by BJ Bourg
Chloe noticed. “Is he somehow involved in the murder of Hays Cain?”
“What makes you say that?”
Chloe shrugged. “They were best of friends, and I saw your Tahoe there more than once in recent days.”
“Have you been following me?”
Chloe bit her lower lip and raised her eyebrows. “I think the correct term is stalking.”
I laughed.
“It wasn’t a joke.”
I glanced sideways at the beautiful woman sitting beside me. I was feeling things I hadn’t felt in almost two years—things I thought I’d never feel again. I was actually interested in someone—and not only as a friend. But was it fair for me to pursue something with her? I was damaged goods, and she deserved someone who was stable and knew what he wanted. And what would Michele and Abigail think, if they were up there looking down at me?
“Well?” Chloe asked.
“Well, what?”
“Is Randall involved?”
I sighed. “I thought we agreed—”
“You’re right. No talking shop while we’re out on a date. I’ll call your office tomorrow during business hours and ask the tough questions then.” Chloe smiled and poked my leg with her index finger.
She turned into the near empty parking lot of Seafood Sarah and parked her car in front of the building. When we stepped out, I looked up at the giant crab above the entrance. “I can’t imagine what they serve.”
Chloe giggled, grabbed my hand and led me through the double doors. A bar constructed of fine wood lined the entire left side of the room. A half wall separated the bar area from the dining area and a hostess dressed in black slacks and a tuxedo shirt led us to our table. I took the seat where I could see the door, and we ordered drinks.
“Thank you for agreeing to this,” Chloe said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be interested in me.”
“Are you crazy? Any man not interested in you is a fool…or likes guys.”
“Thank you.” Chloe’s cheeks and neck turned bright red. “It’s just that… Well, I would’ve thought Susan had gotten to you first.”
I scowled. “I’m Susan’s boss. She’s off limits.”
“Since when has that ever stopped a cop?”
I studied her face. “You have something against cops?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re talking about cops like they have no morals. It seems you’ve had some experience in that department.”
Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted when the double doors swung open and one of them slammed roughly into the counter near the entrance. I looked up and saw Beaver peering at us. I grunted. “Something’s up with that dude.”
Chloe turned to look. When she saw Beaver ambling toward us, she quickly turned back to me. The redness had faded from her flesh. “Oh, God. He’s drunk.”
I pushed my chair back from the table in case I had to stand up in a hurry. Beaver waved me off as he stopped by our table and stared down at us. “No need to stand up for me,” he said. “This’ll only take a minute.”
“What will only take a minute?” I asked, noticing that Chloe’s head was down. I wondered if he had threatened her after being fired. He certainly had the bully act down. I eased my hand under my shirt and rested it on the pistol tucked in my waistband.
Beaver shoved a hand in his shirt pocket and dug something out. He tossed it on the table in front of Chloe. I didn’t take my eyes off him, but I could tell it was jewelry of some sort.
I heard Chloe gasp. “My grandma’s ring! I’ve been looking for it everywhere.”
“You left it at my house the last time you were over. You remember that last time, don’t you? Sure you do. You slept with me and then left in such a hurry that you forgot your precious ring.” A wicked grin spread across Beaver’s face. “I remember wondering why you were in such a hurry, but I didn’t have to wait long to find out, did I?”
My features remained unmoved on the outside, but my blood flowed like lava through my veins. I stole a quick glance at Chloe. Her head was still bent and tears dripped freely from her face, splashing on the varnished tabletop. She looked both angry and hurt. I removed my hand from my pistol, clenched my fist and looked back up at Beaver with steely eyes. “It’s time for you to go.”
“I’ll decide when I’m done.” Beaver held my stare for a long moment, and I realized the alcohol was making him bullet-proof. He finally broke the stare-down and chuckled. “It’s a shame. I like you and I believe you and I would’ve made a good team. You’re a lot like me. We would’ve gotten along under different circumstances.”
