“How did you know what Wray threatened to do to me?”
Helms tucked his hands behind his head and huffed out a breath. “I read it in one of your father’s files.”
“That’s not in any of the Wray files.”
He laughed, an evil sound that made her skin prickle. “Not at the department, no. But the ones he keeps locked up in his office at home. They have lots of useful details about Wray.”
“Useful for what? Finding him?”
Helms turned until his face was an inch from her. “No. For reenacting his murders.” He propped one elbow under his head so he looked down to her. “We don’t have to play games anymore, sunshine. We both know your daddy took care of Wray a long time ago. That’s what made using his MO to cover up a murder so damn easy.” He grinned. “The hardest part was finding the same damn rope.”
You killed her stuck in her brain, but Lacy couldn’t make her mouth form the words. This guy had shared family dinners and holiday parties. He’d been her emergency number. Cold-blooded killer just wouldn’t calculate in her head.
She used her legs to push away from him, but nowhere in the small cabin would be far enough. She’d be next. There was no denying it. If Brian admitted to murder, he was planning to kill her.
“Why?” she whispered.
Brian rolled to his back and stared at the ceiling. “Would you believe it was an accident? The first one was anyway. She tried to run from me and smashed her head in a rock. I used Wray’s MO to cover it all up.”
Lacy shook beside him. “And the second? Was she an accident, too?”
“No.” Helms folded his hands behind his head. “I just needed her to make it look authentic. Wray would never have stopped at just one.”
Lacy tried to breathe, but the air in the room was suddenly too heavy, or her lungs too tight. She couldn’t tell which.
“I read the file on the girl he took in Knoxville.” Helms started talking again, but Lacy didn’t want to hear anymore. “How the family didn’t even notice she was missing until both parents came home from work, and by that time, Richard had already had the girl eight hours. Who doesn’t know where their young child is for eight hours?” Helms kept his gaze trained on the ceiling and spoke soft.
Afraid to let the quiet go on too long, Lacy answered. “Lots of kids are latchkey with both parents working to put food on the table. That doesn’t make them bad parents.” She wanted to suck the words in as soon as she let them out.
Helms shut his eyes tight and opened them again. He stared at the ceiling and nothing in particular.
Her skin broke out in goose flesh at his silence.
“She put up a fight when he grabbed her. They found his hair and skin under her nails and in her teeth. He tried to clean the evidence out, but he never got it all.” Helms remained calm. “Your father knew the same hour you were taken. That’s what saved you.” He rolled to his side on the pillow beside her. His eyes searched hers for a reaction.
A reaction she refused to give him.
“My brother knew,” she corrected, keeping him talking, buying herself precious time.
Lacy worked her fingers closer to the edge of his gaping pocket. If he rolled just the right way, the phone would fall out, and she could catch it and hide it between her palms.
“John watched you like a hawk. Always afraid he’d lose you.” His eyes grew cold. “There was no warning for the other girls. It seemed the kidnappings had stopped. We all thought we were safe.” A false sense of security created by her secret kidnapping, she thought. He didn’t have to say it aloud for Lacy to hear his meaning. “So in a way, you killed them, Lace.”
Everything in the room stopped. The smells, the outside sounds, her breathing. She tried to speak, to defend herself, but the words wouldn’t come.
“But you can’t be blamed for killing Mitch’s cousin.”
Lacy sucked in a breath. She wanted to cover her ears with her arms and drowned him out, but she couldn’t get turned in just the right angle.
“I read her report, too. Poor girl never had a chance. Mitch heard her scream, but he didn’t make a move to save her, just kept lying under a shade tree by the edge of the river, pretending to be asleep. It’s in his statement. He froze up. Mitch didn’t even make a move for her until Wray had her packed in the trunk of his car.”
Lacy’s blood ran cold. She shivered and folded her fingers back into her body for warmth against the chill of fear.
It couldn’t be true. Mitch would have done everything in his power to save Sadie, just like she knew he was doing to save her right now.
