The Truth About Comfort Cove

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I went to see Sloan Wakerby on Wednesday.”

  “You didn’t mention it when we talked.” The caring tone in his voice tugged on the string unraveling inside her.

  “He’s messing me up. Maybe I didn’t want you to know that.”

  “Have I done something to lose your trust?”

  “Of course not!” It never occurred to her that he’d think so. She didn’t want him to think so. So she told him the complete truth. “I didn’t want you to think less of me or have less confidence in me.”

  Because she wanted more between them?

  “Newsflash. I figured out you were human pretty much from the beginning, Luce. I don’t expect perfection.”

  So he had expectations?

  “He’s a perp. I have to maintain my position of control at all times when dealing with a perpetrator or risk contaminating the evidence I need. If I let him get to me and I make a mistake, things could be thrown out of court and he could walk.”

  “I’ve seen you in action, Hayes. I’m guessing Sloan has no idea that he has any effect on you at all.”

  Maybe.

  “Did Smith issue a formal reprimand?”

  “No. I apologized for making the visit. I shouldn’t have gone.”

  “And you’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  Relaxing on the bench, her back against the brick wall, Lucy started to feel a little hungry for the first time since Lionel had called for her.

  “Tell me how it went down with him.”

  She needed Ramsey and he was there.

  “I didn’t ask questions.”

  “Didn’t give him the chance to tell you to go to hell?”

  “It started out with him wearing the slimy smile.” Ramsey had been with her during the first meeting between her and Sloan. She’d managed to hold it together amazingly well that time.

  But that was before she witnessed the effect that seeing the rapist had had on her mother.

  At the time of that first meeting, Wakerby’s place in her life had been purely cognitive, professional. By the second visit, the reality of what he’d done to her family had taken hold.

  “And?” Ramsey’s voice brought her back.

  “He wasn’t wearing it by the time I left.”

  “You scored.”

  “I hope so.”

  “When do you plan to go back?”

  “Early next week.” Why were hospital walls always white? Like nothing dirty ever went on there. Like white walls could keep filth at bay.

  “What are you going to do about Smith?”

  “I have his blessing. I just have to keep Amber apprised of my actions.”

  “You’ve earned your reputation.”

  “Yeah, well, now I have to live up to it.”

  “You doubt your ability to do that?”

  Did he ever doubt himself? Of course he did. The question asked and answered itself in seconds.

  Still, admission was dangerous.

  “Your meeting with Smith was before lunch, you said.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And it obviously went okay if you got the go-ahead.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So what happened to the rest of the day?”

  The problem with dealing with cops was that they saw too much, more than other people saw at any rate. At least Ramsey Miller did.

  And Ramsey…he knew her. Understood her. Far better than any other peers ever had.

  And he had arms made for hugging. Even if he didn’t realize it.

  “Luce? What’s going on?”

  She could put an end to needing him. An end to whatever was happening between them that neither of them wanted, much less was ready to acknowledge.

  She could hang up.

  “My mother.”

  In a few brief words she told him about the call she’d received while still in Lionel’s office. And of Sandy’s eventual diagnosis and prognosis.

  “You’re at the hospital?”

  “Yes.” She hadn’t actually said so.

  “Are you with your mother now?”

  “No.” She described her current location. “Mama’s been asleep since they brought her up.”

  “Did you have a chance to speak with her?”

  “Not yet. She opened her eyes once and smiled when she saw that I was there. She squeezed my hand, but that’s all.”

  “The alcohol still has ahold of her.”’

  “I know.” So why was this little-girl fear eating at her from the inside out? She’d been the adult in her and Sandy’s relationship since she was about four years old. “Anyway, I’ll get to UC on Monday. Marie is prepared to stay with Mama around the clock if necessary.”

  “Does she get paid overtime?”

  “No. But she and my mother have been best friends since grade school. And she’s a widow. Mama sat with her many, many nights while her husband was dying of leukemia. I was only four or five at the time. I can barely remember Dwayne, just that he made me laugh. And that we were safe with him.”

  An odd concept for a five-year-old to have.

  Unless you were the five-year-old of a rape victim—and the sister of a baby who’d been abducted and never found.

  “Does Marie have kids? Did she ever remarry?”

  “No and no. Mama was Mama, even then. Drunk as much as she was sober. Marie took us both on. Mama, and me, too, as much as she could. She still worked full-time back then, and took care of her own mother, but she got money from Dwayne’s death, too. I guess he’d taken out a fairly nice lifeinsurance policy before he got sick. Strange how things work that way, huh?”

  The air in the hospital was cool. Lucy shivered and wished she had a blanket with her.

  The elevator hadn’t binged once since she’d been out there. But then, she was at the visitors’ elevator and visiting hours were over.

  “It’s not your fault, Lucy.”

  “What isn’t?” But she knew what he meant. He was talking about Sandy. About exposing her to Wakerby.

  “You did what you had to do to put the guy away. You couldn’t leave him out on the street.”

  She could have risked the DNA holding up in court. But if Wakerby had walked? Then what?

