6. Chase
6
CHASE
I pulled into my drive and cut the engine. Against my better judgment, I had gone back to work.
Sure, I had the personal days to spend at my leisure, but I didn’t want to piss off the rest of the department.
Bridget had gotten discharged this morning, and Jason let me know that he had dropped her off safe and sound.
Not a peep from Bridget, though.
I could hear Luna scratching against the door as I jogged up the porch steps. The second I turned the doorknob, Luna wedged her snout between the door and the frame, trying her best to get out. Her tail thumped a building crescendo against the floor.
I dropped to my knees and smooshed her furry head in my hands. “Who’s my pretty girl?” I cooed in a tone I wouldn’t be caught dead using around another living human.
Luna attacked me with unconditional love and questionable doggy breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the curtains covering one of the cottage windows fall back into place.
She wasn’t going to come out, but she was curious .
I let Luna out into the yard to do her business and grabbed the paper bag I’d gotten from the hardware store on my way home.
As I crossed the yard, my footfalls left imprints in the grass. It had rained while Bridget was in the hospital. It was one of those heavy summer storms that wasn’t quite hurricane-level, but still dumped a Biblical amount of water on us.
Butterflies that I hadn’t felt in a long time decided to make a sudden reappearance as I walked up the little stone path that led to the cottage.
The cottage was, at most, thirty feet from the back door of my house. But making that walk, knowing she was in there, made it feel like crossing the ocean.
I let out a sharp breath as I tapped my knuckles against the door. “Hey, darlin’, it’s just me.”
I could hear her shuffling around in there, hating the fact that I hadn’t been here when Jase dropped her off.
She didn’t answer, so I knocked again. “Darlin’,” I called out. “It’s me. You okay in there?”
Still no answer. I was just about to unlock the damn door with my key when I felt my phone start to buzz.
One look at the screen had me withholding my irritation as I swiped across and pressed the phone to my ear. “I was just knocking on the door. You okay?”
“I’m fine,” Bridget clipped. I didn’t like how tired she sounded. “I was just calling to see what you were knocking for.”
I let out a chuckle that was halfway between exasperated and frustrated. “You, uh, you could have just opened the door.”
She let out a quiet sigh. The thump against the door made me think that maybe she was leaning against it. Like she wanted to be close to me, but not too close.
I rested my forehead on the door and pressed my palm against it, wanting to be close to her, too .
I exhaled the annoyance and closed my eyes. “I was bringing you a key to the house.”
“Jase gave me a key already.”
“He gave you one to the cottage. This one’s to the main house. You know—if you want to wash your clothes. There’s no washer or dryer in the cottage. So, it’s either my house or the general store.”
“Oh.” I heard her body shift against the door.
“Wanna let me in so I can give it to you?” I asked.
“Not really.” Her sweet voice cracked on the last syllable. My heart imploded.
I just wanted to hold her. To support her. To wipe away her tears.
“Darlin’, what’s the matter?”
She sniffed.
Fuck. I could handle just about anything, but Bridget, with tears in her eyes, gutted me every single time.
“I don’t want you to see me like this, okay?”
“I’ve already seen you, Bee. Remember?”
I’d sure as hell never forget what she looked like when the doctors deemed her stable enough to step down from the ICU and rest and recover in a regular hospital room. I had stared at her for hours on end, studying each scrape, cut, and bruise. It was a brutal picture that I’d never be able to unsee.
“That was before I looked in a mirror,” she cried, her words coming out warbled.
Shit.
I pressed my fist against the door and clenched my eyes shut. “Darlin’.” My voice was barely a rasp. “Let me in.”
I could unlock the door myself and barge in, but I wasn’t going to do that to her. No matter how much I wanted to.
She sniffled, and I heard the soft static of a tissue she pulled from a box. “I’m a mess, and I… I just need some time.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out my key ring. Trapping my phone between my ear and shoulder as I worked a key off, I said, “Whatever you need, darlin’. I’m good for it. You hear me?”
She blew out a breath. “I hear you.”
“I’m gonna leave a bag on the doormat. It’s got the key for the house and a key to my truck in there. Take it wherever you need to go. I’ll drive my unmarked.”
