Truth is in the Darkness (Paynes Creek Thriller Book 2)

by Heather Sunseri

She shook her head. “I ran. Took off to New York.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. She had run from me. From us.

  “But so did you,” she added.

  I narrowed my gaze. Her statement couldn’t have surprised me more. “How did I run?”

  “Well, maybe you didn’t run, but you pulled away. And I couldn’t really blame you.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “My first year in New York was the toughest year of my life. I was in a huge city by myself. I was passed around to different therapists, trying to find the right one to help me. The police and FBI were in contact with me on a regular basis as they tried to find the man who tried to kidnap me. No one would let me forget what happened. And that made it impossible to make friends. Everyone treated me like I was either damaged, crazy, or worst of all, fragile.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this? We were still together then.” And I still didn’t see where I had run.

  “Were we?” A smile lifted the corners of her lips, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “You were trying to fit in at school. You had your friends.”

  “I would have dropped everything for you.”

  “Coop, you didn’t.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I came home one weekend. In the spring. I was planning to tell you that I wanted to transfer to UK in the fall. To be with you. Grammy drove me there to speak with the head of the art department.” She shrugged. “I was going to try to get a double major in English and art.”

  “I don’t remember this. When was this?”

  “I called your room. Jake answered. I don’t think he knew it was me. He told me you weren’t available at the moment because you were with your girlfriend. I could hear you laughing in the background, and girls giggling.” She shrugged. “Bryn complained to me later that she and Jake hadn’t spoken in weeks because he was taking someone else to some Spring Fling dance on campus that weekend. He’d told her that she was ‘too young’ for him to take.”

  “And you assumed that I was also taking someone to the dance.” I retreated into myself, thinking back to that time and replaying everything I remembered about my interactions with Lil, whom I’d thought, at the time, was my long-distance girlfriend. “And that’s when you stopped talking to me. Slowly. You know, I never was able to pinpoint when the end actually occurred. Only that it had. And we saw each other less and less. Until that one Christmas.”

  “It’s okay. We both needed to move on, and that was the sign I needed. In a lot of ways, I was relieved that you were having fun—that you were happy. I just didn’t think I would ever be able to make you happy again.”

  I turned away from Lil so that I could process what she was telling me. I reached for my wine and wished like hell that it was bourbon. How had she never told me this?

  When I turned back to her, she was watching me. “Coop, you have to believe me when I tell you that it made me happy to know that you would be okay. You deserved to have fun at college—to not be dragged down by all of my problems. And I needed to be alone to deal with them.” She fisted a hand over her heart. “I had to find a way to be whole again. I always thought that if I could find a way to stand on my two feet, we’d find our way back to each other.” She lowered her eyes. “But we didn’t. That’s life, I guess.”

  That’s life? Was she serious?

  I wanted to yell at her. To tell her that she’d been wrong. That I had not gone to that stupid Spring Fling. That I didn’t date anyone the entire time I was in college. Not once. Instead, I prepared for what I had decided I would do next in life.

  Law enforcement.

  So that what had almost happened to Lil would never happen again.

  I studied everything that had to do with criminology. I majored in sociology and minored in international studies, because at the time I thought human trafficking was solely an international crime. I did numerous research papers on human trafficking, focusing mainly on sexual exploitation.

  So yes, Lil was wrong about what I was doing in college. But what she was most wrong about was this notion that she had been weak.

  She most certainly had not been weak.

  She had clearly remembered and related so many details of the crime against her, including providing enough detail to give us an accurate sketch of the asshole who grabbed her. And she was stronger still when she bravely moved to New York to chase her dreams—which she turned into a reality when she landed a publishing contract.

  “Say something,” she said. Her voice was small.

  I let my gaze find hers again. Despite my anger, I was so happy she was standing in my kitchen. I had always thought that if I could just get her inside this house, to have her see the life I was building—a life that reflected undercurrents of her everywhere—that she would want to try again. To be a part of that life.

  But I now realized it wouldn’t be fair to draw her into my world, not while I was working undercover. I couldn’t even tell her what I was drawing her into—only the Bureau could know.

  Life hadn’t been fair since I lost Lil all those years ago.

  Fuck “fair.”

  I stepped to her, slid one hand to the small of her back, and as her eyes widened, I brought her closer. With the other hand, I threaded my fingers into her hair and placed my hand on the back of her neck, tilting her head toward mine.

  “I see a woman standing on her two feet now,” I said. “And I’m certainly standing on mine.”

  For a moment, she tensed. If she pulled away, I wasn’t sure what I would do. But then she relaxed into the embrace, and after tilting my head one way and then the other, I crushed my mouth to hers.

  It was a kiss filled with hunger and greed. It wasn’t vulnerable like when we were barely adults. And it wasn’t like the kiss from the other day beside the barn—one filled with fear and longing. This kiss was filled with years of passion and anger and need that had been stored up from missing her. And I knew I felt the same level of desire in the way she kissed me back.

  I brought my arms around her and lifted, guiding her legs to wrap around my waist.

