He turned back to her then. ‘Pack a bag. You’re staying at my place until we figure this out.’
It felt a little strange not calling him on his high-handedness, but he was right.
Another liberating admission. She was on a roll.
Needing a moment to herself after coming so clean, she ducked into the bathroom and closed the door. She’d pretended for too long that she could handle this alone. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and cursed herself.
‘Fool,’ she muttered.
She couldn’t get Spears by herself.
Her cell vibrated in her pocket. She dragged it out and glared at the screen.
I’m getting bored, Jess. I might just go fishing.
Chapter Seventeen
Parkridge Drive, 10.40
P.M.
L
ori set her laptop aside and turned to Chet. ‘You really believe Corlew was a dirty cop?’
Chet lowered the volume on the local news. ‘He was damned good at what he did,’ he allowed. ‘He worked hard and seemed to be dedicated. I was a rookie. He was always nice to me. The way I heard, he just sort of started this downward spiral.’
‘But you don’t like him.’ Lori had noticed the grimace that claimed Chet’s face every time Corlew’s name came up. Not to mention the cocky way he’d handled him at the Carson murder scene today.
‘I don’t like him.’
‘Why?’ Why was it a woman had to drag this kind of thing out of a guy? Women lived to talk about this stuff. To share and commiserate. Somehow males didn’t get that gene or something.
‘My first partner was a veteran cop who taught me everything I know. He had twenty years in the department and he was a good guy. Good cop and a good guy.’
‘Okay . . .’ Lori prompted. She disliked that there was a sadness in Chet’s voice as he talked about this but she really needed to know. ‘This is difficult for you. I get that. I’m still spilling my guts once a week to the department shrink. But you know what?’
He turned to look at her.
‘It works.’ Being tortured by a serial killer for a couple days kind of fucked with one’s psyche, but she was working through it. ‘Talk to me, baby. I need to know.’
‘My partner’s first wife died before I joined the department. He’d remarried. A younger woman who made him very happy.’
Lori snuggled closer to Chet. ‘Nothing wrong with that.’
‘Except that Corlew set his sights on her and they ended up having an affair.’
‘That sucks.’ She’d gotten that vibe from Corlew. Womanizing bastard. Now she was mad and she hadn’t even known Chet’s first partner.
‘Yeah. It sucked all right. But, in time, Corlew got his.’
She waited for him to continue, holding her breath.
‘He was working a high-profile case involving a homicide victim who turned out to be a big-time loan shark. Internal Affairs got a tip that Corlew was keeping some of the evidence – money – instead of turning it in. A search warrant found it hidden in his home. Corlew denied he’d taken it. My partner’s wife left him, filed for divorce, and testified that her husband took the money to get back at her lover. The investigation got ugly and my partner ended up having a massive heart attack. He didn’t even make it to the ER.’
‘Damn. That’s terrible. What happened to Corlew?’
‘The bastard was cleared but no one looked at him the same after that. When Burnett made chief he made sure Corlew was out of there.’
‘No one ever bothered to find out what really happened? What about the wife? Did she stand by her statements?’
‘She did. So did Corlew. So my partner died with that mark on his record. Even if it was never official. The case was closed unsolved.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I’d heard that he was a legendary investigator but that he was dirty. I never had any reason to look into it.’
‘One of these days the truth will find its way to the surface.’ Chet draped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. ‘It always does.’
They watched the rest of the news. It felt good just to be, especially in Chet’s arms.
And without his son around
.
God, she felt guilty about that. But it was so hard.
Don’t think about that, Lori. Enjoy the moment.
She had to admit that things had gone better tonight. They’d taken Chester to McDonald’s and spent an entire hour in the PlayPlace. The kid had actually interacted with her a little bit. The change wasn’t groundbreaking but it was something. Progress. Slow, but maybe sure.
That little bit of progress made Chet happy, so it made her happy.
When the news was over, Chet clicked off the television. ‘You and the chief meeting with the Five tomorrow morning?’
‘What’s left of them. If they’re smart, they’ll take her advice about lying low until we figure out what’s going on in this case.’
‘You ready to hit the sack?’ The hopeful gleam in his eyes sent warmth rushing through her body.
‘I’m ready anytime you are, Sergeant.’ She kissed his jaw.
‘I appreciate how patient you were with Chester tonight.’ He traced a finger down her cheek. ‘I know it hasn’t been easy.’
‘I think he’s beginning to like me.’
‘Come with me, Detective,’ Chet teased, ‘and I’ll show you how much
I
like you.’
‘No need to go all the way to the bed.’ She pushed him back onto the couch and straddled his lap. ‘Right here works for me.’