I stood slowly to my feet, pushing my chair away with my right foot. “We’re nothing alike. I told you once, now I’m telling you for the last time. It’s time for you to go.”
“You’re a fool, Clint Wolf. She’s using you for information like she did me. When she’s finished with you, she’ll chew you up and spit you out—just like she did to me.” He stared down at her and shook his head. “She’s nothing but a common whore. Instead of spreading her legs for money, this holster-sniffer bitch spreads her—”
My left fist was quicker than a rattlesnake’s strike. It shot from my waist to Beaver’s chin with the accuracy of an Olympic archer and the power of a mule’s kick. The left hook sent him reeling. I stepped forward and threw a straight right that cut him down like a rotten tree in a tornado. He collapsed in a heap on the ground and didn’t move. Blood oozed from an open wound at the bridge of his nose and poured from his broken lips.
Chloe gasped. The waitress, who’d walked up with our drinks, screamed and dropped her tray. Glasses shattered and liquid splashed everywhere. The waitress scurried back to the kitchen.
“Is…is he dead?” Chloe asked through her sobs.
“No. Go wait outside.” I grabbed her hand, pulled her to her feet, watched her walk out the door.
A large man in a white apron was approaching from the back of the restaurant. He took a look at Beaver and stopped. He looked up at me, then back down at Beaver. A smile slowly spread across his face. “I’ve been waiting years to see this.”
I looked around at the other patrons and frowned. “I’m sorry for ruining your night.”
The man shook his head, waving his hand to encompass the entire room. “They would’ve paid to see that. Go on; take care of the pretty lady. I’ll take care of this piece of shit.”
I nodded my thanks and met Chloe in the parking lot. “Give me your keys.”
Chloe didn’t protest. She pulled the keys from her purse and handed them to me. I led her to the passenger’s side and held the door for her. When she was seated, I closed it, walked around to the driver’s side and paused before entering. What did Beaver mean when he said she was using me for information like she’d used him? That she’d dated him came as a shock to me—if it were true—and was a bit unsettling, but everyone dated someone at one point or another. I sighed when I remembered the way he’d looked at me at the fight. Things were finally coming into focus.
CHAPTER 33
When I got home, I turned off the car, and we sat in silence for several long minutes. The only sound between us was Chloe’s soft sobbing. She sniffed, wiped her face with a tissue, and touched my arm. “No one has ever stood up for me the way you did.”
“I wouldn’t let any man talk to a lady like that.”
“You don’t believe him, do you?”
I looked into her troubled eyes. The light from my front porch reflected off the tears that streaked down her face. “Chloe, I don’t know what to think.”
“I would never use you!”
“At Susan’s fight, when he looked at you that way, I asked about it. You told me it was because of your story, but you knew it wasn’t. Why didn’t you tell me y’all dated?”
“We didn’t even know each other. We had dinner by accident and then we went to an event, and you expect me to tell you about all my past boyfriends?”
“You didn’t have to
say anything at all. You could’ve told me it was none of my business, but you led me to believe he was mad about the story.”
Chloe took a deep breath and blew it out. “Have you ever done anything that you wish you hadn’t? Something you really regret and wish you could undo?”
I didn’t even have to think about it—the answer was instant. I turned my head away from Chloe, blinking away the moisture in my eyes.
“What am I saying? Of course you haven’t. Only an idiot like me would make such horrible life decisions. My mom told me I’d end up with—”
“You’re not an idiot.” Images of Abigail’s disfigured face and Michele’s lifeless body flashed in my mind. I could smell the gunpowder like it was in Chloe’s car. I shook my head to try to clear it. “We all make mistakes. We’ve all done things we wish we could undo.”
“Yeah…right.” Chloe scoffed. “What have you ever done that was bad? Fail to use your blinker?”
I bit back the burning in my jaw. “I’ve done something really horrible. Something I can never come back from.”
