Authors: Cameron Dane
After sitting for an hour, Jace shot up from his chair in the waiting room and tunneled his fingers in his hair. The doctor had already come in, told them that Sarah had regained consciousness, but that he and Jasper would not be able to see her until they ran a number of tests and then situated her in a room where she would spend at least one night for observation. This small waiting area, with no windows, felt like it was closing in on Jace and suffocating him.
He spun to Jasper, who he knew was equally worried about Sarah. Guilt clawed at him, but not even the new worry lines on Jasper's face could penetrate his need. “I'm sorry. I have to get out of here for a while. Can you give me your keys?”
“Look at me.” Jasper stood and grabbed Jace's arm. Knowledge beyond his years lived in his gaze. “Where are you gonna go?”
“I won't go out and drink.” Jace said it easily; he looked into the eyes of a man he cared about more than just a little bit, and the lie rolled right off his tongue. “I promise.”
Jasper handed over his keys but said, “I'm worried as shit about her”—he pointed toward the hallway beyond the small private waiting room—“but I'm tryin' to tell myself she's gonna be okay.” Jasper shifted his shoulders back and stood tall. His gaze didn't waver, and Jace saw before him a quality
man.
“I got enough on my plate right now,” Jasper whispered. “Please don't make me start worryin' about you too.”
“You don't have to worry about me. I promise.” Jace curled his hand around Jasper's neck and leaned down close. “Call me when they'll let us in to see her, and I'll come back.” He pressed a hard kiss to Jasper's forehead, holding there for a moment and absorbing his strength before pulling away. “Bye.”
He left Jasper without looking back.
He had slowed Jasper's truck down as he passed by three bars after leaving the hospital, but that lie he'd found had tripped so easily off his tongue when talking to Jasper was a damn sight harder to turn into reality when faced with getting piss drunk. Jace found he didn't want some bartender calling the station, then whoever took the call contacting Jasper, and Jasper having to leave Sarah to come pick his wasted ass up off the floor. He didn't want news of his getting drunk finding its way to Sarah either.
Pictures of Sarah in the arms of a madman, then lying on the floor crying and getting sick, floated in front of Jace's eyes. He moved to his desk with renewed purpose, and once he got into his e-mail, he typed out a terse note to his best friend.
Get the hell home. Right the fuck now. Someone hurt your sister today, and she's in the hospital. It could have been really bad, and you would have missed seeing her. She wanted you and your mom when she opened her eyes. Understand something, Hunter. My loyalties are no longer to you. They belong entirely to her now. And yes, you goddamn know exactly what that means. If you didn't want it to happen, you should have let me tell her the minute you were sent stateside, and then you should have gotten your ass home the second the VA hospital released you. Come. Home. Now. – Jace
After sending the message, Jace got up from his desk, walked down the hallway, and slipped into the viewing room. From this side of the glass, Max and Carson watched Cade and Duke work. Peter sat opposite them with nobody at his side.
“Where the hell is his lawyer?” Jace asked.
“He is acting as his own counsel,” Max answered with a snort. “Not that it matters.” She put her attention back on the scene inside the interview room, her eyes narrowing. “He's just playing cat-and-mouse games with Cade and the boss anyway. He hasn't confessed to knowing Ginger, let alone Sonya, even with the photo on the kid's cell phone. Juan is looking at what is on his credit cards, at airlines, car rentals, possible gas purchases, and even bus manifests to see if we can uncover a travel plan that preceded Peter showing up on Monday.”
Jace listened to Peter spouting some nonsense about witnessing his first crime in his mind when he was a young teenager. While staring, Jace caught his own haggard features in the reflection of the glass. Frustration, anger, impotence, and pain etched his face, making him look like a stranger.
Or maybe it's the real me; I just don't let anybody see him.
“You won't find it,” Jace said softly, focusing on Peter. “This son of a bitch is too slick to leave a physical trail of something that's completely in his control.” As Jace stared through his own muted likeness to the man on the other side, his skin crawled with the too-vivid memory of
He let himself out of the viewing room and came to a pause at the door to the interview room. While rolling his shoulders to force out the tension, Jace breathed deeply, searched for a center of calm, and didn't move until he knew not so much as a speck of emotion lived on his face. Then he let himself inside.
