Reluctant Suspicion

by Finn, Scarlett

  ‘No,’ she said, hiding her face in her pillow. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

  ‘They’ll put it out,’ Blake said. ‘You’re insured.’

  ‘Ashton’s has never closed its doors for a whole night,’ Molly said. ‘Never, Blake.’

  ‘We’ll figure something out. If you help me figure this out, I promise I will find a way for you to pour drinks under the Ashton name tomorrow. I swear it, Mol.’

  With a frown, she elevated herself into a seated position. ‘How?’

  ‘I have a few ideas,’ he said. ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘And if I don’t?’ she asked.

  A whisper of a smile twitched his jaw. ‘Then I’ll still help you… I was hoping you wouldn’t ask that.’

  ‘Why? Why would you want to help me?’

  ‘I hurt you,’ he said. ‘I’ve thought of nothing but you this week. My head isn’t where it should be.’

  Molly almost melted into his sorrowful expression, when a daunting thought slammed into her, and her gut began to bubble. ‘Oh, God! They’re out there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Mason and Joel!’ she said, and lunged over him for the door handle.

  ‘Jason’s on it,’ he said, and took the weight of her shoulder. ‘You can relax. I’ve got it covered.’

  ‘Oh,’ Molly said, trying to sit upright as nonchalantly as she could after having flung herself across what used to be the object of her affection, him. Sweeping her hair away from her face, she cleared her throat. ‘Where is Jason?’

  ‘He has your friends in his car… Why?’

  ‘Which one is his?’ Molly asked, and surveyed the cars strewn across the street and at their various intersecting lights.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have to see him.’

  ‘Jason?’ Blake asked. ‘Why do you have to see Jason?’

  Molly brought her awareness back to Blake, though it never really left him entirely. ‘He didn’t tell you about our agreement?’

  ‘What agreement?’ Blake snapped.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and cast her smile to her lap. He’d been right when he said that he hurt her, and Molly had to admit – even if only to herself – that the torment on his face was somewhat gratifying. ‘It’s not important… I suppose I do know where he lives.’

  Her words were only meant in jest, because in truth, she had no intention of ever going anywhere near Jason’s house. But Blake didn’t know what the agreement was, so she supposed that he didn’t know that. Taunting him might have been cruel, but it was nothing in comparison to the pain that he had caused her.

  ‘Tell me I don’t have to find an excuse to kill my own partner,’ Blake said with begging in his tone.

  Now it was her turn to be taunted, because there was a sincerity in his eyes that made her wonder if he could be serious.

  ‘Do you think I’m sleeping with Jason?’ Molly barked, and folded her arms under her chest. ‘The guy hates me!’

  ‘Thin line,’ Blake said. ‘Between love and hate.’

  ‘So I discovered last week,’ she snarled, and turned her attention out of the opposite car window.

  ‘You can’t stay here tonight,’ Blake said. ‘Jason’s taking the others back to Vanessa’s. He’s posting officers with them… What do you want to do?’

  ‘Why can’t I stay here?’

  ‘Water damage if nothing else, Mol. But the place won’t be secure. The lower windows blew out. I can’t be sure of how structurally safe the building is until it’s properly assessed.’

  ‘Was Mason’s hit?’ she asked.

  Blake glanced back toward the building. ‘It looks like they’ve got it under control in the bar. But I can’t tell you until they’ve finished putting it out and I’ve spoken to the fire chief.’

  ‘Can you do that?’ Molly asked. ‘He’ll tell you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Blake said, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘You are central to my investigation. Your property was attacked tonight. He’ll answer every one of my questions, right down to what brand of match was used to the spark the first flame.’

  ‘You’re sure this was arson?’ Molly asked.

  ‘No,’ Blake said. ‘But I’ve been into your electrics myself. They were pretty sound.’

  ‘You’re not going to accuse me again are you?’ she asked, and fell into a daze watching the colour of the flames reflected on their bodies.

