Reluctant Suspicion

by Finn, Scarlett

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know her motivation. All I can do is tell you who was there at the time. Joseph was in the car with Cal, Paddy and me.’

  ‘You think that this is about the accident?’ he asked. ‘Mol?’

  ‘Could that be it? I don’t understand why they would be linked, and after all this time. Why would someone do this?’

  ‘That’s what we are trying to find out…’ he said, tucking his phone between his shoulder and his jaw. ‘You told me there were five in the car.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘There were.’

  Her voice was as silky as ever, but he could hear the vulnerability, the weakness that his day had brought her, vibrating through the tones, although she tried to maintain her strength.

  ‘Who was the fifth?’

  ‘Harry,’ she sighed.

  ‘Harry? Your ex?’

  ‘One and the same… We were never together back then. We didn’t meet up again until my dad’s funeral.’

  ‘What’s his last name?’ Blake jotted the name down on his pad.

  ‘King.’

  Blake paused. ‘You went out with a guy called Harry King?’

  ‘You went out with a woman named Layla. Clapton wrote a song about her.’

  Blake conceded a laugh. ‘Ok, who else do you want on this list?’

  ‘I’m scared to put anyone on a list. If I say it out loud—’

  ‘It makes it real?’

  ‘I don’t want anyone I care about to be in any danger.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘But if you tell me, then I can try to help them.’ He wanted nothing more than to make her promises about his ability. But if he was worth his salt he wouldn’t have been bested by this serial-killing lunatic so many times already. At least now they had a link. Molly had started as a suspect, but from the angle he regarded it at now, she seemed more likely to be a potential victim.

  ‘How can you help them?’ Molly asked. ‘I could be totally wrong. I could be telling you to focus in completely the wrong place.’

  ‘You’ve given us more to go on in the last half hour than we’ve had for the whole case.’

  ‘I had no idea I was involved in this at all. Our side of town is a pretty small community… we don’t deal with these things. We all grew up together, everybody knows everybody. We’re all linked in some way.’

  ‘Molly… who else?’

  ‘Did you find Joseph yet?’

  Blake heard Jason’s phone ring, the distraction should mean that Keane stopped eavesdropping on his call with Molly.

  ‘I’m working on it.’

  ‘Do you think she… Do you think that this is about me? Your partner was asking about enemies, but I—‘

  ‘Don’t worry about that right now,’ he said, glad for the chance to soothe her. He knew that she hated cops, and he knew that she’d likely never forgive him for his deception. But here now, she was vulnerable enough to recognise and concede that he was her ally, and he could be strong for her. ‘You’re safe while you are where you are. Maybe this is a blessing. Give me the names.’

  ‘Joel Barrett and Mason Phillips,’ she whispered. ‘They were both in my brother’s group.’

  Blake flopped back in his chair and dropped his pen. ‘Small community is right... I’ll get on it.’

  ‘Blake,’ Jason asserted from behind, but Blake waved him away.

  ‘I’ve never in my life wished I was wrong as much as I do now,’ Molly said.

  ‘We’ll get her, it’ll be ok. No one else has to die.’

  ‘Blake!’ Jason shouted. Blake spun his chair to glare at his partner. ‘We’ve got an emergency call. Man found dead, tied to his bed… with a pillow over his face, silk scarf in his throat.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Blake said to Molly, then covered the mouthpiece while he addressed Jason. ‘Who?’

  ‘In a house… belonging to a… Joseph Welsh.’

  Blake saw how it pained his partner to say it, but said nothing about that. He took his hand from the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘Sorry, Mol… You were right. I have to go.’

  Molly stared up at the ceiling above her. The whole room was grey. Everywhere in this building was grey. What a dismal life to live, she thought. She swiped a stray tear from her cheek when she realised that this may be her life for some time. All night, she had lain in this bed, and not once had she been tempted to close her eyes.