Duke and Cade both said his name with reprimand in their tone, but Jace didn't respond. He positioned himself in a corner and looked right at Peter Robbins. Jace stared at a monster, looked right into his soulless eyes, and let the pieces of protection he'd just erected around himself outside fall away, one bit at a time, for Peter's amusement, until only the damaged, vulnerable,
pained
man he'd seen in the reflection remained. He watched interest spark in a murderer's gaze, pink heighten the color in his cheeks, and him shift in the chair, letting his legs fall open some.
“You did this to me.” Jace's voice cracked, and he made no attempt to cover it. “You don't start talking”—he let all his pent-up fear and pain show through and used the man's own twisted fetish against him—“I walk away.”
Peter spoke right to Jace. “It's your pain that I love and need, you see.” He said it as if he shared a preference for one kind of cola above another.
“You have it.” Jace let more than his own emotion into his voice; he let what he had absorbed from the victim's family and Beth out of the compartment where he kept it locked away. “Tell me about Ginger.”
“Ginger was incidental.” Peter shrugged. “A means to get to the family who loved her so desperately.”
“How did you know her?”
“I met her in Austin, and we spent a lovely weekend together.” Peter confirmed Max's suspicion. “We kept in touch, although she never knew my real name. Ginger was very chatty”— a faraway smile touched his lips—“and I'm a
very
sympathetic listener. By the end of two days in Austin together, I knew all about her family.” He put his hand to his heart, but his eyes held disturbed glee. “I knew about all the cowboys and about her feelings for a woman that tormented her. Her devoted family already had me hooked, but when she confessed about the secret girlfriend, any doubt I had that she would be my next disappeared.”
Peter slipped his hand under the table and covered his crotch. “My goodness, Deputy. You have no idea how each layer of truth I revealed to Cilla and Howard about their daughter took them to heights of grief I have not experienced in nearly two years. I even found out where Beth lived, and while I could only observe her through a window twice, her devastation carried me to a couple of incredible releases.”
Sickness nauseated Jace, but he forced himself to maintain this bizarre connection Peter felt with him. “Why the elaborate posing after you killed Ginger?”
“I have to make it interesting for you guys,” Peter responded with ease. “It also has to be sensational and distinctive enough that a family will believe a psychic could see it in his or her mind, and that divine assistance will be needed to help solve such a terrible crime. I commend you.” The man spoke as if they were the best of friends. “You didn't fall into the ritual trap the way so many hick towns would. I also believe you uncovered her life of prostitution before it revealed itself to me in a vision when I came to Quinten.” At Jace's raised eyebrows, Peter said, “You're surprised I actually am psychic. I assure you; it's true.”
“So then why do you need to murder women on your own?” Jace felt dirty and naked and on display, but he couldn't leave until they had it all.
“Sometimes I meet people who ignite my need beyond my ability to say no to the hunger,” Peter answered. “Plus, you'd be amazed how many people are murdered that no one cares about one bit.”
“People like Sonya Mayer.”
“A necessary evil.” Again, Peter shrugged. “I took no joy in her death.”
“No one to care about Sonya if she died.” Jace couldn't help the rancor that slipped into his tone. “So no need to make it any more than a simple task of cleaning up a loose end and taking out the garbage. Right?”
“Now you're beginning to understand.”
Jace thought about that poor girl nailed to a tree, and at the same time, sifted through the dozens of conversations he'd listened in on and participated in regarding her murder. “What about your alibi? Was there another necessary evil? Sonya was average size and probably not strong enough to help you with this particular crime on her own. Is there another body we haven't found yet? Maybe a man?” he asked, as more lights in his mind starting flicking on. “Someone who could have used your debit card and bought a movie ticket before joining you here in Montana to help you nail a woman to a tree?”