“He just let her die.” Helms closed his eyes and pulled in a deep breath. “He told your father that when they brought him in for questioning. Just laid there and let her be taken.”
“My father?” He’d never mentioned talking to Mitch before.
A smile washed over Helms’ face. One that made waves of unease ripple through her stomach. “I guess I’m not the only one keeping secrets in this town.” He turned to face her, his eyes cold and emotionless. “By the time they put their egos aside and work together, you’ll be dead, and I’ll be the cop who found your body.”
Lacy watched his chest concave and rise. After a few breaths, she worked her fingers between them on the bed and focused on the rim of his pocket, waiting for his phone to fall, afraid no one would come for her ever, and she’d finally end up where she should have been thirteen years ago. Dead.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mitch hunched down beside the cabin door while the Rebel Rapids officers fanned out along the porch and front steps. The thirty seconds it took the officers to get into position ticked in his head, each one a missed opportunity to save Lacy.
Through a crack between the ill fitted door frame came voices. Two of them, the deep baritone of a man and Lacy.
Mitch holstered his regulation Glock 9 and pulled the Kimber .45 from his shoulder harness. The compact weapon fit neatly between his sweaty palms, giving him more control of the gun. He trained his ear on the sliver of hope.
Lacy’s voice sounded weak and strained, but alive. His mouth went dry, and his chest tightened. Had Helms hurt her? Was he about to? He couldn’t wait much longer even though waiting out the bad guy was what he’d been trained to do.
Fuck his training. It didn’t matter with Lacy’s life on the line.
He shot an impatient glance to Deluna. The younger officer nodded his head once as if to ensure everyone was moving into place.
Mitch had to remind himself to be patient. These guys were her family. They’d do everything in their power to see her safely extracted from danger.
Deluna angled his right ear to the radio on his shoulder. Every eye trained on the young officer’s raised hand. As soon his radio chirped, that hand dropped. Mitch slammed his boot into the door jamb and a shoulder into the wood. The door splintered around the lock on the second hit.
Weapon raised, he focused down his barrel and found his target across the dark room, leaning over Lacy on the bed. “Freeze!” Two venting breaths kept his head clear and his emotions from overriding his training.
Helms rolled his feet to the floor and raised his weapon chest level, pointed at Mitch. It only took a second, but Mitch calculated Helms’ next move. Before Helms could angle the barrel of his weapon towards Lacy’s head, Mitch took a shot. Where the power to aim at the asshole’s hand and not his heart came from, he’d never know.
Helms sank to his knees and grabbed his hand, screaming like a stray animal hit by a car.
Two more ventilating breaths and Mitch let the dam of emotions break. He scanned the rumpled mess and found Lacy, tethered to the headboard. He skimmed her body with a tight glance and released a hiss of relief to find her clothing intact. “Lace,” he whispered.
Her eyes widened when they fell on him, then the gun still trained on Helms.
A rush of officers filtered in behind him. Panic registered in Helms’ eyes a second before two officers wrestled him fro
m the ground. Blood dripped from his hand.
Helms made a move to reach for the weapon he’d dropped, but Mitch tore across the room, fear fueling him, and pulled Helms up by his shirt collar. Years of training to keep his cool flew to the side. Another minute and he’d kill the guy.
Out-armed, Helms dropped the gun, but took a swing that landed square against Mitch’s temple. Dots swirled in his eyes.
A hand pulled at Mitch’s shoulder. It took a second to realize it was Deluna, followed by six Rebel Rapids finest.
“He’s not worth the bullet or the paperwork.” Deluna pulled Mitch back, and the two other officers secured Helms.
With backup spilling out into the porch and Deluna in possession of Helms, Mitch lowered his weapon and stalked toward the bed.
“Mitch.” Lacy’s voice came out pained. She held her hands up and tugged against the tether connecting her to the headboard.
Mitch dug into the knots, finding it hard to keep his eyes off her long enough to focus on the job. He tried to stop her shivers by pressing his chest against hers only to realize it wasn’t her shaking. He was.
