“Do you want me to ask Olivia or her sister if they’ve seen him?”
His heart skipped a beat. “Her sister?”
“Yes, she came in a little while ago. She’s with Liv in her office.”
“Shit.” The dentist then. Or car trouble. Or phone trouble . Or maybe he had been with Brooke and had gone home to get cleaned up.
“What’s wrong?” Julia asked.
“I haven’t heard a word from Ty since yesterday,” he admitted. “He’s not answering any of his phones, didn’t show up at work. It’s not like him.”
“Hmm, no, that doesn’t sound like him,” she said. She didn’t really know him, but anybody who’d spent even a few hours with Ty would realize the young man was earnest and hardworking, not the type to blow off his responsibilities.
“Hey, Cooper, you’d better come over here,” the leader of the search team yelled. “We’ve got something!”
Julia apparently heard. “Sounds like you’re about to get pretty busy. Listen, let me see what I can find out, and I’ll get back to you, okay?”
“Okay, thanks,” he said. “But do it discreetly, would you?” He didn’t want Olivia or her sister thinking he suspected Brooke of stepping out on her future husband.
“You bet, a covert operation all the way.”
Gabe disconnected the call, then strode the twenty yards to the search team, who were staring at a radar screen, talking excitedly, like a bunch of treasure hunters who’d spotted a sunken galleon full of gold. Hell, he guessed in their line of work this was like hitting a jackpot. Finding a human body buried in the middle of nowhere was a good day for them. He had to concede, in this case, Julia and Morgan’s way had been a little more effective timewise.
Giving the team his full attention, he watched as they slowly unearthed the plastic-wrapped skeleton that Julia had said had been under the ground for at least fourteen years. It took a while; forensics was on-site, photographing and taking notes every step of the way. The dirt had to be cleared off layer by layer, saved to be sifted through later. Though he’d always thought that side of police work would be pretty dull, he couldn’t deny being interested by all the steps they took to preserve the evidence.
Any residual evidence might be well and good down the line, but he needed information now, today. Because if this psycho had a child, and his days were numbered, Gabe couldn’t wait around to find out whether this woman had been shot or stabbed. He wanted the name. Just the name.
“Any ID on her?” he asked, once the entire skeleton had been brought aboveground.
“Nah, nothing,” one of the technicians replied. Then, his brow furrowed, he asked, “How do you know it’s a her? You been taking nighttime anatomy classes?”
Gabe felt his face redden. He was so not cut out for this clandestine crap. “No, just a fifty-fifty guess.”
He was saved from having to answer any more questions by the ringing of his phone, which was hooked to his hip. Grabbing it, he saw Julia’s name in the caller ID box and immediately walked away to answer it, his eyes down so he could watch the uneven ground for any obstacles. “Have you heard anything?” he asked. His tension had grown in the hour he’d been waiting for her call.
“Cooper. . . .” A woman’s voice, Julia’s, but low, broken. Her hitchy breaths were audible over the phone lines. “Oh, God, Cooper, I’m so sorry. It’s bad.”
He froze midstride, jerking his head straight up, like a puppet being yanked by the string. The hot, sunny day seemed to grow forty degrees colder as a chill washed over him, making him shudder. “Don’t,” he ordered, his mind not working, denial the only reaction he could muster up. “Don’t you fucking say it, Julia.”
Don’t you dare. You’re wrong. It’s impossible.
“I found Ty’s address and sent Morgan to check on him,” she whispered, her voice so thick with tears and emotion, it was hard to make out her words.
“Don’t, don’t,” he kept repeating, unable to say anything else. His throat was closing up. The ground started to spin beneath his feet. A shadow seemed to have crossed the entire sky, darkening the world, and a deep well of panic and horror began to build inside him. He grabbed the trunk of the nearest tree, his fingers digging into the bark so hard he thought they might snap.
“Someone must have broken in. Morgan says it looks like there was a fight. Ty’s on the floor.”
Jesus Christ. His partner down, attacked in his own home? Could this really be happening? Could he accept it, believe it, based on some damn psychic and her doubly-damned ghost?
No, he absolutely could not. He had to see for himself. If something had happened, then his partner needed him. Gabe threw off the shocked lethargy and started to run toward his car, the phone at his face. “I’m on my way,” he snapped.
She said something else, something low, three words that didn’t sink into his brain. Gabe snapped the phone shut, barking an excuse of an emergency to one of the other officers as he dashed by. He threw himself into the driver’s seat and started the car, mentally calculating the fastest way to Ty’s house.
“Hold on, partner. Hold on,” he mumbled as he flew down the dirt path, taking each turn as fast as he could, skidding on dirt and taking out a few small trees as he went.
When he’d been a kid and the old man had been in one of his beating moods, Gabe used to sneak out of the house and run—far, fast—until his lungs hurt and his feet ached and he could run no more. He’d once told his mama that it felt like he was running to beat the devil.
Today, he was once again running to beat that devil, trying to stay ahead of some ugly, awful beast trying to grab him from behind. The dark monster wanted to swallow him, force him into a hideous place where kids were kidnapped and women were drowned.
And partners were murdered.
