by Jessi Gage
“I know it,” she said.
Glenmore’s eyebrows went up. He turned his attention to Cole. “You got room at your place for whatever’s in there?”
He nodded. He could fit the most valuable guns in the safe in his basement with his own collection. The rest could go in the closet in his home office.
Thank fuck he’d gotten that duffel bag of cash out before all this. Glenmore would no-doubt insist on inventorying everything they pulled from the safe tonight. While he had no problem explaining that money if he needed to, it was simpler to keep it between him and the FBI…and Mandy, when the time was right. That would have been one hell of a surprise to spring on her tonight. Oh, yeah, your dad had almost half a million bucks in the safe. But it’s dirty money. I’ve got to turn it over to the FBI. Jesus, it was like something out of the movies. Mandy had just lost her dad and now her childhood home. She didn’t need that drama right now.
“That works,” Glenmore said.
Falworth said, “I can’t let you in there to open it. It’s a disaster zone. You write the combo down for Morris here, and once my crew clears a path, he can get in there and open it up.”
Mandy jotted the combination on Glenmore’s scratchpad. Maybe Cole should have told her he knew the combination for the safe too, but now wasn’t the time.
He tucked her into his truck to wait. After starting the engine and making sure the cab was nice and warm, he headed toward the rubble. On his way past one of the cruisers, Bennets bumped him with his shoulder.
Cole stopped and stared him down. “You got something to say to me?”
“Yeah.” Bennets lifted his chin toward Cole’s truck. “You got balls for going public with something that got you fired from your job back when it was a secret. Jesus, Plankitt, you’re old enough to be her father. You were fucking friends with her father. What would Gripper say?”
He was only old enough to be her father if he’d impregnated some girl at the age of sixteen, but he didn’t owe this shithead an ounce of explanation. “Gripper would say, ‘Mind your own fucking business.’” He stalked away from Bennets. The bastard was lucky they were in Mandy’s line of sight. If they’d been a few paces over, behind the fire truck, Cole would have had a nonverbal thing or two to say.
“Hope the young pussy’s worth it,” Bennets said. “Because you’re going to get nothing but shit for this. Gripper had a lot of friends. They’re not going to look kindly on you taking advantage of his little girl in her time of grief.”
There were times a man held himself in check out of respect for his woman. And there were times a man got physical out of respect for his woman. This was one of the latter times.
He spun around and had Bennets by the collar of his jacket in three strides. He backed him up until they were in the shadow of the fire truck, where Mandy couldn’t see. A jolt of satisfaction surged when he banged Bennets against the side panel.
Bennets gripped Cole’s wrist with one hand and reached for his piece with the other.
“You want to think carefully before drawing your weapon on me,” Cole said. “And you want to think carefully before insulting Mandy in front of me on the pretense of looking out for her or Gripper. We can keep this personal and meet up someplace to discuss it privately or we can make it official right here and right now and deal with the consequences. What’s it going to be, Officer Bennets?”
“Problem, gentlemen?” Glenmore approached, hands shaped like hooks by his side, ready to step in and yank apart two hotheaded cops.
Cole let Bennets’ jacket go. “Just a misunderstanding,” he said.
“Yeah,” Bennets agreed, straightening his jacket. “A misunderstanding.”
“If you’ve got it cleared up, Falworth’s got a path cleared to the safe. You coming?” he asked Cole.
With a parting glare at Bennets, Cole went with Glenmore to where four guys were using ropes and straps to lift the safe into an upright, if listing, position. The thing had to weigh a thousand pounds between the safe itself and the contents. Cole didn’t envy those guys the task of raising it like that. Hopefully, none of the guns inside had gotten scratched when it fell over.
He stepped carefully along the narrow path that had been cleared, stopping with Glenmore in front of the safe as the crew made way for them. Falworth angled in to hold a flashlight for extra illumination.
Glenmore squinted at the paper in his hand then at the wheel as he worked it. After a minute, he swung the door open.
