4. Chase
4
CHASE
S teve slipped out of Bridget’s room, closing the door behind him. I was up and out of the ergonomic nightmare of a chair in a flash.
“How is she?” I asked as I crossed the corridor.
He tucked a cream-colored file under his arm and motioned for me to follow him. We walked back into the waiting lounge and sat down.
Steve dropped everything on the coffee table and rested his head in his hands. “Three fuckin’ years,” Steve muttered. He looked up, more haunted than I’d ever seen him. Whatever Bridget had told him shook him to his core. “Three fuckin’ years she was with that motherfucker.”
I let out a slow breath for a count of four and pointed to the file. “Tell me that isn’t what I think it is.”
He shook his head. “Unfortunately, it’s exactly what you think it is. It goes a little over two years back and is gonna give us an airtight case. Bee doesn’t want you to see it. Told me straight up not to let you look at it. ”
“Fuck that shit,” I argued, making a grab for it. Steve was faster and snatched it up.
A single photo fell out.
It was Bridget. She was standing in what looked like Mel’s kitchen. She had stripped down to a sports bra and a pair of shorts. There was a large bruise across her stomach. Smaller ones dotted her arms. An angry swatch of purple marred her throat, and she had a black eye that was still in the process of blooming. There wasn’t an ounce of emotion on her face.
I dropped the photo like my hand was on fire. Suddenly, I was thankful for the sharp antiseptic smell that permeated the hospital. It helped stave off the urge to vomit.
“Fuck.”
Steve slid the photo back into the file.
“Mel knew,” I said.
“Yeah. She did.” He sighed. “I wanna be pissed at her, but she probably did more than any of us in keeping Bee safe until she was ready to leave.”
I steeled myself. I wanted to bleach my brain and forget everything I’d seen in that photo, but part of me needed to stay angry. Needed to stay motivated. “If we’re putting a case together against that prick, I need to see the evidence.”
“ We are not putting a case together,” he grunted. “Chief doesn’t want you anywhere near this. Same with the Havelock PD. You’re too close to her. When we bring Kingsley in, he’s gonna lawyer up. Good ones, given all the money he and his folks have. We need the prosecution to have a rock-solid case. There can’t be any conflicts of interest.”
“Fuck all that shit,” I muttered as I rocketed out of my chair. “This is Bridget we’re talking about.”
“Exactly,” he said as he shoved me back into the seat. My body let out an unmanly squeak against the vinyl seat. “You can’t be anywhere near this because you need to be there for her.”
“She doesn’t want anything to do with me. Putting Kingsley away for the rest of his godforsaken life is how I can help her,” I growled.
“She’s putting up a strong front,” he countered. “Bee’s still got her guard up because she’s fuckin’ terrified that he’s gonna come after her.” Steve shook his head. “I don’t know what the fuck he did to her, but it goes deeper than this.” He stabbed the file with his index finger. “That prick still has his claws in her. She’s not blocking you out because she wants to hurt you. She’s doing it because it’s the only way she knows how to keep herself safe right now. What you’ve gotta do is keep your head on straight and be ready for the moment that she’s ready to let herself fall apart. Because, trust me, it’s coming.”
I chewed on Steve’s words as he walked away with the file of damning evidence tucked under his arm. It made me want to vomit. Luckily, I wasn’t left alone with my thoughts for long.
The hospital room door swung open, and Ruthie rolled Bridget out in a wheelchair. Bee looked a little more lucid. She had managed to sit up, which was a good sign. The black and blue marks on her face were still plain as day.
I couldn’t help but notice the way her face tightened, and her upper body tensed as the wheelchair jostled her.
Ruthie—God bless her—wheeled Bridget right up to the door of the visitor’s lounge before saying she needed to check something on the computer real quick.
Bridget took one look at me and muttered a very ladylike, “Fuck.”
I sat on the armrest of a chair to be a little closer to her level. “Hey, darlin’. ”
She stared at the floor like she was waiting for it to swallow her up whole. A dark swatch of purple painted her cheek. It bled into the blue that stippled the corner of her eye.
I shoved my hands in the pockets of my jeans to stifle the urge to touch her. To kiss each mark. To take her pain and put it on my shoulders. All I really wanted to do was pull her into my lap and hold her. To run my fingers through her hair and tell her that everything was going to be okay.
“How you feelin’?”
“Chase—” She sounded exhausted just having to vocalize my name.
Green eyes flicked up to meet mine, and goddamn—I’d never seen anything more beautiful. They were green like the marshes that speckled the water as I cruised over the bridge from Morehead City to Beaufort.
“You’re still here.” It was somewhere between a statement and a question.
