Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1)
Page 21
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Mitch paid the cabbie and met Deluna at the front door of the department.
“Lacy doing all right?”
Deluna nodded stiffly. “Well as can be expected. Detective O’Neal’s holding her in the interrogation room and waiting on my word to start.”
“Good. And the chief?” Mitch opened the front door and stepped inside behind Deluna.
“Watching his daughter through the two-way mirror. You’ll have Helms all to yourself. He’s in the holding cell in the back of the booking room. No one should bother you.”
“Thanks.” Mitch brushed past the officer, not wanting to wait another second to get Lacy out of the hot seat.
He stormed down the hallway and busted through the booking room door, ignoring the stares of uniformed men.
Deluna came up behind and unlocked the cell. “The chief’s insisting we question Lacy now to get it over with. I can buy you ten minutes, tops.”
“Five’s all I need.” He nodded at Deluna, dismissing him, entered the small cement blocked room, and shut the door behind him.
Helms popped his head up from where he’d been laying down on the cot. “What the hell do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
Helms copped a grin. “Without my legal representation?”
It went against every fucking fiber of his being to make a deal with a killer. Mitch balled his fists and released them again. “I have a deal for you.”
Helms laughed. One beat and dry. “A deal? What could you possibly have that’s worth my time?”
“Your father’s reputation?”
He had Helms’ interest. “What about it?”
“I called in a few favors with my contacts in Nashville. They’re willing to lighten your charges if you agree to add one bit of information to your official statement.”
“I’m listening.”
“Your father killed Wray.”
Helms scowled. “You want me to cover for the chief to save your girl?”
“Your father died a coward. Claiming he killed himself over guilt from taking out Wray would give him enough motivation to make his suicide understandable.”
“He’ll be a killer.”
“He’ll be a hero.”
Helms paused. “What insurance do I have you’ll follow through after I lie in my statement?”
Mitch pulled a paper and pen from his pocket and wrote down a number. “You’ve got one call before they question you. You’re going to use it to call detective Bishop in Nashville. He’ll insure you my deal is standing.”
Mitch knocked on the door to signal the officer on the other side.
Helms nodded. “Must be nice to have Nashville at your back.”
Mitch turned back. “I wouldn’t know. Don’t fuck this up. Call Bishop and follow his instructions.”
Mitch caught up with Deluna in the hall. “Helms is ready for his phone call.”
“What about Lacy?”
“Make sure the chief sits in on Helms’ confession and has a chance to talk to Lacy before you take her written statement. I’d bet once Helms talks, you won’t need Lacy anymore.”
“You’re not staying?” Deluna called to his retreating back.
Mitch eyed the interrogation room door as he passed. Behind that door, Lacy was awaiting her fate without him. “I’m needed back in Nashville.”
“She’s going to be pissed you left without saying goodbye.”
Mitch passed the room and pushed through the front door. “Pissed but off the hook.”
Now he just had to get to Nashville before the shit-storm hit and the window of opportunity for damage control passed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Lacy pulled her hand away from the display of top shelf liquor behind the main bar at Charlie’s. Forgetting about the healing rope burns circling her wrists, she heard the gasp of a female customer the second she went for a bottle of Don Julio.
Connie, tending the other side of the crowded bar, grabbed the bottle and finished pouring shorts for the three out of town bachelorette party guests.
“I’ve got this, Lace. Take a break,” Connie spoke over one shoulder as she filled beer mugs two at a time from the tap.
A break wouldn’t help. The second she stopped moving her hands, her brain went right back to the one picture she didn’t want to remember. Mitch, standing behind the patrol car at the hospital. Not saying good-bye.
“He still hasn’t called?” Connie passed off the last mug to a regular and turned her back to the Saturday night crowd.
Lacy shook her head. “Haven’t heard from him since the hospital.” It wasn’t the complete truth. She’d heard his voice from the lobby at the station right before Deluna busted in the interrogation room and called off the meeting. She’d sat in the hard, molded plastic chair, visualizing Mitch rushing that same door, scooping her up against his solid chest and marching her out the front door, cursing anyone stupid enough to get in his way.