“I can’t drive your truck,” she croaked. “I know you’re losing money because I’m staying here. I heard Jase say that you canceled a bunch of tourist rentals.”
“It’s the off-season,” I said as I dropped the brown paper bag on the doormat Hannah Jane had picked out. “There’s plenty of places around town for them to stay. I didn’t think twice about clearing the calendar. It’s yours as long as you want to be here. You get me?”
Bridget sniffed. “You’re something else, Chase Brannan.”
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I love you, darlin’. Don’t ever doubt it.”
Maybe someday, she would believe it.
Luna came barreling up with a stick in her mouth. She dropped it beside the hardware store bag and promptly plopped her furry butt on the mat.
Her tail thumped expectantly, like she knew who was on the other side of the door. When the stubborn human inside the cottage didn’t immediately open up and shower her in affection, Luna whined and pawed at the door.
“Is that my girl?” Bridget asked.
“Yep.” I chuckled as I scratched behind her ear. “And Lu has much more delicate feelings than I do. She might take it personally if she doesn’t get to see you.”
As if to prove my point, Luna barked in agreement.
“Does the cottage have a no-pet policy?” Bridget asked.
I chuckled. “Check the cabinet above the fridge. ”
Even without the phone, I could hear Bridget rummaging around. “I’ll take the giant bag of treats as a sign that it’s okay if I get some puppy snuggles?”
Dear God, she was going to undo me with that voice.
I glanced at my watch. I really needed to grab a shower if I was going to make it to Maddie and Luca’s for poker night.
I didn’t want to go without Bridget.
But given the way she wouldn’t even open the fucking door for me, I didn’t think she planned on making any public appearances.
“If you’re up for company, Luna would love to hang out with you.”
“You’re not taking her to poker?”
“I don’t plan on staying very long.”
“Chase…”
Before Bridget could argue any further, I clicked my tongue so that Luna would follow me back inside. She did as she was told, but not without a longing look at the cottage. “Kris and HJ put some casseroles in the fridge if you’re hungry,” I said into the phone. “Directions are on the counter.”
“Flying solo tonight?” Isaac asked glumly when I walked into Maddie and Luca’s basement.
The ten of them sat there with bated breath, like they were waiting for me to pull Bridget out of a hat like a fucking magician.
Hell, that would have been easier than getting her to open the cottage door.
“Yeah,” I said, bursting their hope that Bee was going to come with me. “She, uh… She didn’t feel up to coming out tonight.”
A chorus of dejected sighs filled the room .
“But she settled in, okay?” Erica asked as she grabbed a slice of pizza.
“Yeah,” I said, taking a seat beside Kristin.
“No Luna?” Maddie asked as she nibbled on saltines.
To my surprise, Bridget had cracked open the door so that Luna could wiggle her way in before I left. Bee hid behind the door the whole time, but it was progress.
Small progress.
“Well,” Jason said, “Bee already knows, so it’s not like she’s missing out, but…” His voice trailed off as he looked down at Mel. She was curled up on the couch with him.
Melissa held out her hand and flashed a ring with a diamond the size of a postage stamp. “We’re getting married!”
There was a rousing roar of congratulations as the girls flocked to check out her ring. The guys shared knowing smirks since Jase had already spilled the beans.
Will walked over and shoved a beer into my hand. “You look like you could use one of those.”
“Thanks, man,” I muttered. I hadn’t stopped checking my phone, hoping for anything from her. A text. A photo. A damn smoke signal.
Logically, I knew she was okay. She was safe. But I couldn’t shake that niggling feeling I got in the back of my mind that there was something on the horizon.
One of the first things I learned as a detective was to trust my gut. Those innate warnings always told me when a situation was about to go south.
“How is she really?” he asked.
I shrugged as I took a long pull from the bottle. “Your guess is as good as mine. She won’t see me.”
“That sucks,” he mumbled into his beer.
“Did Steve ever get you her phone out of evidence? ”
He smirked. “Yeah. Ended up bringing me on as a private consultant for the case so I could take a look at it.”
“Find anything?”
