They watched as the team continued working, slowly a body began to emerge from the pile of rubble. Emma moved towards the grave, turning towards Greyson. “This is completely wrong. That corpse can’t be Lila Tate. She’s petite and the corpse here is out of proportion.”
He joined Emma at the mouth of the hole, scanning the victim. He saw what she was saying and agreed.
“Lila is shorter than me, and our victim here has to be at least six feet tall. This body is only a few inches shorter than you, Grey.”
“Turn the victim over, guys,” he ordered, stepping back to give them room. As they flipped it, their day just got worse.
“Oh hell,” was all Croft muttered.
Emma looked over his shoulder as he was crouched down in front of the body. “Holy shit! This is bad.”
“Yeah, now, we’re really screwed.”
Billy Barnes was lying dead in their hole, and from the look of his pallor, he’d been deceased for a few days.
Emma rubbed her eyes. “We’re right back to where we started. I’m not a pathologist, but he’s been dead a while. There’s no way he was able to attack Deputy Ridge or abduct Lila Tate.”
“Looks like we start all over and go back over everything we have.”
Pacing, she let out a torrent of profanity. “Damn it, Grey. Now, we have a body who we assumed was the killer, and a missing girl who could be dying right now.” Emma turned and walked back out into the clearing. She needed a few moments to think before she lost her patience.
After a few minutes, Briggs approached her cautiously.
“Doctor Brooks is going to take Billy Barnes in for autopsy, but he’s estimating the death to have occurred at least two to three days ago.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. It looks like we’re at a dead end. I’ll head back to the station and start going over all the information again,” he stated, and then escaped in case she was going to lose her temper.
“This sucks,” admitted Greyson.
“I don’t know if I am glad it’s not Lila, or pissed because it’s our main murder suspect.”
“I know the feeling. The knife had to have been planted.”
“So, someone is still playing a game with us. The killer hoped that we’d suspect Billy Barnes and left the evidence to lead us on the wrong trail. Once we were busy chasing our tails, he grabbed Lila right out from under us,” Emma sighed.
“Sounds like it.” He brushed a piece of stray hair behind her ear. “We just need to go over the information again and hope that something pops.”
Emma sighed, taking the hand that Croft had held out to her. Immediately, she could feel the peace and calm radiating through her.
“Come on. I need some coffee and to sit and think this through,” Croft suggested.
“That sounds good to me.” Emma tossed him the keys. “You can drive. I need to think.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, snagging the keys out of the air.
Once back on the road, Emma closed her eyes and tried to work through the murders as the information flooded her brain. She sat there tapping her fingers on her knee and chewing on her lip.
“We had to miss something, Emma.”
“Yeah, I think we did. I don’t think we were wrong about Billy’s connection to the first two murders in Philly. I don’t believe in coincidence, so somehow they’re connected. We need that thread of commonality that ties them together.”
“Well, let’s get to work,” he said, pulling into the parking lot and opening his door.
“Where are you going?” she asked, as he was heading in the wrong direction.
“I’m running over to the lab,” he answered, pointing at her building. “You go into the station and stay there. Don’t leave without me. Got it?”
“Want me to come with you?” she offered.
“You need to get off that hip. You’re starting to limp. I’ll handle this. You start on the files in your office.”
“You sound like you’re bossing me around, Grey.”
“I am.”
Emma gave him a look as she headed to the door of the station. When her head was turned Croft smiled, feeling the warm rush of love flood over him. She was a handful, but he wouldn’t have it any other way. On second thought, yeah he would. He’d have her married to him too.
Tonight, he’d work on that little detail.
Croft found her in her office thirty minutes later, and she wasn’t at her desk but sitting on the floor meditating.
Emma could feel his eyes burning into her as she tried to focus. Opening them, she carefully unfolded her legs and stood. “I’m trying to sort out some details.”
“I can see that. How’s it going?”
She looked around. “That depends. Did my attempt at positive energy find our killer?”
He laughed, completely caught off guard by her answer. “No, not to my knowledge.”
“Well, it’s not going all that great then.” Emma smiled at him, knowing he could probably use some tension relief. As he crossed to her, she went into his arms and kissed him.
“Mmmmm… this is much better than meditation.”
Greyson laughed, kissing her again. “Feel better, honey?”
“Yes, you seem to be very good at giving me peace, Agent Croft. Is this a special course they teach at the academy?”
“I wish it was. There’d be a lot less stressed out FBI agents roaming around.”
“I think if everyone hugged and kissed it out, we’d have a whole other problem,” she said, snickering as she rubbed against his body.
“True.” He hated to change the subject but he needed to do it. “I think we need to head to the mayor’s house and ask some questions about Lila--maybe even go through her room.”
“That sounds good to me, Grey. Curtis is still doing background searches on everyone.”
“Good, let’s head over there and get this over with. I think Lila and Billy Barnes are the center of this somehow. I’m not just sure how yet.”
Emma agreed completely. “Let me just call over to the mayor’s and let him know we’re on our way.”