Instead, she’d waited for Deluna to speak with him outside the closed door and return. She’d pictured Mitch watching from the other side of the two-way mirror, but by the time Deluna finished sending the rest of the officers home, Mitch had gone. Headed back to Nashville to finish his side of the case her father told her.
Now the waiting game began. What would Nashville do about her father?
“Phones work both ways.” Connie snapped her out of the thought.
“Not when he doesn’t answer his.” He’d gotten what he needed to solve the case and a little exoneration of his own guilt from her. Everything he needed to move on and more. Besides, they’d agreed. No strings, just uncomplicated and uncommitted sex. He’d delivered exactly what he’d promised with a big fat plate of saving her life and a side of catching her abductor. She’d just have to be a big girl and accept that.
“So you haven’t talked to him at all since he left?”
“Not once,” Lacy answered.
Connie filled a high ball with ice, poured it half full with Maker’s Mark and sat it on the bar in front of Lacy.
“What’s this for? You know I don’t drink on the job.”
But Connie’s eyes were focused on someone out in the crowd. “Something tells me you’re going to need this in a minute. Drink up.”
Lacy followed her gaze out into the sea of cowboy hats to the one bare headed brunette in a black racers jacket and Aviators hanging from the collar of his polo.
Mitch.
He weaved his way through the crowd and claimed the stool across from her. The familiar smell of leather and spicy male soap made her breathing speed. She cursed herself for being so trained and attuned to anyone to let them have that effect on her. Especially someone who could so easily walk away.
“Drink?” Connie cut in when Lacy didn’t offer.
His eyes never left Lacy’s “Whatever’s on tap.”
Lacy’s vision blurred, blocking out everything around her but Mitch and the aching thump of her heart against her ribs.
“I called you,” she finally blurted, hating the accusatory tone of her words. Hated how helpless and hurt they made her sound. But what did she have to lose? She’d given herself to the man across the bar in more ways than one, and he’d left her.
She watched him labor over a long sip before he answered. “I promised the department I wouldn’t have contact with you while they completed the investigation. That was part of our deal.”
“Then you know Helms admitted his father killed Wray. Dad got off with an obstruction charge and is on administrative leave until details can be verified.”
“I know.” His eyes sparkled in the dim lights.
Lacy swallowed hard. “Deluna tells me I have you to thank for that.”
“Your father didn’t deserve to serve time for killing that trash.”
Lacy grasped her drink and downed it in two long, choking chugs. The burning didn’t despite the stabbing pain in her chest at his emotionless expression.
Connie mo
ved to refill the glass, but Lacy took the bottle, this time filling the tumbler to the top and letting the liquid slide down her throat in one, smooth swallow.
Mitch reached across the bar and slid the empty glass away from her. “That’s not what I came here to see tonight.”
“Really?” Lacy wiped her moist lips along the back of her shirtsleeve. “What did you come here for, Detective Kilpatrick? My undying gratitude for saving my father? I’m assuming since you’re talking to me now, the investigation is over. Will they let my dad leave on his own, or will there be a ‘torches and pitchforks’ style overthrowing of the department?”
He reached for her arm and emotion finally filled his eyes. “Your dad’s not losing his job. He was protecting his daughter. It took some persuading, but the department finally saw things my way. They won’t even have a formal investigation. Three weeks of leave to appease the public, and he’ll be back like nothing happened.”
“How’d you pull that off?” The sarcastic snap in her voice made her skin prickle.
Mitch released her arm. “I gave the homicide chief the one thing he’s wanted from me for years.”
She glanced at his waist. Not even a hint of his weapon or his badge.
Mitch took a long swig of beer, deflecting her glare with the mug. “There are other departments.” He said it as if he’d been referring to something as simple as choosing a different brand of razor.