  Suddenly it was as if no time had passed, and we were alone in the house she shared with her mother. And as she snaked her arms around my neck, her hands in my hair, I carried her to the couch and laid her down gently.

  When my body covered hers and I heard the moan escape her throat, I knew there would be no going back if we went beyond this.

  I didn’t care. Nothing was going to take us out of this moment. Even if we regretted it tomorrow, I wanted this now.

  And then the oven began beeping in the kitchen.

  Lil flinched beneath me, startled. My eyes slammed shut, and I cursed under my breath.

  I leaned my forehead against hers, and we both began to laugh. I lifted my head and stared down at her. There was amusement in her eyes and a flush of color on her cheeks.

  I pushed up from the couch and walked into the kitchen. I should have set a cook timer so the oven would just turn off. But who knew that was going to happen?

  “Coop,” Lil said behind me.

  I faced her with the lasagna in my hands. It didn’t take a genius to know that the look on her face said we needed to slow things down a bit. I was disappointed, but I knew she was right. “You hungry?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Starving! And that looks delicious.”

  And just like that, we were back to getting to know each other again as adults.

  Twenty-Two

  Lil

  I awoke in Coop’s bed to the smell of bacon and coffee. A ceiling fan was spinning quietly at a lazy speed above me, generating just enough of a breeze to cool my face.

  I had slept alone, of course. Coop had convinced me to stay instead of driving back to Bryn’s, but neither of us was ready to go further than the brief makeout session we’d had just before the oven buzzer interrupted us. So I took the bed, while he slept on the couch downstairs. The other bedrooms in the house were either in some stag
e of remodeling or being used as storage. I felt uncomfortable displacing him from his own bed, but he insisted.

  I sat up and looked around. The room looked different in the morning light than it had the previous evening, after a lovely dinner of pasta, garlic bread, red wine, and high school memories. I ran my fingers over my still-tingling lips, remembering the goodnight kiss Coop had given me. It had been sweet, patient, yet sensual—a far cry from the passionate kiss that had led us to a horizontal position on his sofa.

  I welcomed his restraint. I was in trouble, and I didn’t want to drag Coop into it. Besides, I was going to return to New York soon, to try to salvage what was left of my writing career.

  Coop’s doorbell rang, followed by an urgent rapping on the front door. As I heard Coop answering it, I quickly scrambled from the bed, changed out of my nightclothes—namely, one of Coop’s T-shirts—and back into the clothes I’d worn the previous day.

  I stepped lightly down the stairs. Two vehicles from the sheriff’s office were parked out front, their lights flashing through the windows. I heard voices in the back of the house, and headed that way.

  Coop was talking with Sheriff Daniels and one of his deputies.

  “We were here all night, and of course I didn’t hear or see anything,” Coop was saying. “Don’t you think I would have called it in?” He ran a hand through his hair in obvious frustration.

  “We?” Sheriff Daniels said.

  The sheriff’s deputy spotted me as I entered the great room. He cleared his throat and nodded in my direction, and the other two men looked my way as well.

  “What’s happened?” I asked.

  Judging by the expression on the sheriff’s face, he had quickly jumped to the wrong conclusion about what I was doing here. I supposed it was easy to assume Coop and I had simply picked up where we’d left off as teenagers.

  “Hi, Lil,” Sheriff Daniels said, blushing slightly.

  “Sheriff.” I nodded, then looked to Coop.

  Coop closed his eyes for a beat. When he reopened them, something close to regret flashed in them. He walked over to me, and I could tell by the way he looked at me that he wanted to touch me, but he resisted. “Lil… there’s been a murder.”

  I tensed. “Who?” My voice shook with fear. For some reason I felt certain it was someone in my family.

  “Tricia Hood.”

  I felt guilty for the relief that washed over me. It wasn’t a family member after all.

  “Did you know her?” Sheriff Daniels asked me.

  I shook my head. “I know who she is, but I don’t know her. A couple of days ago at the coffee house, she was waitressing, and Bryn introduced us. I didn’t even really speak to her other than to say hello.”

  The sheriff pulled a notebook and pen from his inside jacket pocket. “What time did you arrive here at Coop’s?”

  “Around seven thirty or seven forty-five, I think.” I thought about it a second. “Closer to seven forty-five.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I folded my arms across my chest. “Yes, I’m sure. Sounds a lot like you’re looking for my alibi.”

  No one said anything for several beats.

  I looked at Coop. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Tricia was found dead in her car early this morning just inside the entrance to my farm. The second entrance, leading to the barn.”

  “What? Did she run off the road?”

  “She had two knives stuck in her,” the deputy said. “One to the heart. One to the stomach.”

  Sheriff Daniels tossed a disappointed look at his deputy. Whether it was for show or not, I wasn’t sure. Did they really come here thinking Coop or I had something to do with killing that poor woman?

  “She bled to death,” Sheriff Daniels said. He turned to Coop. “Any idea why Miss Hood would be on your property? Have you had a relationship with Tricia in the past?”

  I carefully studied Coop’s reaction to that question. His jaw went rigid as his voice took on a sharp edge as he answered. “No. And no.”

  “Where’s the knife that was stuck in the rabbit sent to Lil earlier this week?”

