Hold on to Me (31 page)

“I like him. He likes me. We’re taking things really slowly, but, yes, I could see this relationship going places.” Stacking a couple of folders in the basket at the corner of her desk, she fixed him with a wry look. “I thought you liked him.”

“Tori, I…hell, I’ve seen a side of him lately I don’t like.”

She shut off the lights and nudged him with her elbow. “Yeah, he told me ya’ll got into it last night.”

“He told you about that?”

With a shrug, she pulled her office door closed and locked it. “He just said you were in a bad mood and when he tried to talk to you about it, you bit his head off.”

Son of a bitch. Nice how Schaefer had twisted that to his advantage.

Tick opened his mouth to ask if Schaefer had mentioned how close he’d come to having Tick wring his neck earlier and closed it. Already, Tori was regarding him with a familiar stubborn tilt to her chin.

“I want you to rethink seeing him, Tor.”

“Meaning you’re laying down a dictate that I shouldn’t go out with him again, because you don’t approve.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I hate that about you, you know. I don’t want you running my life.”

“I don’t run your life. I try to look out for you.”

“Oh, please. If you keep telling whoppers like that, lightning will strike you.” She pushed the front door open, let him precede her, and set the alarm before joining him on the sidewalk. “Of course, I must be crazy for dating a cop. I always swore I wouldn’t. He broke our date tonight. Said he had something to do. Secret cop stuff.”

Yeah. Like watching Chris Parker.

“I suppose you want me to say I’m sorry about that.”

“No, because we both know you’d be lying.” She leaned her head against his arm. “I think I’ll call Layla and see if she wants to go get a drink. And don’t you dare say anything—I’m well over twenty-one.”

“Yeah, you are. Just be careful. Listen, I’ve got to go—”

“Cait waiting for you?”

“Yeah.” The idea of her, waiting for him, sent a warm glow through him, despite the day’s events.

“How is she?” Tori wrapped her arms over her midriff. “She has to be devastated, Tick.”

“She is.” Moultrie had been hard. He understood her compulsion to see Gina but wished he’d been able to spare her that. Silent tears had come in the autopsy lab, but outside in his truck, she’d wept into his neck, clinging to him as the sobs shook her. “She’s holding it together, but I know it’s hard.”

“Take care of her. She’ll need that from you right now.” Tori tucked her hair behind her ear. “She’s got that whole strong, capable woman thing going on and doesn’t like to appear vulnerable. Don’t push but be there, be what she needs.”

“Thanks.” He took her keys, unlocking and opening the door. “Tori?”

She slid behind the wheel of the Miata and reached for her keys. “Yes?”

He held on to her key ring until she looked at him and he had her full attention. “Promise me you’ll think about what I said about Jeff.”

Her shoulders slumped under a heavy sigh. “I promise. Now go take care of Cait.”

The cold water washed over Caitlin’s head, sending little shockwaves along her skin. She’d tried working once she’d reached Tick’s, but her concentration was shot. Finally, in desperation, she’d stripped off and headed for the bathroom in the hopes that a brisk shower would focus her.

She wished she could wash away the visions of Gina’s death from her mind, make herself forget her partner, her
friend
, was dead.

She rested her forehead against the smooth tile of the shower and let the water flow over her. She was exhausted, spent, with no more tears to shed.

“Cait?” Tick’s voice penetrated the sound of rushing water. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She didn’t move. Physically, she was fine. Emotionally? She felt like someone had taken her apart over the past few days and put her back together haphazardly, with a few pieces missing.

Seconds later, the shower door opened and he stepped inside. At the first touch of the icy water, he jumped and muttered an oath.

“Precious?” He touched her shoulder, swept the wet hair from her cheek.

She released a shuddery sigh and turned into his solid form. He held her, kissing her temple, cheek, jaw. Keeping one arm around her, he reached out to adjust the water until it washed over them in a warm, comforting fall.

Without speaking, he rubbed at her back and shoulders, up her nape and under her hair. She relaxed into him, resting her face on his chest, relishing the way he cherished her. He snagged the soap from a shelf and massaged a foamy lather over her skin. The water flowed, washing the suds and stress from her body, rinsing down the drain. She closed her eyes. With the soap, his scent surrounded her, permeating her. The steady warmth of his body, the reality of him against her, and the rhythmic motion of his touch were hypnotic, entrancing.

“Tick,” she breathed, “I want this over. I want him locked up, where he can never do this again.”

“I know.” He slid his arm around her waist and nuzzled behind her ear before kissing the corner of her mouth. “Me, too.”

He shut off the water, droplets pattering to the tile floor. He backed out of the cubicle, wrapped a towel about his hips and pulled her with him to stand on the fluffy rug. With another thick bath sheet, he wiped the water from her skin, rubbed at her damp hair. Using the terrycloth for leverage, he tugged her to him.

