by Marci Bolden
She couldn’t be sure if they’d been sexually assaulted or abused in any way until she met with Joshua the next morning, but she hadn’t seen any obvious signs of abuse—beyond being buried alive.
If they were replacements for Susan in Pearson’s mind, why would he have been so quick to kill them? And so horrifically.
She picked up the photo of Susan she’d pulled from the landscaper’s website.
“This doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s not going to help,” Jack said quietly, startling Holly.
She looked up. “The drink or the obsessing?”
“The talking to yourself.”
She shook her head. “I feel like we’re missing something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. If Pearson was so damned infatuated with Susan, why did he bother with Julia and Penelope? Why didn’t he just go for Susan? She was right there.”
“Don’t try to understand how minds like that work, Hol. You’ll make yourself crazy trying.”
“But we have to understand, Jack, or we won’t be able to stop the next one like him.”
He gestured to the bottle she’d forgotten she’d pulled from the cabinet. “How much have you had to drink?”
“Not enough.”
Walking around the table, he picked up the bottle and swallowed a mouthful before setting it down and wrapping his arms around her. Resting his chin on her shoulder, he looked at the papers. “What doesn’t make sense?”
“Why would he kill them so quickly? If they were a stand-in for the woman he wanted, why get rid of them so fast?”
“You don’t know what his feelings are for Susan. Maybe she misinterpreted his interest in her as sexual when he really just wanted to put her in a box and hear her scream.”
She stiffened at the image he’d just created and then reached for the bottle herself. She swallowed and exhaled as the liquor burned down to her belly. “Maybe Susan wasn’t his fixation.”
“Maybe not. Maybe she was a stand-in as well. Someone hurt him who he’s trying to hurt back.”
A chill ran through her at the thought of what he would have had to go through to turn him into something so damned demonic. Turning, she slid her arms around Jack’s waist and buried her face in his chest. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d actively sought comfort, but this case was getting to her. And not just because she hadn’t saved Julia Fredrickson. There was pure evil in the way the women had died that she could have gone her entire life without witnessing.
Jack hugged her back and kissed her head, sending a bit of warmth to the parts of her that seeing those dead women had chilled. She leaned back and met his gaze.
“What’s happening here?” she whispered.
“We’re trying to make sense out of pure insanity in the middle of the night,” he said back just as quietly.
“No. Here. Between us. What is this?” She closed her eyes as she realized how that must have sounded. “I’m not trying to trap you, Jack.”
“I know. You’re too independent to need to trap anyone.”
“I just don’t understand what we’re doing.”
“Me either.”
She started to step away. “I’m sorry. I’m a bit unsettled.”
Jack pulled her back to him. “With good reason. What we saw out there…that would unsettle anyone.”
“I’ve seen worse. Soldiers ripped apart by IEDs. Kids caught in the crossfire.”
“That was war, Holly. This isn’t war. Julia and Penelope weren’t at war. Susan wasn’t at war. As far as what’s happening with us, I don’t know”—he kissed her again before leaning back—“but I like it.”
She smiled at his confession. “Me too. I just worry…”
“What?”
“When this is over and we’ve come to terms with this case and moved on to another, are we still going to feel this connected?”
He cupped her face and brushed his thumbs over her cheeks. “I’m not going to make you promises about what the future may or may not hold, but I will tell you that right now, all I want in this world is to be with you.”
Digging her fingertips into his hips, she inhaled slowly and then exhaled as much of the negativity clouding her heart as she could. She pushed away the images of what she’d seen in the park. She pushed away the reservations she had about letting her guard down. She let go of that last little bit of self-preservation that she always held on to—that bit of control she always refused to give up—and she let in the warmth that had been trying to surround her since the moment she’d met Jack.
Something about him felt so right, as if she’d been waiting for him all her life but never knew he was missing.
Pressing her lips to his, she let the light kiss linger. For once, she didn’t want to consume him or bend him to her will. She wanted to be there with him, to feel him with her. She wanted him to make her feel something beyond the need to be in control.
As he tended to do, he seemed to read her mind.
Following her lead, he kissed her tenderly instead of indulging in their usual fit of passion. He lightly ran his hand over her hair, touching her as if she might break. And part of her felt ready to. She’d forced herself to be strong for so long that letting even just a bit of that go exposed all the cracks she’d been hiding most of her life.
Some surge of emotion she couldn’t quite explain welled inside her, causing her chest to tighten. Gasping from the shock of it, she turned her head from him, resting her forehead on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her, encircling her in the cocoon of his warmth, and she felt another layer of her strength give way.
“Jack,” she whispered, surprised at how her voice cracked with that unnamed feeling taking over her.
He hushed her as he threaded his fingers in her hair. Gently pulling her head back, he met her gaze before he put his mouth to hers.
Holly clenched her hands into tight fists to fight the urge to take the lead. She needed to trust him to give her what she needed. Deep inside, she knew he could if she’d just let him.
Jack used her hair to again pull her head back, this time exposing her neck. Holly bit her lip, her nerves coming to life as he dragged his hands down her body. Gripping her thighs, he lifted her and carried her to the bedroom. Moments later, he eased her onto her bed.
