by Cameron Dane
Ben paced the table length a final time and then sat back down. He folded his hands on the scuffed surface of the picnic table and laid a probing stare on Braden. “In which scenario do you see Cormack not only stabbing her and slicing him with his knife—which was never found, by the way—and then on top of that, shooting them with the husband’s shotgun, which in my opinion was an attempt to cover those knife wounds? It’s ridiculous; it makes no sense, and the only reason I could see the DA prosecuting this case is because the community wanted blood. The mob mentality wanted someone to blame, and it demanded justice. The DA’s office took the theories the cops had and ran with them because they got pressured from some politicians looking to get reelected. I talked to the prosecutor in Lakeland about that, off the record, of course.”
Braden’s mouth twisted downward. “Of course.” It felt like he swallowed something sour.
Ben grimaced too. “Right. You don’t have to like it, and neither do I, but it’s still good information. The DA said that if I wanted to paint a picture of community vengeance privately, he wouldn’t tell me I was using the wrong colors.”
Braden barely managed to suppress the twin urges to vomit and throw a punch at something—anything—to release the storm brewing inside him. “Damn.” One spit-out word didn’t do anything to relieve the inner pressure, so he repeated it a half dozen more times, each one with a sharper bite than the last.
“Damn is right,” Ben said. Braden knew Ben understood the potential hornets’ nest they were about to disturb. “That’s all I have. Did I do my job in convincing you of what you already suspected?”
What I didn’t want to believe. Braden couldn’t make himself talk yet. Speak of what he had already suspected. Rusty Cormack did not murder Abby’s parents.
Braden trusted Ben’s gut as much as he did his own. The man used to be a detective in a neighboring county. He definitely believed in Ben’s skills when it came to interviewing suspects. If Ben didn’t think Cormack pulled the trigger, then Cormack didn’t do it.
Son. Of. A. Bitch.
Braden had not wanted to put an official request in to reexamine the Gaineses’ double murder until he felt certain he had something new to bring to the table. Technically, he didn’t really have that yet. All he had was an off-the-record comment and a new theory that would piss off every single law-enforcement individual in two counties. Coleman had coworked the case eighteen years ago with their neighboring county Tilton. The Gaines home was located in Tilton jurisdiction, but Mr. Gaines had worked in Coleman, and the Gaineses’ main social outlet—their church—was also within the Coleman County jurisdiction. Enough people had been horrified by this double murder that the usual jockeying for position to run an investigation had not come into play with the two departments. Now Braden was one new clue away from burning a shitload of cops who had put their time and hearts into this case.
The chirps and chatter of birds and squirrels playing in the oaks created a happy chorus in the park. While a breeze kept the air cool enough for long sleeves, the sun also shone brightly in the cloudless blue sky. Braden could not have asked for a more beautiful day to bask in the high of waking up this morning with Abby and Rodrigo. Yet right now, he could only see the darkness looming on the horizon that would come with telling Abby the cops had pursued the wrong man for her parents’ murder.
The nightmares are bad now. I can’t imagine what this news will do to her sleepless nights.
Ben curled his hand around Braden’s wrist, and the man’s gentle touch snapped Braden back into the park. Ben didn’t smile, but his thumb did soothe the fine hairs on Braden’s arm. “You ready to tell me why you pulled this file to investigate?” he asked. “I know you, Braden. You’re a good cop with a curious mind and an incredible drive for justice, but you don’t randomly search old cases just because you’re bored. Not with the potential to anger a whole lot of people if you start putting feet to the fire.”
“I don’t decide who I’m going to help based on whether it’s going to get me in trouble.”
“No, but you also don’t rush into a situation with guns blazing. You’re smarter, more calculating than that.” Ben pulled his hand away and folded it carefully with his other on the picnic table. “It’s the girl. The daughter of the murder victims. Abigail Gaines.” His gaze settled in on Braden like a hawk assessing its prey. “Am I right?”