The safe was facing away from the spotlight, but Cole didn’t need a lot of light to be able to see the inside. All of the inside. The carpeted sides, floor, and rear wall were all plainly visible. Because the safe was empty save for a few scraps of paper and the accordion files Gripper had kept up top. No more rows of rifles jam-packed side by side. No more handguns on hooks on the inside of the door. No more boxes of specialty ammo lining the top shelves. It was all gone.
Glenmore cursed. “I don’t suppose this thing was empty before tonight.”
“It wasn’t,” Cole confirmed. He told Glenmore how he’d seen inside when Mandy got out Gripper’s military records for the funeral planning. “I didn’t get too close a look,” he said honestly, “but I can make a list of what I remember seeing in there. Had to be at least twenty grand in guns. Some specialty ammo too.”
“I figured,” Glenmore said. “I’ll get that list from you tomorrow.” He held Cole’s gaze. “You know what this means.” It wasn’t a question.
Cole nodded. Made to look like a property crime, the fire was an attempt to cover what this was really about. Theft. No small-time theft, either. The safe had been charred but locked up tight when they got to it. No obvious signs of tampering. That meant whoever had set the fire had either cracked the combination or had somehow known it.
Tooley came to mind again. It was possible Gripper had given him the combination at some point. After all, he’d given it to Cole, and Tooley had been even tighter with Gripper than he’d been. Still, this didn’t feel like Tooley.
His gut told him this wasn’t even about the guns. The thief or thieves had made away with a good haul, but that was just a consolation prize. They’d been after the money.
He was going to have to come clean about Gripper’s deathbed request, at least the part about the dirty money. With Mandy and with Glenmore. And he was going to have to do it tonight. The next hour was going to suck.
Chapter 16
Something was wrong.
I kept my eyes glued to Cole as he watched Newburgh’s police chief, Morris Glenmore, open Dad’s safe. Nothing about Cole’s expression or posture had physically changed, but the level of his intensity skyrocketed. That was saying something, since he’d been practically vibrating with intensity after the confrontation I’d just witnessed between him and one of the cops on the scene. I didn’t know what it was about, but I could tell something the other cop said had made Cole angry. Very angry.
He was even angrier now.
Why? Were Dad’s guns damaged? Please, no. I couldn’t handle that on top of knowing everything else in the trailer had been burned to a crisp.
Mom’s clothes. The flag I’d gotten at Dad’s funeral. All the stuff I’d packed for this trip. All Dad’s clothes and boots and coats and clutter. A thousand useless pieces of manly bric-a-brac, the refuse of a life lived and lost. Proof my dad had been a hunter, a veteran, a weapons fanatic, an addict of cheesy action flicks, an alcoholic, a recluse, a cancer patient, a widower. All week, I’d been dreading sorting through it all. Now I felt robbed of the chance to do just that.
I couldn’t believe someone had burned it all down to spite me. The message spray painted across the garage doors made my stomach turn every time I looked at it. I kept looking anyway, the same way I could never resist picking at a scab.
How embarrassing Cole had to see those words. I was his girlfriend now. After the conversation we’d just had, I knew better than to think he’d regret bei
ng with me because of something stupid like hateful graffiti, but I couldn’t help wondering what he thought of the accusation. Trash.
He’d told me Tooley had spread rumors that Cole and I were boinking back when I was in high school. Hideous, untrue rumors. Yet I could tell they were a sore spot for Cole. Like being called trash was a sore spot for me.
Accusations hurt the worst when there was a kernel of truth in them. For Cole, that kernel had been his attraction to me. For me, the kernel was that ever since the assault, I’d been longing for someone to tell me I wasn’t trash, I was worthy of love, clean enough to be cherished. Though no one had expressly told me those things, in Philly I’d made friends who treated me that way. In Philly I felt strong and capable and worthy. Empowered. Emotionally healthy, except for the minor fact I couldn’t seem to trust anyone with access to my body. The point was, in Philly I didn’t feel remotely like trash. But seeing the word there in black and white gave those old memories teeth. The pain was as fresh tonight as it had been when I’d heard that word whispered about me in the halls of my high school.
