken. Once in the hall, he scanned left and right, but she was nowhere to be seen. Where had she gone? The signs hanging from the ceiling pointed to different areas of the hospital.
The elevators were to the left. The chapel to the right.
He went right.
The tiles and paint shifted from shiny and new to faded and worn as he left the newer section of Carrington’s hospital and entered the part that had been around for close to fifty years. He didn’t rush. He wasn’t trying to catch Anissa. He was . . . what? Was worried about her? Why? She could take care of herself.
But . . . he didn’t want her to have to handle this, whatever this was, alone.
It took five minutes of left and right turns before he caught a glimpse of stained glass set into an ornate wooden door.
He eased the door open and stuck his head through.
Anissa knelt before a cross, bent over so that her head almost touched the floor. Her shoulders shook. Her hair had fallen around her face, but Gabe had no doubt that tears were splashing on the wooden planks beneath her.
He pulled back into the hallway.
Should he go inside? Would she want to know that he’d seen her in this moment?
Anissa wasn’t private about her faith. She’d grown up in a missionary family and her faith had always been a public part of her persona. But there was a big difference between telling everybody that Jesus changes everything and having someone seeing you sobbing in prayer.
He waited outside the chapel. Lord, do I go in? Do I stay out here and wait for her? Do I walk away and pretend I never saw anything?
He was on shaky ground with Anissa as it was. They’d met seven years ago on a dive. At the time, he was working undercover so often that he almost never made a training dive and responded to calls even less. But he’d loved the once or twice a year that he’d managed to sneak in a dive, and their former dive captain had been okay with that.
The day he met Anissa, he’d been thrilled to get in on the last exercise of the day. Anissa had been his dive buddy and he’d been impressed with her skills.
She hadn’t been impressed with him.
She hadn’t cared how good a diver he thought he was. As far as she had been concerned, if he couldn’t show up for training, he shouldn’t be on the team. They’d argued about it off and on over the next couple of years, but he hadn’t realized how serious she’d been until their dive team captain retired and she became captain.
Her first order of business had been to kick Gabe off the team. He’d said some pretty awful things about her, both behind her back and to her face. It didn’t matter to him that her reasons had been valid, if a bit rigid. What mattered was that she’d taken the one good thing from his normal work life that he’d clung to, even as his undercover life pulled him deeper and deeper into a darker world.
They hadn’t spoken to each other again—well, except for that one night when she was undercover with him—until his cover was blown by none other than Paisley Wilson. The captain moved Gabe to the homicide unit and suggested Anissa allow Gabe back on the dive team.
She hadn’t taken his suggestion well.
Gabe owed Ryan for smoothing things over with Anissa, but those first few weeks and months had been . . . challenging.
By unspoken but mutual consent, they’d never spoken of that night. That kiss. It was as if it had never happened.
And the version of Anissa who that night had laughed and flirted and smiled at him like he was the only man in the world? She was long gone. Real-life Anissa was impervious to his charms. His good-natured teasing, which had worked to disarm gangbangers, bounced off her as if she were surrounded by an impenetrable force field.
But then he and Ryan found that body in the lake.
And Leigh almost died.
And for the first time, Gabe felt like he and Anissa were on the same team. She didn’t glare in his direction anymore. Sometimes she even cracked a smile at his jokes.
Then last fall when his buddy Brady St. John called in a favor, Anissa had asked him two questions. “He’s a friend of yours? You trust him?”
When he said yes to both, he’d expected her to say something smart like “Then why should I trust him?” but instead she’d said, “What do you need?”
They’d saved a life that night, and when it was over, something in their relationship shifted. Anissa had trusted him and that one act had reframed years of antagonism and frustration.
Then a few weeks later she’d had to take a life in order to save Sabrina’s.
Anissa had never killed anyone.
But Gabe had.
Suddenly he was the only person in their small circle who had been where she was. Waking up in the middle of the night, mind racing. Knowing there was no other option but ripped apart by the act. The guilt. The doubt.
Now, seven months later, he considered himself to be a close enough friend to follow her all the way to the chapel door.
But was he close enough to go inside?
3
Anissa had no more tears. No more words.
She rested her forehead in her hands and allowed her heavenly Father to hold her heart.
The door opened behind her, a whisper in the sacred silence of the small space. Hesitant footsteps approached.
She wasn’t ashamed to be found kneeling before the cross. Broken.
But she braced herself for the questions. Whoever had been brave enough to join her in this moment would be brave enough to ask her what was wrong.
Instead of offering words, the person knelt beside her.
Gabe.
She knew it was h
im without looking. He had a masculine scent. Clean. Outdoorsy. She’d never been able to figure out if it was his soap or his shampoo or his laundry detergent. Or maybe it was the combination of all three that gave him his own unique signature smell.
He was close enough that his shoulder brushed against hers, but he didn’t speak. When she glanced in his direction, his eyes were closed, head bowed.
Praying for her?
Something about that stirred emotions she didn’t want to explore. Not now. Not ever.
She sat back on her feet. “I’m okay, Gabe,” she said in a raspy whisper. She cleared her throat. “Really.”
He opened his eyes and inclined his head toward her. “I’m not buying it, Bell.”
Why did it have to be Gabe who managed to see right through her? Although to be fair, it wouldn’t take a PhD in psychology to come to the conclusion that her overreaction was indicative of a deeper dilemma.
She glanced at the cross. A symbol of what Jesus had done. A visual reminder that because of his sacrifice and her acceptance of it to cover her sins, she was uncondemnable.
Even though she condemned herself for what she’d done, God didn’t.
But would Gabe?
“You don’t have to tell me, Anissa. But I’ll listen if you want to talk.”
His phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and groaned.
“Later?” Anissa couldn’t pretend she was sorry she didn’t have to dredge up the gory details right now, but she knew he would find out sooner or later. Knowing him, he’d go digging for it. And the press had been brutal. If he thought he had reason to hate the press . . .
Gabe stood up and extended both his hands toward her. She took them and he pulled her to her feet. Her legs were stiff and she stumbled into him. His arms wrapped around her as he steadied her, and for a brief second she rested against his chest before they took simultaneous steps away from each other.
He shook his phone back and forth. “Ryan says they need us back in the family room.” He grabbed a tissue from a box on the small pew behind them and handed it to her. “Ready?”
He waited for her to go first, then reached around her to open the door. The antiseptic air and ever-present beeps and tones of the hospital assaulted her senses as they reentered the hallway. She hoped whatever awaited them in the family room wouldn’t take long, because she needed to get out of this place.
“I know you recognized Paisley Wilson.” Gabe said her name like he was tasting poison.
“I did. You knew Brooke was her little sister as soon as she said her name last night, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
Anissa couldn’t believe she’d ever thought Gabe Chavez was a self-absorbed spoiled brat determined to get his way no matter what. Not that it was Brooke’s fault her sister was anathema to the sheriff’s office, and to Gabe personally, but he hadn’t just been kind to Brooke, he’d been compassionate. He’d treated her the way he would want his own sister to be treated, even knowing Paisley would have a field day with him when it was all over. He’d fought for Jeremy’s life even though he had to have known it was a losing battle and had to have been thinking Paisley Wilson would find some way to blame him for the boy’s death.
“You’re a good man, Gabe.”
Gabe stopped walking. Anissa turned to face him. He was staring at her like she’d said the sky was marigold.
“You are. And if that twit of a reporter thinks she can screw up your life again, she’s got another thing coming. We won’t stand for it. You won’t be alone this time, Gabe. I’ve got your back. Ryan and Adam do too. It won’t be like before when no one could defend you without blowing their own cover.”
He continued to stare at her for a few seconds before he whispered, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, let’s go see what’s going on.”
A hint of a smile crossed his face as they continued to the family room. He nudged her elbow, and this time he was grinning at her. “I’d kind of like to see you take on Paisley Wilson. I bet we could sell tickets.”
“Stop it.” She shoved him away but couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up at the mental image Gabe’s words had generated.
The lightness of the moment evaporated as they neared the family room. “Ready?” she asked.
“After you.” Gabe opened the door.
Ryan and Adam leaned against the wall nearest the door. Paisley sat alone. Brooke was no longer in the room.
“What’s going on?” Gabe asked Ryan.
Ryan nodded in Paisley’s direction. “Ms. Wilson wanted to speak to you without Brooke present.”
“Where is Brooke?”
Anissa had directed the question to Ryan, but it was Paisley who answered. “She’s with Jeremy’s family. They’re very close. They’ve been best friends since kindergarten.”
Paisley stood. “Investigator Chavez—”
Adam stepped forward. “Gabe, do you want us in here?”
“It’s fine with me,” he said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Good for him. Set her straight from the beginning.
“I’d prefer that you stay as well. All of you. I—” Paisley paced around the small room. “Look, I know you hate me. I know I blew your cover, Investigator Chavez. And I know—” She pulled in a shaky breath. “I know you believe my aggressive reporting got that boy killed.”
“It did.” Gabe didn’t say the words in a harsh manner. But his calm, statement-of-fact approach was almost harder to hear.
It pierced Anissa’s heart. Whatever friendship she had with Gabe wouldn’t survive the truth about what she’d done.
Paisley dropped her head. “I’m not going to try to convince you otherwise.” When she looked up, her eyes shone with tears. “I just want to know who’s been assigned to the case.”
“I was the investigator on call. Unless there are mitigating circumstances that I’m unaware of, it will be mine. Anissa will run point on any underwater investigating we need to do.” Gabe nodded toward Ryan. “We all work together when necessary. I’m sure Ryan will be involved in some way. Depending on what we discover, Adam could be pulled in as well. We aren’t lone wolves in this sheriff’s office. The goal is to find out who killed Jeremy and see that he or she is prosecuted.”
Paisley smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile, but it wasn’t hostile either. “I told the Littlefields you were the man for the job.” She nodded toward Ryan and then Anissa. “No offense to either of you. But Investigator Chavez hates me enough to dig deep and hard into both my family and the Littlefields’. He won’t hold back and I’m okay with that.”
Anissa wasn’t sure if she believed Paisley. Time would tell.
Brooke burst into the room and ran to Paisley as her sobs reached the point of hysteria. “He would still be alive if I hadn’t dared him.” She sagged in Paisley’s arms. “It’s all my fault!”
Anissa couldn’t stop herself. She put an arm around Brooke, and by necessity around Paisley. “It isn’t your fault, Brooke. You didn’t do this. You didn’t pull the trigger.”
Anissa didn’t care if Paisley Wilson aired some sort of exposé about Anissa’s past failures. This child needed comfort and Anissa wasn’t going to hold her at arm’s length because of her sister.
Another arm wrapped around her and Brooke. “She’s right, Brooke.” Gabe crooned the words like a lullaby. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but you didn’t do this. You are not responsible for his death. Don’t take that burden on yourself, querida.”
“We see more death than most people, Brooke.” Ryan joined their circle. “You can trust us on this. We know where the blame lies and it’s not with you.”
“My little brother died in a car accident when I was seventeen.” Adam’s whispered words settled over them. “I had insisted we switch seats because there was more legroom on the other side and he didn’t need it. If I’d been sitting where he was, I would have died that night. Or maybe I would have been able
to recover from the trauma of the accident. Either way, he would have survived. It took me a long time to understand that it wasn’t my fault, but, Brooke, it wasn’t my fault then. And this isn’t your fault now.”
Brooke’s sobs slowly gave way to shudders and moans.
“Thank you,” Paisley whispered. It sounded like she meant it.
One by one, they stepped back. “We’ll be in touch,” Gabe said. “Let us know if you need anything.”
It was a standard thing to say to anyone involved in a homicide. But saying it to Paisley Wilson had to have been one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
Ryan held the door for Anissa, then Adam, and finally Gabe. They left the room and made their way down the long hallway toward the exit.
No one spoke until they were outside, huddled out of the slashing rain and under the covered walkway in front of the building.
“How long are these storms supposed to last?” Ryan glared at the sky before facing Anissa.
She could tell what he was thinking. “I know.” A long rumble filled the air and three lightning bolts stabbed at the earth. “The odds of finding any evidence on the shore are decreasing exponentially with every drop.”
Monday mornings were bad enough when they didn’t start with an autopsy. And it wasn’t like the autopsy had given Gabe any information he didn’t already know. Dr. Oliver had sent the routine samples off for tox screens, but Brooke Ashcroft had insisted that she and Jeremy hadn’t been drinking or doing drugs of any kind, and Gabe was inclined to believe her.
Jeremy Littlefield had been a healthy seventeen-year-old boy.
Cause of death?
The bullet that pierced his heart.
And thirty-six hours after Jeremy drew his final breath, Gabe had no clue who had killed the boy.
Concerned neighbors in the cove where Leigh and Ryan lived had willingly shared surveillance footage and practically begged them to have Forensics examine their shorelines and docks for intruders. But the likely location for the shooter was a decrepit dock on a mostly undeveloped plot of land across the cove.
One Final Breath Page 3