  “Why do the victims pay so much?”

  “Why are there victims at all?”

  She couldn’t answer that.

  “Are you home?” He’d asked where she was. She wanted to know where he was.

  “Not yet.”

  “You’re still at the office?”

  “No.”

  “Where, then?” She needed to picture him. To feel him closer.

  “I’m driving.”

  “You went to Walkers’s place again.”

  “I have to understand what drove him to do what he did.”

  It was like Lionel had said earlier that day. You had to get inside the perp to know how to hurt him where it counted.

  And it had to count. Making it count was all they had.

  “I’ll get to UC on Monday, Ramsey.” Walker was driving him. But so was Claire Sanderson. Because he knew Cal Whittier. Because Frank was soon going to be back in the school system. With access to children every day.

  Because they’d both met Emma Sanderson.

  Because Claire was a precocious two-year-old who deserved to not disappear without a trace.

  And neither did Allie…

  “I’ve pulled eight days in a row,” Ramsey said.

  The man hadn’t taken a full day off that she knew of since she’d met him the previous spring. And they talked several times a week, so she knew a lot.

  “On shift.”

  Okay, that was different. That was current cases, nonstop. In addition to cold-case work.

  “I’ve been ordered to take a few days off.”

  “I concur.”

  “I have something to do Sunday, but I’m thinking I’ll fly into Cincinnati on Monday. If you’re fr
ee to meet my flight, we could go to UC together.”

  Her insides fluttered again. And she couldn’t even pretend it was because of the meals she’d missed. “Okay.”

  “If we get any hits, it could take until Tuesday, which is just about the time you’re due for your next meeting with Wakerby, right?”

  “You’ll go with me?” It was like he was reading her mind. Life didn’t usually work that way.

  “I don’t mind tagging along.”

  “I’d like you to be there.” She’d love him to be there. But that was her business.

  “I’ll plan to head home on Wednesday, then.”

  “You’ll need a place to stay. You have anywhere in mind?”

  He’d stayed at the airport hotel the only other time he’d flown into the area, the day Sloan Wakerby had been apprehended.

  “No. I’d like to be someplace in Aurora so you don’t have so far to drive back and forth.”

  The University of Cincinnati was an hour away from Aurora.

  “You could stay with me,” she said, feeling as if she was jumping off the high dive before she’d learned to swim. “I have an extra bedroom,” she quickly added. “On the other side of the house. With its own bathroom.”

  She held her breath. His answer mattered. It shouldn’t. But it did.

  Her life didn’t have room for it to matter.

  “That’s fine.”

  Her breathing faltered. She took a second to let it catch up.

  “Let me know what time you get in and I’ll pick you up.” She sounded almost normal.

  It made sense, him staying with her. She was his ride. Their business was together. And cops didn’t get paid enough to spring for all of the expenses involved in off-duty investigation.

  And none of those reasons were why she’d asked. Or why her heart was pounding.

  “I’ll text you.”

  He was going to hang up. Looking around the deserted and sterile vestibule where she sat, picturing the night ahead in the antiseptic-smelling atmosphere, Lucy had a fresh attack of doubts.

  “We’re going to get them, aren’t we, Ramsey? We’re going to find out what happened to Allie and Claire. We’re going to get the people who take innocent children away from the families who love them.”

  As she sat there alone, thinking of everything she’d taken on, Lucy was afraid.

  “I don’t know whether we’re going to get them or not.” His voice was more mellow than she was used to. He’d had a long week, too. And he was equally alone in the dark. “I just know that I can’t stop trying.”

  There was a certain amount of peace in knowing that you might not succeed. It took some of the pressure off, knowing you couldn’t be perfect all the time. And there was peace in knowing that you weren’t alone in your aloneness.

  “Take care of yourself,” she told Ramsey.

  “You, too.”

  “I will.”

  “Talk later.” He disconnected the call.

  Standing, Lucy reholstered her phone and went back in to keep trying.

  CHAPTER TEN

  C incinnati might not have the number of elite colleges and universities that Boston boasted, and University of Cincinnati didn’t have the reputation of Harvard, but the campus was impressive just the same.

  Sitting in the University Pavilion on Monday, waiting for an opportunity to speak with an upper-level records clerk, Ramsey took in his current surroundings, and tried to picture what Jack Colton might have seen twenty-seven years before.

  “It says here that UC has 42,000 students.” Lucy was reading a pamphlet they’d picked up at the information desk downstairs.

  “It’s also been rated by U.S. News and World Report as one of the Nation’s Best Top Tier Universities.” He’d seen the quote on the UC website over the weekend. “It’s a small town, complete with a Main Street.”

  It was important to stick to facts. To research. And not be distracted by the feminine arm sharing space with his arm on the joined chairs. He’d almost hugged her when she’d met him at the airport earlier that morning.

  “It’s a public research university.” Lucy’s familiar voice took on a different note in person. Why hadn’t he noticed that before?

  They’d driven past the University Hospital complex on their way to this appointment and had parked near the pavilion. They hadn’t had a tour of the campus yet.

