“How much do they already know?”
“They aren’t saying anything. Just that an anonymous tip about a few lose threads led them here, and they want to speak with you.”
Lacy stood. “Anonymous?” Mitch wasn’t the anonymous type. If he’d turned her father in, he’d have announced it proudly. “Why do you think it was Detective Kilpatrick?”
John rubbed the back of his neck and moaned. “Who else would you have told?”
That stung. But this was too serious to let her emotions take control. She pushed the hurt down and kept her focus on John. “Then I won’t go. They can’t force me.”
“They can, and they will. They’re working on the paperwork now. They can’t force you to say anything, but they can make you come down to the station.”
A shudder racked her body despite John’s strong hold on her hand. She pulled the robe tight over her shoulders. A million questions raced through her head, all pushing to be asked at once. “How do they know who I am?” She’d left him just a few hours ago. How could he have already turned her in?
He won’t have. He’d been angry, yes. And driven. But he’d known the stakes against her family. He’d promised, and for the short time they’d known each other, if she knew one thing for sure about Mitch Kilpatrick, it was that words meant something, and he wouldn’t go back on his.
“Someone called in an anonymous tip early this morning.”
Lacy released a humorless laugh. “Not Mitch.” She turned to her brother, the surety so strong she felt it rush over her in a wave of heat. “He’d turn us in face to face.”
“Either way, they know enough to reopen Wray’s files. Won’t take long if they know how to connect the right dots.” John’s grip on her hand tightened. At this rate, she’d loose a finger if he didn’t finish telling her the bad news soon.
“Do they know about dad?” she ventured.
“That part your detective kept out, but once they stared in about you, dad told them enough to lead them away from you.” His breathing quickened. “Dad can hold his own. He doesn’t want you to think about that when you go into the office. You just need to show up and sit with your mouth shut until your time runs out. You hear me, Lace. Not a fucking word. Let Dad handle it.”
“What about Helms?” she asked once John looked away. “Does he know about his dad’s part in hiding my kidnapping?” The familiar ball of guilt rolled down her throat and lodged itself against her windpipe.
John’s shoulder’s sagged. “I don’t know. I guess he could put two and two together and figure it out. I’m not worried about Helms at this point.” He took both her hands. “They willingly lied to save you, and I’m sure they’d both do it again.” He dropped her hands and cupped her cheeks. “You don’t have to say a word, Lace. Just sit there and wait the detectives out. They can’t hold you for longer than twenty-four hours.”
She took a strangled breath. Her father had done the right thing keeping her hidden. No one would blame her for wanting to protect him, she knew. But Wray had taken so much from her. Her childhood. Her innocence. Her family’s honesty. Then she thought of Mitch. If he didn’t find out the truth about Wray now, he’d continue to hunt until his obsession lost him his badge. She suspected that thick oval of metal was the only thing that kept him on the rails. She couldn’t be responsible for that, too.
Lacy laid her palms over her brother’s hands. “I know I don’t have to give a statement, but how many more girls will die if I don’t? We know the truth, and the longer we keep it secret, the more young women that will die. We’re killing them by not speaking up. Call Dad and tell him we’re on our way.”
John gave her hand a final squeeze. She heard the stairs creak on his way down. The look on his face said he’d given into the idea long before, but the officer in him, the son and brother, couldn’t warm to the idea of letting her turn their family in.
This wasn’t the end of their argument, she knew. He’d try to talk her out of confessing the whole ten-minute trip to the department, and if she knew her brother at all, he wouldn’t even stop until she stood in front of her father and declared she’d take one for the family. It wouldn’t even stop there. They’d never let her face a room of detectives alone. They’d never let her tell that her father took care of Wray years ago. That she knew without a shadow of a doubt the recent murders couldn’t be from him.
This had to stop. It was within her power to end the suffering of so many. She’d take the blame for everything as long as no one else had to die.
She pulled free of the bed sheets and poked her head out the door to yell down to him. “I worked all night at Charlie’s and crashed. I need a shower. Do we have time?”
John groaned before he answered. “Ten minutes tops. Dad and your detective friend are waiting.”
Mitch? She couldn’t be sure if the flutter in her stomach was anger or fear. Facing a room of Nashville brass was one thing. Telling the truth, even the part she’d left out of her confession the night before, to Mitch was going to be damn near impossible.
From her closet, she pulled the only Sunday worthy dress she owned, a yellow sundress her mother had left behind, and dabbed on just enough make-up to cover her sleepless night.
Satisfied she’d have everyone’s full attention; the only thing left was a way past her father and Mitch’s wall of protection and straight into the room of detectives.
Lacy picked up her cell and dialed one of the numbers her father had programmed in for emergencies.
Officer Brian Helms answered on the first ring.
“Brian.” Her voice trembled. Lacy clawed her nails into her palm to keep her tone calm.
“Lacy?” he questioned. “I thought you were on your way to the department. Your Dad’s—”
“Waiting, I know. Are you with him?” If she didn’t spit out her plan soon, she’d chicken out.
“No. I haven’t gone in yet, but the whole department is on lockdown. Some big meeting with Nashville.”