“You wouldn’t ask me if you didn’t already know the answer.”
Ben shrugged, but Braden didn’t buy the easy move for a second.
“I know she’s only a few years younger than you,” Ben said. “I know she’s lovely, and I know you’ve bought your aunt Ida an inordinate amount of jewelry this past year from a particular store owned by a woman with the same name.”
“Damn.” Braden should have anticipated that Ben’s curiosity would go beyond the scope of talking to Rusty Cormack. “You are thorough.”
“Nah.” Ben suddenly grinned like the Cheshire cat. “Ida still likes me, though.”
“Of course.” Leave it to Ben to have formed an unbreakable bond with Braden’s big-hearted aunt Ida, the only family Braden had left. “She always did like you.” Ida had also liked the one woman Braden had taken to meet her. They’d never openly spoken about Braden’s dating women and men; it just was. She’d taken Braden’s variety of dating partners in stride in the past, so he could only pray discovering one of each at the same time wouldn’t trip her up. The thought of losing contact with Ida didn’t bear imagining.
The smile faded from Ben’s lips, and the razor-sharp glint returned to his eyes. “Don’t do this again, Braden.” A mixture of plea and lecture filled his voice. “Don’t let that woman fall in love with you. Don’t fall in love with her and think it’s going to be enough”—Ben’s Adam’s apple bobbed, rolling in the bronze column of his throat—“until it isn’t. I don’t care how strong or fragile the tragedy in this woman’s past has made her or how much you want to save her. She will get hurt when she realizes she can’t be enough for you on her own.”
“Christ.” Braden’s chest lurched, and he scratched his hand through his hair. “I hate that I fucked with your heart, Ben. No matter my good intentions.”
Hints of amber mingled with the hazel in Ben’s gaze, and his lips lost some of their hardness too. “I know you didn’t mean to do it. That still doesn’t change the resulting damage. I just hope I stuck around in your life long enough for you to learn something from it. Don’t hurt this girl, Braden. One more time and it’s gonna break you.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Braden looked at this uniquely stunning, kind man before him and wondered how much talk of a new relationships he would tolerate hearing. “There’s a man too, Ben,” Braden admitted. “He wants Abby as much as I want her. She has feelings for both of us too, as much as it scares her.” A small smile lifted his lips as he remembered both of them this morning. “This guy is still figuring out he wants me also.” Braden studied Ben and hoped the lifted head and unwavering, dry gaze meant their sexual and romantic entanglement truly was in the past for both of them. “I’m not lying to myself anymore. I’m not trying to convince myself that I can be satisfied with one or the other if only it were just the right one.” His throat tightened. “If that were the case, it would have been you.”
An equally poignant half smile graced Ben’s lips. “I know, Braden. And if I could have done anything to accommodate your need for a woman, I would have made it happen.” With the last sip of his Cuban coffee, he shrugged. “We weren’t meant to be.”
“We had a hell of a lot of fun while we tried, though, right?” Hope, respect, and love for this man triggered a desperate twinge in Braden’s voice.
“Until the end, yeah.” Ben reached across the table and squeezed Braden’s shoulder. “Stop beating yourself up about us, man. It’s okay to move on.”
Relief had Braden exhaling a wobbly breath. “How about you?” he asked. “Have you dipped your dick back into the pool yet?”
“Getting there,” Ben answered, his voice subdued. “Just like you.”
“I fucking know you won’t be hurting for offers when you dive back in,” Braden said. The guy needed to hear it. Benjamin Evans had no idea how individually beautiful a man he was, inside and out. “You’ll be swatting guys off your back when you’re ready to invite them in.”
“We’ll see.” A sudden wide smile transformed Ben’s entire face to something accessible and light. “So, a man to go with this Abby woman, huh? You took my suggestion. I’ve seen her picture at her Web site. Is he as sexy as she is beautiful?”