Her instinct to grab him and have her way kicked in, but she gripped the blankets and forced it down as he moved his mouth lower, nipping at her flesh along the neckline of her tank top. He slid the strap down, freed her breast, and flicked his tongue over her nipple before lightly sinking his teeth into the nub. The sensation was like a lightning bolt straight to her groin. She gasped, and he repeated the move as he reached between her legs.
Twisting her hands in the sheets, she let go as he easily brought her to climax. She had barely caught her breath before he put his mouth on hers, and then he was pressing against her and easing deep inside. She inhaled as he moved, slowly loving her, and she realized that was the sensation. Love. She felt loved. For the first time since she could remember.
From the protective circle the HEARTS had made to Jack’s gentle touch—this was what had been missing all her life. This sense of love.
The feeling rolled through her and tugged at her heart. She knew he didn’t love her—he couldn’t possibly; he barely knew her. But he could. Someday. And she could love him. And they could have something she’d never had before, and the possibility rocked her core.
Breathing his name, she clung to him as he made love to her. She closed her eyes, riding the sensations he was bringing out in her. He brushed her tears away when they fell and whispered in her ear that everything was going to be okay.
And she believed him.
14
Holly pulled her suit coat a bit more tightly around her as she entered the chilly morgue. She called out to Joshua, but he didn’t respond. She didn’t have to ask why. He was bouncing his head to whatever indie folk music was blaring from his earbuds as he st
udied the file he had sprawled on the desk. She smirked when he jolted as she dropped a box of doughnuts in his line of sight.
He yanked the earbuds free. “I hate when you do that.”
“It’s not my fault you try to block out the sounds of silence by destroying your hearing.”
“I never listen to my music higher than seventy decibels.”
She tilted her head at the sheer nerdiness of his response, but he was too busy digging for his breakfast to notice. Easing his coffee down, she looked at the table where the body everyone had accepted to be Julia Fredrickson was covered with a white sheet. “Have you had a chance to examine her yet?”
“Just a preliminary.”
“Sexual assault?”
“Hard to tell with her body in the stage of decomp, but we did collect evidence from the second body. I’ll know more after further testing.”
Holly’s stomach knotted and her throat tightened, but she forced her face to remain neutral and her mind to stay in the present as she ignored the echoes of her mother’s screaming bouncing through her memory.
“And by the estimated time of death, she was in that coffin not long after disappearing.”
Creasing her brow, she looked at Joshua. “So he kidnapped her, assaulted her, and almost immediately buried her alive?”
“That’s what I’m guessing, but I haven’t done a full examination, Holly. This is all preliminary.”
She lifted her hand before he could go off on one of his tangents about how detailed his work needed to be. “I know. I get it. We assumed Penelope was a replacement for Julia, but if she’d been dead that long, there was quite a bit of time before he broke down and took another victim.”
He set his doughnut aside, wiped his fingers on his pants, and flipped to a page in the file. “He buried her with the intent of her suffering. She had no life-threatening wounds.”
“We saw in the video she went with him willingly, under duress perhaps, but he didn’t physically assault her to get her into his vehicle.”
“But do you believe she got in the coffin willingly?”
“Maybe he drugged her. Do you have a tox screen?”
“Pending.”
Of course it was. He hadn’t even had the bodies for twelve hours yet, and he’d slept for at least a few of those.
“Sorry. I wasn’t pressing—”
“Yes, you were. And it’s okay. I get it. Eva said this case is taking a toll on you.”
Holly tilted her head again. “I thought you two weren’t talking.”
He shrugged. “We check in on each other every now and then.” He sighed when she lifted a brow at him. “Okay, she just wanted me to know that you were taking this case to heart and if I could speed things along, it would help you out.”
She offered him a slight smile. “It would.”
“I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. Hell of a case.”
She nodded. “Yeah. This one’s going to stick with all of us for a while. Will you call me when you get anything new?”
“Of course. Thanks for breakfast.”
She snagged one of the doughnuts. “You’re welcome.”
Jack dropped the remote control on the plush carpet as he stared up at the ceiling. This sucked. He should be out trying to solve a case, not watching the cable news channel cycle stories over and over. Then the image of Penelope Nelson flashed through his mind and reminded him how he’d failed to solve that particular case.
Sitting up, he rested his forehead in his palms and exhaled heavily. He couldn’t sit here all day doing nothing. He’d lose his mind. Checking his watch, he decided he had just enough time to shower before going to HEARTS to drag Holly out to an early lunch.
He had no doubt she was reliving the scene from the park the night before as well.
Pushing himself off the sofa, he headed for the bathroom and started the shower. While the water warmed, he trimmed his facial hair and rinsed the sink. As much time as he was spending at her place, he wondered if he should buy a backup to keep in her bathroom.
He smiled as the idea struck him. It was probably a bit soon to be thinking along those lines, but being with her was as natural to him as breathing, and they’d easily fallen into whatever it was they were doing. Jack shook his head as he stepped into the shower and rinsed off. He’d actually already taken a shower with Holly before she left for work that morning, but that’d been more about pleasure than cleanliness.
