Finding Justice

by Rachel Brimble

  “She doesn’t know when to stop talking. Never has. Never will.”

  Cat stared. His jaw was set so tight it could’ve been sculpted from marble and his shoulders almost reached his earlobes. “What was all that about?”

  His eyes stormed with anger. “She never lets me forget the mistakes I’ve made and despite loving her, it really pisses me off.”

  “She didn’t mean—”

  “You don’t know her. She means plenty.” He glared out the windshield. “She’s like that with me and she was like that with Sarah.”

  He gunned the engine and they pulled away from the curb. Cat frowned. The afternoon was bright and sunny but the atmosphere inside the car was Icelandic. She drew in a breath and released it.

  “So that was more about Sarah than you? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He shot her a glare. “Then don’t, but I’m telling you.”

  Cat laughed. “What’s gotten into you? The poor woman was teasing you, that’s all. She didn’t deserve to have you drag me out of the bakery midconversation. You were singing her praises until five minutes ago.”

  “Mistake number one, don’t think there’s anything poor womanish about Marian. She knows everyone in this town inside out, despite only living here five years. She turned that bakery around from making barely enough to warrant it being open to making a damn fortune. She is comfortable and clever.”

  Cat raised her eyebrows. “Okay...and the place is yours, right? So I’m guessing you should love the lady for making you a nice cut of the profits. What I don’t understand is why you just bit her head clean off when all she was doing was trying to find out if we’re a couple or not.”

  “That’s not all she was doing.” He curled his fingers around the steering wheel. His knuckles turned white. “Later on, I’m going to tell you every damn dirty detail of what I’ve been up to since coming out of rehab in case someone else gets there first, because they will, believe me. I’ve upset enough people that as soon as they see me happy, they’ll no doubt take acute pleasure in ripping me back down to size.”

  “I don’t understand. What have you done wrong since getting clean?” What did he mean since? Unease prickled along the surface of her skin. “You have a great house, drive a flashy car and earned thousands of pounds in profit for your family business. I’d say that’s pretty admirable.”

  “Yeah, but it’s business that has taken over my life. I’ve worked nonstop to the point it could have helped in killing one of my best friends.”

  Cat stared. Suspicion about the man Jay was now rose up inside her once again. Dark and unwelcome, her instincts turned to red alert. “What do you mean?”

  He glanced at her. “You don’t have to look at me like that. I know what I’ve done. That’s not the problem.”

  Cat swallowed as her blood ran cold. Was he going to confess? Tell her he wasn’t entirely honest with Bennett? That there was so much more going on here than a missed assignation? “What have you done, Jay?”

  His jaw set as he glared through the windshield. “I let her down. Not once, several times. The last time was the worst. If I’d been at the bakery when she asked—”

  “What?” Cat’s heart leaped into her throat and lodged there.

  His cheeks darkened. “I mean—”

  “You said you were there. You said she didn’t turn up.” Her heart beat hard and her throat drained dry. “Did you lie to me?”

  “Yes...no...”

  She curled her hands into fists. “Which is it? Yes or no?”

  “Look, you’re not the only one struggling with the knowledge you should be sharing things, okay?”

  “This isn’t about me. Don’t try to turn this around—”

  His jaw tightened. “You’ve talked about your mum twice and not in the ‘I love Julia’ kind of way. I want to know what that’s about, too, but you haven’t expanded on it, have you? Well, I’m having the same trouble with admitting that until the day I found out about Sarah’s murder, I was a money-hungry, cold and determined workaholic. I went from drugs to work. Once an addict, always an addict.”

  “So you thought you’d lie to me about it instead?”

  He pulled to a sharp stop at a red light and turned to face her. His eyes were glazed and his jaw set. “Yes. But now, goddamn it, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you everything. The question is, Cat, will you do the same?”

  She opened her mouth to protest but then slammed it shut as Jay shot the car forward. Emotions waged a war inside her. He’d lied. To her face. In the middle of a murder investigation. Bennett still suspected him. Cat pressed her hand to her stomach. What next? How could she believe a word that came out of his mouth from there on in?

  “You lied to me. Actually lied.”

  “I was scared, okay? Scared you wouldn’t come. I’m innocent. I didn’t hurt her. I promise.”

  Cat stared, her heart beating fast. “You tell me absolutely everything you know. Do you hear me? Everything.”

  He glanced at her, his gaze wandering over her face. “I will. But I want you to do the same. What’s going on with Julia?”

  His gaze caught hers for a long moment before she snapped her head to the window. “Nothing.”

  “Right.”

  The derision in his tone was rife. If she knew Jay at all, he’d find a way of making her talk—like looking at her with those gorgeous brown eyes of his until she told him every damn thing about the mess of her home life. Wait. Gorgeous brown eyes? The guy was a suspect in their best friend’s murder and she was thinking about his damn eyes? What was wrong with her? This was Jay’s fault. He’d always been able to glide his way into her mind...and body.