Chloe turned to look at me. Her wet eyes were curious. “What is it, Clint? What have you done?”
I glanced at her with a suspicious eye. “You expect me to believe you didn’t do a background check on me already? You’re a reporter…it’s what you do.”
“I would never spy on someone I was interested in knowing, and I was interested in you from the moment I first laid eyes on you.” She shook her head. “No, I want you to tell me about yourself. I don’t want some reporter’s slant on who they think you are based on something that happened to you.”
“Well, maybe you should’ve done your research.” I opened my mouth to speak, but my jaw trembled. I clamped it shut and swallowed the lump in my throat. When I felt controlled enough to talk without breaking down, I said, “I…I killed my wife and daughter.”
Chloe gasped, recoiled in horror. “You did what? Do… Does anyone… Um, what do you mean?”
“It was my fault they died. I killed them.”
I felt Chloe relax in the seat beside me. “You say it’s your fault—does that mean you didn’t actually kill them?”
“Of course not, but my actions got them killed. It was as if—” My eyes burned. I blinked several times. “It was as if I pulled the trigger myself.”
“What…what happened?”
“I was a detective in the city. It was a couple of years ago at the height of the riots. We were eating out one night. It was a good part of the city, but some guys came in the restaurant wearing masks. Four of them. I’m a cop. I had to act. They were waving guns around and threatening people. I had to do something.” I paused to let the trembling in my jaw subside.
Chloe’s eyes were wide. “Did you confront them? You didn’t confront them! It was four against one!”
“I waited until one of them got close. I told Michele to take Abigail and get under the table. They did, and I made my move when he was a few feet from me. I tried to disarm him, but he was stronger than I anticipated. We fought for the gun—”
“Y’all fought for your gun?”
“No, his gun.”
“But why didn’t you just shoot him with your gun? Why would you try to take his gun away?”
“I didn’t have my gun—thanks to that idiot governor we have. He basically disarmed all off-duty police officers in the state.”
“Are you talking about the bill he orchestrated where police officers couldn’t carry their weapon in a private business?”
I nodded.
“But I thought that law was overturned?”
“It was—much later. A lot of people had to die before that stupid bastard realized what he’d done.”
Chloe gulped. “What— So, what happened?”
“I finally got on top of the robber and was about to rip the gun out of his hand when one of the other men yelled at me to stop. He…he told me he would kill my baby if I didn’t stop.”
I turned my head away from Chloe and wiped a tear from my left eye with my shoulder. “I looked…I looked up and saw him holding my baby girl. She was afraid. She was crying and saying, ‘Daddy, help me. Don’t let him hurt me!’ I told her everything would be okay. I told her I would protect her.” I squeezed my eyes shut as tears threatened to spill freely down my cheeks. I couldn’t let Chloe see me cry. I took several short breaths, willing away the burning. Finally, I said, “I lied. I didn’t protect her.”
Chloe was bawling beside me. She stripped off her seatbelt and leaned across the center console to wrap her arms around my neck. She pressed her wet face against mine. “Oh, my God! I’m so sorry!”
“I did what they said to do. I dropped the gun. I raised my hands and stepped back.” I took a shuddered breath, blowing out forcefully against the side of Chloe’s neck to try and maintain my composure. “They didn’t care. They killed her. Just shot her right there in front of me and Michele. Point blank in the face. When…when Michele started to scream, they shot her, too.” My whole body was strained by that point, as I fought to stifle my sobs. Chloe’s arms tightened around me.
“I…I died right there with them. I didn’t care about anything after that. In that one instant, I was no longer a husband…no longer a daddy. I would never get to hear Abigail’s innocent little voice call me Daddy again.”
I don’t know how long Chloe held me, but it felt like forever. I was tempted to let the tears flow, but I dared not.
I took another deep breath and leaned back. “Jeez, I’ve never really talked about it before.”
Chloe touched my face with soft fingers. “You need to talk about it. You can’t keep that sort of thing inside. It’ll kill you.”