He wrapped his arms around her and stood, holding her against him. ‘We should take it to the bedroom. We don’t want to get into the habit of doing it just anywhere. We might forget sometime when Chester is here.’
‘Oh.’ That definitely trampled her libido. ‘I didn’t think of that.’
He nuzzled her neck on the way to the bedroom. ‘I’ll teach you everything you need to know,’ he murmured against her skin. ‘There’s all kinds of rules when it comes to kids. My ex reminded me of a few I hadn’t thought of.’
When had he spoken to his ex?
She
was giving him the rules? He paused at the bedroom door, drew back to look into her eyes. Clearly he’d felt the new tension in her body.
‘Did I say something wrong?’
Lori forced a smile. ‘No way.’ She kissed him hard. Hard enough to empty both their minds of thoughts of kids and ex
-
wives.
She would adapt. That was her new mantra. She could do this. She loved Chet. She could do whatever necessary. Chester would learn to like her. She’d find a way.
They tumbled onto the bed. He dragged her panties down her legs and touched the place that ached so for him. She groaned. Nothing else mattered but getting those jeans off him and
him
inside her.
Back in the living room his cell rang. He stilled.
‘If it’s work, they’ll call your landline.’ She did not want him to stop. She needed this. She needed him . . . all of him.
‘It might be Sherry. Chester could be sick.’ He rolled off the bed. ‘That’s another thing about kids,’ he said as he straightened his fly and zipped it, ‘if they get sick, it’s usually in the middle of the night.’
Lori waited for her heart to stop pounding and her respiration to slow. She listened to the low, deep sound of Chet’s voice as he spoke to the caller who was obviously his ex.
Maybe the kid wasn’t going to be the real problem. Maybe it was the ex
-
wife.
Or maybe the problem was Lori.
Maybe she wasn’t cut out for
this
yet.
Chapter Eighteen
Dunbrooke Drive,
Thursday, August 12, 7.05
A.M.
‘
Y
ou got everything?’
Jess saddled the strap of her bag on her shoulder. ‘I do.’ She tugged at her suit jacket. She really liked the rich red color but the lining was itchy. If she didn’t like the skirt so much, she’d take it to that fancy thrift store Dan’s friends used and donate it.
Men were the lucky ones. She admired the one fiddling with the coffeemaker. A few classic suits and shirts and the only real accessory they had to worry about were ties. Shoes were black or brown and comfortable. Lucky dogs.
‘You want to take a coffee with you?’
‘No thanks. I’m ready.’ This was the part she hated about sleepovers. Her car was at her place. She was basically at his mercy. She liked to get up, get dressed, and get to work. She dragged her coffee with her and didn’t care if she ate or not.
Dan, on the other hand, looked over the morning paper with his coffee. Nuked a prepackaged breakfast in the microwave.
She’d been counting off the minutes for half an hour.
‘What time is your appointment with the security company?’
‘Two.’ Inside, she winced at the idea that she was going to have to turn her place into Fort Knox to satisfy Dan’s demands.
‘Good.’ He grabbed his briefcase and nifty to
-
go cup and followed her to the door.
Thank God.
While he set the security system and locked up, she climbed into his fancy Mercedes SUV. It was a nice vehicle, no question. But it reminded her of that big, fat dividing line between Dan’s family and hers. His family were Brookies, Mountain Brook residents, the high and the mighty. And she was from way, way across town, the low and the invisible.
He settled into the driver’s seat and started the engine. ‘You sure Mrs Wallace and her friends are expecting us this early?’
‘They’re expecting us.’ Her day was already jam-packed. Meeting with the widows was a courtesy to Frances. A phone call from one of her detectives could have sufficed but she owed the lady more than that. The least she could do was follow up personally.
Frances probably had a lot more to do with Jess and Dan becoming a couple back in high school than she realized. She helped Jess see that the massive chip she carried around on her shoulder was not going to get her what she wanted out of life.
Admittedly, she was still a work in progress, but Frances had set her on the right track.
‘I slept better knowing you were right down the hall.’ Dan backed out of the driveway.
Jess studied his profile. He really worried about her. She’d realized that last night. He worried the way she and Lily worried about each other. In a way, Dan was closer to
real
family to her than any other man she’d had in her life – not that she’d had that many. Her one marriage to Wesley had ended almost before it started. More her doing than his. She’d pushed him away even before he’d moved across the country.
The kind of connection she and Dan shared also carried far more potential for intense pain. She knew that particular pain too well.
She made an agreeable sound in answer to his statement; then she turned her attention to the passing landscape. Everyone she’d ever had that deep bond with had left her, starting with her parents when they’d gotten themselves killed in that car accident. Then Dan after college.