“You need some sleep.” He brushed his lips against hers. “And probably some food. Why don’t you lie down for a little while?”

“Hmm.” Soothed by the ministrations, she tipped into him, resting her mouth against his throat. She could melt, right here, could hold on to him forever, right here. “I still have patrol tapes to watch.”

“Later.” With one smooth movement, he swung her into his arms and carried her through to the bedroom. “Sleep first. Twenty-minute power nap while I walk down to the dock and check the feeder. Then I’ll fix us something to eat and we’ll watch them together.”

He settled her on the bed and pulled away to don a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt.

“Tick, I’m not going to be able to sleep.” She examined the ceiling and fingered the edge of the soft bath sheet wrapped around her body. She was afraid to close her eyes, knew what images would linger on her lids if she did.

His dark gaze solemn, he leaned over her, a hand planted beside each hip, and kissed her. “Rest.”

“I’ll try.”

She did attempt to sleep, but despite her physically relaxed state, her mind refused to cooperate. After ten minutes of staring at the ceiling, she pulled on jeans and a soft cotton T-shirt and popped the first of the patrol tapes into the bedroom VCR.

Minutes later, Caitlin tucked her feet under her on the bed, watching for the third time the film of the night Sharon Ingler disappeared. Something wasn’t right. The video came from Chris Parker’s unit and the audio wasn’t anything to write home about with the dog whining and snuffling in the foreground.

“…it’s been moved. I’m telling you, I saw it at the twenty-three mark.”

On the screen, Tick listened as Parker explained. An unwilling smile tugged at her lips while she watched him. He leaned a hand on the roof of the car, and she groaned at the unthinking gesture. He wasn’t wearing gloves—no wonder his fingerprints had been found.

Her gaze riveted on the screen, she watched Schaefer, who stood off to the side, arms crossed over his chest, wearing his customary serious expression. On screen, Tick and Parker walked away from the car, flashlight beams bobbing into the woods. Schaefer remained with the disabled vehicle, maintaining his distance from it.

A nervous shiver running along her arms, she slid off the bed and closer to the television. With the remote, she rewound, watching. Parker explained. Tick leaned on the car. They walked into the woods, leaving Schaefer behind. They returned as Bobby Gene Butler pulled up in his wrecker. He stepped out, adjusting his belt. Tick and Schaefer conferred, then Schaefer sauntered to his car, driving away.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, staring. She backed away from the television and cast a wild look around for her shoes and holster. She had to find Tick.

With Caitlin resting, he hadn’t been able to resist picking up his rod from the dock. Fishing soothed him better than nicotine and he needed that tonight.

Lifting the lure from the water, he let it dangle a moment before sending it out over the waters of the blue hole again. A huge granddaddy bass lurked around his dock in the late evening and he indulged in a routine battle of wills with the animal. Again tonight, he’d failed in that battle.

He’d also failed in trying to find some peace. Too much bounced around in his head—all the what-ifs about their baby and their future, the aftershocks from the day’s events, Caitlin’s suspicions where Chris was concerned, the fear he’d seen in those women’s faces earlier at the women’s center, remnants of the rage he felt toward Benjamin Fuller.

Not to mention the all-out urge he had to kick Jeff Schaefer’s ass. The boy had torn it with him today, with that crack about his screwing Caitlin on the side. Tori’s displeasure or no, Tick intended to have a man-to-man talk with him real soon about the level of respect he’d show her.

Wonder if he could convince Del to talk to Tori? Sometimes she was more inclined to listen to Del’s calm, quiet reason.

The lure snagged on an underwater tree and a violent curse escaped him. While he jerked the rod up, he spun the reel, tugging hard. The line snapped and the distinctive sound of his reel stripping sent more anger than it should coursing through him. Another curse ripped across the still evening air.

His reel was dead and his favorite spinner had just disappeared into the depths of the Flint River. Freakin’ perfect.

Pine straw crackled on the path behind him, followed by Caitlin’s strained voice. “Tick? Are you down here?”

“Yeah.” So much for taking care of her. He picked up his rod and pulled out his pocketknife to cut off the excess line. She skidded to a stop on the dock, her hair falling in damp disarray about her face, T-shirt hitching over the top of her holster. “Aren’t you supposed to be asleep?”

“He didn’t—”

“You’re worn out, precious.” Pocketing his knife, he walked by her to his tackle box.

She grabbed his arm, pulling him back to face her. “I know who he is!”

“What—”

“Catch anything?” Behind Tick, at the edge of the tree line, Jeff Schaefer’s smooth voice cut through the still air. Tick went rigid, every cop instinct he had screaming. Shit, this was not good. “Because it looks like I did.”

With swift, practiced ease, Caitlin drew her gun, and Tick registered her grim expression at the same instant Schaefer chambered a round with an audible click. Tick half-turned, trying his damnedest to place himself between her and Schaefer’s weapon without blocking her own aim.

“Drop it, Schaefer.” Caitlin’s throat moved with a hard swallow, but otherwise, she remained the picture of cool bureau competence.

Schaefer laughed and time slowed in a surreal crawl. Moving to stand at the top of the dock, Schaefer held a gun in an easy, two-handed grip, a second semiautomatic tucked in the waistband of his slacks. Hell, not just any automatic, either. Tick’s Glock. Sick anger pounding through him, Tick remembered leaving it and his badge on the island before going to find Caitlin.

The son of a bitch had
his
gun.

Adrenaline and aggression surged through Tick. His body screamed at him to rush the other man; his training and intuition whispered terse warnings to stay still.

“You drop it, Falconetti.” Smug triumph colored Schaefer’s words. “Don’t make it difficult. I can do him now as well as later.”

“Won’t that screw up your plan?” The hint of challenge in Caitlin’s tone sent unease skittering down Tick’s spine.

“Not really.” Schaefer moved a hand to rest on the butt of Tick’s Glock. Hooked over his belt, handcuffs gleamed next to it. “Murder-suicides are messy anyway. If you won’t drop the gun, I’ll just say he had already killed you when I got here, and I had no choice but to shoot him when he turned on me. A quicker death for you, a little less fun for me, but it works.”

“Just one problem with that, Jeff.” Tick tried to keep his voice level. “The forensics won’t support—”

“Fuck the forensics. Think I can’t handle that?”

“No one’s going to believe I hurt her.” Ingrained training tingled to life, overriding the anger and fear. He needed Schaefer distracted, on the defensive. Schaefer kept glancing between them, gaze bouncing from Caitlin to Tick and back again. He didn’t appear nervous, but if they could break his concentration enough, Caitlin would have the opening she needed. “You hear me?
No one
will believe it. Not Cookie. Not Tori. Not Stan. Not anyone.”

“They’ll believe what I tell them to. You were already out of control today, after you got in my face last night. Hell, you attacked Botine today. If you’d go after the local head of the GBI, who knows what you’d do? So maybe she”—he cast an insulting, narrow-eyed look in Caitlin’s direction—“rejected you again tonight. It got ugly and you killed her. Better yet, she discovered you were the murderer and you killed her to cover your tracks.”

“You believe it. You believe if you say it, it’s true and you can do this,” Caitlin said, and from his peripheral vision, Tick saw her shift to her right.

Schaefer’s stance tightened. “Try it, Falconetti, and I’ll put a bullet in him. I can do it, too, before you can put one in me. Are you willing to watch him die first?”

Caitlin didn’t reply and Schaefer relaxed, a sneer curling his lip.

“I win. Drop the gun, Falconetti.”

Caitlin paused several silent moments before she eased farther to the right, lowered her gleaming SIG nine millimeter, and moved to lay it on the dock.

Tick tensed, checking the instinct to reach for her. “Sweet Jesus, Cait, don’t do this.”

Schaefer moved onto the dock. Tick took a step backward, to his left, away from the line of fire. Schaefer glared at him, his malevolence concentrated solely on Tick. “Don’t move again.”

Tick sensed the movement before he glimpsed it. In a smooth motion, Caitlin lifted her gun and fired. The rapid succession of blasts echoed in the still air. Schaefer jerked with the impact. The muzzle flashes sparked and more shots rang out before burning pain exploded in Tick’s consciousness.

Continue firing until the threat is eliminated.

The words she’d not only heard as a recruit, but had repeated over and over to her own trainees, reverberated through Caitlin’s brain. She emptied the gun in a matter of seconds.

Her ears buzzed with the overwhelming noise, sensation sizzling over her scalp.

Schaefer didn’t fall with the first bullet. Scrambling backward, he got off four wild shots before his gun clattered to the wooden dock and his body slumped against the railing.

Aware of the rush of water and a whip-o-will calling, still gripping her SIG, she approached Schaefer’s motionless body and checked for a pulse, finding it weak and uneven.

Her hand came away stained red.

She stared at the blood with a weird sense of detachment and rubbed her hand down her leg, trying to shake the sensation she walked in mud a foot thick.

Tick
.

She spun toward the river. He’d dropped with the first shots, and he rolled to his feet, movements clumsy and disjointed.

“Are you okay?” Her palms prickled and stung, as if a million gnats crawled under her skin. Pain pulsed in her head, flashes of light and black dots squirming at her peripheral vision.

“No.” His voice was a thick rasp and he clutched at his right side, blood spilling over his fingers.

“You’re bleeding.” The words sounded cold and uninterested to her own ears and he glanced at her oddly, his expression tight with pain.

Tick opened his mouth to reply, his face paling. Spinning, he leaned over the railing, retching until only dry heaves shook his lean body. When the spasms had passed, he rested his forehead on the wood and groaned.