“Great. I can’t wait.” If the man tried to be belligerent to Emma, he knew they’d have more than one dead body on their hands.
Tuesday Late Afternoon
Once arriving at the mayor’s house, they were faced with tension oozing from everyone who crossed their paths. Ron Tate was sitting in his office. His hand nervously played with a pen, repeatedly clicking it. Today, he was no longer in his normal suit and tie, but in jeans and a sweatshirt. Somehow, he’d managed to age in the few hours that had passed.
When he saw them walk into the room, he jumped up from his desk, knocking a full glass of scotch across the top.
“Here, Mayor, let me get that for you,” said Emma, as she mopped up the mess with some tissues that were in her pocket.
“Thank you, Sheriff. Is there any word on my daughter yet?” he asked, anxiously.
“No, sir. We’re still actively searching for her,” added Greyson.
“Ron, I have to tell you that this morning, Agent Croft and I found a body.”
“Oh God! Was it my baby?”
“No sir, it was the body of Billy Barnes.” Emma waited to see his reaction, and he too looked confused.
“How could you find his body? I don’t understand. Someone murdered the killer?”
Emma glanced over at Croft in surprise. Only a few people knew that he was one of their main suspects.
“Mayor Tate, how did you know Billy Barnes was one of our suspects in this case?” asked Croft, pretty sure he already knew the answer to his own question.
The man shrugged. “My daughter, I believe. I remember her sitting down and telling me it would be over soon and that the sheriff suspected Billy as the killer. There was something about you finding DNA on a knife.” Ron Tate looked down at his desk and started to sob. “My baby is gone.”
Emma walked around to the desk and kneeled on the floor next to hi
m. “We’re doing everything we can, but we need your help.”
“W-What c-can I do?” he sobbed
“We want to go through Lila’s bedroom. See if we can find anything to tell us if she knew her abductor,” Emma said, patting his arm reassuringly. “Can we do that Ron?”
He simply stared blankly across the room to the windows. Finally, he nodded and stood up from the desk. “Her room is first door on the right at the top of the stairs.”
Emma stood and they moved from his office to handle the search. Outside the door, they both snapped on a pair of gloves, preparing for what could be waiting for them inside.
“Ready, honey?”
“Yes, babe.”
They pushed open the door and stepped into the girl’s bedroom. It was the brightest color pink Emma had ever seen. Immediately, she started laughing.
“What?” asked Croft, turning towards her.
“It’s pink. I just somehow knew it would be,” she said, as she moved to the side of the bed. Emma dropped to her knees and began pulling things out from beneath it.
“Em, did Lila go to college?”
“I’m not sure. I never asked. Why?”
“She has college text books sitting on this shelf, and next to it is a picture of her with a backpack. She looks too old to be in high school in these.” He took the picture off the corkboard and flipped it around, finding a date scribbled on the back. “It was taken two years ago.”
Emma joined him, staring at the picture. “It looks recent. We need to ask her father where she went to school.”
“Good idea,” he said, adding the picture to a pile on the bed. They’d take it with them when they left.
Digging through her room, they stopped after an hour. At that point they’d found nothing of any relevance.
“This seemed like a waste of time.” Croft admitted, turning in a circle. “There’s nothing here.”
Emma understood his frustration. “How about we go back down and put some pressure on her dad? He may know something that he’s not aware will help us.”
Greyson led her downstairs as they searched for the mayor. When they found him, they remained standing outside the office. They could hear him heatedly talking into the phone. It was like shouting and it sounded like it was directed to his assistant.
“Let’s stay out until he’s done. That sounds like one hell of a conversation,” she said, grimacing at the loud yelling that reverberated from the room.
“Will Taylor is getting an ass chewing,” Croft said, grinning. It was hard to not enjoy it, after he gave Emma one earlier. He too began wandering and looking around.
Emma was looking at some photographs on the wall when she heard Greyson inhale sharply. “What is it?”
“Look here! I think we found our connection.” He pointed to a diploma on the wall. It was the mayor’s and right below it was his daughter’s. Both of them were the exact same one. “It looks like the mayor and Lila are both alumni to St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.”
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “That might be the link. Maybe the killer knew her from Philadelphia.”
“Or possibly the mayor. Maybe someone is holding a grudge. It did look like he was being framed earlier in the investigation.”
“True,” she answered. Emma found herself flinching as she bent over to look at a picture on a shelf. Damn, her hip hurt.
Croft knew she needed to get some rest, and soon. “Let’s get out of here. We got what we came for now. We can head back and check it against the FBI database and see what pops.”
“Okay. Let’s go,” she replied, taking his outstretched hand.
Back in the confines of her vehicle, there was a sense of calm back over them. With this new lead, they at least had a direction to point the investigation in. All that was left was to hope and pray that they could get to Lila Tate before the killer took her life.
They stood in the doorway observing the man staring aimlessly out the window. Both of them could sympathize with him because they’d lived it too. Each one in their past had experienced that guilt at one time in their career. Unfortunately, it was part of the job.
“Taking this hard, isn’t he?” asked Croft.