  Well, not anymore. She was a cop. A detective. There was no way he would slide under her radar if he was guilty. No matter how much she wanted him to be innocent.

  The tension inside the car grew. Silence stretched like an invisible blanket, covering them with its heavy weight. Cat sensed Jay was waiting for her to say something. She would not tell him about her mum. It was none of his business. Sarah was their business. The only business they would ever share. She’d find the killer and then go home. Case closed.

  “What’s going on, Cat? Talk to me.”

  She turned, prayed to God her face was impassive. “Mum’s fine. I don’t know why you think she isn’t.”

  Their gazes locked. The dangerous intensity of Jay’s eyes burned into her, pinning her with accusation. He turned back to the road. “Fine. Later I’ll tell you about Sarah’s phone call and you can tell me about Julia...or not. Entirely up to you.”

  Cat snapped her gaze back to the side window, hating him for making her afraid to talk, loving him for wanting to listen. “This is about Sarah, not me. You should tell me everything because it’s morally right that you do. What I choose to tell you is entirely my decision because it’s personal.”

  Silence burned as distrust grew. How was he supposed to understand that to tell him anything about her mum would mean betraying her? Jay’s memories of Julia would be forever tarnished. He still remembered her as the beautiful, generous and model-happy mum who came to the Cove each year. A big part of Cat didn’t want that to change, not after everything he’d done to reclaim his life after the horror of addiction. It wouldn’t be right to thrust him back into that world.

  Sitting straighter in her seat, she cleared her throat. “Let’s
go to the forest. I want to see where she was found.” And your reaction to being there.

  They traveled the rest of the way to Clover Point in silence. The journey gave Cat the time she needed to get her emotions under control and refocus on the professional challenges ahead. They were about to see where their friend was killed. Would it help the case or just stir up bigger and deeper pain? Either way, she needed to see what Sarah saw, try to get a feeling or a theory about what brought her friend there that fatal day.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jay pulled to a stop outside the cabin and they got out of the car. His gaze met hers over the roof.

  “Do you want to go straight down there?”

  Cat looked down the hill toward the forest and the location of Sarah’s murder. “Probably best. No part of me wants to do this, so delaying it will only make it worse.”

  He gave a sympathetic smile and gestured her to come around the car. “Come on. I’ll hold your hand.”

  She glared. “I don’t want you to hold my hand.”

  “Well, I do, so too bad.” He frowned. “Let’s get through this part together and then we’ll talk about the phone call. No more lies. But, for God’s sake, let me be here for you when we do this.”

  Need for his strength pressed down traitorously on Cat as she walked around the car. She slid her hand into his and it fit like it always did. Their gazes met and as much as she wanted to hold on to her anger, Cat felt it falter. He had to be innocent. He just had to.

  Together they began the descent toward the forest. The heat of his skin against hers and the warmth of familiarity hitched her heart. She was walking to the site of her friend’s murder with the only man she’d ever loved. The cruelty of it prickled at the back of her eyes.

  They walked on, the only sounds the crunch of grass beneath their feet and the cry of the occasional seagull overhead. All too soon they came to a stile separating the edge of Jay’s land and the publicly owned forest at its edges. Cat’s mind rushed with images of Sarah as a young girl chasing waves and screaming happily along the Cove’s sandy beach. Another of them sitting side by side toasting marshmallows on the veranda of the holiday home Cat’s family rented every year. Another with Sarah leaning close to her ear and asking if she thought one of them would end up marrying their hunky friend, Jay Garrett.

  Sadness threatened and Cat blinked, forcing herself to refocus. “How far in was she found?” Her gaze centered on the thicket of trees in front of them, darker than night and twice as cold.

  “A good way,” he said, quietly. “I couldn’t have seen anything from the house.”

  She squeezed his fingers. He squeezed back. Drawing in a long breath, she pushed the hair back from her face with a trembling hand. She was angry with him and he with her. More and more, Cat’s emotional resources drained away and if Jay was innocent in all this, he deserved so much more than she had to give. Whatever happened, she and he would never work.

  “Once we find her killer, we’ll both feel stronger.”

  His quiet confidence whispered between them and Cat met his somber gaze. Her fingers itched to touch his face and her lips suddenly wanted to feel his, warm and soft against hers. She closed her eyes.

  “I just wish I’d come back to the Cove before this. Come back to see Sarah...and you. To have you both near me again. Time is so precious.”

  “Then stay.”

  She snapped her eyes wide open. “What?”

  “Stay after we nail the bastard who did this. Take some time off and spend it with me. I want you here.”

  She slid her hand from his and turned her back to him to stare at the forest. “How can you say that to me now? After everything...” Cat crossed her arms and the view blurred as injustice bounced from the trees surrounding them. “I might have wanted you to be more than my one-time lover once upon a time, but that was over seven years ago. Even without Sarah’s death, things are so different now. For both of us.”

