Hold on to Me (12 page)

The facts tumbled around in her mind. A sketchy profile was forming, and she didn’t like the picture at all. A narcissist—self-centered, controlling, outwardly charming. A man who hid behind a mask, who smiled and made polite conversation while he put his victim at ease. Women would love him.

A shiver trailed down her spine as she remembered another man who hid behind the friendly mask while he created a delusional fantasy with her as the center. When that fantasy shattered, he’d wanted to destroy her.

He’d succeeded.

What was going to happen if the killer was a cop, was in Tick’s department, and he realized his façade was in danger?

She pushed the thought away. They would find him, stop him before that happened. Eyes closed, she took a deep breath, clearing her mind.

In the adjacent lobby, a phone rang, and she jumped, eyes jerking open. Laughing at her own nerves, she picked up her pace a little.

The memories nudged their way into her unwilling consciousness—his arm crushing her throat, the knife tearing—
carving
—into her abdomen, her mind not accepting the reality.

The glass slammed the reality home—the awful, grinding pain of broken glass slicing the skin of her lower back in a dozen places through her thin silk robe, her grandmother’s crystal vase shattered on the floor, and Fuller’s weight on her as he shoved harder against her throat. And the fury in his eyes, the absolute need to destroy her, made stronger by the fact that she carried a child that wasn’t his. She was
everything
to him, he’d repeated over and over. She was his everything, and she’d dared to want, to give herself to another man.

She shuddered. When had Amy realized what was happening to her? When he grabbed her? When the gravel ground into her skin? When the knife pierced her womb, seeking to destroy the life within? When he smashed his arm against her larynx, cutting off all hope?

She stumbled, grabbing the rails for support while she shut off the treadmill motor. Sudden, stabbing sobs tore at her chest, and she sank onto the nearby weight bench, burying her face in her hands. She identified too easily with Amy Gillabeaux, and if she had any sense at all, she’d tell ADIC Frazer and Tommy Gillabeaux to go to hell and excuse herself from this case. She couldn’t, though. She couldn’t walk away and chance it happening to another unsuspecting woman.

Arms wrapped around her stomach, she cried, hating the weakness of the tears but needing the release. She cried for Amy and for herself, for everything lost. In her mind, she saw again the baby cradled in Tick’s strong hands and wept with renewed bitterness, wishing Fuller had succeeded in his murderous intent. She shied from the thought, shoving it away, and at last, the tears abated.

Eyes burning, she dragged herself back to her room, exchanging her workout clothes for her discarded sleepwear with listless movements. Cold now, she slipped beneath the covers and wrapped her arms around the extra pillow, resting her cheek on it. Exhaustion pulled at her, and the last image in her mind before sleep came was of the raw pain invading Tick’s dark gaze as she let him believe he meant nothing.

Two jailers and a dispatcher fell victim to undercooked takeout from the local grocery’s deli, tanking Tick’s plan to kick back with a beer and Jimmy Buffet and wallow in self-pity before going to bed early. When he returned to the department, Jeff was gone and thankfully neither Cookie nor Caitlin was anywhere to be found. Tonight, that was a good thing. He prided himself on being a patient man, but even he had limits.

The desire to shake the truth from her, to take a punch at his partner, curled through him again, but after lights out, he settled for slipping into the tiny weight room on the jail level and hitting the heavy bag until his knuckles hurt.

She was right. He couldn’t
make
her do anything, couldn’t make her want him in her life, make her take him back. He’d lost her, it seemed like for good this time, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

The knowledge stuck in his craw, eating at him.

Damn it
. He drove his fist into the bag. She’d sat there and put him on the same level as Cookie, reduced those few precious nights he’d had with her before Mississippi to nothing. He’d lived on those memories, taking them out at night after he’d said and done things that turned his stomach, holding on to her, to them.