I shrugged. “Told you I wasn’t going anywhere.” Before she could argue with me—because she was definitely going to—I added, “Is there anything you need?”
Honestly, I expected her to tell me to get lost. What I didn’t expect was for her to say, “Yeah, um… I was gonna ask Jase, but he had to go to the airfield for a little bit. And I’m about to kick Mel out so she can get some sleep before she has to be back here for work. I’d ask HJ or Maddie, but Kyle stole the phone I was planning on using, and I can’t use my old phone because he can see all the texts and stuff…”
I’d circle back to the whole “Kyle seeing her texts” issue with Steve.
Instead, I cracked a smile. Even though her body was tired and bruised, my girl was still in there .
“What’cha need, darlin’?”
“Steve said it’s okay if someone goes to the house to get my stuff. The cops are done over there. Everything is packed. I just…” Her voice lowered like she feared someone overhearing her.
I fucking hated how nervous just the thought of that bastard made her. How did she not know that I would do everything in my power to keep her safe?
She looked down at the edge of the hospital gown. It brushed her kneecaps. Deep contusions marred her shins. “I kinda wanna get it all out in case he comes back.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Ruthie returned and gave me a wink. I’d have to pick up one of Maddie’s confections from Revanche and bring it to her as a thank you.
“I’ll see you in a few days,” Bridget said.
She wasn’t getting rid of me that easily. I shook my head. “I’m gonna go get the boys to go to the house with me, then I’ll be right back here in case you need anything. Won’t be gone more than a couple hours.”
She let out a huff so indignant it was adorable. “Chase…”
“I love you, darlin’.” I dropped a kiss on top of her head. “Don’t ever doubt it.”
Will’s truck was idling in Kyle Kingsley’s driveway as I pulled in beside him. Jason rode with me while Luca and Isaac piled in with Solomon.
Jase and I made the trip to Havelock in silence. Neither of us had gotten much sleep in the last seventy-two hours. Mix in the fact that we were about to walk through the gates of hell to get Bridget’s shit out of the devil’s lair, we were on high alert .
Doors opened and slammed as the five of us piled out. I could see the neighbors pulling back curtains and peering through blinds.
Word about Kingsley spread far and fast. Small town gossip and all that shit.
We probably looked like a death squad about to start hunting him down.
Steve’s car rumbled as he pulled into the drive. He hopped out and slammed the door to his Challenger.
“Thought you were on duty?” I asked.
“I am. I want another look at the house.”
“You think Havelock PD missed evidence?”
He shook his head. “Nah. I just think they were looking for the wrong thing.”
The rest of the men circled up around us.
“What do you mean?” Luca asked.
Steve sighed and scrubbed his hand down the side of his beard. “I sat down and talked to Bee yesterday. She walked me through what happened here that put her in the hospital. According to her, when Kyle came into the house, he said that he knew what she had been planning.” Steve shrugged. “I wanna know how he knew. Bee said he watched her calls and texts but that she was careful. She only ever talked about leaving him when she was alone with Mel.”
Jason’s brow furrowed. “The morning everything went down between Mel and me, Bridget asked me to come back here with her, and she told me everything.”
“What went down between you and Mel?” Isaac asked. “I thought things between y’all were good?”
Jason rubbed the back of his neck. “I, uh… I proposed. She said yes. Things were good, then I walked in on her helping Bee after…” He couldn’t finish his sentence .
At this point, we all knew why Mel had been helping Bridget. But putting it into words was too much.
But his first statement piqued everyone’s interest.
“Dude, y’all are engaged?” Steve asked.
Jason nodded. “Yeah, we were gonna tell everyone at poker on Monday. But, uh, with everything that’s happened, I guess now is as good of a time as any. Just don’t tell the girls and act surprised when Mel breaks the news. I don’t wanna steal her thunder.”
There were rounds of congratulations and back slaps. I was happy for Jase and Mel. She was great, and he was ass-over-head for her.
Great. Just great…
The poker club was settling down. Everyone had their person. When I went home at night, at least my damn dog would snuggle with me. Though, she was somewhat of a bed hog.
I looked over my shoulder toward the house. Will had broken away from the group and was inspecting the front door.
“What’s got you squirrelly, Einstein?” Steve hollered.
“Is this breaking and entering, or do we have a key?” Luca asked.
Will wiggled the doorbell. It was one of those fancy home security ones with a camera where the owner could see who was at the door if they were away.
“This is aftermarket,” Will said, grunting as he yanked once, then twice, pulling the doorbell off the doorframe.
“I have the code to the lockbox,” Steve said, pointing to the black thing hanging from the doorknob. “Let’s stick to entering and keep the breaking to a minimum.”