Who had written that message? Who cared enough to do this to me after six years? I wouldn’t have thought the kids who had called me names back then were still thinking about me. When I’d returned to Newburgh, I’d expected some residual fallout, sideways looks or disapproving stares, not an outright attack. Nothing like this.
This hurt. On so many levels, it hurt.
I was embarrassed. I felt vulnerable. Sad. Angry.
I tore my gaze from the garage and focused my attention on Cole. My protective warrior. My handsome boyfriend. Officer Oakley. What would I have done without him the last few days?
The sight of him standing shoulder to shoulder with Chief Glenmore on the edge of the charred rubble soothed me. I felt safe knowing I had him at my back.
She’s got a place to stay.
No hesitation. He’d uttered it immediately when the chief had asked about my accommodations for the night.
Long as you want, honey.
For a second there, looking into his concerned, intense eyes, I’d thought, how does forever sound? Then I came to my senses and remembered we’d been dating a grand total of one day. I also remembered I didn’t do sex. All at once the thrill I’d felt at the prospect of staying in Cole’s house turned to terror.
He’d known.
He’d also known just what to say to ease my panic. He’d reminded me that he wasn’t in a hurry. Which seemed insane since he was so much older than me.
Cole was no fresh-faced, college guy or young professional looking to date around before settling down. Cole was a man. A middle-aged man. Granted, he didn’t look or act middle aged. He looked and acted like he was in his prime. But on paper, he was past the age where most guys were starting families of their own. I’d learned today he was a man who valued family. I couldn’t wrap my head around him being the age he was and having all those married couples and kids around him and being okay with taking his time in any relationship. Didn’t he want to get started on his own family?
And yet I trusted him when he said he wasn’t in a hurry. I trusted everything that came out of Cole’s mouth. Intuitively, I knew hurting me was about as appealing to him as hurting himself. He cared deeply for me and had for a long time. I trusted that, and so I trusted him.
He looked up and met my gaze through the windshield. A look of defeat passed over his features, gone before it had a chance to stick, replaced by his usual stony intensity.
I got out of the truck. Whatever was wrong, I’d face it by Cole’s side.
I stepped carefully through sooty puddles as I made my way to where Cole and Chief Glenmore stood. Even up close, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the debris. Was that long, twisted thing the burned couch from the living room, or was it a part of the ceiling or wall? Was that boxy thing the oven or a window frame? Everything looked like a jumbled, melted black mass, covered with bits of singed insulation. The anonymity of the objects probably made it easier for me to look at them without an overwhelming sense of loss. Or maybe I was just in shock.
Cole saw me approach and held out his arm.
I settled against his side, where I was starting to feel like I belonged. “What’s wrong with the safe?” As I asked, I peered around Glenmore to look inside. I expected to see the guns all fallen out of the velvet-lined teeth that had cushioned them, some of them damaged or maybe melted.
I never expected to find them gone.
My heart thudded into my shoes.
Dad’s guns were gone. His favorite things in the world, things I’d always figured he loved more than he loved me, had been stolen.
My legs felt like rubber.
Cole wrapped me in his warm embrace, taking my weight. His cheek was on mine, warm, reassuring.
“How?” I asked, his parka clenched in my fists.
He spoke into my ear. “Someone either cracked it or had the combination. Probably the reason they started the fire, to cover their tracks. So sorry, baby. So sorry.”
Tears pricked at my eyes. I didn’t want to cry anymore. I’d already cried too much today and yesterday. I swallowed down the emotion and gave Cole a brave smile. I willed strength into my legs until I was able to stand on my own.
I expected Cole to say, “Atta girl,” or something to show he was proud of me, but he didn’t. “I told you a lot of stuff last night,” he said. “I was hoping to put off the rest until you had time to deal with all that. But whoever was here tonight just moved up the timetable. Can you be strong for me?”
“Oh, God. There’s more?”