Yeah, they’d sat and talked over beers in a bar several nights in a row, and part of it had been work. She’d delved into his head, into the heart of who he was, helping him figure out how to be what he wasn’t, teaching him to hold tight to what he was. By the third night, he hadn’t been able to help himself and when he’d walked her to her car, he rested a hand atop the Volvo and leaned down, taking her mouth in an easy kiss of discovery and exploration, a kiss nine years in the making. He hadn’t misread the emotion glittering in those green eyes as she looked up at him afterward, either. More than wanting, more than desire.

He slugged the bag harder. The fourth night, she’d taken him back to her apartment, to her bed. And the fifth night? He’d been trying to distance himself, getting ready to get on that damn plane, and she’d pushed beneath his barriers, until they’d ended up back at his hotel and the way she loved him blew his mind. God, sometimes he woke up, still able to feel her.

Sweat trickled down his neck and another punch slammed into the bag.

Oh, yes. There. Tick, please…

The sultry whisper of her voice filtered through him with the memory of being wrapped around her, the lush heat of her body closing on him.

“Shit.” The raw, hoarse voice couldn’t be his. He threw a hit so hard it jarred his elbow. What if she…what if Cookie…?

Damn it, she could do what she wanted. He wouldn’t let it matter any longer, any more than those words she’d whispered that last night in Virginia. He’d leaned over her, an “I love you” on his tongue, and she’d pressed her fingers to his lips, her green eyes gleaming in the soft light.

No, not yet. When you come home…

He’d come home to nothing.

His wild swing missed the bag completely and he lost his rhythm. The sturdy sack smacked into his chest and abdomen. He stumbled, steadying it with shaking arms.

Trying to catch his breath, he rested his forehead against the rough canvas. He was done, they were over, she was out of his life.

Holy hell, let her do whatever she wanted. He was too damned tired to care anymore.

Later, after the relief jailer finally made an appearance, Tick tried stretching out on the cot in the guards’ break room, but sleep wouldn’t come. He folded his arms behind his head and forced himself to focus on the case, running through everything they knew so far. Wriggling his shoulder blades against the thin mattress and its unforgiving springs, he closed his eyes. The connections were there, but damned if he could see them yet.

God only knew how that young Jane Doe had ended up in Chandler County. A runaway, maybe, like Jeff theorized, although none of the missing persons reports he’d looked at so far matched her description. He’d almost think she wasn’t related to the others, if not for that round little bruise on her neck.

Sharon. Vontressa. Amy.

Same high school. Same graduating class. Other than that, not a lot to connect them, either. But Keith Lawson had known each of them. That might be the link. He could see Sharon getting out of her disabled car for Keith, especially if he’d been driving his daddy’s wrecker.

Was Keith smart enough to do this?

Tick muffled a yawn with his fist. Maybe he’d talk to his nephew Blake, who knew Keith, see if that helped build a preliminary sketch of the boy’s personality.

Gut instinct told him he was looking for an older suspect, one with some experience on him. Caitlin didn’t think this was a first kill. She painted a picture of a predator, maybe someone who’d killed elsewhere then turned his attention on Chandler County.

His eyes snapped open and he studied the water stains on the ceiling with its peeling paint. Lord, he just couldn’t get away from her, could he? He needed her to finish the damn profile and go back to Virginia. He needed that, so he could start putting his life back together again.

The massive back door to the jail slammed with a metallic clang and he jumped. His body felt heavy, reactions slurred by exhaustion. He rubbed a hand over his eyes and twisted his wrist to look at his watch.

Nearly five.

He rolled to sit on the cot’s edge, staring at his feet and shaking his head to clear the fuzz and cobwebs. Shower. Coffee. Cigarette. Then he’d get moving again. Jeff would be on duty until nine and they could toss around ideas, maybe ride out and talk to Keith Lawson, get a read on the kid, find out if he could send them in any new directions.

Cookie was off today, thank God.