  ‘I think we’re sure that this is a step too far from someone already in trouble.’

  ‘How am I in trouble?’

  ‘There’s a crazed serial killer targeting your friends.’

  ‘That’s their trouble,’ Molly said. ‘No one is trying to kill me.’

  ‘Uh, look around you,’ Blake said. ‘Notice anything that may be considered life threatening around here?’

  ‘You think she was trying to kill me? Why?’

  ‘We don’t know what she was trying to do here,’ Blake said. ‘Maybe she wanted to hurt you, maybe she thought the men were inside… or maybe it was a warning. We won’t know until we can assess the damage and investigate.’

  ‘Everything was in there. My whole life.’

  ‘I know,’ Blake said. ‘Right now I have to get you out of here, so buckle up.’

  Remaining in her trance, she tugged on her seatbelt while contemplating the dancing flames. Blake left the car to relocate into the driver’s seat. But it wasn’t until he pulled away and she lost sight of the flames that she was shaken from her daze. Then it took her more than a moment to absorb where she was.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded.

  ‘I have to take you away from the scene.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do, Mol. You just have to let the investigation teams do their jobs.’

  ‘But where are you taking me? Where are we going?’

  Releasing her seatbelt, she boosted herself forward to clamber between the front seats and transfer herself into the front passenger position.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t trust your driving, remember?’

  ‘You were in a car with me on Sunday night,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Wait a minute, you knew about my brother, but you pulled that stunt the night we met anyway.’

  ‘It wasn’t a stunt,’ Blake said. ‘I really didn’t know your reaction would be that strong.’

  ‘You were a maniac! I forgave you because I thought you were ignorant. But you weren’t at all, were you?’

  ‘Molly. We can have this fight. We can fight over every word we ever said to each other and every second that we looked at each other. We can speculate as to what it meant or analyse it until it’s nothing except cold hard fact. But… it was never my intention to deliberately hurt or cause you pain. I had no idea what would happen with us. Can we please… put it behind us and start again? I know we can help each other.’

  ‘Seems like a pretty fair deal for you,’ Molly said, and yanked on her seatbelt.

  ‘You can even it up,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  Pondering this, she soaked in their surroundings and tried to make sense of what she’d experienced that night. ‘Long Oaks,’ she said. ‘I want to go to Long Oaks.’

  ‘Babe, I—‘

  ‘No!’ Molly asserted and whipped around to glare at him. ‘You asked and I’m telling you that I want to go Long Oaks.’

  With a long laboured breath, he responded, ‘Fine.’

  Unable to look at him anymore, she turned to peer out of her window. ‘And stop with the babe thing… it’s insulting.’

  He sucked in another harsh breath. ‘Ok,’ he said, and swung the car around a corner.

  Grabbing for purchase, she shrieked when the car lurched in a one-eighty to face in the direction they had just come.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But if it’s any help, I have an advanced driver’s licence… And my car chase badge.’

  Molly glared
at him, unimpressed by his attempt to joke. ‘Just stay in your lane,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘And under the speed limit.’

  ‘Gotcha,’ he said, and shifted his attention back to the road.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Blake applied the brake until the car came to a stop, then he switched the engine off and relaxed his hands on the steering wheel. The ink around them was daunting, and the trees around the exterior of the fenced in area swayed in the breeze. But there was no rustle of leaves or sound of car engines. No one spoke, or even walked around here; everywhere was deserted. Through the trees there was only one thing, acres of grass with concrete monuments in their regimented lanes.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said, when she remained quiet and static despite their arrival.

  ‘I see that,’ she whispered.

  She appeared as intent on the observations that he had just absorbed himself. This environment was quite menacing, and her shaking hands betrayed her apprehension.

  ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

  Molly nodded. ‘I have to explain.’

  ‘This isn’t your fault, Mol. We’ll fix it.’

  ‘It’s not your responsibility,’ she said, and unfastened her seatbelt. ‘You can get out of here now.’

