“And your job means everything to you, I get that.” She rubbed his bare shoulder. “I live with cops, remember.”
“It’s more than a job to me. I’ve spent most of my life obsessed with Richard Wray.”
Prickles of fear sparked up her back. Obsessed?
“I became a detective solely to make sure that man never knew the feeling of freedom again as long as he lived and a hundred fucking years after that.” He clenched his fists at his sides. “The girl on my phone, the picture you saw outside the bar that first night.”
She nodded, scared to speak. Scared of what he would say next.
“I still hear her screams in my dreams. I see her body wrapped in a blue plastic tarp, bloody little fingers with the nails torn from digging into his flesh. Blue ropes tied tight around her slender arms.”
Something inside her popped. Emotion flooded everything, her hearing, her vision. Everything blocked from her mind but him and the horrible anticipation of what came next. She reached for his hands and circled her fingers around his fists.
He looked down to her, tears wetting his lashes. God, she’d never seen a man this emotional. It deflated her from the inside out. Her stomach twisted, and her throat closed tight. Dizzy spots dotted her vision.
“Mitch.” She crawled up into his lap and wrapped herself around him and whispered into his neck. She needed to feel him around her. She needed his reassurance.
After a moment, his arms came up and pulled her close, holding her. Wringing strength from her. She sat still, letting him regain himself, waiting for his body to still and her own shivers to subside before pulling away enough to look in his unfocused eyes.
“If I hadn’t hid my kidnapping, Sadie might still be alive.”
He pressed his mouth to hers, hushing the words. His kiss was soft before he pulled away. His eyes focused more, his breathing calming. “Your father was right to protect you, Angel. Don’t ever doubt that even for a second.”
He’d called her by her nickname again. She couldn’t decide which Mitch scared her the most. The one who called her by name and argued like a seasoned hostage negotiator, or this one with the soft touch who always said exactly what she needed to hear and called her Angel.
Lacy dropped her head back to his shoulder and laid there, taking in his scent and his warmth, memorizing the rise and fall of his chest on her cheek and the feel of his arms around her back. She let her mind drift to the thought nudging its way to her mouth. “This was never supposed to be anything more than sex.”
She held her breath and waited for his response. His chest rose sharply under her. His exhale blew warmth over her ear. “But it is more. And that’s why we need to stop.”
“Huh?” Her head rose. Her eyes met his, questioning, pleading. Begging to have heard him wrong.
Mitch wrapped his hands around her hips and lifted her. Her bare feet barely touched the ground before he let go and turned his back, again.
Lacy looked away, collected her shirt from the floor and escaped his scrutinizing gaze into the master bathroom.
She fumed, tugging on her tank, but by the time she pulled on her boots, the sobs broke into tears. She sank down to the edge of a garden tub she’d envisioned sharing with him some night in the near future, dropped her head in her hands and let the dam inside break.
The soft knock on the door startled her. “Lacy.” She hadn’t locked the door. Why didn’t he just walk right in, take charge like he always did? “Open the door. I need to know you’re all right before I take you home.”
All right? Damn it, Lace. He doesn’t owe you anything. Sex was the deal. No explanations. No commitments. No relationships. You got exactly what you agreed to.
With a quick wipe of her eyes, she finished dressing and opened the door to find him leaning on the frame. The fact he looked as rattled and unnerved as she felt brought her a little comfort.
“Lace, I’m sorry.” His words cut deep into the fresh wounds of his rejection. She bit her cheek to keep from flinching. “I should never have let things get this far.”
She bit the inside of her cheek harder, determined not to cry. Determined not to let him see her fall apart. With a steadying breath, she steeled her voice.
“Just let me go, Mitch. I’ll find my own way home.”
***
Lacy slammed the truck door harder than she’d meant to, earning her a discerning stare from Connie in the driver’s seat.
“Booty call gone horribly wrong?” Connie shifted gears and backed around the motorcycle Lacy wished she’d just run the hell over instead.
“He’s a damn cop.” Lacy rolled her eyes back to the house and the silhouette standing in the bay window, watching her leave with a cool arrogance.
Connie shifted the truck to drive and gunned it around the turn, spitting gravel in her wake. “Well, hon. You knew that before you started sleeping with him.”
“Yeah.” She glanced over at Connie, still wearing her Charlie’s shirt and the strong smell of alcohol. “Sorry you had to cut your shift short to pick me up.”
Connie laughed. “Yeah, because every girl wants to inventory dusty old bottles of booze at four in the morning.” She glanced at Lacy before turning onto the main road. “Your troubles are my saving grace, Doll. It hurts to hear, but it’s the truth.”
Lacy barked a laugh that burned her throat. Connie always spoke directly from her heart, no filter required. It had taken more than a while and a couple of arguments to get used to Connie’s brand of honesty, but now Lacy wouldn’t trade it for a world of friends.
“So, what’d he do that was bad enough to invoke the early morning skip-out session?”
Lacy bounced in her seat as Connie gunned the truck over the next bump. “He kicked me out.”