“No,” he yelled, slamming his hand on steering wheel. “No, damn it. Hold on, Ty. Hold on, man. I’m coming.”
He kept repeating it, saying it louder and louder, to drown out not only the scream of the monster coming at him from behind but also the echo of those three little words Julia had said . . . the ones he’d refused to hear, absolutely would not acknowledge.
It’s too late.
Olivia stared in horror at Julia, not believing what she’d just heard the woman say into the phone. Ty. Oh, God, no, please, not Ty. Not that handsome, funny young man who had such an obvious crush on her sister.
She’d just walked Brooke out after spending a couple of hours talking to her sister about her plans to end her engagement and had come back to apologize to her boss for the personal intrusion on their workday. She’d been standing right outside the slightly open door when she overheard the conversation. It occurred to her as soon as Julia disconnected the call who she had been talking to. “Oh, God, was that Gabe? Did you just tell Gabe his partner was murdered?”
Julia’s head jerked as she spied Olivia in the doorway. Her eyes teary, she nodded.
“How do you know?” Olivia asked, stalking into the office, angry, shocked and horrified, not wanting to believe it, even though the hot tears bursting from the corners of her eyes said she already did. “How could you know that?”
“Cooper called here this morning, asking if I’d heard from Ty, because he hasn’t been able to reach him since last night,” Julia explained, her voice quiet, calm, in contrast to Olivia’s rising emotions.
Understanding washed over her. “You sent Morgan.”
“Yes. He found Ty lying in a pool of blood in his house.”
Wanting to throw up, Olivia swallowed down the reaction and spun in a circle, looking around the room. “Is he still here? Well, ghost, are you here, damn it?”
Julia walked around from behind the desk and grabbed her hand. Olivia pulled away, not wanting to be comforted, not wanting to share any grief-stricken moments over a young man neither of them had known well but both had recognized as someone pretty special. She just wanted information. “Is he sure?”
Julia nodded once.
Lived. Oh, God. Lived.
“Olivia, what are you . . .”
“Do you really think I’m just going to sit here and do nothing while the man I love is on his way to find his best friend’s murdered body?”
Julia’s mouth fell open on a gasp, though Olivia didn’t know whether the woman was more surprised by Olivia’s determination or her use of the word love, which she hadn’t even thought about—it just seemed to come so naturally from mouth.
“Well?” Olivia snapped.
After one more second, Julia broke her own cardinal rule and, glancing toward the love seat, said, “How far is it from here?” She paused, nodded once, then looked at Olivia. “Okay, we might be able to get there before Gabe.” Then she turned away and grabbed her purse off her desk. “Let’s go.”
“You . . .”
“You don’t really think I’m letting you go there alone, do you? I’ll drive.”
Olivia spun around and followed her, both of them brushing past Aidan McConnell, who’d returned to the office this morning after a romantic weekend getaway with his girlfriend. In his world, none of this had happened, none of it even existed.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, frowning, as if he knew the answer to that question. Maybe he did. He hadn’t been around for a few days, had no idea what they were working on . . . yet Aidan always had a way of knowing things. He confirmed it by asking, “Who died?”
“No time to explain,” Julia said. “Ask Mick or Derek to fill you in on what we’ve been doing when they get back.”
Not even waiting to see if he agreed, they left the office, took the elevator down to the parking lot and got into Julia’s car. She drove as quickly as she could, but even that didn’t seem fast enough for Olivia, who leaned forward in her seat, as if she could mentally make the vehicle go even faster. She just kept picturing Gabe’s face this morning, when he’d woken her up with a smile and kiss. He’d been happy, tender. Though he knew they still had a long road to travel, he’d almost made her believe it when he’d promised her that things would get better, that last night was the first step in a brighter future for both of them.
Now, just a few hours later . . . God, what a nightmare.
“Here’s his street,” Julia said, her voice tense, tight.
Liv saw Gabe’s car in front of a small house in a neighborhood of new homes. The car was parked crookedly, the door not even closed, as if he’d leapt out before the vehicle had come to a stop. She did the same thing, unfastening her seat belt and yanking at the door handle even as Julia pulled in. Leaping out, she ran across the lawn to the small porch and saw the wide-open front door.
And there she stopped. Because Gabe was sitting right in the doorway, facing out, his elbows resting on knees, his face buried in his hands.
Those broad shoulders were slumped, his whole body was shuddering and he was trying to suck in deep, shaky breaths. But he couldn’t quite manage it because each time he did, a strangled noise emerged from his throat.
Just as grief had its stages and its rituals, it also had its sights and it had its sounds. Olivia had experienced a lot of them. And she knew this sound, this helpless, enraged sob that came from someplace deep within Gabe. As if he were holding in the memories of his happy, smiling friend at the same time as he tried to swallow down the awful reality of what had happened to him. There just wasn’t room inside him yet for both.
Olivia slowly ascended the outside steps, mourning with him, feeling his grief, stricken at the sight of him, crushed and heartbroken. She knew he’d come here in a panic, determined to save his friend.
She also knew, since he was sitting here, that it was too late. Far too late.
She shifted her gaze over his head and glanced through the open doorway for a brief second. That was enough. She had to close her eyes and look away, though she knew what she’d seen would stay with her forever.