“Are you hurt?” The words trembled out of his mouth.
Lacy shook her head, tears breaching her eyelids. “No, but he told me about the girls at the river.” She lifted her head and kept her voice quiet. “He told me everything.”
Fear. Anger. Relief. The emotions flickered across her tear-stained face. The same emotions that swamped him until he couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her and not touch her. Not comfort her.
An officer stepped close, and Lacy dropped her head back to the bed and closed her eyes.
The ropes were tight and each pull at the knot cut into her skin. “I’m sorry, Angel. I’m trying to be careful.” His hands quavered until Deluna handed him a pocketknife.
“Someone, call an ambulance,” he demanded, pulling one rope free.
Deluna worked the other. “They’re already here.”
Mitch hadn’t even noticed the two paramedics who’d entered the room once Helms had been searched and taken to a waiting patrol car. He stepped back and allowed them access to Lacy.
“Mitch. Please.” Lacy reached a hand through the two EMTs. “Don’t leave me.”
“He’s right there,” the EMT answered and pressed her back to the bed. They took vitals and assessed her wrists and the gash on her forehead. “Give us a few minutes to check you over, and you can go to him.”
Standing back, allowing the EMTs to bandage her injuries, one thought dominated all his others. He’d created this. He’d been the reason Helms went after her. The reason she could have become his next victim.
Looking around the room, Lacy had a PD full of officers who could take better care of her than he could. Who were already doing a better job.
She didn’t need him.
Not able to control the range of emotions thumping through him like a heavy bass blaring from a car window, he took one last look at Lacy and walked out of the room.
No strings attached. She didn’t owe him a damn thing.
***
Lacy leaned back against the headrest in Deluna’s cruiser an hour later. Outside, the swirl of activity hurt her sensitive eyes. Inside, the car was quiet. Only in that solitude could she begin to admit the toll the last twelve hours had taken physically and emotionally.
She rubbed the bandages on her sore wrists and pictured Mitch’s face the second the door to the cabin broke free. The next image that came to mind, the one of Mitch turning his back to leave, made tears form in the corners of her eyes. She dabbed with the sleeve of an officer’s coat, she couldn’t remember which, only that she had been shaking when the EMTs finished with her and someone dropped it on her shoulders before leading her out to the car. The real threat was over. She couldn’t be hurt anymore. But she couldn’t stop shivering, and even with the heat on full blast, she couldn’t get warm.
She’d wiped away the last stream of tears when the driver’s side door opened. Mitch slid into the seat and shifted the car into gear without saying a word or looking in her direction. A hostile air clung to him like a well-fitted suit.
The cruiser jerked off the curb and onto the deserted highway, away from the flashing lights and service vehicles without a word between them.
A mile in, she found her voice. “What happened to officer Deluna? He was taking me to the station.” Her lips trembled around the words. If he wasn’t going to broach the subject of whatever the hell had happened back there, she would.
Mitch’s gaze never left the empty road ahead. “I gave the arrest over to Deluna so I could take you.” They passed the turnoff for the station. “And you need to be checked out. We’ll stop at the hospital first.”
She cut her gaze to him. “The EMTs said I was fine.”
“The EMTs aren’t doctors,” he growled. “You need a full assessment.”
It was fast, but she caught him give her a quick once-over. A look that said his mind was on more than her visible injuries.
“I told the medics nothing happened. You got there in time.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “He didn’t touch me.”
Mitch’s next breath was audible and deep. He drove in silence along the winding river road. His body rigid in the seat. His mouth set in a frown. His fingers clenched on the steering wheel. Lacy couldn’t stand the fifteen-minute drive with him, silent and angry and wondering what had happened to her. Just like her father and John, Mitch was treating her like a helpless child.
She ventured a hand forward to cut the heat down. Mitch was making enough of his own to keep her warm in the car. “Did Helms confess to killing the women at the river?”