Maybe she’d been pushing people away ever since. Even Lil. It was easier to be busy up in Virginia than to come home for frequent visits and get too attached. People left . . . people died.
Jess closed her eyes and wished with all her heart that Lil would be okay. Jess had wasted a lot of time . . . she didn’t want to lose her sister now.
She glanced at the man next to her.
Or him.
That confession, even if only to herself, made her throat ache and her chest tighten.
Vestavia Village, 7.55
A.M.
‘So we’re in the clear?’ Lucille, the eldest of the widows, asked.
‘Yes,’ Jess repeated. ‘New evidence has come to light that suggests Baker’s murder was not related to the Village or anyone here.’
One of the twins, Molly, harrumphed. ‘He’s dead and we’re no better off than we were before. Clemmons isn’t trying to stop the construction. He’s seeing dollar signs.’
The widows all started talking at once, which was the norm for this group.
Frances held up her hands. ‘We will not give up, ladies.’
Lucille argued, ‘We’re wasting—’
‘Stow it, Lucille,’ Frances warned. To Jess she said, ‘Can you tell us anything about the case?’
Jess shook her head. ‘Sorry. I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation.’
‘It’s related to that ex
-
ball player,’ Polly said knowingly. ‘My son is one of his neighbors. He would know.’
‘Well.’ Jess stood. ‘We should be going.’
Looking past ready to do just that, Dan stood as well. ‘Thank you for your cooperation, ladies.’
Frances walked them to the door. ‘I saw on the news that both victims once belonged to this tight little group called the Five. Has someone targeted them for what happened to that young man all those years ago?’
Jess should have realized that Frances would remember the case; she had still been teaching at the time. ‘We’re working every angle, including that one.’
She grabbed Jess’s hand and tugged her closer. ‘You two still look good together.’
Jess glanced toward the corridor outside the door to make sure Dan was out of earshot. ‘Frances, he’s my boss now. We’re friends.’
Her too-perceptive eyes twinkled. ‘Call it what you will, but I know what I see.’
Jess must have looked confused because she added, ‘That young man looks at you the way my Orson always looked at me.’ She smiled, her eyes watery now. ‘Until the day he died.’
Jess gave her dear friend another hug and hurried to catch up with Dan.
She felt a little depressed at what Frances had said, though she was sure that wasn’t her old friend’s intent. Frances and Orson had lived the kind of relationship love stories were written about. Lily and Blake were like that. They were so much a part of each other it was impossible to imagine one without the other. As much as Jess loved her independence, she really didn’t want to grow old alone. She and Dan had promised each other that if they were still single when they hit sixty, they would get married just to prevent being alone.
But that wasn’t the same.
Could Frances be right? Jess stole a glance at Dan. Could he possibly love her that way?
Her heart pounded at the thought of relying on anyone so completely.
Give her a cold-blooded killer to face down any day over figuring out affairs of the heart.
How could she trust anyone else to make the right decisions if she couldn’t even make them herself?
It was so much easier to stick with what she knew.
‘We need to pick up my car,’ she reminded him.
‘As long as you don’t go taking off on your own,’ he reminded her.
‘You’re the boss.’
He sent her a look.
‘Okay, okay. I will take every precaution.’
He reached across the console and squeezed her hand. ‘I know it cramps your style, Jess, but until we know what’s going on with the Allen case and have a better handle on what Spears is up to, we need to be vigilant.’
Jess smiled at him but inside she wondered if she’d ever be free of Spears again.
She didn’t know why she bothered. She knew the answer.
Not until he was dead
.
Birmingham Police Department, 11.02
A.M.
Jess waited until the three remaining members of the Five were seated around the conference table. ‘First, I appreciate your coming.’ She looked from one to the other. ‘I know your schedules are busy but I believe this is a serious threat. Two of your friends have been murdered already.’
‘We’re very much aware of that fact, Chief Harris,’ Kevin O’Reilly said pointedly. ‘What we don’t know is what you intend to do about keeping the rest of us alive.’
Jess just didn’t see how a woman as seemingly nice as Juliette Coleman could have ever been friends with these two overbearing, self-serving men.
Then again, in some social circles it was more about pedigrees than personalities. Both men were attractive and well dressed. Aaron Taylor was perfectly manicured from his eyebrows to his nails. Not a hair out of place. O’Reilly, on the other hand, was more what she would call money groomed. He had the bucks for the right clothes and the better hair stylist but beneath what money could buy he was rough around the edges. He’d missed a tiny spot when shaving. His striped shirt, though undeniably a designer label, didn’t quite match the suit. Then there was Juliette. Like her sister, she had long dark hair and gray eyes. Either could be a supermodel or a big-screen actress. Both had that sexy, fresh-faced beauty that called out to a camera and the fashion sense and dollars to back it up.