  “And because of that, it’s wrong to explore what might or might not have happened if you had come back after your dad died? Or if I had come after you?”

  She shook her head and prayed the tears in her eyes didn’t spill over. “We’re both in an emotionally raw state and any attraction either of us might be feeling has a lot more to do with a longing for a time gone by than with anything real or lasting. Our friend has been murdered, it’s understandable that we would look to each other—”

  “How can you say that?” He came behind her and cupped her elbows. “It’s always been us. Time got in the way. The tragedy of your father’s death meant you never came back, but neither of us wanted what happened to stop at one night. We’re meant to be...”

  He stopped and the weight of his chin rested on the top of her head. Cat closed her eyes. A lone tear escaped over her cheek. “We’re meant to be what?”

  “We’re meant to be Cat and Jay. Jay and Cat.”

  She smiled and swiped at a fallen tear, her heart aching. “That’s not enough, and you know it.” She turned around and tipped her head back to look into his eyes. She touched her fingertips to his jaw. “Right now is Sarah’s time. When this investigation is over, we’re going to say our goodbyes and go back to our normal lives, content in the knowledge Sarah can rest in peace, okay?”

  His gaze bore into hers before dropping to her lips. “If you think we can really do that, kiss me.”

  She pulled her fingers from his face and stepped back. “What?”

  “I didn’t think so. You’re more scared of what could happen if we kissed than you are of going in that forest. You’re more scared of this feeling between us than you are of catching a killer. I’m innocent, and I don’t believe you really think what is between us is so unfounded it can be ignored.”

  “Jay—”

  He held up his hand and nodded toward the forest. “So, let’s do this. Let’s take this next step to finding justice for a girl who meant so much to both of us. Then maybe you’ll be ready to talk about you and me.”

  Fear, mixed with a strange joy that he still wanted her, skittered along the surface of her skin. Try as she might to quash it, Cat relished its sensation for the briefest time before reality crushed it to dust. Even if he was innocent, he was an addict. How could she contemplate a relationship with an addict when her mum was already destroying every ounce of love in her heart? But knowing she meant something to him mattered so much. She could go back to Reading and replace a little of her self-esteem at least.

  As they walked deeper into the forest, the year-round smell of rotting vegetation, pine needles and damp assaulted Cat’s nostrils. The second the darkness enveloped them, her cop instincts rushed into her blood, pumping adrenaline through her veins, putting her conversation with Jay to the back of her mind.

  Beneath their feet, the foliage grew thick and then sparse in places. Above them, the trees’ branches were a near-solid canopy of every shade of green, punctuated by pinholes of bright light from the afternoon sun. Her hand slipped from Jay’s as she turned three hundred and sixty degrees. She scanned the circumference.

  “Bennett puts the time of death between six and nine in the evening,” she said. “It wouldn’t have been pitch black in here during that time. It would’ve been half-light even if it was closer to nine. I can’t imagine anyone coming in here at that time of night unless the prize was incredibly worthwhile. Or they were doing something illegal or immoral.”

  “Or both.”

  “Exactly.” She met his eyes. How
much did she tell him? The shaky barrier between them wobbled. She needed to see his eyes, read his thoughts. The only way to curb the ugly thoughts of Jay being capable of murder was to feed him tidbits of information and watch him react. She blew out a breath. “Bennett suggested something about a drug connection, but not in the way we thought. Sarah wasn’t using but he thinks she might have been handling money.”

  He stared, his eyes wide with disbelief. “Drug money? That’s no more likely than if she was actually taking the stuff.” He fisted his hands on his hips and glanced around. “What the hell had she gotten into, Cat?”

  Cat searched his face for that glimmer of knowing, a hint of guilt. Something. Nothing but disgust looked back at her. Jay didn’t believe Sarah could be involved in the drug world any more than she did. Or at least, didn’t want to.

  She followed his gaze. “We have to take this drug connection seriously. First there were the rumors, and now with what Bennett says, it seems as if there could be some truth to them. We have to find out who she knew who used, bought or sold drugs.”

  Silence. His back was turned and Cat’s nerves trembled. “Jay?”

  “What?”

  “Where did you hang out when you were using?”

  He tipped his head back and huffed out a laugh. “Do you know how much I hate hearing you ask me that?”

  Cat reached out to grip his forearm. The muscles tensed like twisted rope beneath her fingers. “Jay, look at me.”

  He dipped his chin. “What?”

  “I’m not asking you to insult you or bring back memories you’d rather forget. It’s somewhere for us to start, somewhere Bennett might not know anything about. Your experience could give us a head start. I want Sarah’s killer found by whomever, but it would be closure for us both if we found him.”

  “I get that.”

  “Then tell me. This is a murder investigation. It’s not fair to make me feel unable to ask you questions, not when Sarah’s killer is out there and you want me to believe your innocence.” Guilt scratched at Cat’s conscience. Her questions weren’t entirely steeped in Sarah but in him, too. But this was necessary. She had to do this.