28 Days: a romantic suspense (9 page)

The sad thing was that no one had come close to removing the longing he still had for her, and that pissed him off.

She was down the hall from where he was, and just the thought of her so close caused his breath to quicken. It was ridiculous after all the years that had passed, but she’d always had that affect on him.

At first Christina reminded him of Jocelyn, but then he’d gotten to know her and she was anything but.

When they’d first made love, she came across as shy and inexperienced, but that had soon changed. She’d taken him to heights of pleasure that he’d never experienced before...and then crushed him like a fly.

No matter how ridiculous it was, he wanted Christina to stand by his side when Quinten had been arrested, but she’d laid the blame at Quinten’s feet, just like everyone else.

Alex yanked his jeans up his legs and fastened the zipper, he nearly broke the thing with how much anger he had inside of him.

He needed to control it, especially when he heard a tap on the door. It could be one of two people—Saige or Christina, but his money was on the latter.

Expecting Christina, he left off his shirt, and undid the button at the top of his pants. He’d let her see just what she’d thrown away.

When he opened the door, he wasn’t surprised and stepped back so she could enter. His pulsed hammered in his ears as she nervously walked past him, and he allowed his eyes to follow her.

Christina was of medium height with white blonde hair. Her shapely figure was covered in a strappy sundress that molded to her ample assets. He licked his lips and let her imagine the dirty thoughts running through his mind. In fact, if she could see inside his head, she’d run as though her backside was on fire.

He grinned and placed his hands on his hips, drawing her gaze to the erection he’d gotten remembering what it was like to be with her.

He was an idiot.

He never had trouble getting hard when she was close. Even just the thought of her would do it for him. But as Christina moved closer, he knew if he chose to
have
her, she would be his for the taking. Seeing her again, Alex knew that it would happen, but this time it would be on his terms.

She stopped in front of him and, lowering her lashes, pouted with her plump, red lips.

He couldn’t look away, he was a sucker for red lips, especially when they were wrapped around his throbbing length.

Just that thought had pre-ejaculate leaking from the tip that jumped in readiness.

“No!” he growled and backed away.

“You’re going to be inside me, sooner rather than later. You know you will.” She matched his movements, constantly staying in touching distance. “You used to love being with me.”

“No way.”

Sadness briefly crossed her eyes before she blinked and it was gone. “Yes.” She quickly reached out and grabbed him through his pants, and his treacherous flesh throbbed. “You can’t dispute the
hard
evidence.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to blame Saige for his arousal, but he didn’t want Christina doing a complete reverse, because then he’d be the one having to chase and he never chased. Ever. But why exactly did he want to be with her again in the first place? Old times’ sake? Some sick part of him that didn’t care what she’d done? Loneliness? She was a sexy woman, but underneath she could be cold and calculating.

Before the witch hunt for his brother had started, he liked and respected the Lockwoods, but all that had changed when they’d gone after Quinten. At one point during the trial, he’d gone to Christina to try and convince her that they had the wrong man locked away. She’d listened and had started to tell him something when Richard had appeared. Her whole demeanor had changed, and within seconds, he’d been shown the door.

He often wondered what Christina would have said or done had Richard not appeared when he had.

“You want this”—she jacked him through his pants—“inside me just as much as I want you there. That hasn’t changed in eight years.” She offered him a smirk.

“I said no.” He knocked her hand away and ignored the hurt that crossed her face at his abrupt dismissal.

What the heck did she expect after how she treated him and his brother?

He fastened the button on his pants and prowled toward her. “No.”

Christina was startled by his abrupt rejection, so Alex smiled and backed her into the wall behind her. He trapped her there, his arms on either side of her head. “Richard is a handsome man, he works out…so tell me, why did you come in here wanting me?” He leaned close and breathed her in with a caress down the side of her neck.

She shivered in reaction, and his arousal throbbed behind his zipper as her scent traveled into his lungs.

“I...I missed you,” she whispered, tears forming in her eyes.

Were her tears for his benefit? He’d be angry if they were.

Alex slid his hand over her bottom and cupped her over the material of her dress. “The next time you come to me, for this”—he rotated his hips against her belly—“be warned.” He pressed down between the cheeks of her bottom with his fingers. “This is what I’ll take.”

Christina gasped and then moaned when he did another rotate with his hips. “You’re playing with me,” she accused, her complexion pale.

It wasn’t a question, more of an observation on her part, but he always had to have the last word. “I haven’t even started”—he moved a breath away from her lips—“to play with you yet.”