The truck skidded to a stop so fast, Lacy had to grab the granny bar to keep from shattering her pelvic bone on it.
“He what?” Connie slapped her hands on the steering wheel and screamed.
“A little louder, Connie. I don’t think all the cows heard you scream yet.”
Connie ignored her. “Where the hell does he get off kicking you—”
“Dad had something to do with it,” Lacy shot out. It was times like this when she hated Wray the most. The times when he still entered into her everyday life and took small freedoms from her. Her relationship with Connie with a secret between them. Her relationship with Mitch and the truth ripping them apart.
As sick as it sounded, she couldn’t stand where this conversation was about to lead. “Mitch bashing isn’t going to help, and he wasn’t wrong for breaking things off. It’s just easier that way when things are this complicated.”
“Did he tell you that? What a fucking dick.”
Lacy looked out the window to keep from falling apart. “No he didn’t. Not in so many words anyway.”
“But he can’t just dump you. He’s an ass.”
Lacy pushed her stray hair from her face to cover the fact she was really wiping away tears. “A stubborn ass.”
When she didn’t say more, Connie eased the truck back up to speed along the vacant road leading into town. “It’s for the best.” She patted Lacy’s leg and passed a genuine smile through red colored lips. “I was beginning to miss having you around.”
Lacy pushed away the tears she couldn’t seem to stop. “You too,” she blurted before emotion took over her voice.
Connie stared straight ahead to the road. “Before long we’ll have a loan and a lease, and Detective Asswipe will be a distant memory.” She gave Lacy’s leg a bump with her knee. “You’ll see. Chicks before dicks. You don’t need him. You’ve got me.”
Lacy leaned over across the seat and laid her head on Connie’s shoulder and closed her eyes as the bright streetlights of downtown washed over her face. If leaving him behind could only be that easy, but she’d have to find a way to make it so because Mitch wasn’t coming back into her life, and they’d all been right. She was damaged goods.
***
How could he have been so careless with her?
He gripped the handlebars tighter, twisting the grips into his palms until the rubber bit into his bare skin. The pain did little to ease the emotions clouding his brain.
His pocket vibrated. He pulled into a coffee shop parking lot and checked the caller ID, cursing himself the second he hoped to see Lacy’s number on the small screen. “Bishop?” he barked into the receiver.
“Try to contain your enthusiasm, Kilpatrick. Those one-night stands are making you arrogant as hell. And what’s with leaving me a voice mail on my landline about a botched kidnapping when you know I’d answer my cell?”
Mitch lowered the kickstand, leaned the bike to the right, and dismounted before he answered. “Because, I knew you’d answer your cell.” Since he’d watched Lacy march down the front steps and climb into Connie’s truck, he hadn’t felt like talking to anyone, not even his closest friend. Especially not the one person who would make him realize what a fucked up jerk he was for letting her go.
“Understandable.” Bishop’s voice lowered. “But this isn’t a social call. You’re being called back to Nashville. It’s a shit storm around here, and the captain wants you in his office as soon as possible. Brass got wind of your personal investigation, and they’ve got questions.”
“How much wind?” Mitch skipped over the questions part and shoved the phone closer, drowning out the traffic noise on the highway.
“Enough to shut down the investigation for good. There is enough evidence linking Richard Wray with the murders, and your gut feeling isn’t enough for them anymore. They want solid evidence, or the case is closed.”
“That’s not happening.” Badge or not, he wouldn’t stop until the man who killed Sadie rotted behind bars or worse. “What if I told you I have a lead on something?” His stomach bottomed out at the thought of Lacy testifying in court.
“It would have to be damn solid.” Bishop’s voice sounded ominous. Nothing shook the seasoned detective. Mitch pressed the cell the tighter against his ear.
He sucked in a sharp breath, sending his lungs thumping against his backbone. “What if I had a witness?”
“Pretty thang?”
Mitch groaned a yes into the phone. “She could be the missing link to prove Wray didn’t kill those two women.”
“How?”
Mitch rubbed his hand hard over his face. “For now just leave it at incriminating evidence. If I need to tell more, I will.”
Another deafening ring of silence. “They’re going to want more than that to keep the case open.”
“If it comes to that, they’ll have it, but not before. What about the kid I asked you about? Any info on him?” Mitch hedged.
“Nothing more than a couple DWIs. College kid on the verge of becoming a loser by twenty-two. No crime in that.”
But since the night he’d cornered Mitch behind Charlie’s, Stetson had disappeared. “Keep digging on him. There has to be something.”
“Fine,” Bishop barked. “But you had better have a damn good reason for defying orders. Heads are going to roll if you can’t bring something enlightening to the table.”
Mitch rubbed his fingers over his eyes. Maybe if he could figure out a way he could keep her name out of this. “I think we are dealing with two separate murderers. Someone working from inside the law. If I can prove that, she’d never take the stand.”
Computer keys clicked away in the background. “To make it stick, she’d have to take the stand. You know that.”
Mitch landed a clean blow against the brick exterior of the coffee shop. Blood pooled around his knuckles and dripped down one finger, but he didn’t care. He cursed under his breath and shook his hand, sending splatters of blood across the front of his white shirt.