He nodded gravely. “I’m sorry.” Then, to Glenmore, he said, “Forget tomorrow. We need to talk tonight. Can we do it at my place, though? I’ve got some sensitive stuff to share.”
Glenmore’s eyebrows disappeared under the bill of his police hat. He glanced at the other workers, who had tactfully given the three of us some space. “You’ve got information about who might have done this?” he asked.
Cole shrugged. “I’ve got information. Don’t know how helpful it’ll be, but I can’t sit on it overnight.”
“All right. Let’s meet up at your place. Go on ahead. I’ll be around soon as I can break away here.”
Cole led me by the hand to the truck and helped me climb in.
The cab was warm, but I was cold to my bones. I dreaded what he had to tell me. “How bad is it?” I asked when he climbed in on his side.
He looked tired. “It’s not that bad, honey. It’s just, I was hoping to put it off a little longer. More of Gripper’s secrets. You shouldn’t have to deal with all this right now.”
Strange, but I felt more for him than I did for me at the moment. He always took such good care of me. Maybe it was time for me to take care of him. “Let’s get you home,” I said. “Tell me what you need to. Let’s talk to the chief. Then I want you to get a good night’s sleep. Okay?”
“Having you under my roof, that’s pretty much a guarantee. I’ll sleep good knowing you’re just down the hall.” His mouth tilted in a quick grin as he buckled in and threw the truck into gear.
Despite everything that had happened the last hour, I shivered at the thought of sleeping a few steps away from Cole. I was starting to believe I could handle just about anything with this man in my life.
* * * *
“Home sweet home,” Cole said as he turned onto a narrow, heavily wooded driveway off a quiet stretch of Newton Junction Road. The driveway opened into a clearing with a two-story, brown cape cod with blue shutters and a detached two-car garage. He lowered the visor and pressed a button to open the rightmost bay.
I glanced at the clock. 10:33. We’d left Dad’s place at 10:27. Cole lived six minutes away.
I’d driven by this driveway hundreds of times. If I’d had any idea a hot, Oakley-wearing cop might be found just through the tall pines and birches, down a little dip that probably flooded in bad weather, and around a bend,
that would only have fueled my fantasies.
“How long have you lived here?” I asked as he pulled his big truck to a stop inside the tidy garage.
“Since I moved to Newburgh and went to work for the PD.” He squinted up at the ceiling like he was doing a calculation. “Eleven years ago, now.” He huffed. “Time flies, huh?”
Eleven years ago Cole had been old enough to buy a house and land a job as a local cop. I’d been in eighth grade.
I didn’t comment about time flying. I’d never felt that way about time. In fact, time seemed to pass too slowly for my liking. I was always in a hurry to get to the next stage in life. In middle school, I’d been chomping at the bit to be a high-schooler. In high school, I’d wished I were already in college. In undergrad, I couldn’t wait for the intellectual stimulation and hands-on experience of grad school. In grad school, I’d been eager to shed my intern status and earn a paycheck for my counseling services. Maybe I was too young to say things like, “Time flies.”
A pesky thought intruded. If I was too young to relate to a saying Cole tossed out so casually, maybe I was too young for Cole. How much did the two of us really have in common? Had I agreed to this dating thing too quickly after losing Dad? I knew better than to make major decisions while under stress. Oh God, had I made a huge mistake with Cole?
The thud of the driver’s-side door closing startled me. Before I could hop down from my side, Cole was there, offering me a strong hand and then folding me into his sure embrace.
He breathed deep, nose in my hair. “Except the last six years,” he said. “They’ve been long years. Some of the longest of my life.” He tilted my face to his and pressed the sweetest, gentlest kiss to my lips.
I had not made a mistake. This man was exactly right for me.
Maybe the timing sucked because of everything with Dad. Maybe being so far apart in age would create challenges for us. Maybe it would be hard when I returned to Philly. None of that mattered in this moment. None of those worries held a candle to how I felt in his arms, with his mouth slowly moving against mine.