Her eyes darkened and he knew he had her, so he quickly backed off and watched as she sagged against the wall. She stared at him and all he felt at that moment was her sadness.

A tear ran down her face. She shoved away from the wall, put her shoulders back and glared at him. “Nothing will ever happen between us.” Her hands shook as she smoothed the hair from her face, and turned on her heels.

Once she made it to the door, he called, “Oh, Christina.”

She paused and turned her head to look back at him, her eyes widened when she focused on the hand he slipped inside his pants.

Oh she’d be back!

“Once you’ve admitted the lies you told eight years ago, this”—he cupped himself and made sure the tip of his erection showed above the zipper—“will be yours.” He offered her a smug grin as she quietly closed the door behind herself, but not before he noticed the sadness in her eyes.

He frowned and wondered. Christina had acted like the wounded party as she left and that troubled him. He’d been an ass, but he wasn’t going to be dragged under her spell again.

He was only in her home for Quinten, and his brother had to come first. And then, maybe, he’d uncover what was really going on with Christina, because although she looked the same, she wasn’t the same woman he remembered.

1
:30am

“
W
e really need
to stop meeting like this, Detective,” Amber mumbled.

Coulter noticed a softness around Amber’s eyes when she met his gaze, which reminded him of earlier when she’d been in his arms.

She was the first to clear her throat. “I’m glad you decided against Port Jude today...yesterday,” she corrected as the new day had started over an hour ago.

“I’m not too sure.” He frowned and watched as Amber bent to unzip the black body bag.

He crouched opposite and got his first glimpse of the victim. His stomach rolled.

No matter how many years he’d been a cop, he’d never gotten used to seeing death. Now was no different as he looked down at the young woman.

“What do you have?” he asked, feeling his forty-eight years.

Amber quickly glanced at him, concern etched on her features.

“I’m fine,” he mumbled.

“Debatable, but I’ll accept that for now.” Amber pointed at the woman’s neck. “I was going with ligature strangulation as the cause of death, until we got her ready to go in the bag. But”—Amber pointed to the front of the girl’s neck—“he nearly decapitated her.”

“Fuck,” Coulter cursed, feeling sick to his stomach. He closed his eyes and was about to take a deep inhale…

“Don’t,” Amber snapped. “Trust me. You do not want to inhale right now.”

“These fuckers make me sick.”

“I know.” She rested her hands on her knees. “He used some sort of garrote, and my guess would be something like a fishing line, which is thin and strong.”

“Why are you guessing a fishing line?”

She offered a wry smile and held up her left hand, wiggling her ring finger. “Years ago I got a fishing line stuck around my finger. Very nearly lost half of it, which is how I became an ME instead of a surgeon…Fishing lines are dangerous, and cause more than just superficial damage…they can be lethal. Obviously, I’ll know more once I’ve done the autopsy, but that’s my guess.”

He nodded, tempted to wrap his hand around her delicate wrist to bring her finger to his mouth. Closing his eyes, he tried to get his mind back on the case. The victim needed his attention not his distraction.

“Was she raped?” he asked, knowing that would clear his mind and lust from the woman in front of him, for now at any rate.

“She’s had sex within twenty-four hours of death, and that includes anal intercourse.” Amber wouldn’t meet his gaze as she continued, “I don’t think she was raped though. There would have been more damage to her pubic area if she had been. My guess is that the sex was consensual.”

“Any identification?”

“She was found naked, and so far no belongings have been recovered. Nothing. You can see where she was found, and there’s nothing. Whoever did this made sure the area was clean.” Amber stood and stretched out the kinks. “We may get lucky, but I’m not holding my breath.”

Standing, Coulter watched Amber as she rubbed at her back, and he longed to be the one to rub out the knots for her.

Amber caught him staring and for a minute, held his gaze, her longing clear to see. He started to reach for her when she stepped back and cleared her throat.

Claire, her assistant, appeared and cast a glance between the two of them. She grinned and grabbed a bag from the ground. “I’ll load this up, and come back.”

Amber rolled her eyes and grinned. “I’ll have a quick look at her when we get her back to the morgue to see if I can give you a definitive answer about what was used around her neck.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

He watched as Amber bent and zipped the body bag closed, and he felt a sharp pain in his chest at the loss of a young woman, and in such a violent way.

Not only was he weary with the early mornings and late nights, but he was also tired of seeing death. For years, his job had fulfilled him. He was good at following a trail to get the answers he needed, and that was why the case up in Port Jude had always bothered him. He’d always felt that some of his questions hadn’t been answered to his satisfaction.