  “What? Why?”

  There was only one reason the sheriff would have asked that question. “Because it was the same type of knife,” I said.

  Neither the sheriff nor the deputy confirmed that assumption.

  “It’s locked in my vehicle,” Coop said. “As you know, we already had it dusted for prints, and there were none. But after researching the manufacturer, I discovered that the knife was part of a rare set from the sixties, so I was going to visit a couple of local antique shops to see if I could get some help tracing where someone might have purchased a set like that.”

  “Can I see the knife?” Sheriff Daniels asked.

  Coop didn’t say a word, he just turned and headed for the front door. The sheriff and his deputy followed, and I did the same, though I hung back a bit.

  At the side of the house, Coop unlocked his truck and pulled out the evidence bag containing the knife.

  “I’m going to need to take that,” the sheriff said.

  Coop paused, holding the evidence bag at his side. “Are you removing me from this case, Stoker?”

  I recognized the hurt in Coop’s voice immediately. He used the sheriff’s first name deliberately—to illustrate just how personal their relationship was.

  “Not officially,” the sheriff said, “but—”

  “Good. You go on and ask every question you need to ask. Get a polygraph set up. Ask around about that knife and the knives in your murder victim. Do what you need to do to cross me off your suspect list. Because I will be helping in this investigation.”

  Daniels nodded. “An evidence response team will be on your property most of the day. Do they have permission to search your barn and house?”

  “They have permission to get a warrant.”

  “Very well.” The sheriff turned his gaze on me. “You’ll both need to make a statement.”

  Coop said nothing more. I decided it was best if I remained silent as well.

  Sheriff Daniels tipped his hat at me, then he and his deputy returned to their vehicles. But before they’d gone more than a few steps, Coop stopped him with a question.

  “How did you discover Tricia on my property?”

  The sheriff looked back at him. “Anonymous caller.”

  As the sheriff and his deputy drove off, Coop turned to me. “I’m taking you to get your things from Bryn’s, or your grandmother’s, or wherever they are. From now on, you’re staying right here with me.”

  Inside, Coop calmly walked to the coffee pot and refilled his mug. “Coffee?” he asked, already reaching into his cabinet for a second mug.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  His eyes found mine. “What?”

  “Coffee. Do I get to choose whether I have coffee or not?”

  He looked down at the mug he was holding like it was a foreign object. “Yes, of course,” he answered in confusion.

  “But I don’t get to choose where I sleep at night.”

  His face fell. “Lil… of course you do.”

  “Then don’t start ordering me around and telling me where I’m staying.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did.”

  He set his mug down on the kitchen island. “Fine. I did. I apologize if it was harsh. But—”

  “But nothing, Coop. You’re scared—I get it. And you have reason to be. A woman was murdered right here on your land. I’m scared, too. You think I can’t draw the same conclusions that you can? That the sheriff has? In a quiet town that typically sees no crimes more serious than petty theft, all of a sudden there’s been a string of threats and blood and harassment and now a woman is dead. And all of it—all of it—is centered around me.”

  Coop flinched at my words.

  I continued. “I’m not an idiot, nor am I so proud that I won’t accept protection where I can get it. I’d very much like to keep whatev
er this is away from Grammy and the rest of my family. So yes, I’ll consider your invitation. But not because you think you can boss me around.”

  When I finally went silent, Coop waited several beats before responding. “Are you finished?”

  “I think so.”

  “Good. I’m sorry. You’re right. I am scared. Someone is threatening you. Someone’s been threatening you for months, and now they’re escalating. Seriously escalating. And it frightens me that I can’t be with you twenty-four-seven to make sure you’re safe.”

  “It frightens me too. But I won’t have you put me under house arrest, if that’s what you’re thinking. I can’t stop living just because some lunatic is hellbent on scaring me.”

  “He’s no longer simply trying to scare you, Lil.”

  I stepped closer to Coop. I lifted my hand and cupped his cheek, where light stubble had formed. “I’m well aware. But no one is stupid enough to attack me in broad daylight. So today, I’m going to go to Grammy’s. There’s still a lot of work to do there. And I’m sure you’ve got work to do as well. You’re not going to catch this guy if all you do is hang out watching over me.”

  Coop sighed. “You’re right. I do need to work. But first, I’m going to make sure you get to your grandmother’s safely.” When I narrowed my eyes, he added, “Humor me.”

  He placed a finger under my chin and looked like he was about to lean in and kiss me when his doorbell rang for the second time that morning.

  “What now?” he said, exasperated.

  I followed him to the front door, ignoring his attempts to keep me behind him. And when he opened the door, I had to suppress a gasp. Standing on the porch were two people I wouldn’t have put together in a million years. My so-called mother, Linda, and my ex-boyfriend, Winn.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I asked Linda angrily, then turned on Winn. “And how did you find me?”

  “Aw, honey, don’t be rude,” Linda said. “At the very least, introduce Coop to your New York lover.”

  I ignored her, even as my hands clenched into fists at her remark. “Why are you here, Winn?” I snapped. “I didn’t think you were coming until tomorrow.”