“But you loved Nashville. You worked hard for that job. You can’t just walk away.” God, she wanted to kick him under the bar. “You’re making a huge mistake, Mitch.” What the hell was he thinking throwing away a hard earned career for her?
His eyes darkened. “People don’t make mistakes, Angel. They only make the best choices possible. Besides, I hear Rebel is down an officer, and it seems I need a new life goal. I thought I’d give being a training officer a try.”
A spark of heat ignited in her belly. Under the shade of his dark lashes, she found the man who’d taken her to bed on that first night and made her orgasm with his boxers around her waist. She rubbed her legs together, remembering the feel of his fingers working the cotton along her core.
“I brought you something.” He smiled, pulling a rectangular box of playing cards from his jacket pocket.
“What are those for? Were you planning to bet me to forgive you?”
“If I had to.” His eyes sparkled in the dim light. “But I had a better idea. My turn to pick the game. Five cards, no draws. You win, I leave Rebel and never look back. I win and you end up in my bed tonight.”
“Locked door and eggs?”
“No.” His voice was rough. “I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”
Lacy watched him shuffle and deal out five cards. One at a time, she pulled hers from the bar. Three of a kind, kings high.
Mitch flashed one of his panty-melting grins and laid down a pair of eights. “Show your hand.”
A group of men crowded the bar, giving drink orders to Connie. Lacy felt her cheeks flush at the hungry look in Mitch’s eyes, as if every man in the bar could read his explicit thoughts. She had to get him out of there.
One look at Connie was enough to get her approval.
Lacy stacked her cards back in her hand and shoved them into the stack on the bar. “I guess that makes you the winner. I only had a pair of threes. But I’m not going home with you. That was my first mistake.”
“Liar.” The husk in his voice reverberated straight to her core. There was no denying, when it came to Mitch Kilpatrick, she’d never win. “We don’t make mistakes. Only choices.”
“Meet you out back?” she asked Mitch, eyeing the cards he shuffled in his hands. Her mind raced with ideas of things he’d try with the cards.
He stood, his presence pushing Lacy’s patrons to Connie’s the side of the bar. “No,” he answered.
Lacy’s heart skittered. She tried to read his reaction.
“There’s no way in hell I’m ever letting you slip out of my life again, even if it’s just out the back door and just for a minute. Now that I’ve got you, I’m never letting you go.”
“You know, at some point you will have to let me go. I will need to use the bathroom after all.”
His laugh brightened his whole face. “Then I’ll build an outhouse next to the damn bed, crescent moon cut in the door and all, because, Angel, I don’t intend to ever let you leave me again.”
She looked down her lashes at him and grinned. “How do you plan to do that? Ropes and chains?”
The slight nod of his head sent a shiver along the back of her neck. “Now you’re getting the idea, though I think we’re done with ropes for good. How do you feel about cuffs?”
Lacy leaned over the bar. Her lips brushed his ear. A new bravado bubbled deep inside. “But this time, you’re going to be the one cuffed, and I’m going to make you come in your boxers.”
Heat blushed her cheeks when she leaned back and looked into the devilish smile forming in his hazed eyes. “Whatever you want, Angel. As long as you promise to still be there in the morning.”
“Scrambled eggs?” she added, discarding her apron behind the bar and tugging him toward the door.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close until they passed the back exit. Then he pressed her against the brick exterior of the bar, his mouth hovered over hers, his fingers twirled a loose wisp of hair from around her face. His breath brushed along her face. “I’ll make you the best fucking scrambled eggs you’ve ever had in your life if you promise to give me another chance. I’m not perfect.” He cupped her shoulders with his hands and pulled her in tight. “But you make me want to fucking try.”
Lacy swallowed the building sob threatening to break free. “We’ll start with the eggs,” she said, forcing a smile to hide how desperately she wanted to kiss him. “Then we’ll tackle perfection.”
That seemed to be all he needed to hear. His lips pressed to hers. “It’s a deal.” He pressed a smile into her mouth. “It’s a damn fucking deal, Angel.”
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN