The Closer He Gets

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “Good,” he snapped with another angry look, “because it’s not happening. You know what this is about.” A slashing gesture took her in. Her house. Her worth to him.

  Tess’s usual confidence deserted her and she shriveled inside. “I do now,” she whispered.

  “You expected more.”

  She lifted one shoulder. “I suppose I...hoped.”

  “I don’t do relationships. I never have. I thought I’d made it clear.” He paced, the words coming faster and faster. “I want to nail Sheila’s killer and get out of this town. There’s just too much—”

  He stopped, shook his head. He seemed to be talking more to himself than to her. “And now I can’t go even if I wanted to, because of you.”

  Somehow that felt like the final blow.

  “Zach, I absolve you of responsibility for me. I am an adult. I knew the risks when I accused a police officer of murder. I don’t even understand why you think it’s your job to protect me. I don’t live or work in your jurisdiction, so it’s not your job.”

  “You’re a woman alone.”

  “By choice.” She had to get through this. She could fall apart when she actually was alone. “Zach, you need to leave.”

  He stopped, shock transforming his face. “What are you talking about?”

  “You heard me. I want you to pack and go.” She’d managed to say all that without a tremor in her voice, which was reason to be proud. “You’re off the hook.”

  “I’m not leaving you by yourself.”

  “Yes. You are.” Show no weakness. “I was willing to accept your help when it felt as if we were in this together. When I thought—” Tess swallowed, unable to finish, after all.

  “Thought?”

  She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Let me repeat. You need to go.”

  How could he look so stunned when he’d been such a jerk? No—that was understating his behavior. He’d been purposely hurtful. Hoping she’d react exactly as she had and set him free?

  Maybe.

  “Tess.”

  She said nothing and didn’t let her gaze waver.

  “God.” He shook his head, bewildered. “Yeah. Okay. I guess I was asking for it.”

  You think?

  His usual athletic grace missing, he stumbled out of the room. Rigid, Tess listened to him go down the hall. The wait seemed longer than it probably was.

  He reappeared with his black duffel bag slung over his shoulder and paused in the kitchen doorway. “If I left anything...”

  She nodded. She couldn’t even look at him now, but her peripheral vision told her he hadn’t moved.

  “I didn’t mean the things I said.” His voice was husky, strained. “I’ve been...panicking.”

  Obviously.

  “Goddamn it, Tess!”

  “Please go.” How many times did she have to say this?

  He went. The door into the garage opened. A moment later she heard the deep rumble of his pickup starting and her garage door rising.

  When it went back down, she realized she should have asked for the remote back so he wouldn’t have access to her house.

  But really, did it matter? She didn’t need it and he wouldn’t use it. Why would he, when he’d gotten what he’d secretly wanted? Because, yes, he’d be plagued with guilt. She knew him that well. But beneath it would be relief. Tess had no doubt at all that within a day he’d have worked his way around to blaming her for tonight’s blow-up. So, okay, maybe he should have been more tactful, but she was the unreasonable one.

  On her head be it, he’d think, frustrated and mad.

  And he was right. The decision had been hers. He’d have stayed if she’d allowed him to, because he was a man of conscience who took what he perceived as his responsibilities seriously. Look at his utter determination to find justice for his little sister.

  The first tears blurred Tess’s vision. She’d never in her life felt so alone.

  * * *

  ZACH PARKED IN his garage but didn’t get far when he emerged into the chill night. He mumbled an obscenity. With shocking suddenness, he felt all his uncertainty, fear, passion and rage escaping, as if he’d pulled a cork from a bottle. The duffel thudded to the ground and he flattened both hands on the rough side wall of the garage, bent his head and kept swearing. And, shit, he was crying. Everything he’d felt, too much, poured out of him. His knees gave way. His hands slid down the wall, stinging, until he knelt on the grass, sobbing for the first time since he was a child.

  What did I do?

  Exactly what he had meant to do, on some primitive level he didn’t even pretend to understand. He loved her, and that terrified him, so he’d made her push him away. Because then it wasn’t his fault?

  But it was. All of it.

  He heard her soft, ragged voice. I suppose I...hoped.

  He could say he was sorry. He could...what? Promise her forever? To stay on in this town that had him tangled into emotional knots? The place where his life had been severed in two? Where he’d found Sheila so horrifically dead? Where he’d lost his family, the brother he loved, all faith in the forever he couldn’t promise Tess?

  However much I love her?

  Where he’d been turned into a pathetic, sobbing bundle of uncontrollable emotion?

  The sobs kept ripping through his chest, shaking his whole body. He couldn’t seem to stop. He was breaking down, with no idea what would be left when he was done.

  It was a long time before, dazed, he found himself lying flat on the grass he’d mowed just today with Tess’s lawn mower.

  His fingers gripped the grass and earth beneath it as if they were all that held him from falling into an abyss.

  He kept breathing and finally made a head-to-toe assessment. Face wet, eyes swollen and burning hot. Fingertips and the fleshy pads at the base of his thumbs stinging.

  Slivers from the garage wall, he decided.

  His stomach muscles felt as though he’d done a few hundred sit-ups. Legs...weak. Feet...okay. Zach was vaguely surprised to find any part of him was okay.

  He lay there for what had to be another ten minutes before he managed to push himself to his hands and knees then stagger to his feet. Pure willpower kept him going, had him stooping to grab his bag. He made it up the porch steps, the pungent scent of lumber and fresh stain in his nostrils. No surprise his hand shook when he struggled to put the key in the lock, but he managed that, too.

  Inside, he didn’t stop until he reached the bedroom, where he dropped the bag on the floor and collapsed onto his bed.

  He rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, what little he could see of it with only diffused light from neighbors’ homes and the distant streetlamp.

  This what you wanted?

  No. God help him, no.

  Tess’s house was home now. No, she was home.

  This town could be, he realized, as long as he had her.

  Took care of that chance, didn’t you?

  Yes. He thought of himself as a decent man, one who felt compassion, who was capable of kindness. The need to protect dominated his personality, for obvious reasons. And yet he was a man who hadn’t felt much that was really personal in so many years he’d forgotten what it was like. He’d come back to Clear Creek to find Sheila’s killer. Everything he’d found instead was unexpected.

  His brother and all the tangled emotions that had come with the reunion.

  Tess. Yeah, she’d blindsided him. Because he’d sensed from the beginning he could feel too much for her, he would have avoided her if it weren’t for that overdeveloped need to protect. And now, it was too late.

  He thought about that for a few minutes, feeling something ease inside him. No, he wouldn’t travel back in time so that he wouldn’t meet Tess, even if he could. She
was everything to him.

  Blew that, didn’t you?

  Sheila.

  He’d been so damned sure of himself, he thought. Mighty detective who could find answers where no one else had been able to. What he’d never let himself examine were his reasons for needing those answers. Tess had called it an obsession, and he guessed his plan to come back someday and hunt down a murderer had been that.

  But what he let himself understand for the first time was that he’d been trying to accomplish something else. Had he thought he could undo everything that had gone wrong? Prove the flaws in his family hadn’t been to blame?

  Or was Bran right? That what Zach had really wanted was to prove Dad was responsible, and therefore he’d made the right choice himself despite what he’d learned about his mother? And, hey, that would have meant Bran had made the wrong choice, not Zach.

  So I could blame him for my pain?

  Nobility in action.

  He reached the point where he could sit up, feet on the floor, although he groaned getting there. Man, what he’d give for a hot shower, or even to be able to immerse himself in a bath.

  A thought floated into his mind. Jacuzzi? Might be worth the extra bucks.

  He dragged his fingers through his hair, imagining what it would look like when he went into work tomorrow morning. What he’d look like.

  I have to fix things with Tess, he thought. That was central. He had to believe she would understand and forgive him.

  The rift with Bran had been his fault. He could fix it, too. He had to. Tess was right. A little wryly, it occurred to Zach he must be in training to be a husband. But she was right more than wrong.

  He did have a brother and a mother. He could mend his relationship with both. And, please God, with Tess.

  Whom he’d left alone and unprotected.

  And... Jesus. How much time had passed?

  The numbers on his digital clock jolted him. He’d left her house two hours ago.

  Slammed by fear, he pictured her huddled on the sofa where he’d left her. Or had she gone to take a shower? With it running, she wouldn’t hear a window shatter.

  Again.

  If anyone had been watching the house, they’d have seen him leave. The light in the garage came on automatically when the door rose. He’d backed out without so much as looking around.

  Without thinking, he was moving, searching for his phone and keys. He wouldn’t try to make his peace tonight, but he could park out front and watch her house.

  Keep her safe.

  * * *

  FEELING SORRY FOR herself wasn’t very productive. Tess emerged from a prolonged bout of self-pity thinking more clearly.

  It took her a while, but she eventually worked herself around to believing that maybe the real truth was in what Zach had said at the end.

  I didn’t mean the things I said. I’ve been...panicking.

  Until the past couple days, when he’d changed, he hadn’t acted like a man staying with her only because he’d felt responsible for her security. He might not be in love with her, but Tess believed he cared. Maybe enough to spook him. Given his childhood and the example his mother had set, it would be no surprise if he didn’t believe in love that could last a lifetime.

  Was he capable of changing? She had no way of knowing. And, after tonight’s scene, she couldn’t exactly go after him. It was up to him now. All she could do was wait and hope.

  Too bad she felt a little short on hope right now.

  Even though it wasn’t especially late, she was so exhausted it was hard to heave herself up from the sofa. She did go to the kitchen and make sure the door into the garage was locked. It was. He didn’t forget.

  She bumped into walls a couple of times as she made her way to her bedroom, turning out lights as she went.

  A hot shower would feel really good, but took more energy than she could muster. Plus...she wouldn’t be able to hear anyone coming. Like the first hint of an injected drug, fear trickled into her veins, but she couldn’t succumb to it. Wouldn’t. What was she going to do, call Zach and beg him to come back?

  I could go to Dad’s.