He nodded. “Yeah, I hooked it up and went through it. Pretty much what we thought. That fucker basically cloned her phone. Anything she did on it, he could see on his. Texts, apps, social media—you name it. Even the stuff she deleted. If she got a call, he could listen in if he wanted to.”
“Shit.”
He tipped his bottle back and drained the rest of his beer. “That paired with all the cameras we found in the house, it’s not hard to see how he knew when she planned on making moves.”
“It’s like he had her living in a fishbowl,” I mused, forcing down the surge of anger inside.
Even before the truth about Kyle Kingsley had come to light, I had a constant simmering hatred of the man. But ever since Bridget barely escaped with her life and Kyle was on the run, I wanted to end him.
And I was willing to put my career on the line to do it.
“Any of your leads pan out?” I asked.
Will had connections in the private mercenary world. Or, as he liked to call it, paramilitary .
While he had been sitting in the hospital lobby waiting for Bee to wake up, he’d made some calls to get guys who “owed him favors” to start shaking the trees for any sign of Kingsley.
I didn’t want to think about what he had done to have favors owed by government-funded hitmen.
Will raised an eyebrow. “You talked to Steve?”
I cut my eyes across the room. Steve had his arm around Erica and was laughing at something Isaac said.
“Apparently, I’m not allowed anywhere near the case,” I grumbled .
“Can’t really blame them for wanting to keep it tight. Especially if involving you is the difference between a conviction and him walking.”
Kingsley was already walking. A dead man walking .
“Between you and me, there haven’t been any leads,” Will said. “Bee gave Steve a list of the places Kingsley liked to camp. Isaac and I paid off some guys to comb through the grounds, but nothing turned up. I’ve sent some drones up, but until the leaves fall, it’s too dense to get a visual. Hate to say it, but if he’s ditched his phone and is using cash, it’ll be like finding a needle in a haystack. On this side of the state, there are plenty of places to hide off the beaten path.”
“What about the car he stole from his dealership? Wouldn’t it have had anti-theft installed?”
Will nodded. “By the time we got the VIN from the lot manager, Kingsley had disabled it. We got a last known location from the burner phone he stole from Bee. The last ping had him heading westbound on Highway 70 outside of Kinston.”
Well, shit. “Any good news?” I asked with a caustic laugh.
He shrugged. “Your girl is out of the hospital, and she’s on the road to healing. That’s pretty good news to me.”
I held on to that for the rest of the night. I only stayed for one hand of poker that I lost in an epic fashion. No one blamed me for cutting out early. It just didn’t seem right to be hanging out with everyone when Bridget was home alone.
The truck was still parked right where I’d left it. Not that I expected her to leave. I knew she was wiped.
What I didn’t expect was to find her lying in the yard. Bridget had a blanket spread out across the grass and was using a sliver of moonlight to illuminate the pages of the book she was reading.
The growl of my car pulling into the drive startled her. She tucked her head down to avoid the headlights, the ball cap on her head acting as a shield. Before I could even cut the engine, she closed her book, grabbed the blanket, and hurried into the cottage.
I sat in the driver’s seat, staring at the cottage like a fucking creep. I watched her silhouette through the drawn curtains, slowly moving through the rooms as she got ready for bed. Then, one by one, she turned off the lights.
She had never been this close. This within reach. And yet, she had never been farther away.
My phone buzzed as I made my way up to the porch of my house. A photo of Luna, tongue lolled out to the side, popped up on the screen. She was sitting on Bridget’s lap. My seventy-pound German Shepherd still thought she was a lap dog. Bee had not-so-subtly managed to crop out any exposed skin.
Bridget
Thanks for letting me steal your girl. She was exhausted from all the attention, so I took her outside then put her back in your house.
Well, there went my plan to try and weasel my way into the cottage when I went to get Luna from her.
Chase
You up for a little human company?
Bridget
I should probably get some sleep.
I thought back to the day I had pulled Luna out from under Kristin’s single wide. The little thing was petrified when I ripped the sheet metal skirt back and scurried as far back as she could. With a little coaxing, I got her to come close enough for me to get a hold of her.
Maybe she just needed a little coaxing.
I’d let Bridget hide away for the time being, but not forever.