He rolled his jaw before he answered. “No, but Deluna got enough to hold him. Your father will do the rest.”
“Why did he do it?”
Mitch rubbed his neck and cleared his throat. “Claimed it was revenge. Deluna seems to think the first murder was an accident, and Helms used his knowledge of the Wray case to hide her death.” His gaze cut to her, a cold, menacing stare that raised the hair along the back of her neck and her arms and her legs. “You’re the only person to survive Wray. You could have proven Wray didn’t kill those to women, and Helms knew it.”
He turned back to the road, but the heightened feeling of accusation didn’t dissipate from her sensitive skin. “He found out Wray kidnapped me.”
Mitch nodded. “He had a hunch already, but when you called him…”
Lacy read into the part where she’d told Helms her own secret. “He blamed me for his father’s death.” She let that thought hang on her. If someone hurt the chief, there was nothing she wouldn’t do to avenge him. “He was right. Keeping my kidnapping a secret drove him to drink.”
Mitch glanced over quickly. “You didn’t kill his father. He made the choice to cover up your kidnapping, and he made the choice to kill himself with liquor. He can’t blame you for a death you didn’t commit.”
“Do you?” Her voice sounded sheepish in her ears. She cleared her throat and pressed on. “Do you blame me for Sadie?”
His answer came quick. “No.” His chest rose and fell with the strain of a labored breath. “Wray was a killer. Helms made the choice to follow in his path. You’re as much a victim as the six girls who died.” He reached over the center console, but stopped short of her leg, like in a momentary lapse of judgment he’d reached for her, but thought better of touching her bare skin.
Damn it, if he didn’t blame her, why was he freezing her out? She uncrossed her arms and pressed her stiff back into the seat. “You think running to the department to confess was foolish. I did it for my own closure, so you have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“Going to spill your secret for closure was a mistake.”
Lacy couldn’t contain the rant riding her tongue. She let it fly, hoping for a direct hit to his ego. “Are you serious right now? People don’t make mistakes, Mitch. They make choices. Good choices. Bad choices. The best choices
they can given the circumstances.”
The cruiser swerved to the shoulder of the road before Mitch corrected with a jerk. “You could have been killed, Lacy. I never should have told you about Wray. I should have left you alone as soon as I found the connection between your dad and the case.” He didn’t even glance in her direction. “Helms never would have found you if I hadn’t come here. If I hadn’t asked questions.”
The urge to reach across the cruiser and punch him was so strong she sat on her hands just to be safe. How could he be so cold and angry with her? “It was my choice.” Her voice elevated. “It was stupid, but it was my choice. Wray hurt everyone I love. He ruined my life, and I couldn’t let my father go to jail for protecting me. I had to put an end to him for everyone.” Which included you, you big lug, until you froze me out.
“If you wanted to spill your guts about Wray, I would have taken you.” Mitch’s knuckles whitened on the steering wheel.
So that was what he was mad about? That she’d gone alone, without him.
Lacy turned her body square with his in the tight car. “No. You wouldn’t. You can’t stand to give up responsibility to anyone. I’ve only known you days, and I can see that. You keep it all to yourself. The second someone tries to get in, you slam a wall down on them so fast they can’t even register what they did to piss you off.” His silence shut her out yet again.
Lacy seethed with anger, the pain in her back and arms forgotten. Her only focus was him. “I wanted to confess for me, Mitch. You don’t get to be mad over that.”
He steered to the side of the road and stopped so fast her body jerked forward then slammed against the hard seat.
Mitch took several sharp intakes of air before turning to face her. She swallowed her building retort at the scared expression in his eyes. Not anger. Not resentment. Fear.
“You’re not the one who was wrong back there.” He grabbed the steering wheel and shook it, his arms flexing against his shirtsleeves. His anger sucked the air out of the small car. If he’d just scream at her, criticize her judgment or scold her, she’d feel better, but his placid silence brought every nerve in her already exhausted body to full attention.
Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) Page 19