She lifted a hand to push her hair back, surprised at its wild trembling. Schaefer moaned, and the training rushed back, full-force.
Secure the scene
. She moved his gun out of reach and pulled the handcuffs from his waistband. Ignoring his hoarse grunt of pain, she rolled him to his stomach and cuffed him.
Call for backup
. She reached automatically for her cell phone.

Damn
.

“I have to call for help.” She tried to swallow, her mouth dry and filled with a strange metallic taste. Tick had slumped to a kneeling position, still holding his side, head bent. She paused, torn between love and duty. “I don’t want to leave you.”

“Be fine. Just go.”

She ran for the house and dialed with shaking hands. It took her long, agonizing seconds to convince the dispatcher she wasn’t joking.

Time crawled. She sprinted back to the dock and sidestepped the pool of blood spreading from Schaefer’s prone body. Aware of the screech of tires on blacktop, the spray of gravel, car doors slamming and familiar male voices raised in alarm, she knelt by Tick. Eyes closed, he clutched at his chest, breathing labored, blood trickling over his fingers with each gasp.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, looking around for anything to stem that flow of red. Nothing. She covered his fingers with hers, pressing, still holding her gun with her right hand. He winced and she gulped back a sob. “It’s going to be all right, Tick. I swear. Hold on, okay?”

He opened his eyes, the dark depths cloudy with pain and confusion. “Holding on to you.”

“I’m right here.” She rested her cheek against his, the warm ooze of his blood stealing her breath. “Don’t you dare die, Calvert. Do you hear me? I need you. I’m not letting you go.”

“Not going anywhere.” His labored gasp puffed along her neck. “Too…damn stubborn. Stuck with me now.”

Footsteps vaulted onto the dock, stopping short. Behind her, Cookie swore.

“What the hell happened?” Stanton’s voice shook. He hit his knees beside them, yanking his shirt over his head, leaving him in khakis and an undershirt.

“Son…of a bitch shot me,” Tick wheezed, his fingers contracting under hers. “Shit, can’t breathe, Stan.”

“Let me see.” Stanton took Caitlin’s wrist in a firm grip and moved her hand to the side. Blood spurted over Tick’s fingers.

Fear erupted in her brain. “God, Reed, keep the pressure on—”

“Cookie, help me here.” Stanton pushed Tick’s hand aside and bunched his shirt over the wound. “Take care of her.”

“Come on. Stan’s got him.” Cookie hooked a hand around her elbow and lifted her to her feet, taking her SIG. “You don’t look so good, Falconetti.”

“I’m fine.” She inhaled hard, her knees quivering. Tick’s eyes closed, his lashes casting long shadows on a too-pale face, uneven breaths coming in harsh gurgles. “Be careful with him, Reed—”

“Tick? Stay with me. Come on, partner.” Stanton tapped his jaw. Tick grunted.

She rubbed her arms, trying to dispel the awful cold. The blood smeared over her skin turned her stomach and she shuddered. More commotion ensued as other officers arrived. Paramedics rushed onto the dock, one going to Schaefer, the other to Tick.

Caitlin glanced at Schaefer’s inert body. She should feel something. Guilt. Worry. Anything but this vast, yawning nothing.

Cookie pulled her away, up the path. She struggled to remove her arm from his firm hold. “Cookie, wait, not—”

“Cait, he’s in good hands. Harrell’s the best EMT I’ve ever seen. He’ll take care of him, I promise. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“He didn’t touch the car.” She pushed the words past numb lips.

Cookie looked at her, gray eyes sharp with worry. “What?”

“Schaefer. In the patrol film, Tick touched the car. Schaefer never did, but his prints were on the car. And he was in the gas station right before Kimberly Johnson came in.” A sob racked her chest, and she couldn’t stop shaking. “God, Cookie, he killed Gina. She’s
dead
.”

Her voice rose on the word and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, leading her toward the patrol cars lining Tick’s driveway, lights whirling in the semidarkness. “Come on, Falconetti.”

Tears spilled over her lashes. If she’d put it together sooner, Gina might still be alive. Tick wouldn’t be shot and possibly bleeding out.
I wasn’t ready yet. I shouldn’t have come—I should have told ADIC Frazier that—if I had, Gina…oh, God, Gina, I’m sorry.

At his unmarked unit, Cookie draped his duty jacket over her shoulders and eased her onto the passenger seat. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Beyond his shoulder, her gaze lingered on what she could see of the scene below, Schaefer being lifted onto a stretcher, paramedics assessing Tick’s injury while Stanton knelt beside him. Gina was dead, and Tick could have died. The air left her lungs in a harsh sigh. Tell him what happened?

“I screwed up.”

Moisture dripped down her neck, and she swiped at it. Cookie swore, and she stared at her hand, the wetness of her blood mingled with Schaefer’s and Tick’s.