  With a tug on the door handle, she pushed it open, but he snatched her wrist before she could exit, which drew her snarl onto him. ‘I’m not leaving you here… Even if you weren’t the subject of a serial killer’s attention, this isn’t a safe place to be.’

  ‘There’s no one here,’ Molly said.

  ‘Really?’ he asked. ‘How many murder investigations have you been a part of in the last few years? Do you want me to ream you off the statistics of how many people have been raped, robbed or murdered in this area in the last year alone?’

  ‘What does it matter?’ she asked. ‘I’m dead anyway, aren’t I?’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Whoever this person is, she obviously has an agenda. I just have to wait my turn.’

  ‘No,’ Blake said, sliding his hand up her arm to her elbow. ‘It doesn’t work that way. We will find her.’

  ‘How has that theory helped Alex? Or Joseph? It’s only a matter of time.’

  ‘I can do this,’ he said through gritted teeth. Having his expertise questioned was grating, but the flames that licked at his own heart burned with the truth; she was right. If he and Keane didn’t solve this, then her friends would be picked off one by one, and he couldn’t make any guarantees that she wasn’t on the murderer’s list as well. He could do it, but he needed her help.

  ‘It doesn’t matter anymore, Blake,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘Maybe it was meant to be this way.’

  ‘Don’t talk that way, Mol. I swear to you that this maniac will be brought down.’

  ‘I’ll try and leave you a clue,’ Molly said, snatching her arm out of his grip. ‘I’ll write her name somewhere before I die.’

  Taking her chance to exit, she slammed the door at her back, then paused for a few seconds.

  He missed her smile, and it felt like a lifetime since he had last seen it. Observing her journey to the entrance of Long Oaks cemetery, Blake felt anguish at the grief she’d lived with all of her life.

  Molly gestured for him to go, and she stood with her arms folded and her brow lowered, ready to wait him out. Shaking his head, he knew her stubbornness would keep her there all night, so he switched on the engine and flooded the space between them with light. He would drive around the corner and let her think that he’d gone, but there was no chance in hell that he was leaving her here.

  The cold damp grass licked at her ankles as she dragged her feet down the lane. She didn’t have to examine the concrete pillars that flanked her, she knew just where she was going, even in the cloak of night. He had a good spot, just under a tree next to the garden square, and it didn’t take her long to get there.

  Stopping in the calf-high mist, she was struck by the usual heartache that greeted her here. ‘Hi, Daddy,’ she murmured. Tipping her chin to her shoulder, she surveyed the etched stone. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Her legs gave way and she fell to her knees in the moist ground. While crawling toward the grave, tears pricked her ducts. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said again, and picked the dying flowers from in front of his headstone to toss them aside. ‘I don’t know what to do. You’re not here, and I… I don’t know what to do.’

  Forcing air into her lungs, she dropped onto her side, letting her cheek fall into the freezing land beneath her. ‘I want you here. I need you here. I have tried. I tried so hard to make it work. I wanted you to be proud of me, I had to do this. I had to do it, for you, for us… for the family.

  ‘I’m all that’s left and I… I don’t have anyone to guide me. How can I do this on my own? My friends are in danger, and no one knows why. The bar… I’m going to have to close and I—

  ‘I know you would be so disappointed.’ Molly picked at the grass in front of her. ‘I have no one. No one to talk to. No one to help. How can I do this alone, Daddy? Please, I need you. I need a sign. Something. Anything. I need your help, I don’t have the fight to do this alone. Daddy, please, I can’t be alone,’ she sobbed, and dug her fingers into the sea of grass blades that surrounded her.

  ‘You’re not alone.’

  The alien words made her gasp and sit up. Pushing herself backward, she scrambled away from the voice until her back hit her father’s gravestone. Blinking at the darkness, she saw a figure at the foot of the plot.

  ‘Blake?’ she muttered. ‘I told you to go.’