It pissed him off that he was only now discovering the relationship between Saige and Quinten. It would have thrown more light on to Quinten’s actions, even though he didn’t think the jurors would have looked at the evidence any differently. DNA didn’t lie, but Quinten had always admitted to bleeding all over the shack. When he was found, his arm had required a lot of stitches. The unidentified DNA sat on his mind during the case and trial, but he finally put that to rest years ago.

He rubbed his forehead and let his eyes roam over an equally tired Amber. She stepped close to him and looked up so that she could meet his gaze. The top of her head only came up to his chin, but the way she looked at him made him feel a lot of things he shouldn’t.

Without a thought, he curved his hand behind her neck and lowered his head. His lips caressed along the seam of hers, and although he was tempted to deepen the kiss at the sound of the small whimper from her, he kept it light, remembering where they were.

Smiling, he dropped his forehead to hers. “Have coffee with me later.”

The sight of her tongue slipping between her lips to moisten them drew his gaze, and a groan from him.

He closed his eyes, and snapped them open when he felt a hand on his chest.

“Seven,” she whispered. “I’ll message you the address.” Amber reached up and pecked him on the cheek before making her way to the ME’s van.

Coulter shook his head, ran his hand down his weary face, and turned back to look at the crime scene. Only then did he notice that Amber and he had an audience when the search for evidence suddenly continued.

David broke away and moved closer, a grin on his craggy old face. The man had been in the department for years before Coulter had started and had aged well. So well, in fact, that no one even knew his age.

“I lost the bet,” he grumbled, amusement on his face.

“Bet?” Coulter raised a brow in question.

“Yep. That lot over there had a bet going as to who would be the one to make the first move. We all said she would. Your captain said you would.” He shook his head. “I hate losing.”

“I hadn’t thought it was that obvious.”

“Are you kidding me? The minute she was around, your eyes would glaze over before you’d pull yourself together...it’s been fun, and I can’t wait to see the rest.” David wandered off and Coulter was left wondering if he was the only one to not know about the bet. Did Amber?

“You’re damn lucky.”

Coulter turned at the voice and frowned when Steve, one of the forensic techs approached. “The bomb on your truck had faulty wiring, otherwise it would have exploded the minute you turned the key.” Steve shrugged. “The full report is with your captain, but I figured you’d want to know.”

“Thanks. Any prints?” he mumbled.

“No.”

He had a feeling that everything connected together and that it would lead him back to Quinten Peterson. He just needed to figure out how to connect the dots.

9
:00am

O
ne thing Saige
loved about being home was that she didn’t have to cook for herself. She wasn’t exactly bad at it, but it was nice to take a break, more so considering she was usually around the diner waiting on tables.

Pattie, her father’s cook, was a delight and had worked for him for around twenty-five years. She loved to mother Saige, and Saige had never objected, as her own mother had died when she was just three years old. Christina had always felt more like an older sister than anything. Her stepmom hadn’t exactly been mean to her, and with age, Saige thought that maybe Christina had just been awkward and not known how to communicate with her since Saige hadn’t exactly been welcoming after having her father to herself for years. It had been a shock when, at thirteen, she found herself with a twenty-six year old stepmother.

Smiling now though, Saige came back to the present and watched Alex load his plate to bursting with eggs, sausage, bacon, fried tomatoes, hash browns and, let’s not forget, the biscuit.

Saige laughed when he caught her watching and offered her a cheesy grin. She shook her head and selected scrambled eggs and a slice of toasted rye bread.

“Morning,” Christina mumbled, taking her usual seat at the table. She looked like she hadn’t slept well.

She was still beautiful, even with tiredness clouding her face. Not the kind of tired from lack of sleep, but the kind a person gets when they’ve completely had enough of life.

Saige frowned while Christina served herself a small spoon of fresh fruit, and then shook the thoughts from her mind and asked Alex, “Sleep well?”

“Surprisingly, I did.” Alex swallowed a mouthful of food. “I didn’t think I would, but I had a lot taken out of me last night, so I slept like a baby.” He grinned and glanced at Christina.

Saige raised a brow, especially when her stepmom gave him a startled look before she focused on her breakfast and ignored them.

Alex caught Saige’s silent question and gave a slight shake of his head, which she’d have missed if she hadn’t been looking.

“Christina,” Saige waited for her stepmom to meet her gaze before continuing. “Can we talk to you and Dad about what happened to me?”