“There has got to be some other way to prove this isn’t Wray.”
Bishop’s voice dropped to a sympathetic tone. “We’ve exhausted our resources, Mitch. She’s the reason you went down there in the first place, to find the missing link and sound the alarm against a new killer.” Mitch only heard what Bishop didn’t say. You weren’t supposed to get attached. “If you think you can get her to talk, I’ll order a warrant today.”
Mitch backed into the brick wall and slid down to his ass. A two-hour drive to Nashville and thirty minutes of watching Lacy Andrews face her demons, and Mitch could debunk the link between Wray and the recent murders. In three hours, they could be hunting the killer. The real killer. No one else would have to die.
“You’ll be in charge of the whole deal, Mitch. You’ll be able to control everything that happens to her from the time you pick her up at home until the time you drop her off again. The department will follow your orders. She’ll be safe.”
Except for the part where she’d bare her soul to a room full of strangers and condemn her father to time behind bars for obstruction.
No. They could have his badge. The risk wasn’t worth wrecking a girl’s life. Especially Lacy’s. There had to be another way. He just had to be smart about finding it.
Bishop spoke, ending the short silence. “The department already has a call into Chief Andrews. At this point, the decision is going to be hers.”
“Then I want to be in the room when they question her.”
“I’ll see what I can do, Mitch. See you in a few.”
“You’ll do better than that, Bishop. You’ll make it happen.”
Mitch ended the call and searched his numbers for Chief Andrew’s secretary. He needed to be the one to explain this to Lacy. After the way he’d left things this morning, he just hoped she’d listen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Lacy had just buried her head into her pillow for the night, or was it morning, when her phone buzzed from the nightstand.
She silently cursed Mitch and pulled the pillow tight over the back of her neck. Too worried about their last conversation to sleep, she’d almost calmed herself down when the endless string of calls started. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him, in her bed, his fingers on her skin. His lips parting her mouth. His masculine scent and the taste of beer on his tongue.
She couldn’t stop rehashing their argument in her mind. All the things she’d left unsaid. All the ways she could have handled the information better. The ways she could have avoided selling herself out to save her family.
But he made her so damn mad. Conjured a deep-rooted anger that made her blind to reason until it was too late.
Damn him. She shut her eyes tight until little black dots clouded the mental imagine she had of him. The cocky ass grin that haunted her dreams and his voice telling her to beg. Damn him. Damn him. Damn him.
The soft knock on her bedroom door was the last straw. There was no use even trying to sleep. “What?” she groaned.
“Lacy.” The door creaked open and John eased in. He still had on his uniform pants from the night before but had shed his shirt and vest leaving only a crumpled white tee. The hair he normally kept gelled in place stuck out in odd directions. “You awake yet?”
She threw the pillow off her head and tucked it under one cheek. “Never went to sleep.”
“That’s not good.” He sounded deflated.
She peeked an eye open to check him out. John could look disheveled as hell after a long shift, but the bravado he carried never faded, no matter how tired he was. Something was up.
She cracked her other eye open against the harsh light streaming in from the bedroom door. “What’s wrong, John?”
John grabbed her cell she’d discarded on her nightstand an hour ago and clicked on the screen. “Dad’s been calling you all morning. Why haven’t you answered?”
“I thought it was someone else,” she moaned.
“He’s in a pan
ic. You should have checked.”
She lifted to her elbows. “A panic about what?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, but it wasn’t anger she saw flash in his eyes. “He wants me to bring you down to the station. Something happened with your detective boyfriend.”
Oh, God. He’d been upset when he left. Had he been in an accident? Those crazy mountain roads were difficult enough to navigate in daylight, but in the dark and angry... No, she knew better. If something had happened to Mitch, John would be sitting there, gloating about his failure, not looking scared as hell with a heavy layer of anger underneath.
She sat up, both eyes open and trained on her brother. “What happened?”
John lifted her robe from the bedpost and tossed it at her. “Everyone is fine. Get dressed.”
Lacy untangled her legs from the sheets and wrapped the robe around her shoulders before she stood. She searched for her shorts from last night, or had it been this morning? Her mind couldn’t keep up anymore. “If no one is hurt,” she started, halting John in her doorway, “what’s the emergency?”
Fear flashed across his face. Nothing rattled John. He’d been the family rock when her mother left, and their father’s support when Wray destroyed their lives.
Adrenaline spiked in her veins, setting every nerve in her body on alert. “John. What’s wrong?” she repeated slowly, holding the panic out of her voice at his stillness.
“Dad wants to be the one to tell you, but I guess I can’t let you walk in the department blind.” He sat on the edge of her bed and pulled her down on the crumpled sheets beside him.
She held her breath, feeling a tremor in his hand. The last time she’d seen John this uptight was after their mother had run off, and even then, he’d only showed anger. “Your detective friend used you, and you fell for it. Nashville called Dad not two hours ago asking questions about your case and the girl Wray killed after you. They want you in for questioning.”
Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) Page 16