He stuffed some spare clothes into a bag, intent on staying with her yet again, and headed for the door. He didn’t even bother getting his toothbrush—he’d already left a spare at her place. The realization of that made him laugh softly. He suspected she hadn’t noticed or else she would have pushed back—made him take that little bit of himself home. Or maybe she had and by not saying anything, she was saying everything. Maybe she felt as content in this newfound companionship as he did.
Tossing the straps of his bag over his shoulder, Jack made sure all the lights were out before leaving. He trotted down the stairs and out of the building to his assigned parking spot. Opening the trunk with the push of a button on his fob, he dropped the bag inside and started whistling as he anticipated where to take Holly for lunch.
“Detective Tarek?”
Jack spun, his defenses on high alert as he came face-to-face with Eric Fredrickson. He instinctively reached for his hip, but there was no gun. Before he could defuse what he suspected was about to become an ugly confrontation, pain shot through his head. White light flashed before his eyes, and then everything went black.
Holly frowned as she ended the call without leaving a message for Jack. It was early yet, but she’d hoped he’d come over and look over a few cases with her. He didn’t have to tell her he was upset about being on unpaid leave from the police department. She knew he was, and she wanted to stop him from spending his time fixating on that.
He was right. She could use him at HEARTS. And she could use the distraction from dwelling on her disappointment at losing a client.
“Losing a client?” she whispered to herself. “You didn’t lose her, Holly. She died.”
“Hey,” Eva said, sticking her head into Holly’s office.
Holly hoped Eva hadn’t heard her talking to herself. The last thing she needed right now was a mental health check. Hell, she’d probably fail at that, too.
“Fredrickson is back. He wants to see you.”
Holly frowned. She’d known she’d have to face him again sometime, but she wasn’t quite ready yet. “Great.”
“He’s calmer today.”
She nodded and reached into her desk drawer for an envelope. She’d written a check from her personal account to repay him for the money he’d wasted by entrusting her to find Julia. She wasn’t going to take that money from HEARTS when it was her fault, so she’d decided to tighten her personal belt for the next few months and repay him herself.
Her stomach knotted as she entered the lobby. She didn’t know if the police would have given him details by now. Did he know his wife had likely been raped before being buried alive? Holly remembered her father’s reaction to the news. He’d broken down. And she didn’t think he’d ever put himself back together.
She was a kid, so she didn’t know how much that had to do with losing his wife, but considering he’d had Holly enrolled in self-defense classes within a few weeks of her mother’s death and he had constantly warned her to never go anywhere alone, she suspected his wife’s rape had just as much, if not more, impact on him.
She imagined Fredrickson would take the news just as hard.
Before he even spoke, she noted how nervous he appeared. He looked disheveled. A streak of dirt marred his forehead, and his hair—which was usually immaculate even when he’d been stressed over his missing wife—stood on end in several places. He dragged his hand over his head, and Holly noticed the dirt under his fingernails.
“Mr. Fredrickson?” she asked hesitantly.
He finally noticed her and
wiped the same dirty hand over his face. “I, uh… I shouldn’t have come here like I did last night.”
“It’s okay. I know how upset you are.”
“Do you?” he asked quietly. “I, um…I haven’t been able to think of anything except how she died. How frightened she must have been. Locked in that coffin. No way out. How painful it had to be to die like that.”
Holly lowered her gaze. She’d imagined Julia’s last moments more than once herself. “I’m so sorry. I want you to know that we did everything we could—”
“But it wasn’t enough, was it?”
Ouch.
“Hey,” Eva started, but Holly lifted her hand and stopped her.
“I wish things had ended differently,” Holly said.
“You mean you wish you’d found her before she died alone in a box, wondering when help would come.”
“Yes,” Holly said after taking a moment to process the intent of Fredrickson’s jab. He had to know Julia had been dead long before he’d even hired Holly. She wasn’t going to argue with him, though. He was grieving and didn’t need to be pushed at the moment. “Yes, I wish I would have found her sooner.”
“So do I.”
“Mr. Fredrickson, I know losing someone you love to a senseless act of violence is difficult—”
“Do you?”
“Yes. I do. And the next few days, as you make arrangements for her, are going to be incredibly difficult. My team and I…well, if there is anything we can do, anything you need assistance with—”
He scoffed. “Let me guess. You’ll do your best to help me. Just like you did your best to help Julia.”
She lowered her head for a moment, letting his anger roll off her shoulders before meeting his gaze again. “I know it’s hard to see right now, but someday I hope you will realize that I did do my best for Julia.”
“Too bad it wasn’t enough.” Looking into Holly’s eyes, he drew a breath. “I hope you do better for him.”
Holly creased her brow. “Who?”
Fredrickson pulled something from the pocket of his shirt and held it out to her. She set aside the envelope she’d been holding as she accepted the one he handed her. As he did, she noticed the sweat stains that left the material around the man’s armpits a few shades darker than the rest of his shirt, along with more streaks of dirt.