Christina’s fork clanged back to the dish, disturbing the silence in the room. She glanced between Alex and Saige before answering. “Depends on what you want to talk about,” she hedged.

Saige got the feeling that her stepmother was very uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going, and that caused her stomach to churn.

Her own breakfast in front of her no longer looked appetizing so she pushed it away. “Christina, not only do I want my memory back, but I want to remember my time with Quinten Peterson. I’m sure you remember him.”

Christina paled and nodded.

“Nothing to say,
Christina?
” Alex sneered looking angry. He slammed his hand on the table and stood. The plates rattled, and Saige thought her stepmom was about to be sick. “My brother is
fucking
innocent. All he ever did was love your stepdaughter, and refuse to fuck you.”

Saige gasped. “What?”

“Forget it,” Alex snapped.

She stared at him, her stomach and thoughts churning at the implications of what Alex had just said. She glanced at Christina who was extremely pale, her gaze focused on the melon ball sitting on her spoon and not on them. “I can’t.” Saige shook her head and grabbed hold of Alex’s wrist to keep him in the room. “What did you mean?”

Christina swallowed a few times and, after she threw her napkin on the table, dashed out of the room.

Alex breathed through his nose and his whole body tensed in anger. “I got angry and spoke out of turn. Leave it, please.” Alex smiled, and took Saige’s fingers from his wrist and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “I’m going to take a walk near the jetty to cool down. Come and find me when you’re ready to head into town.”

Saige nodded and watched him leave while she pondered what the hell his comment about her stepmom meant. Had Christina come on to Quinten? And Alex?

Saige felt like she was the last to know with everything, and she found it frustrating that everyone who knew her had her memories.

“Saige, honey.” Her dad walked into the breakfast room and interrupted her thoughts, but it didn’t remove the frown from her brow.

“Morning, Dad. You’re up late.” She smiled.

“Not really.” Her father helped himself to half a plate of food and a small bowl of fruit before he sat opposite her, instead of his usual seat at the head of the table.

He looked tired as he poured a cup of coffee. His usual dusky blond hair had more than a hint of grey around the temples. He’d been lucky that he hadn’t shown any sign of going grey until he reached fifty. Her father had always been a strong man, and she knew that he still was, but there was now a weariness to him. His square shoulders sagged and the stress around his eyes told her that he worried. Saige had a good guess as to what about, so she decided to get it all out in the open and hoped her father would too.

After Christina and Alex’s reaction to each other, she no longer wanted to wait for everyone to come together. Christina, especially, could wait until Saige got her alone. No way did she want Alex setting her off again.

“Spit it out, Saige.” He offered her a wry smile. “I’ve always been able to tell when you had something on your mind, but didn’t know how to get it out.” He took a sip of his coffee. “You know what I used to say, and you always used to agree with me.”

“
You’ll feel better once you’ve had your say, Saige
,” she mimicked her father from years gone by.

“That’s the one.”

Saige glanced toward the bay window with a view of the water, hoping for courage. “I can’t leave the past alone.”

“I already knew that when you showed up with Alex, which I have to admit, I’m not too happy about.” Her father continued to eat while his eyes stayed focused on her.

“I know you aren’t happy about Alex staying here, but there’s nowhere in town to stay and we’re both doing this together, so staying here made sense.”

“Hmm,” he mumbled and sipped his coffee while watching her over the rim of the steaming brew.

“Why have you never told me about Quinten? About my relationship with him?”

Startled, her father dropped his cutlery as his eyes widened. “You got your memory back?” he asked.

“I wish I did.” Saige dipped her head and then lifted it to look at her father. “Alex is convinced that Quinten didn’t take me, or kill those girls. There is so much that isn’t making sense to me right now. I mean, did I really select him from a lineup of photographs as my abductor? The statement says I did, but that doesn’t seem right to me. When I look at images of Quinten, I don’t feel fear. Shouldn’t it trigger that feeling?”

“Oh, honey. No one mentioned your relationship with him because it could have harmed your recovery. You loved him. As a father, I wanted you well. So I listened to the doctors and refused to let anyone remind you of anything.” Her father pushed his plate away and cradled his cup of coffee in his hands. “I did question his guilt. I spoke with the sheriff, the detective investigating your case, and the district attorney. They were all convinced they had the right man. The detective hesitated to lay the blame at Quinten’s feet and told me so during a private conversation between the two of us. He wasn’t completely sold on Quinten’s guilt, but in the end, he was convicted.