  Yesterday had been spent with the lawyer that Mason had arranged for her. She’d been questioned by him and questioned by cops, but she couldn’t give them the answers that they wanted. It was clear that as far as they were concerned they had their man. They hadn’t budged an inch, or been interested in what she said. All they seemed to want was the confession that she couldn’t give.

  Then at some point, she was shoved in here with a plastic tray of cold food, and left alone. Eating hadn’t been on her to-do list, her stomach still roiled. So she had settled on the bed, and listened. Doors opened and closed, voices shouted, and locks slammed into place. Each echo picked one more stitch from her broken heart.

  The concept of mending her battered heart again seemed insurmountable. Her life had been spent sewing the anguished organ back together. And just when she thought it was healing, someone else would come along and unpick her work.

  Everything with Blake had happened so quickly, but it was he who plagued her. Dark shadows rippled across the ceiling and she supposed it must be raining this morning. The line of night had crept up one wall and down the other until it gave way to the sun. But she had no idea what time it was. They had taken her watch, all of her jewellery actually, and her shoes and scarf.

  The scarf she supposed she could understand, but she had to wonder how many people killed themselves with a four inch spiked heel. The name was worse than the tool. She couldn’t imagine having the strength to put it through her skull and it didn’t have the sharpness to cut her wrists or her neck.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and wrapped her elbows around her head until her hands sank into her hair at the back of her skull. Trying to block out the noises of this place was like trying to block out her own thoughts; both were proving impossible. Despite her family history, she had never thought so much about death in her life as she did in here over the course of one night. Which was significant, when she considered that she had lost everyone in her life to the abyss.

  Blake filled her head again, but she wanted to forget him because she wanted to hate him. He had lied to her and humiliated her. She had believed him. More than that, she had cared about him. She had allowed herself to fall for him. It didn’t matter that she had only known him for a short time, their attraction had been undeniable, their connection instinctual. Never had a man consumed her with passion or hope the way he did.

  The clunk of her lock reverberated, but she didn’t move with the belief that someone would be delivering breakfast. She didn’t care for food; hunger was the last thing on her mind. All she could hope was that she wouldn’t be dragged out to answer more questions. Though the door opened, she didn’t hear it close, but she didn’t bother to remove her arms from their embrace around her head.

  Something touched her leg and she leapt away from it, so she found herself crouched on her pillow staring like a rabbit stunned in the headlights of a car.

  ‘Relax,’ Blake said from where he sat on the edge of the bed with his open hands at chest height in surrender. ‘It’s only me.’

  ‘You’ve touched me before, so you think you can do it whenever you want now?’

  ‘No,’ he said.

  The way his solemn eyes fell from hers made her want to scream and grab him. Not this guy, but her Blake, the Blake she knew. Her urge was to hold him, because she needed him to hold her in return. If he held her and told her that everything would be ok, then she might just believe him. Just as she had when he consoled her after the robbery.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, and scanned around the room to see that the cell door was still open, but they w
ere alone.

  ‘You can go,’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘We apologise for the inconvenience. All charges have been dropped.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, sliding from her pillow to perch on the wafer-thin mattress.

  ‘There was another murder.’

  ‘What?’ she breathed. ‘Who?’

  ‘Joseph,’ he said. The spear of agony brought by his words caused her to yelp, and her head fell to her knees. ‘I’m sorry, Mol. So sorry.’

  ‘I told you so that you could prevent this! How hard is it to look up a phone book?’ she barked with burning fury and scowled up at him. ‘Useless! You’re all useless! He’s out there like a sitting duck and I am stuck in this stupid place! I could’ve warned him! I could’ve—‘

  Blake shook his head. ‘He wasn’t out there while you were in here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Joseph was seen at work on Saturday, but not on Sunday. He ordered a pizza on Saturday night, which was found half eaten in an open box in his living room. The medical examiner came in early as a favour, and his findings corroborate the coroner’s findings.’