Will shot him a hard look. “After what he did to Bee, I say we burn the fucking place down.” He dropped the doorbell camera onto the porch and stomped on it with the heel of his boot. The doorbell shattered. He bent down and riffled through the carnage. “ See this?” he said, picking up a computer chip that fit on his fingertip. “This is aftermarket. It encrypts the video feed and reroutes it to a private server.”
“Common English for the plebes, Solomon,” I clipped.
He rolled his eyes. It wasn’t my fault that the guy had an IQ higher than all of us combined. “Doorbells like this usually have a service provider that hosts the video feed. You know—you download the app on your phone and view it there. I think Kingsley fucked around with the hardware so the live video feed went to a private server. What the app saw was a looped video, not the live feed.”
“So he could keep an eye on things without any evidence of him coming or going,” I said.
Will nodded. “I’d have to take it home to be sure, though.”
“And how’d you know it was in there?” Jason asked
“The side of the case had been superglued,” Will said. “Not exactly manufacturer quality.”
“How do you know that that’s what that chip does?” Steve asked.
“Because I designed it.” Will flipped it over and laid it in his palm. “See that gold line there?” He pointed to a diagonal line on the edge of the chip. “It’s like a signature. Mine. I sold this particular one to the Navy a while ago. They used it in drones until they needed something a little more advanced to compete with other countries’ tech. So, I built them a more sophisticated version, and they sold the old one off. I think a company that makes consumer drones for aerial photography uses it now.”
“Why would the military give up something like that?” Luca asked.
Jase shrugged. “Happens all the time. GPS technology was originally military technology. Now everything has a GPS.”
Steve pushed through the group and punched in the code to the lockbox. When it popped open, he grabbed the key and opened the door.
There was a large suitcase at the foot of the stairs. I assumed that a biohazard cleaning company had been here because there was no blood spatter, and I could make out the faintest aroma of bleach.
Jase grabbed the suitcase and hauled it out to my truck. Steve, Luca, Isaac, and I stood in the foyer, all weighed down by the same sense of roiling anger.
Will, however, had no problem making himself right at home. “Jase,” he shouted as Jason made his way back inside. “Where were you and Bee when you talked the other morning?”
“Kitchen,” he said.
Will stood in the middle of the kitchen and looked around. When nothing immediately caught his eye, he pulled his phone out, turned on the flashlight, and started inspecting the appliances. He tapped the digital clock on the stove. “There’s a camera in there.”
I pushed my way through the guys to see what the hell he was talking about. Sure enough, when he pointed the beam of light against the plastic cover of the stove clock, I could make out the faint outline of a lens.
After that, we tore the house apart.
Twelve cameras in total were found. None that Bridget was probably aware of. The master bedroom was bugged more than Nixon’s phone lines. No wonder Kingsley knew that she had been planning to leave. He probably laughed like a maniacal bastard while he watched her pack.
“Probably how he knew where she had cash stored away,” Steve said as he poked around the bathroom. “Bee said she saved up two grand. Had a new phone hidden in here, too. That fucker stole it and drained their joint accounts. She has nothing. ”
“I’ll take care of it,” Luca, Isaac, and Will chimed in simultaneously before breaking into an argument about who would get to provide what.
It must have been nice not to have to think about what was in their bank accounts.
“Where’s her old phone?” Will asked over the melee.
“Evidence,” Steve said.
“Think I could take a look at it?” Will asked. “The burner phone that Kingsley stole won’t be much help because he’ll probably keep it off. But I might be able to track him down if he’s still monitoring her smartphone remotely.”
Steve shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“So, where are we taking Bridget’s stuff?” Jason asked.
After going through the house, we realized that Bridget had only packed the necessities. She still had clothes hanging in the closet. Jewelry on her dresser. There were curling irons, brushes, and bottles of hair goop all over the bathroom vanity.
So, we took it upon ourselves to pack the rest of her things.
We also took it upon ourselves to take the batteries out of all the smoke detectors and then hide them so they’d chirp in the middle of the night. Luca hid the TV remotes, and Isaac pulled a package of raw chicken out of the fridge, opened it, and left it on the countertop.
Bridget wouldn’t be coming back. If Kyle decided to show up, he’d have a nice housewarming gift.
We also took all the toilet paper.
“The loft at the airfield is barely big enough for Mel and me,” Jason continued. “Besides, I know my sister. She’s gonna want her space. Bee isn’t gonna wanna stay with any of us.”
“She was talking about staying at the inn,” Steve said.
“I was gonna see about getting her an apartment, but I don’t like the idea of her being alone,” Jase countered. “At least not until Kingsley is in custody.”
I had a pretty simple solution, but Bridget wasn’t going to like it.