A quick tepid shower in the bathroom off the employee locker room and a round with his electric razor had him looking more human. He rubbed a thin towel over his hair, frowning at his reflection. Damn, he had to find ten minutes to go get a haircut. Maybe Becky could fit him in during his lunch break. She’d chatter him to death the whole time, but that would work. If he was listening to her, he wouldn’t have to think.

He brushed his teeth, avoiding his troubled eyes. He was avoiding a lot of things this morning, making sure his thoughts stayed on the straight and narrow path of what he needed to do during the day.

Dressed and feeling more awake, he plodded upstairs, the low buzz of radio traffic following him from the dispatch office. A hum of terse male conversation drifted from the squad room.

“All I’m saying is, maybe you should think about the fact you have to work with him after this.” Contempt laced Jeff’s steady voice. “Thought y’all were friends. Is a piece of ass worth losing that?”

“Maybe you should think about the fact that working here a couple of months doesn’t make you one of us yet,” Cookie retorted as Tick walked through the door. “Or even better, maybe that you’re not as damn smart as you think you are.”

Tick ignored them in favor of the coffee station. His nape prickled under Jeff’s watchful stare. A wet wool blanket of silence smothered the room. Warm mug in hand, Tick turned and rested against the counter. He gestured with the cup in Cookie’s direction.

“Your day off. What are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Cookie shrugged and unwrapped a fresh pack of gum. His brown hair was damp at the edges, a Florida State T-shirt untucked over his clean jeans and the boat-and-deck shoes he wore without socks.

“Yeah.” Tick scowled at the oily swirls atop his coffee. The muscles in his neck and shoulders seized up.

“Guilty conscience,” Jeff muttered, tapping his pen on his blotter. Tick tensed further. The kid wasn’t helping matters.

“Kept thinking about Sharon Ingler and her car.” Cookie folded the foil over and over until it resembled a lopsided swan. “Been riding the roads, trying to get my mind around it.”

Tick nodded.

“You look like shit,” Cookie said. “Go home and get some sleep. Let me take your shift.”

“Like that, would you?” Tick set the mug aside with deadly precision, the chilly fury burning him again.

“Hell, that’s it. I’m done bothering with you.” Cookie pushed up, his chair squawking with the movement. He shook his head, face twisted with disdain. “Let me know when you get your brain out of your ass.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Heading for the door and the hallway beyond, Cookie lifted a hand in dismissal. “It means you’re wrung out and not firing on all cylinders.”

Tick followed, the overworked muscles in his arms throbbing with renewed tension. “You got a problem with me, Cook?”

“Tick, let him go.” Jeff rose with an uneasy movement. “This isn’t worth it.”

Waving him off, Tick caught up with Cookie in the hall. “Spit it out.”

“Ain’t talking to you, Tick. I’m going home to enjoy my day off.”

“Like you enjoyed last night.”

“You’re an idiot.” Cookie halted and blew out a harsh, long-suffering breath. “Would you stop and think for two seconds before one of us ends up doing something both of us will regret later?”

“Like one of already didn’t, right?”

Cookie threw his hands heavenward. “Yeah, fine, whatever. I did her, the whole night long. That’s why I’m up at five in the damn morning. The sex was so freakin’ fantastic that’s all I can think about. Happy now?”

Anger flushing his entire body, Tick stepped forward. “You son of a bitch.”

“Try it, Calvert, and I’ll whip your ass, seniority or not.”

“Like to see you try.” Even feeling like the walking dead, he was two years younger, three inches taller and a hell of a lot madder than Cookie.

“Think.” Cookie thumped him on the forehead. “Did you see how shook up she was last night? Do you really believe she’d be interested in sleeping with me? And like I’d go to bed with a woman who’d be thinking about you the whole time. I have standards, you know.”

Tick blinked. “I—”

“She plays you so easy it isn’t even funny.”

“Plays me?”

“And hell, you let her. She pushes your buttons and you lose all God-given common sense.”

“I do not—”