  ‘Which are?’ Molly asked. A sour taste flooded her mouth that made her want to spit.

  ‘Joseph died on Saturday night… You were with me.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and her anger ebbed a little. ‘You told them that?’

  ‘They already knew,’ Blake said. ‘You’re in the clear. You have an alibi.’

  ‘He’s been lying there since… Saturday? No one found him?’

  ‘His wife moved out a month ago,’ Blake said. ‘It turns out that they were going through more than just a rough patch.’

  ‘God, the kids,’ she mumbled, and held her hands to her mouth. ‘This is horrible. How do you do this every day, Blake?’ Her sinuses began to sear beneath her fingers.

  ‘I’m not usually the one delivering the news to loved ones. That’s a job for the coroner’s office… usually.’

  ‘So why are you telling me?’

  His chin dropped for a moment before his stare locked onto her. ‘I didn’t want you to be alone when you heard.’

  ‘He’s been lying there, Blake,’ she whispered. ‘Joseph was alone… He was going through that torture while we… while we were… in my bed.’

  ‘We can’t pinpoint the exact time, it’s only an estimation at this point. But time of death is believed to be somewhere between one and three AM.’

  ‘While we were being robbed?’ Molly asked, and he nodded. ‘God… and I had the gall to moan about that.’

  ‘You had every right to, but you didn’t moan.’

  ‘I can’t bear to think of him in pain like that. He would have been desperate… fighting for his life while she stole it from him. Begging with her… he thought she was someone he could trust. They were intimate and… she killed him. She stole his life and his spirit… deprived his children of their father. What kind of monster is this?’ Her blurred vision cleared when she blinked, and the rivers of tears ran to her chin. Blake’s hand moved toward her face, but he hesitated and pulled it back.

  ‘Mol, I—‘he started, but faltered.

  ‘Blake,’ she exhaled.

  The tension in his expression, conveyed through tapered eyes and lowered brows, betrayed how he struggled to know how to comfort her. She shuffled forward on the bed and sunk her head against his shoulder. The tears continued to come until she was sucking in long sobbing breaths. Only at that point did his hand flatten around her crown. He stroked her hair and turned his mouth against her.

  ‘I’m sorry, babe,’ he murmured. ‘I’m sorry that we haven’t gotten to her sooner.’

  ‘You got your man, didn’t you? You all thought it was me.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he whispered. ‘I hoped with everything I had that it wasn’t you. I just couldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Why not?’ she asked, sucking in another breath as his hand slipped to her waist.

  ‘Because I didn’t want to have to wait a life sentence to taste your lips again.’

  Elevating her focus, she blinked her webbed lashes at him. ‘What?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s not appropriate, I know… I—‘

  ‘You would have waited for me?’ Molly’s curiosity explored him. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mol,’ he said, except there was certainty in his features.

  ‘You said you weren’t allowed to feel this way… in Jason’s that’s what you said to me… was this what you meant? Because of this?’ He nodded. ‘The robbery… was it real?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Was it real? Or were they yours?’

  His shock was so apparent that his brows almost shot off his head. ‘Do you think I would knowingly let any man touch you like that? Let alone scare you or hurt you? If one of mine had touched you like that, I’d be in the cell next to yours right now.’

  ‘How can I believe that, Blake? The cops knew about it, they came to the bar for a statement, the night of our date, remember? How would they know? If that was just between us?’

  ‘Jason picked the perps up around the corner. I called him after I sent you up the stairs.’

  ‘So you did lie?’

  ‘I couldn’t have them out there, Mol. This is what I do. Beyond that, he touched you. He hurt you! He shouldn’t get away with that! It’s a violation!’

  ‘How is it any worse than what you did?’ Molly asked, slipping away from him as she reminded herself of the situation. ‘You lulled me into your confidence. I trusted you, but… It wasn’t real. It was completely false.’

  ‘I never forced myself on you,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ Molly said. ‘But you made me believe you were someone you weren’t, isn’t that a violation? It was just an act.’