Peter beamed and clapped. “I was in Montana for almost two weeks before I went home and flew in to aid the grieving family. When I write about you, Deputy, I'm going to be very complimentary.” As he took a sip of his water, he held Jace's gaze over the rim of the paper cup. “Should I include a love scene with your lovely girl and pretty boy?” An aroused hue rushed the whole of his face. “Or can I hope when we meet again there will be yet more pain on your rugged, masculine face?” He flicked out his tongue, licked, the corner of his mouth, and rubbed his hand over his crotch. “I love it most when a big man can't control his sobs.”
With the utmost difficulty, Jace let his wounds remain open and kept his focus on the goal. “Where is the other body?”
“Gone now, I imagine.” He pursed his lips. “I'd much rather talk about the pretty cowboy. Is he here? Is he outside waiting for you?”
“He's at my desk.” Jace lied through his teeth for the second time in an hour and gave the leech some blood to suck. “Where did you put the man who helped you put Ginger on that tree?”
“Farther up the mountain from where you found her.” Peter cocked his head to the side, so very casually, and Jace shivered. “I know you talked to Beth, right here in this building. I followed her here from work, but of course, there was no way I could do more than say hello to the sheriff so that I could see where you took her. She was crying when she left, and I can only assume you got the truth out of her while you had her in this very room. I wanted to get close enough to smell and taste her when she left, but I didn't have an in.”
Another level of intensity burned through Peter and onto Jace, and Jace started to feel insanity touch him deeper than he would be able to wash away.
“Tell me what it was like,” Peter asked. “Tell me how it felt to sit so close to someone who couldn't share her loss with anyone until you broke through.”
“Did you think you were going to pin Ginger's murder on Beth?” Jace asked. Rage about that innocent woman suffering all alone ignited a fuse inside him. “We wouldn't have believed you. Not after you set Ginger up in such an elaborate death scene.”
“Remember, Deputy,” Peter responded with a little smile. “I told you I'm not always able to help solve the crimes I see in my visions. There was no need for you to ever find Ginger's killer; the joy came in slowly sharing more and more about Ginger's secret life with her family. I could have lived for a month on their devastation as I slowly revealed the many cowboys she'd slept with, her love for another woman, and then the delicious prostitution.” Peter's eyes glazed with lust. He squirmed in his chair, and Jace thought the crazy bastard might come on himself again.
I can't do this anymore.
For the first time since entering this room, Jace looked at his boss. “Is that enough?” The feeling of gravel in his throat stripped his words.
Duke nodded. “I'll have the DA from Billings here by the morning.”
Nearly free now, Jace strode across the room and planted his hand on the table right in front of Peter. He leaned in, and menace coated his tone. “Understand something, you son of a bitch. You will not see me again until I am forced to look at you in a courtroom. And trust me, when you do, there will not be a trace of pain on my face. I will not give you so much as a sliver of satisfaction again.” His cell phone rang right then, and he ripped it off his belt, shoving the name in Peter's face. “That will be Jasper calling to tell me that he's going in to see our woman right now.” He took the cell away and slammed the flat of his hand against the table surface, making Peter jump. “I hope it pains
you
like hell to know that she is just fine and will be home with us tomorrow.” Without another word, Jace left the interview room.
Not until the door closed firmly behind him did Jace start shaking so badly, he had to slide down the wall to keep from falling to the floor.
“You guys can't sit here all night; I won't let you.” Sarah shifted her focus back and forth between Jasper and Jace, who flanked her hospital bed. “I know I was a mess at the youth center, but I'm fine now.”
“You got a concussion and stitches.” Jasper brushed his fingers over the dozens of little nicks the glass left on her cheek. The only deep gash was a result of the corner of the frame gouging her right under the temple. “We're allowed to fuss.”
Sarah rolled her eyes at him and then quickly grabbed her head with a moan. “Ouch. I have five little stitches, a ginormous headache, and an evening of looking forward to a nurse waking me up every hour. Seriously.” She twined her fingers in one hand from each man and held them to her breast. “I know you're both beat.” Pulling their hands to her lips, she kissed across the knuckles of each man. “I saw the toll today took on each of you. I want you both to get some sleep and put it out of your heads for a couple of hours. Do it for me, since I know the warden here”—she glared at her door—“isn't going to give me the pleasure.”