“He used it for storage and such. I don’t know what all he kept in there, but seeing as he had no kin around here, I thought I should give the key to you.”
“Thanks. I’ll have to deal with that another day,” John said, wondering what he’d do with Sam Denton’s junk. Sam’s landlord had cleaned out Sam’s small apartment after John and Conner had gone through it.
“We have a bit of a sensitive issue with your pond. Seems the cadaver dogs have alerted on it. Can I send a diver in there to take a look, see what they might be alerting on?”
Holland looked at him like John couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel. “There’s all kinds of dead animals in that pond, I’m sure.”
Adam shook his head. “They’re trained not to alert on any dead tissue that’s not human. The first two dogs that alerted are green so they might still make that mistake, especially with the find under water, but not the two seasoned dogs we brought in. There’s something in there.”
Holland looked at Adam and back to John, then back to Adam before he started to laugh. It was a chuffing, breathless sort of laugh that made John wonder if they’d need to call in paramedics to give him oxygen before all this was over. Holland never did really recover the ability to speak. He just waved his hand and nodded, then walked in the house, almost bent over with laughter at the two of them.
“Guess that’s permission to search,” John said and keyed his radio.
“Berta, call Dale Byer. See if he can come dive this pond for me and take a look. And see if Danny and Carter are free. Send them out here, too.”
The radio crackled with her reply and John and Adam sat down to wait. They tried to send the rest of the search team home, but no one was budging, and John knew it wasn’t worth the effort to try to make them. They’d most likely already texted the rest of the town to come out and watch the show, too.
Sure enough, cars started creeping up the drive soon after, and Danny and Carter were put to work keeping people away from a possible crime scene instead of doing any real work for John. He watched and waited as Dale suited up to go under and take a look. Chances were he wouldn’t find anything. John hoped he wouldn’t, anyway.
He had his answer soon after when Dale surfaced and pulled off his mask. He was pale as a ghost when he walked up to them—and John had to swallow a curse.
Dale huddled close to Adam and John before speaking. “There’s a truck down there.” He turned and looked at John almost as if he wished he weren’t about to say what he was, as much as John wished he wasn’t about to hear it. “There’s a body in the front. Well, not a body. Bones. Nothing left but bones on the seat and floorboards of the cab. Whole truck’s rotted and covered in grime like it’s been in there a long time, John. I’ve only ever seen anything like it on TV.”
The look on Dale’s face told John he wasn’t joking. He keyed his radio once again. “Berta, send Catherine out to Holland’s and get me a tow truck.”
“Holy crap,” was her initial response followed by a “yes, boss.” John rolled his eyes. A circus. An absolute freaking circus.
And that’s what it was over the next two hours while the truck was pulled up out of the water. Dale kept his cool long enough to help get the tow truck hooked up under water. Holland came back out around the time the truck was being pulled up. How he recognized the relic, John would never know, but he immediately spotted it as Ken Statler’s truck, the missing construction worker suspected of killing Katelyn’s mother. The truck that had supposedly been in Charlie Hanford’s driveway the day of Caroline’s murder. John wondered if the truck had gone into the water before or after that day.
“And what do you want to bet, those are Ken Statler’s bones in there?” John muttered under his breath. He turned and looked at the old barn standing twenty yards from the pond. That’s no coincidence.
“Danny!” John called out to his deputy, who left the line of gawkers to jog toward John.
“Yeah, boss?”
John slipped the key Holland had handed him hours earlier out of his pocket and handed it to Danny. “Holland has given permission to search the barn. We’ll need to call in everyone we can to work this scene, too. We’re looking for anything connected to Ken Statler or—”
“Holy—,” Danny cut in but stopped himself, looking at John. “Ken Statler, as in the suspect in Caroline Bowden’s murder—that Ken Statler?”
John nodded grimly. “Yeah. Look for anything connected to him or to Caroline Bowden. It looks like we might solve this for Alan after all.”
Everlasting: Chapter Sixteen
John let himself into Katelyn’s house quietly hours later. He expected her to be upstairs in bed, but she was curled up on the couch asleep. He hoped that meant she hadn’t gotten any calls or texts yet about the find out at Holland’s place. He didn’t know how he’d tell her all they’d found that night, but he knew one thing, he wasn’t planning to tell her until the morning.
He looked down at Kate sleeping and knew he was starting to feel things for her he hadn’t felt in a very long time. If ever, really. He had thought he’d loved Lexi, but years after her death, he knew it wasn’t true. Heck, he probably knew it at the time; he just didn’t want to face it. Being so far undercover for so long was isolating.
You had to give up all your instincts to protect, give up all that you were as a cop. He didn’t know how many times he’d had to watch a crime take place and not be able to call it in, even anonymously, because he had to keep the big picture in mind. If anyone put two-and-two together and figured out he’d been the one to call something in, he was done. Getting Eddie off the streets had to take priority when you took on a case like that. He had to turn away from a robbery in progress once because he couldn't blow his cover. He’d had to choose between trying to convince the women in the gang to get out—to get themselves away from there and get help, instead of living the life they were living, where they were constantly subjected to abuse and rape and violence you can’t even imagine—and maintaining his cover. It had sickened him every time he’d been faced with that choice.