Ty Wallace had apparently fallen right behind the door, which blocked most of his body from sight. But his arm was extended, and his hand, Ty’s limp hand, was clearly visible on the floor just a couple of feet behind his partner. Palm up, fingers loose and open, the pose so normal but for the red streaks that dripped down from his pinkie onto the white carpet.
Olivia squeezed her eyes tighter, not to shut out the sight but to keep her tears from falling freely down her face. Her heart was breaking, but she knew Gabe’s had shattered.
He had so few people in his life. He’d opened up to her a little during the night, told her a bit more about his family—losing his mother and his grandmother. She knew he had few friends and that he counted his partner as his best one.
And now Ty had been taken from him, too.
It was cruel. Unfair. This man deserved so much better.
And God knows Ty had.
Finally, when she felt she could keep herself together, she opened her eyes and stepped closer, murmuring, “Gabe?” before dropping a hand on his head, tenderly stroking his hair.
He didn’t look up, didn’t move, didn’t acknowledge her at all. He merely kept shaking, trying to control himself, keep his emotions in check, like men were taught they had to do.
She dropped to her knees between his legs, then reached up and gently touched the backs of his trembling hands. Still saying nothing, he took her fingers between his, squeezing tightly, holding on to her like he needed to hold on to something or else go completely out of his mind.
She knew that feeling, that cold, desperate feeling. Like you were being lifted by a big, random wind, tossing about in a storm, just needing something to ground you, keep you in place.
He could squeeze until her fingers broke; she’d take it and offer him anything else he needed.
As if he’d heard the thought, he suddenly let go of her hands, wrapped his arms around her shoulders and hauled her up against his body. Clinging tightly, he buried his face in her neck. She felt the hot moisture of his hidden tears against her skin and tunneled her fingers into his hair, holding him close, giving him the privacy he needed while also being his foundation, his rock in this sudden, violent storm. She kept her eyes closed, not wanting to look past him into that house, not wanting to see sweet, sexy Ty like that.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “So very sorry, love.”
“I was too late,” he muttered, the words muffled, coughed out. “Hours too late.”
Hours. There was nothing he could have done. Nothing she, Julia or Morgan could have done. Someday he’d be able to hear those words. But she doubted he’d ever fully believe them, any more than she’d fully believed them when he’d told her the same thing about Jack.
“Can you tell . . . Do you think it was a robbery or something?”
“No. This was not a robbery,” he said.
Hearing a sound behind her, she turned her head and opened her eyes to see Julia, watching from a discreet distance. The other woman held up her phone, making a dialing gesture, silently saying she’d called 911. Olivia nodded once.
“Gabe, the police are probably on the way,” she said. “Julia called nine-one-one.”
He remained silent for a second, and she felt his muscles bunch, as if he were undertaking a mighty struggle to bring himself under control. Finally, though, he loosened his tight grip on her and lifted his head. Olivia turned her face to his and saw the paleness, the tracks of moisture on his cheeks, the red eyes.
“He was on to something,” Gabe said, shaking his head slowly, as if trying to get his own thoughts straight. “He left me a message last night, said he was on to something big, thought he’d identified the boy.”
She sucked in a shocked gasp. “Are you saying . . .”
“Yeah. I think whatever he stumbled onto is what got him killed.”
She caught her lip between her teeth, biting hard to keep the tears from falling, knowing she had to be strong. Olivia just hadn’t envisioned this. Her mind had gone to other places—a robbery gone bad, some domest
ic dispute. It hadn’t occurred to her that Ty’s murder could be related to their case; after all, he hadn’t been nearly as involved as she or Gabe, or even Julia.
But it appeared she was wrong. He had been.
“You’re sure?”
He lifted his shoulders in a shrug and said simply, “You met the guy. He didn’t have an enemy in the world. He was the nicest cop, the most . . .” His voice broke a little, and he sniffed. Then he finished. “The most decent man I’ve ever known.”
Hearing sirens in the distance, Olivia began to think, quickly trying to sort through all the little details, all the pieces of the puzzle. This changed things. She’d come here to comfort a lover, to help mourn a new friend. Now, though, if Gabe was right, if this murder was connected to the case, then she might have been the one who’d brought the eyes of a monster onto that sweet guy. She’d been the one who’d started digging all this muck up, pushing Gabe and his partner to believe her when she’d said she recognized the forensics sketch.
Good lord, if she hadn’t ever turned on the TV set the other day, hadn’t seen that sketch, Ty Wallace would probably still be alive.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, knowing she sounded horrified now, not merely aggrieved.
He noticed, stiffening, lifting a hand to her cheek. “What are you saying?”
“If I hadn’t . . .”
“Don’t even go there,” he ordered. “Ty was doing his job, a job he loved. This has absolutely nothing to do with you, do you understand me? Nothing.”
So he didn’t blame her. That was something at least. But she knew she’d blame herself for a while, always wondering.
There was only one way she could make sure something good came out of this, one thing that would perhaps enable her to forgive herself—and perhaps allow Gabe to let go of some of the guilt she knew he’d be carrying, too.
Cold Touch Page 27