“That’s why I need your help.” He was silent. “Can you meet me around the block from my house? Don’t tell anyone. Just bring an unmarked car.”
“I could lose my badge.”
“Please, Brian. I really could use someone on my side today.”
“Lacy, you know I’d help, but what’s keeping your father or John from coming after us?”
“They won’t know I’m gone until it’s too late. John is waiting downstairs as it is, and Dad will think I just stressed out and bailed.”
“Why?” His voice cracked. “What are you going to do?”
She listened for her brother. “Because, I want to talk to the detectives, alone, and I don’t want to give anyone the chance to talk me out of it. Can you do that?”
Over the phone, Lacy heard the slam of a car door and crank of an engine.
She bit her lip, waiting for Helms to refuse. He’d be like all the others, trying to protect her. Taking away the only chance she had to fix the mistake.
“Do you know what you’re doing? I’m not putting my job on the line for some crazy scheme.”
“Yes.” She gave her reflection a thumbs up.
“I’ll be there in five.” He hung up.
“Lacy?” John’s irritated voice floated up from downstairs.
She ducked in the bathroom and turned on the shower before returning to the banister and shouting down to John. “Five minutes. I need to shave my legs.” Girl stuff always shut him up.
With a pair of flats in hand, she opened her window and stared down to the cement ground below. She’d used the lattice outside the bathroom window to sneak out to more than one high school party, but she hadn’t navigated the thin wood in years. She tossed her flats down and tested one bare foot then the other. The wood creaked and buckled, but it held her weight.
Half way down the side of the house wasn’t the time to her sanity, but she did anyway. Why would anyone willingly run away to confess to hiding a crime that would destroy their life and the liv
es of so many others? Why throw away everything her father had done to protect her? Why let a few nights with a stranger change the way she felt about the last thirteen years of her life?
Because, she thought, taking the last step before the big leap to the ground, this wasn’t about protecting herself anymore. For the first time ever, she was in the power position. She could save someone else, and just like her father had years before, she’d have to put herself in danger to do it.
Her feet hit the driveway, and she pulled on her flats, shot a glance back to the front windows making sure the curtains were still drawn, and darted off across the lawn toward the corner.
Facing her past was the only way to stop a killer. She had to take the risk.
***
The morning sun shone through the branches of an evergreen on the street corner a block from home, but it did little to warm the chills shaking Lacy’s body.
She rubbed her hands over her arms and trotted in place for warmth before eying Helms’s dark blue pick-up turning off the main road headed in her direction. The truck barely stopped before she reached for the door handle and hauled herself up to the high seat.
“Go,” she ordered, before checking the time on his dash clock. She’d started the shower six minutes ago, and if she knew John, he’d just realized he’d spent the last five yelling at an empty room.
“Good morning to you, too, sunshine.” Helms grinned from the driver’s seat. He put the truck in drive and sped around the corner before he pulled back to the curb and killed the engine. He laid his arm along her headrest, and he turned. “Care to fill me in on the plan of attack?”
She turned to mirror him. “No attack. I plan to walk right in the police department and demand to speak with the Nashville detective before Dad or Mitch can stop me.”
Helms sat quietly, studying her face. “What?” she barked after finding him staring.
His laugh was light, but his face tightened. She’d known Helms since he was a first year rook tagging along with her older brother in boot camp. He’d been one of her father’s favorites.
“That’s your plan?” Helms’s voice brought her out of the thought.
“Hear me out before you say no.” She wrung her hands in her lap. “I know as soon as I walk in Dad’s office, he is going to talk me out of giving a statement. If I storm in and demand to be seen before he can stop me, they’ll have to listen.”
“Give a statement?” he repeated. The laugh that followed was dark and chilled her skin. “They’re on a witch hunt for a corrupt cop. What would they want from you?”
Her stomach twisted. “I thought you knew. You mentioned the department on lockdown when I called. I just thought…”
“What do you know, Lace?” The coldness in his voice made her sit back. “What is this meeting all about?”
Helms had always stuck her as clever. Maybe that’s why she’d just assumed he’d known about his father’s part in saving her life. That his father left the department to help cover up her kidnapping. The last few hours were blurring into a haze, but she was positive he’d mentioned the meeting when she’d called him only minutes ago.
Her stomach twisted tighter. She watched his reaction carefully. “The meeting to decide if Dad obstructed the Wray case.” She eyed Helms, trying to read the darkening look washing over his hardened face. “John told me everyone is waiting at the station, but I don’t want to give him the chance to talk me out of confessing. I want you to take me straight to the right people and put this nightmare behind us all for good.”
Helms went ridged and flexed his fists in his lap. Once he saw her watching, he stopped and plastered a grin over his face, but it did little to hide the disconnected look in his eyes.
“Brian?” The knots in her stomach married into a large, tangled ball. “If you’re worried about my father, I’ll tell him this was all my idea. You only went along with it to keep me safe because I threatened to go alone if you didn’t.”
“Why, Lace? What do you know about Wray that Nashville can’t find in one of your father’s secret files?”