In that setting, in that world he was living in, he’d clung to Lexi as an anchor. It hadn’t been fair to her, but he’d done it nonetheless, knowing he needed something—someone—to keep him sane.
What he felt for Katelyn was nothing like what he’d felt for Lexi. With Kate, he was with her for all the right reasons. What he felt for her was so deep and real, it scared him sometimes. But, it also just felt right in a way he’d never experienced before.
John lifted Katelyn and started up the stairs to her room. She turned and snuggled into his chest, burrowing closer as she slipped her arms around him.
Yup. It just felt right.
“Wha ha oo ow so ate?” she said into his chest bringing a smile to his face. Katelyn was not very articulate in her sleep. She also must be the only person in town who hadn’t heard about their find out at Holland’s place and for that he was grateful. He’d tell her everything tomorrow. Then they’d go over and tell her father what they’d found.
Katelyn raised her head and tried again. “What had you out so late?”
He didn’t answer her question. John looked at her mussed up hair, tired eyes, and the red marks from where her cheek had pressed into the fabric of the couch, and he was lost. Who was he kidding? He probably wouldn’t make it another night without peeling off her clothes and losing himself in the soft curves of her body, in the heat that burned with every touch of their skin. Sure, if she stopped him, he’d find a way. It would probably involve an extremely long, very cold shower and returning to the couch, but he hoped she wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her.
John set her down in her bed and lowered himself over her, watching the small gasp and the way her eyes lit up. He lowered his head to her collarbone and let his tongue sweep the soft curve of it, relishing in the shiver that ran through her body in response. As his mouth trailed over her shoulder a
nd up to the soft skin just behind her ears, she wriggled closer still, pressing the full length of her body against his. From the sighs and moans coming from her, she didn’t have any interest in him moving back to the couch, either.
John groaned as her body pressed against the hard length of his erection. He half wondered if he was dreaming when she whispered in his ear asking him to make love to her. But, when he pulled back and looked in her eyes, he knew it wasn’t a dream. And, he knew he was powerless to refuse her.
John pulled the T-shirt and shorts from her body and looked down at her. She was so beautiful. So incredible lying there for him, her skin creamy and silky smooth. He wanted to lick and nibble every part of her, to find out what would make her whimper, how he could make her scream.
“Heaven,” he whispered as his mouth took hers again and he let his hands explore her eager body. She responded to him in a way no woman ever had, arching into his hands, his mouth, as if she couldn’t get enough.
John stood and undressed, never taking his eyes from her flushed face. His cock sprang from his boxers, seeming to strain toward her as if by reaching for her it could make this happen faster. But, John didn’t want fast.
He slipped her panties from her body and slid her bra down her arms, revealing peaked nipples. John shoved aside the urge to bury himself balls deep in her and found one nipple with his mouth, the other with his hand. Her responding moan was all the encouragement he needed to slide a hand between her legs. She was wet and swollen, her lips parting for his fingers as she slid her legs further apart in welcome.
“John, please,” she whispered, almost snapping his control. As his hands moved over her clit and his teeth tugged at one breast, before moving to her neck and the spot behind her ear that seemed to send her back to arching anytime he neared it. John grit his teeth to hold out. He wanted to see her come, to hear her come.
When she shattered under him, he watched in awe. Her face was a mask of ecstasy, of pleasure so great, he knew he wanted to give her that again and again.
John grabbed a condom package from his pants pocket and tore it open with his teeth. He covered himself before resting the head of his erection at her entrance and looking into her eyes. She whimpered as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, pushing up with straining hips. John sank into her inch by inch, reveling in the feel of the tight heat that welcomed him.
The groan that escaped his chest was visceral, a response to sheer and utter pleasure. A sensation so overwhelming, he almost lost control as his hips began to rock, plunging his cock deeper into her tight heat. She rose to meet him with each stroke and raked her hands up his back, the slight sharpness of her nails nearly sending him over the edge.
John shifted her beneath him, grasping her hips and pinning her to the bed as he increased his pace, knowing she was moments from another orgasm and hoping he could hold out as the slick walls of her vagina began to quiver and pulse around him.
“Katelyn,” he said on a moan, a plea, as he felt her orgasm race through her and he joined her this time, giving in to the snap at the base of his balls. His body emptied into hers completely draining him as his head fell to her shoulder.
He had made love to her with a passion and intensity he’d never felt, and she reciprocated just as fiercely. John lost himself in Katelyn, lost himself to the sensations and emotions of being with a woman he now knew he loved. There was no denying what he felt for her any longer.
* * *
Katelyn lay in John’s arms hoping and praying that being with him meant as much to him as it had to her. Because as soon as she’d whispered in his ear, she’d realized it was going to mean everything to her to make love to this man. He had quickly become her everything. And the thought that maybe he wasn’t headed in the same direction with this relationship as she was scared the daylights out of her.
She hadn’t thought she would ever feel this way for a man, especially so quickly after Devan’s betrayal. If she had to give John up now, it would kill her.