  ‘It wasn’t an act,’ he said, with steely resolution. ‘Every time I touched you it was because I wanted to. I kissed you because I enjoyed it. I didn’t lie when I said you excited me, Mol. You’ve seen the affect you have on me.’

  ‘You’re a man,’ she said, and swung her legs off the bed, but when she braced to stand he grabbed her hand and pulled her to his side.

  ‘And you’re a woman,’ he said. ‘That wasn’t a lie. The way I reacted to you was real… just like the way you reacted to me was real.’

  ‘I reacted to what I thought you were.’

  ‘Isn’t this better?’ he asked. ‘I actually have a steady job, and a great house.’

  ‘You think I care about that?’ she snarled at him. ‘Blake.’ She paused to lick her lips. ‘I would have slept in the cellar of the bar for the rest of my life if it meant we could—‘she stopped herself.

  ‘We could what?’

  ‘Forget it,’ she said, and snatched her hand from his. ‘Can I at least have my shoes? Can I call Mason, or have I used up all my phone credits?’

  ‘You can call him,’ Blake said. ‘Or you can let me take you home.’

  She scoffed. ‘Yeah right.’ She tiptoed toward the open door.

  ‘We could what, Mol?’ he asked her again.

  Molly wasn’t sure that she wanted to answer the question, but there had been enough secrets, and she wouldn’t be a hypocrite. Drinking in the sight of his figure dominating this small room, she knew that his ability to dwarf the space was nothing to do with his substantial physical form, it was his attitude… his presence. He could intimidate at twenty paces, but none of this intimidated him.

  ‘If we could have had something real,’ she murmured. ‘Goodbye, Blake.’

  ‘See you, Mol,’ he said, and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his loose low-riding jeans.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I really hope not.’

  Leaving, without looking back, was a testament to her inability to trust herself. When she reached the end of the corridor she felt the unmistakable heat of his attention searing into her, and she didn’t have to turn to know that he was there.

  Chapter Fourteen

&n
bsp; Since Molly had been exonerated, the investigation had taken on a different life. The FBI had come in to review evidence and had forwarded all of the data onto a profiler, who was due to get back to them soon with a description of the perpetrator they were looking for.

  Throughout their time investigating Molly they had kept a couple of other pots on the backburner, but now they had to decide what to bring forward. It didn’t take a professional profiler to tell Blake that he was looking for a female killer. All of the victims so far identified as straight, and it was unlikely this many men would be harbouring a secret about their sexuality, at least so many men from one small town and one social group. So a woman did the seducing, but that didn’t mean she did the killing. Blake was beginning to think that she wasn’t working alone because the scenes were too clean. There was no struggle, so the victims had to let the killer in willingly. Music in the stereos and traces of alcohol in some of the victims systems suggested a social interaction before the death, though with the scene of seduction that wasn’t a surprise.

  Jason put down a list of names in front of Blake, bringing him out of his thoughts. ‘All of these women went to school with the guys,’ he said. Moving around to take his own seat, he picked up his pen and began to gnaw.

  ‘All of them?’ Blake asked, picking up the piece of paper to read it.

  ‘If the connection is high school, then that’s where we should focus our efforts,’ Jason said. ‘I limited it to two years either side of the victims and crossed off anyone dead or incarcerated. The ones with an E next to their names are known to have emigrated out of the country, so crossing them off should be easy. The ones with the H stay right here in town.’

  ‘So that’s where we start,’ Blake said. ‘You want A to M?’

  Jason nodded and Blake turned to his computer to begin checking out social security numbers. He didn’t get far when his partner spoke up. ‘Have you heard from her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ashton,’ Jason said. ‘Molly.’

  ‘No. I don’t think I will, she was pissed.’

  ‘I think anyone would be pissed for being wrongfully arrested,’ Jason said. ‘But you mean about the other thing, the lying to her.’