  He needed something to come of the upcoming meeting. He needed something new to go on. “Did your business yesterday go okay?” Lucy leaned toward him, trying to keep their conversation private in a hallway bustling with people.

  Amelia.

  “Fine.” He’d caulked the toilet. Fixed the drywall. And now where he’d plastered needed new paint. Amelia had made stew and brownies and given him distance as he worked.

  She’d had nothing new to add to what she’d already told him about Jack Colton. He had no reason to continue visiting her.

  But he’d told her he’d be back.

  He could visit with Amelia, but not the people who’d given birth to him? Loved him? Raised him?

  That was Ramsey. The guy who looked after strangers but let down those he cared about. And precisely why he wasn’t going to acknowledge that Lucy Hayes, the sexiest woman he’d ever met, was someone he could care about.

  “How’s your mother?” he asked. Not a sexy question at all. In the car on the short drive from the airport, they’d kept the conversation solely on Jack Colton. On the records they were going to request.

  Strictly business.

  “Back to normal. And a bit whiny because we aren’t leaving her home alone anymore. Marie will be sleeping there for the next few months.”

  “When did she get home?”

  “Saturday afternoon.”

  He’d been polite and asked. Anything more was none of his business. So he glanced at the pamphlet she held. And noticed how dainty her hands looked next to his.

  Those fingers hardly looked strong enough to hold a gun, let alone shoot one. But the holster he’d noticed beneath her brown corduroy jacket as she’d climbed out of the car bore testimony to the fact that she’d mastered both the holding and the shooting.

  Had those fingers mastered a man’s body, as well? Would she know where to grip? How to please?

  Or was there something left for him to teach her?

  “I told Amber we’d be going to see Wakerby tomorrow.”

  “Good.” Justification for him to be sitting next to the woman who occupied so many of his thoughts.

  And made him better at his job, too.

  Lucy rested the pamphlet in her lap, atop slender, feminine legs. They weren’t long, model limbs. But he’d bet they were long enough to wrap all the way around a guy… .

  Holy hell.

  Lucy had never attended college. She’d gone straight from high school to the police academy and then into detective school through the police department. But Monday morning, she felt like a college girl as she walked through campus with Ramsey.

  There was something seriously wrong with her. Her stomach fluttered at a brush of his hand. Or a sound in his voice. In just a matter of hours she’d be taking him home with her and—

  “This is it,” the tattooed young man who’d been leading them to one of the school’s two on-campus dining halls turned to say. Simon, in jeans and a UC hoodie, had escorted them at the request of the records clerk, who’d told them that Jack Colton had held a job in the university cafeteria. The clerk had also given them the name and off-campus address of a man who’d once run it.

  “Thanks.” Ramsey nodded at the young man who continued on his way. “Let’s have a look inside, shall we?”

  The officer who’d served their warrant was gone. Simon was gone. It was just her and Ramsey now.

  And Lucy wasn’t focused enough on the case.

  “I n point three miles, turn right.” The sterile voice of her GPS system sounded in the closed confines of Lucy’s Buick Rendezvous.

  “Not the
best of neighborhoods.” Ramsey spoke from the

  passenger seat beside her.

  They were on their way to see a man who’d been Jack

  Colton’s boss for the short time he’d been at UC. A retired

  cafeteria manager, Chester Brown.

  “UC isn’t in the best of neighborhoods. I was working a

  burglary battery case a couple of years ago and traced the perp

  to the University Hospital emergency room. I walk in, trying

  to look inconspicuous, you know, so all the people in there not

  feeling well don’t get alarmed. Turns out the sick people were

  the minority, not me. It seemed like the place was crawling

  with cops. That and homeless folks trying to stay warm and

  maybe score some painkillers by claiming ailments.” She was rambling. It was better than trying to figure out

  whether Ramsey was wearing aftershave or cologne. Trying not to get turned on by the scent he’d brought into her

  car with him.

  “I’ve been to some hospitals in Boston like that.” “Were you born in Boston?” Not a work question, Hayes.

  Stick to the work questions.

  “No.”

  “In Comfort Cove?”

  “No.”

  “Turn right,” Bonnie, the name she’d given to the GPS

  voice, blurted into the silence.

  Lucy turned.

  “Continue five point four miles,” Bonnie added. Before leaving campus they’d spent an hour in the Rendezvous making phone calls from a list of names they’d gathered from Tammy in records. They had names of people that

  were part of the UC Bearcats baseball association in 1985, a

  guidance counselor, a dorm mother. Jack Colton had neither

  a roommate nor a suite mate, and Ramsey’s warrant didn’t

  allow Tammy to provide him with the names of other students

  who’d had rooms on Jack’s floor twenty-seven years before. They’d reached a total of nine people. None of whom could

  recall Jack Colton.

  “Hundreds of young men came to UC to try out for the

  team,” one gentleman had told Lucy. “There’s no way I could

  remember them all.”

  “Jack Colton wasn’t a troublemaker,” she said now. “People

  remember troublemakers.”