“Oh yeah. He has a body that won’t quit.” Images of Rodrigo with his sweats around his hips as he spilled himself on Abby this morning stirred Braden’s blood. “And tack on to that an amazing certainty that he is right about everything.” For a moment, thinking about Abby and Rodrigo let the warmth from the sun back into Braden’s afternoon. “He gets under Abby’s skin like nothing I’ve ever seen. She makes him lose his train of thought in a way he has managed to keep concealed from her, but I can read it in him in twenty-twenty.”
“Sounds volatile.”
Braden almost got hard right where he sat. “Oh yeah.”
Ben stood and buttoned his jacket. “Sounds like exactly what you need to keep you excited about coming home every night.” He kept his attention on Braden, and nothing visible wavered. “I’m happy for you, Braden. Don’t screw it up.”
“I can’t.” A tight squeeze suddenly banded Braden’s insides. Navigating the uncharted waters of a threesome relationship with these two incredibly important people fired a case of heartburn in Braden’s chest. “It’s supposed to be them. I can feel it. I have to get it right.”
“Being open with both of them from the beginning is a good first step.” Ben tossed his cup into a trash can, slipped his hands into his pockets, and stood in place while Braden got up and threw away the rest of his coffee. As soon as Braden did, he fell in place beside Ben and started walking toward the cars.
“Let me know if I can help you again with the Gaines case,” Ben added.
“I have to make sure I have something concrete first.” The lack of any information in the case file that didn’t pertain to Rusty Cormack was minimal. Braden understood very well how difficult it was to find new evidence in an old case. “Let me know if anything else about the case hits you as worth pursuing.”
“I destroyed the copy of the file,” Ben said, “just as you asked.”
“But it’s in your head now. You’ll think on it some more.” Braden paused by the hood of his car but followed Ben with his eyes as the man moved to his own vehicle. “I know that about you too,” he added, his voice softening.
Keys poised at his lock, Ben shot Braden a sideways glance. “Too?”
“You’re going to find someone worthy of you, Ben,” he told the man. “I told you that before, and I still believe it today. You just have to be willing to put yourself out there a little more than is comfortable for you.”
Rims of deep green seemed to take over the color in Ben’s ever-changing eyes. “I’m more the ‘if it’s meant to be, then it will be’ type. You know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” Braden let it go. He understood now that whether Ben was ready or not, one day soon the universe would crash the right man smack down into the middle of his life. “Take care of yourself, Ben. Let’s not make it another year before we have coffee again.”
Ben climbed into his truck but reached across the seat and stuck his hand out to Braden through the open window. “It’s a deal. I have to head back to work now. Talk to you soon.”
“Yep.” After shaking Ben’s outstretched hand, Braden waved bye. He stood beside his own car until Ben’s truck was out of sight.
As Braden drove back to the station, he wondered how in the hell he would break it to Abby that her parents’ killer was still roaming the streets free.
* * *
Abby pulled her car to a stop in front of the white-and-blue-painted house. Yellow and purple flowers filled the two beds on either side of the porch, and brick now covered the curving walkway to the front door. Abby didn’t have to close her eyes in order to see the two shades of pea green paint that used to cover the house’s facade. Cracked concrete once served as the front walk and had doubled as a place to draw giant pictures with oversize pieces of chalk. Abby figured Lorene wouldn’t want her kids—well, grandkids probably, these days—to mark up the beautiful brick she had now.
Lorene probably wouldn’t like that any more than the shock of opening her front door to find Abby standing on her welcome mat.
Too bad. She’s about to get it right now.
Not giving herself time to chicken out, Abby got out of her car, strode up those new bricks, hopped the two steps to the white-painted porch, and knocked hard on the door.
Nearly seventeen years had passed since Abby last saw her mother’s best friend. Almost two decades had gone by since Abby had been pulled out of this house as quietly as she’d been carried in. Yet she’d somehow left this place a thousand times more terrified than the day she’d been carried out of her own home by a uniformed officer. That day, Abby had known Lorene would come for her. She’d broken out of her trance long enough to utter the name of her mother’s best friend to the police.