That was something else Jess had noticed about the Five. They were all attractive and fairly fashionable while Lenny Porter and his friend Todd Penney were your typical nerds with big glasses and an unkempt appearance. Lenny and Todd had been perfect targets for the likes of these snobs. As hard as Jess tried not to hold what she’d read in those journal pages against the group, it was difficult.
And now, a dozen years later, they were looking at a double homicide. Sometimes the bullied or the downtrodden came back to get even.
‘I can only help you, Mr O’Reilly, if you cooperate,’ Jess explained with all the patience she intended to bother with. ‘We’re doing everything possible to find the person or persons responsible for Scott Baker’s and Elliott Carson’s murders but we need evidence and motive. These murders appear to have been well planned and equally well executed.’
‘What you’re saying is that you’re stumped,’ O’Reilly accused. ‘You have no idea who killed our friends even though we’ve given you a suspect and his address as well as his motive.’
‘You know that’s not how this works,’ Taylor argued. ‘Just because we believe Todd Penney is picking us off one by one doesn’t mean the police can just arrest him. They need proof. That attitude is not going to help us,’ he warned his friend.
The two glared at each other for several seconds. Maybe not such good friends after all.
‘Well said, Mr Taylor,’ Jess noted when no one else seemed inclined to break the silence. ‘We have no proof that Mr Penney has done anything wrong.’ Other than the journal entries, which may or may not have been written by him, and the fact that his Corolla had followed Jess around that one evening, but the latter wasn’t really a crime. He’d have to do it a lot more and venture considerably closer for her to accuse him of stalking. Honestly, she had no idea why the man felt the need to follow her – if Penney had even been behind the wheel.
At this time, the one known aspect of his behavior that cast undeniable doubt on Penney was his refusal to come in to make a statement. He knew the police were looking for him. Only a man with something to hide refused to cooperate when the authorities came knocking.
‘What is it you expect us to do?’ O’Reilly demanded.
‘The best option would be to relocate to some place safe away from your home and usual routine. If that isn’t a viable possibility the department will provide a surveillance detail for each of you.’ With budgets tight all over, those kinds of resources were getting tougher and tougher to come by but Jess didn’t see any way around it in this instance. If the mayor complained, she would remind him that she was only taking care of his friends.
‘I’m staying with my sister,’ Juliette said. ‘Do you think I still need a surveillance detail, Chief Harris?’
Jess opted not to say that her big sister was just a reporter, not a superhero. ‘I would strongly recommend the detail.’
‘I’m supposed to just uproot my family because the cops can’t do their job?’ O’Reilly roared. ‘No way. And I won’t be made to feel like a prisoner in my own home.’
The three of them started talking at once – arguing mostly.
You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink
. Jess stood, drawing their attention back to her, which ironically shut them up. ‘I would advise you to accept my offer or to take the proper precautions as I’ve outlined. Avoid your routine and keep your eyes and ears open. Call nine-one-one immediately if you feel you’re in danger. Do not hesitate. No one is going to complain about a false alarm under the circumstances. If you change your mind about a surveillance detail,’ she said to O’Reilly and Taylor, ‘don’t hesitate to call.’
O’Reilly was the first out the door. No
thank you
, no nothing.
‘I’m sorry for his behavior,’ Juliette offered. ‘He’s been a wreck since Scott told us Todd was back in Birmingham.’
‘Stop covering for him,’ Taylor insisted. ‘He’s always been a jerk. If his father wasn’t who he is, Kev wouldn’t have a friend on this planet.’ He turned to Jess. ‘Thank you for the offer, Chief Harris. My wife and I will go to a friend’s lake house. I’m due a vacation anyway.’ He hugged Juliette. ‘Stay safe, Jules.’
When Taylor was gone, Juliette lingered. ‘Chief Harris, do you think you can find Todd before he tries to kill another one of us?’
‘We’re doing all we can,’ Jess assured her. Rather than leave it at that, she pushed for more reaction from the woman. ‘I’m just having some trouble reconciling the idea that a man who had achieved huge success on the West Coast would return here to have revenge for the death of his friend twelve years later.’
Todd Penney’s high school records showed he’d been in counseling for depression and anxiety back then. Harper had found nothing else since. Not even a traffic violation. The night Lenny Porter died, Penney disappeared. Days later he was discovered in the psych ward after a near drug overdose. Beyond his insistence that his friend had been murdered – a statement he later recanted – there was not a speck on his record. His employer gave him a stellar recommendation when Jess called just before this meeting. But then a lack of evidence didn’t mean the man wasn’t guilty. It just meant they hadn’t found his secrets yet.