John’s arms played up and down her back, warming and sending shivers through her at the same time. He pulled the sheet up over her shoulders, but then let his hands continue to rub as she nuzzled down into the bed, not wanting to think about what-ifs and what-happens-when’s anymore.
“Kate,” John said, but it was more of a question than the start of a statement, and Katelyn felt herself still. Whenever he called her “Kate” he always seemed to be trying to soften the blow of something.
Oh, no. No, don’t...This didn’t mean anything to him.
Katelyn sat up, pulling the covers around herself. She looked back down at John, half wanting to run away before he could reject her, but part of her still hoping she was wrong. A very small, quiet simpering-in-the-corner part of her.
John reached up and pushed the hair out of her eyes, tucking errant strands in behind one ear.
Say something. Katelyn braced herself.
“We found something today,” he started, his hand running down her arm as he spoke.
What?
Katelyn stared at John and blinked, not sure what he was talking about, but sure that the conversation wasn’t the one she'd thought it would be. “What?”
“I wasn’t going to tell you until the morning.” She watched him, waiting for him to tell her what he clearly didn’t want to spit out. “I think we may have found your mother’s killer.”
Katelyn felt the air leave her all at once, and she let herself fall back down into John’s arms. They came up around her holding her tight as he told her about the dogs and the pond, the rotted-out truck and decomposed body.
John’s voice was quiet and steady as he told her everything. “When your mom was murdered, there was a stone bookend that went missing from Charlie Hanford’s office. We have the matching one of the set in evidence, and we’ve always believed the missing one was the murder weapon.” Katelyn held tightly to John as he told her they’d found the matching bookend in the truck they suspected was Ken Statler’s.
She took a deep breath, trying to figure out how she felt about the news. She honestly didn’t know. Mostly, she felt the urge to go tell her father. He deserved to know after all this time.
“I don’t understand, though. If he killed my mom, who killed him?”
“Well,” John blew out a breath and seemed to brace himself to deliver the rest of the story. “We think it might have been Sam Denton.”
“What? Why? Why would Sam do that?” Katelyn asked, sitting up and looking at John. How could someone who’d lived in their town, saw her father all the time, someone so close to her father's best friend—how could he have had anything to do with her mother’s murder? “Why would he do that?” She asked again, her mind trying to wrap itself around what he was telling her.
“I don’t know, hon. I probably shouldn’t even tell you all of this until we really have answers, but since Sam and Ken are both dead, and the evidence is completely compromised from being underwater for so long, it’s entirely possible we won’t get any concrete answers. I can only tell you what I think happened.”
Katelyn looked down, playing with the hair that fell down around her shoulders, wondering for a minute how much she wanted to know. When she looked back up, John was watching her, waiting patiently.
“What do you think happened?” she asked, almost hating how small her own voice sounded to her. She wanted to be stronger than this.
“I began to suspect Sam a few days ago. He was just too involved in every aspect of your mom’s case and in the attack on you. He seemed to be the one pointing the finger at Ken Statler all these years. Sam Denton leased the barn next to the pond on Holland’s property. We got a warrant. When we opened the barn after we found the truck, we discovered tools and things belonging to Ken Statler in the barn.”
Katelyn could practically feel her eyebrows knitting together in confusion, and John must have seen it too. “I don’t get it myself, but a bunch of the guys at the scene today have worke
d construction. They assured me it would have been tough for a guy like Sam who’d been in construction all his life to toss those tools. They were a really nice set, very expensive stuff. Seems Ken didn’t stay in one place very long or have a fancy home, but he took pride in his trade. Bought the best carpentry tools he could afford.”
John shrugged a shoulder. “I guess Sam couldn’t bring himself to get rid of them, but he also couldn't use them on the job. There are too many guys who work for Charlie that were working for him when Statler was around, and who might have recognized the initials carved in them. Best I can tell, either Sam or Ken killed your mother. Maybe Ken and Sam went to steal the petty cash from Charlie together and they surprised your mom. For whatever reason, Sam must have killed Ken after that. Maybe he wanted to keep him quiet. Maybe he thought it would be a good idea to make it look like Ken had left town after your mother’s murder. It’s possible Ken killed your mother and then Sam killed him out of revenge? He might have had a crush on your mom—who knows? I don’t think we’ll ever really know. But I’m fairly sure one of them killed your mother and then Sam killed Ken.”
“But, we won’t ever really know for sure or know why,” Katelyn said. It was more of a statement than a question as she tried to process what John had just told her. It felt a little better knowing that whoever had killed her mother was no longer out there. Although, if it had been Sam, knowing he’d been able to live a full life while her mother had missed out on so much hurt a lot. Knowing it was someone so close to home hurt even more.
Katelyn let out a long slow breath. “So that’s it? It’s over?”
John nodded. “I think so. When we went through Sam’s apartment, I found some clothes that looked like they may have blood on them. I’m having the clothing checked to see if it’s blood. And, if it is, we’ll run it to see if it’s yours from the night of the attack.” John brushed his lips over her temple as he spoke and held her close. “See if his truck has any evidence that it was him who ran you off the road that night you were jogging.”
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