Eighteen months later, child services had carried Abby out of this home when Lorene Jones gave Abby away.
Chapter Six
I wonder if she still smells like gardenias.
The thought popped into Abby’s head as she stood on the Joneses’ front porch waiting for someone to answer her knock. Abby recalled that Lorene Jones had smelled just like a bouquet of the sweet white flowers. Not like an overpowering fragrance that would bring on a headache, but actually like a real garden full of gardenias. Probably an essential oil rather than a perfume, Abby figured in hindsight.
Strange to remember that now.
Just as Abby lifted her hand to knock again, the door swung open, and a petite, silver-haired woman stood on the other side of the threshold. The woman took one look at Abby, her smile faltered, and she leaned to brace herself against the doorjamb.
Abby’s legs suddenly felt a little weak too as a myriad of emotions flooded through her. “Hello, Mrs. Jones.” She forced a smile to her frozen lips. “I don’t know if you remem—”
Lorene reached out and fingered Abby’s hair and cheek, bringing Abby to a halt.
“Oh my goodness.” A film of wetness made Lorene’s pale blue eyes blurry. “You look just like your mama.”
Mention of her mother from someone who had known her so well tightened Abby’s throat. “I think so too.”
“Please”—Lorene stepped back and beckoned with her arm—“come inside. It’s breezy again today.”
Abby dipped her head. “Thank you.” She stepped into the Joneses’ home, and the familiarity of so many elements all these years later sent a bubble of panic into Abby’s stomach.
Hallway walls adorned with framed family photos on both sides led Abby toward a living room, her feet moving her in the right direction as if she’d only made the walk yesterday. Frame after frame showed each stage of the Joneses’ four children’s lives, their annual school pictures mingled in with family vacations and holiday gatherings. After moving in with the Joneses, Abby could remember standing in the hallways in this house, as well as at the fireplace mantel, studying pictures of this happy family with longing and aching sadness for what she would never have. By the end of her time here, she had almost come to believe she could find a place for herself among these people.
Even Lorene today, in her gingham shirt with flowers embroidered on it, a denim skirt, and brown leather loafers, transported Abby back in time. With the exception of Lorene’s graying hair and a bit more thinness to her face, she looked as she did in many of these photos. Time almost standing still. It was comforting, in a way.
Abruptly, Abby came to a halt, a pang hitting her in the middle. “You t
ook mine down.” Her class photo from the year she’d spent in this home had once been right in the spot where there was now a picture of a small dark-haired child she did not recognize.
From her peripheral vision, Abby could see Lorene’s chin wobble. “It hurt too much to look at it and know we couldn’t have you in our lives every day anymore,” she said softly.
Couldn’t have me in your life at all is more like it.
Abby hated the slip of bitterness. Even internally. She wasn’t here to hurl accusations or make Lorene suffer for her past choices. Abby’s life was good now, and she had no reason to complain. Losing her parents had been horrific, but lots of kids suffered a much worse time in the ensuing foster-care system than she had.
Turning, Abby faced Lorene head-on. No hiding. No subterfuge. “I wanted to talk to you about my parents. Mostly about my mother, since you are the one who knew her best.”
“All right.” Lorene cupped Abby’s elbow and led her to the kitchen. “I’ll do my best to help in any way I can.”
Once Lorene put Abby in a seat at a big butcher-block table, she busied herself with removing a pan from her stove and a white canister from a cabinet. “Do you still like hot chocolate?” she asked.
“I drink it in place of coffee,” Abby shared. “Thank you.”
Exactly as Abby remembered, Lorene pulled a gallon of milk out of the fridge as the base for her cocoa. The woman had spoiled Abby for the instant mix with water, and she made it this way in her own life today.
Watching Lorene, Abby asked, “Would you say my mother confided all her secrets to you?” She kept her voice conversational rather than combative.