I looked into her swollen eyes. “Want to come in?”
She nodded.
Once we were inside, I let Achilles out the back door to take care of his business and then locked him in my bedroom. I joined Chloe on the sofa. “Do you want something to drink?”
She bit her lower lip. “What happened after? What did you do when they did that?”
“They heard sirens and started to run out the building, but I got…um, I caught one of them. He fired three shots at me, but missed every time. I don’t… I…I just can’t understand it. How’d he miss? I just don’t know.” I shook my head. “I fought with him over his gun. He was stronger than me, but I was so overcome with rage. I took his gun away and…and I shot him. A lot. I shot him until the gun was empty. I dropped the gun and lifted Abigail into my arms and stared down at her.” I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. I opened my eyes, but could still see that horrific image. “I can’t see her face anymore. I know she was beautiful. I remember she was beautiful, but after that day, I couldn’t see her face. I only see blood and broken flesh. I have to look at her pictures to remember what she looked like.”
Tears were flowing down Chloe’s face again. Her blue eyes glistened. “I’m so sorry, Clint! I had no idea what you’d been through.”
“I can hardly close my eyes without seeing Abigail’s torn face. I… It haunts me all the time. I…I can’t sleep.”
Chloe looked toward the kitchen garbage can. “Is that why you have so much vodka?”
“I need it to sleep. I used to drink a few shots, and that would help. But eventually that wasn’t enough. I upgraded to a glass and—” I frowned. I wasn’t about to admit to downing a bottle a night, so I stopped talking.
Chloe pushed me back onto the sofa and stretched out beside me. I twisted onto my right side to make room for her to lie next to me. Our faces were inches apart. She stared into my eyes for a long moment. With a sigh, she buried her head in my chest and slung her right arm over me, began rubbing my back.
“Just close your eyes and focus on me,” Chloe said softly. “Hear my breathing and let it rock you to sleep.”
I did as she said. Although my eyes were shut, I was able to feel her face in front of mine and could smell the soft and inviting scent from her perfume. She spoke in whispered t
ones, telling me it was okay and that she was right there with me. Her hand slid up and down my back. “Feel me next to you.”
As she continued to speak, her voice began to fade until it was nothing but a low murmur. When it dragged to a halt, my eyes fluttered. I caught my breath when Abigail’s distorted face popped into view. I lunged to a seated position, glanced around. The room was dark and Chloe’s breath was low and steady. Panic grabbed at my throat. I needed a drink.
Taking great care, I eased off the sofa and padded to the kitchen in my bare feet. I grabbed a bottle of vodka and allowed Achilles to roam around the backyard while I sucked it down. When it was empty, I tossed the bottle under the house so Chloe wouldn’t know and locked Achilles back in my room. My eyes were heavy when I stumbled to the sofa, and I had a hard time feeling my way around, but I managed to squeeze beside Chloe without disturbing her.
I sighed as the alcohol’s numbing powers began to spread through my body.
CHAPTER 34
Tuesday, July 1
Pain shot through my shoulder and up into my neck. I groaned, tried to turn over, couldn’t. I pried my eyes open. What the hell?
“Good morning, Clint.” Chloe’s hair was messed up just enough to be sexy.
I looked around the room and it all started to come back to me. Light spilled through the windows. “Did we sleep here all night?”
She smiled. “We did.”
Guilt tugged at my chest. I pushed myself up on my elbow, stared down at her. Her sundress was twisted, exposing her black bra and part of her left breast. I quickly averted my eyes to focus on her beautiful face. She noticed and smiled, but didn’t adjust her dress.
Chloe brushed her fingers lightly across my face. “Wow…your nose is already looking better.”
I nodded. “I heal up well. Good genes, I guess.”
In lazy fashion, Chloe eased her legs off the sofa and brought herself to a seated position. “I have to get to the newsroom. I’m late.”