She sucked in a breath and fisted a wad of vinyl seat in her hands. How did Helms know about the files her father kept at home? She’d guessed his father would have told him years ago being that he was the hero who found and saved her. He’d have been proud, and even though keeping her identity a secret had ended his career in Rebel Rapids, he would have been proud enough to tell Brain at some point.
She’d only said the truth out loud once, and it had cost her Mitch. What would this time bring? “Because I’m the only victim who survived. I’m the only person who can prove Wray didn’t kill those two women in the woods.”
Her words didn’t even reach him. He looked through her to something she couldn’t see.
“Brian, say something. You’re scaring me.”
His gaze snapped back into focus. A corner of his flat lips turned upward. His head stayed tilted to the side, scrutinizing everything about her. “What evidence do you have to prove it wasn’t him?” His voice sent a shiver of cold fear through her entire body.
If the feeling of unease swamping her wasn’t enough of a warning to get the hell out of his truck, the darkened look in his eyes was.
She reached for the door handle, the sudden need for space overpowering. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”
From the corner of her eye, she saw his hand move for the back of her neck. He raked his fingers through her hair and grabbed the nape of her neck. “Brian...?”
Helms fisted a handful of her hair and yanked her backward in the seat. Before she could rally and fight him, he shoved her forward, sending her forehead into the dashboard.
Sharp pain radiated through her head. Everything went fuzzy. She tried to focus. Brian’s truck. A street sign. Mitch. Crap, her Dad was going to kill her. Something buzzed around her ear. She watched Helms’s mouth move, but the sounds coming out didn’t make sense. Was he talking to her? What was he saying?
God, please don’t hurt me again.
He picked up a white cloth from his lap and raised it to her mouth and nose. What was he doing? Was her nose bleeding? Then the smell hit her, the acidic burning, choking smell that snapped her brain back to focus. The same smell Wray used right before she blacked out as a kid.
Panic ripped through her, sending her arms flailing and her legs kicking, but there wasn’t enough room in the truck. She pulled at his hand on her face, her nails biting into his skin, but he didn’t let go. His mouth moved, but the ringing in her ears drowned out the sound.
Darkness closed in around the corners of her vision, blocking out the morning sun and grew until all she saw was black.
Then she was gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Mitch paced Chief Andrew’s office with his fists tight at his sides.
He’d rubbed the skin on his neck as raw as his patience and had started in on pinching the flap of skin between his thumb and finger. Anything to keep his building fear in check. “She just slipped out?” he directed at John, standing a few feet to Mitch’s side with his head bowed to his hands. Mitch didn’t try to mask the patronizing tone in his voice.
“She scaled the side of the house. I don’t call that just slipping out.”
“No.” Mitch turned to pace to small office. “I call that damned determined. But why?”
He’d known the second John entered the building something had gone horribly wrong. He felt it, like a negative current running through the air, charging his insecurities.
His time would be better spent walking through the evidence and forming a plan to find her, which would at least be productive, but he couldn’t focus past the officer standing across the room in near panic mode. All two hundred and fifty pounds of him, and John couldn’t keep tabs on his little sister.
The best he’d been able to do was order two rookie cops to hunt down Stetson at the dive bar he’d mentioned and hope he’d lead to Lacy.
Mitch pounded a fist on the
chief’s desk and shook his head. Could he really put all the blame on John? John may have let Lacy slip out the bathroom window, but Mitch was man enough to admit he’d been the one who pushed her into running. He’d seen the way she looked at him after their argument over Wray. He’d seen the pity look in her eyes and the need to do something to fix the problem she blamed herself for starting.
Given the choice to save her family or put away a killer, Lacy would choose to come forward with the truth. He’d just assumed he’d be there when she had to make that decision. He’d be able to coach her through the process so she’d give just enough information to prove Wray wasn’t behind the murders without exposing her kidnapping or her father.
Then again, Lacy didn’t make keeping tabs on her easy. He should have factored that in when he let her leave with Connie. One thing was for damn sure. Once he found her, he was putting her on lockdown every damn time she stepped out of his sight.
“Has she ever done anything like this before?” He leveled his gaze on John.
John lifted his sagging head and puffed up his chest. “Lacy has never done anything like this. She’s always trusted us to know what’s best for her. Until anonymous tips about her past started surfacing.” John narrowed his gaze. “Tell us again how it wasn’t you who tipped off Nashville?”
“I didn’t tip off Nashville.” But someone had. That was clear.
They needed to find Lacy before Nashville used her to break their murder investigation wide open. Arguing wasn’t going to get that done. Mitch swallowed a breath and cooled his tone. Now if he could redirect John the same way. “You said she left her truck. Who would she trust enough to call for a ride?”
John ran a hand over his chin. “Connie, but I called her already. She hadn’t seen Lacy since her shift at Charlie’s last night.” John pushed forward in the chair. “She said she picked her up at your house.”
Deluna stuck his head in the office just in time to dissipate the accusation. The cool headed officer had been Mitch’s only ally since the news of Lacy’s disappearance broke hours before. “We’ve got a man on her cell records now. If she’s made any calls within the last few hours, we should be able to track the general area of her location.”
Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) Page 17