  ‘I’m not great at doing what I’m told,’ he said, and crouched before her. ‘I can help you.’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ she said, forcing herself onto her feet.

  ‘I can.’

  Molly wasn’t really ready to leave, but she wasn’t going to hang around with her stalker, either. Her shoulder crashed against Blake when she stormed past him into the night. She reached the cemetery garden before he managed to grab her arm and haul her back.

  ‘Let me go!’ she said, trying to free herself from his grip, but she was unsuccessful.

  ‘Molly, you can’t bury your head in the sand! You need to face this! Someone has to give you the shake that you need! People are dying, and you hold the answers! You have to talk to someone!’

  ‘I was talking to someone! You interrupted!’

  ‘Your father is dead!’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for that, but he can’t help you now! You need someone who is here now! Someone who understands! Someone who has the power to make this right!’

  ‘You? You think you can make this right? You made this mess, Blake! Do you really think that I would be struggling with this so much if it wasn’t for what you did to me?’

  ‘I didn’t have a choice!’

  ‘You did! You had a choice to be honest with me! You could have told me!’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that!’ he said. ‘If I had the first clue about who you really were when I walked into that bar, then I would never have done what I did!’

  ‘Easy to say that now, isn’t it? The truth is, you don’t give a shit about anyone! That’s why this is killing you! You need to solve it! You have to solve the case! You don’t care about me, or my friends! You just want to solve the puzzle!’

  Molly glared into his dark stare, close enough that his breath flooded her face. His short, panting breaths heated her skin. His jaw hardened and his grip on her arm increased, and then it was joined by a grip on her other arm. He forced her backwards, and though she stumbled he held her weight up and dragged her backward until she fell back against a tree in the garden.

  ‘Say what the hell you like about me… but don’t ever tell me I don’t care,’ he growled.

  The low tone of the breathy words made her tremble. They were alone here, in the middle of nowhere. No one knew where they were. She had never feared him when she thought he was just a bartender. But ironically enough now that she knew he was a cop, she
feared him more. Being around police had always made her uncomfortable but for some reason, she didn’t see him the way she saw the others. And this was the root of her fear. No matter how she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to hate him. She wanted to… but she couldn’t.

  ‘I was your job,’ she said. ‘You care about the case. I’m a means to an end… I always was.’

  ‘You don’t believe that,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t tell me what I believe!’

  ‘If you believed that, you’d have started screaming the minute I touched you.’

  She couldn’t argue, and the tingling in her hands spread to her arms through her shoulders and spiked her chest. Her emotions had been raw tonight, they had been all week. The rollercoaster in her gut was too familiar for her liking. Her body wouldn’t stay loyal, the heat that ran through her veins shook her limbs and pounded her heart.

  He shifted closer and she squeezed her eyes shut because she didn’t want to be in this moment. It wasn’t right. She didn’t want it. But telling herself those things made no difference. If they were true, then she had to wonder why her ears began to ring and her head grew foggy.

  ‘Look at me, Mol,’ he murmured.

  ‘No,’ she exhaled, shaking her head, as a sob escaped her lips.

  ‘Why? Why won’t you look at me?’ he asked in the softest tone she had ever heard from his lips.

  ‘You’re a cop. You lied to me,’ she whispered.

  ‘All I want you to do is look at me.’

  ‘I won’t let you do it again,’ she mumbled. ‘I can’t trust you.’

  ‘Just look at me… Please, Sugar.’

  Another sob escaped, and her quivering bottom lip brought fresh moisture to her lashes. Her chin moved upward until she found his stare. She recognised that intensity, that hot, dark stare that devoured her. When he peered at her like this there was only one thing on his mind, and knowing that brought churning to her stomach. Spikes of delight shot through her body from between her legs to her heart. Like air bubbles fluttering up erratically in a fish tank, pleasure rippled through her, and it all came from his stare. He consumed her with his eyes; when he fixed on her like this it was as though she was the only other being on the earth.