  But she swayed where she stood, too tired for that much effort. Besides, if someone was watching the house, she’d be followed anyway. Her father didn’t want to admit how much the stroke had stolen from him, but she wouldn’t put him in the position of trying to protect her from a muscular, brutal, furious man like Andrew Hayes.

  She made herself brush her teeth, trying not to look too closely at herself in the mirror. Blotchy skin and red, swollen eyes were so attractive.

  Bed.

  Hazily she thought, Won’t answer the phone if it rings. Screw ’em. They can leave a message.

  If anything else happened...it only took a couple seconds to dial 911.

  She dropped like a rock into sleep.

  * * *

  TESS LURCHED TO a sitting position in bed, blinking. She wasn’t awake enough to know what had alarmed her. Had her phone rung? No. She kept listening, but heard nothing.

  Maybe just a nightmare.

  Her eyelids felt too heavy to keep open, but she didn’t lie back down.

  Nothing.

  Finally too groggy to stay upright, she let herself sink back against the pillows and pulled the covers up over herself, preparing to surrender to sleep again.

  A hard hand gripped her jaw, covering her face. Fueled by terror, she bucked and grabbed for the thick forearm and wrist, digging in her nails. Tess sucked in air through her nose and released it as a scream. The sound that emerged was no more than a prolonged whimper, smothered in that palm.

  It smelled funny. Oh, God—he wore latex gloves.

  “Bitch,” the man whispered. “Wouldn’t listen, would you?”

  Her bedside lamp came on, momentarily blinding her.

  When her eyes adjusted, she saw Andrew Hayes leaning over her, his weight on the forearm that pressed cruelly hard on her chest. He wanted her to see him. Flooded by the implications, Tess let go of his wrist and went for his face and eyes.

  Somehow he flipped her, trapping her arms beneath her body.

  “Just wanted you to see what’s going to happen,” he growled.

  Face turned to one side, she focused on her bedside stand. He was barely visible out of the corner of her eye. Then fear ran through her. A pillar candle sat in a small dish.

  “Sorry, babe, you’re gonna knock over this candle. Throw yourself off the bed to grab it, but on the way down, you hit your head on the corner here.” Thick fingers encased in white latex caressed the edge of her bedside stand. “It’s a shame you brought a couple days’ newspapers with you to bed to catch up on.”

  “Nobody will believe—”

  His laugh was ugly. He grabbed a handful of her hair and used it to drag her from the bed.

  “Lights out,” he said, and slammed her head down on the sharp corner.

  * * *

  ZACH RAN FOR the garage, impatient with the length of time it took the door to rise.

  Tess’s mower was still in the bed of his truck. He’d planned to unload it in the morning and not even noticed it when he’d left her house a few hours ago. It would give him an excuse to go back, he thought.

  He barely slowed for stop signs, hoping not to see flashing lights in his rearview mirror. Having to pull over, even wait while a ticket was written, would be an unendurable delay.

  Of course, when he reached her house, driving slowly by, it was dark except for the porch light. Back one was on, too, he could tell.

  She did have the cameras, he reminded himself. Neighbors. Annoyingly enough, none of whom seemed to own a dog or else the dogs were brought inside at night. The times he’d come and gone on foot in the dark, he hadn’t once heard any barking.


  He circled the block, uneasily noting half a dozen vehicles parked at the curb rather than in driveways or garages. This wasn’t a neighborhood with three-car garages. Teenagers would have to park on the street rather than in the driveway if their parents left first in the morning.

  He especially noted a couple of SUVs—even paused to jot down license plates from two that were large and dark. But, face it, half the vehicles on the road these days were full-size or crossover SUVs.

  Finally he chose a place to park, not quite in front of her house but with a decent view of it. He touched his Glock, lying on the passenger seat beside him. Despite the chill, he rolled down his window so he could hear anything untoward.

  Then he struggled to stay awake.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE NIGHT AIR was cold enough to keep him awake, thank God. Zach turned off the dome light, in case he saw something and wanted to get out surreptitiously.

  A light came on in Tess’s house, barely visible toward the back. It wasn’t bright. A bedside lamp, he thought. Her bedroom. She was probably getting up to use the bathroom.

  He relaxed slightly, rolling his shoulders to release tension. A minute or two passed.

  The light seemed to flicker. Bulb burning out? Or she’d turned it off and then back on quickly? At the thought that she couldn’t sleep, guilt stabbed him.

  But as he watched, the quality of the light seemed to change from a soft, pale glow to...orange. Jesus. Fire! Gaining strength with shocking speed.

  Zach grabbed his handgun, shoved it into his waistband at the small of his back and jumped out of the pickup. Just as his feet hit the pavement, he heard what he thought was a door closing somewhere nearby.

  He ran for the house, vaulting her picket fence and hardly feeling the shrubs scrape at him. Almost to her porch steps, he paused long enough to pull his phone from his pocket and dial 911.

  “Fire,” he said hoarsely, and gave the address. “Hurry.”

  A shape burst from the dark on the other side of the house. Somebody, dressed in black, running away. For a fraction of a second Zach was torn. He could catch that scum, tackle him, cuff him—but Tess would still be inside.

  * * *