“Yeah, I hope he works through it.” Emma crossed the threshold first. “How are the searches going, Curtis?”
Briggs jumped at the sound of her voice. “They’re going. I sent Deputy Reese home. He was ready to drop and needed some downtime. I still have some energy left, so I am just about at the halfway point.”
“We have one more thing for you to do.”
“Hmmm?” he asked, without looking up.
“Lila and her father were both alumni to the same college,” Croft stated.
“Where?”
“Saint Joseph’s University.”
Realization on what that meant dawned on him. “Oh hell! Both went to school in Philadelphia?”
Emma leaned her bad hip onto the corner of the table and smiled. “We need to know when Lila finished up. We also need to have you crosscheck all the deputies, Michael Parks, and everyone else we have on the list to see if they went to school in Philadelphia or at Saint Joseph’s University.”
“Billy Barnes too?”
“Yes, death doesn’t let him off the hook. Something is going to click sooner or later if we keep digging deep enough,” added Croft.
“I’ll get on it,” he stated.
Emma shook her head. “Not here, Curtis. It’s getting late.”
His partner continued, “We’re heading out. We’ll start back on this tomorrow at eight. Go back to the cabin and relax. Do your searches and get some sleep, but keep your phone close.” He nodded at the young man, hoping he caught what he meant. Croft knew it wasn’t going to be long before Lila’s body showed up.
“Works for me,” he said, packing up a handful of files and his laptop. He followed them to Emma’s office. “I did the first half of the deputies Emma. They’re clean.”
“Thank you, Curtis. That lightens my day a bit.”
“Come on both of you. We need to get out of here. I’m starving and need a shower.” Greyson started walking toward the door. “We’ll drop you off at the cabin partner.”
“Thanks.”
Emma was feeling bad for the man. “Want to stay for dinner?” she offered, trying to cheer him up.
Briggs thought about it. “No, I think I want to be alone. I’m piss poor company tonight.”
Croft realized how serious it was in that moment. The man had just turned down hanging around Emma and food.
This was a bad sign.
* * *
After dinner that night, they sat on the couch relaxing. She was leaning against him, and her head resting on his shoulder. It was cathartic to be part of the peaceful moment with him. Emma was sure the scent of his cologne had some lulling properties.
Finally, he broke the silence. “It’s peaceful up here.”
“Yeah, that’s why I like it. I enjoy quiet,” answered Emma, as she continued to draw lazy circles on his jean-clad thigh with her finger.
“I could get used to this,” he said, nuzzling her hair.
“Hmmm? Which part?” Emma wouldn’t mind this every night either.
The cat tried to squeeze between them.
He laughed as she sighed, making room for Hairy to find a comfortable spot. “The whole deal,” he said, hoping she knew what he was getting at. “You can cook me dinner every night. You won’t ever hear me complain.”
“You wash the dishes, and I’ll be more than happy to feed you.”
Greyson kissed her forehead. “I’ll have to start hitting the gym daily, or I’ll start to get soft in the middle.”
It was Emma’s turn to laugh and snuggle in closer. The man didn’t have a soft spot on him, but she’d love to watch him work out. Sweaty, shirtless Greyson Croft had merit. “Good thing it’s all vegetarian food then. I don’t think anyone ever got fat from fruits and veggies, Grey. I think you’re safe.�
�
He just smiled and leaned his head back and closed his eyes. This was exactly how he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Sitting on the sofa after work, having a glass of wine, and relaxing with the woman he loved. He just had to ensure that she’d be his forever. Oh hell, might as well jump right in.
“So, will you?” he asked.
“Hmmm...will I what?” she questioned, taking a sip of her wine.
“Cook dinner for me for the rest of our lives? Marry me, Emma.”
Whatever she was expecting, that wasn’t it. When it finally registered to her brain that he’d just proposed, she began choking on her wine. “Are you insane?” she coughed out, as he slapped her on her back.
“I must be, but I can’t imagine my life without you, Emma. We can live here or on Mars, but we have to be together. I need you and more importantly, I love you with all my heart.”
She sat there staring at him like he had three heads.
“Emma?” He began to get nervous, thinking she was going to turn him down.
Silence.
“You’re bruising my ego here. I didn’t think me proposing would terrify you and render you mute.” He felt his temper slipping as Emma sat there with a blank look on her face. He pushed away from the sofa and began silently stalking back and forth.
He had caught her off guard. This man had the ability to do that. Greyson was one of the few people who could go from controlled to chaotic in under five seconds. This was from out of left field and unsuspected. In her heart, she hoped, but right now, she was dressed in sweats and a t-shirt. Damn him! She watched him pace and noticed he was getting more and more agitated by her silence.
“Grey,” she started, and he cut her off.
“You can stand over a dead body and not bat an eyelash, but I ask you to marry me and you look stunned.” He dropped to his knees in front of her, taking her hands in his. “I love you. I don’t know how I fell so fast, but it doesn’t matter. I want to spend the rest of our crazy lives together. I want to wake up with you and go to sleep with you.”
Celestia is Falling (A Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Book 1) Page 47
