Chapter 14 #2
But I don’t say any of it. I have to trust her decisions.
Fuck. There’s the T word again.
I need to be part of the solution, not the problem, which was fucking coyotes and some lurking person with a wrench. “Let me recap. The guardrails were loosened. And today you found a wrench that was dropped that’s the size of the rail bolts.”
“Yes.” She tests another theory but instantly it sounds wrong. “I guess someone could have been there to fix them, but why would they be hiding in the forest?”
I know where she’s going, and it makes sense.
“You think they were loose when Zoe went over. And now, months later, someone is there to secretly tighten them?”
Shit, is there some sort of tip-off going on? “When did Callum give you the green light on this case?”
“Eleven-ish?”
“When did you go to the quarry?”
“I got there after taking an early lunch. Maybe one?”
Shit. Way too much time passed. This town is constantly engaged in a game of telephone. Callum could have told Penelope; Ingram, his wife. Her fellow officer, Luke, makes hourly visits to Café Luna.
Plenty of time for the wrong person to hear Zoe Marshall isn’t getting buried yet.
She shakes her head. “Am I nuts?” She continues more for herself than for me. “It does make sense that maybe if there was foul play, the person would come back and clean up the details. But…” She’s deep in thought. “Months later. And…”
“… Right after Callum allows you to continue the investigation?”
This is why we vibed on those stakeouts. We are on the same wavelength.
Her curious gaze bears down on me. “The only people that might have known were fellow officers, though.”
I shake my head. “Sorry, honey, not in a small town. Callum, Ingram…anyone who overheard could have talked to someone about it. They had hours; information like that in Echo Valley would have spread like wildfire.”
“Callum said to keep it quiet.”
“There’s no such thing as quiet here.”
She rubs the side of her arm uncomfortably.
She’s so damn tough. Jesus, she’s trying to act professional talking about the case, but the woman was just shaken.
“Forget about the case for a minute.” I sigh. “Are you okay?” I ask, wanting so damn badly to reach out and pull her into my arms.
Her response is automatic. “I mean, yeah, I’m—”
“Really?”
“No. Not really.”
I take the juice glass gently from her hand and set it aside. “Come here.”
I pull her into me because she looks like she needs a hug, and I’ll be damned if I deny her anything, even though every time I put my hands on her, they don’t seem to belong to me anymore.
She doesn’t lean in all the way at first, just enough that her shoulder touches mine, but the contact alone already softens her.
“You did everything right,” I tell her. “You got out. You found and logged what could be evidence. You trusted your instincts and now…you’ll see what’s next.”
And damn if I’m not keeping an eye on this now.
She’s silent for a long while, long enough for her body to surrender and melt into me. I lean back against the couch, and she lets her head hit my shoulder, her poofy bun caressing my jawline.
I hold her firmly, stroking the length of her arm for as long as it helps her.
As long as she’ll let me…
“Something else weird happened today…” Her voice is almost a whisper.
“What is it?”
She fiddles nervously with one of the buttons on my Henley, and fuck, it nearly ruins me.
“I wanted to call you.”
My heart stops.
The button drops from her fingers. “I didn’t even think. The fear hit and…your name was just there.”
A low, consuming heat moves through my chest. She feels safe with me.
She trusts me.
Her confession shifts something inside me.
We can call it what we want, but Freya and that baby inside her are mine to protect.
Mine.
“If you call…” I say, no doubt in my voice, “I will be there.”
She glances up, and the affection in her chestnut eyes does me in.
“Thank you.”
I’m overwhelmed with how she’s looking at me, how close her soft lips are to mine, how much I want to kiss them.
But I manage a thin-lipped smile and nod. “Let me help with the case.”
She sits upright and tilts her head. “I need to stand on my own two feet.”
“You are. I’m just saying, let me take some of the weight. Freya, you’re pregnant, for God’s sake.”
“It’s not a disease, Anton.”
“No, but you were supposed to be on desk duty.”
“Ouch.”
“There’s no shame in it.”
“I know, but…” She presses a hand to her belly. “I have to admit, today was more than I bargained for. I thought with five months gone on this case, there’d be distance. You know? Almost like a cold case.”
We’re both thinking it. The fact that a Mazda Miata went through steel guardrails that were loosened changes everything. That someone was lurking at the quarry with the exact wrench needed to tighten them, loosen them further, God knows…it’s enough to make you think this wasn’t an accident.
Was it foul play?
Something premeditated as loosened guardrails suggests it.
Is there a murderer in Echo Valley?
A murderer who knows Freya is on the trail now?
Every muscle in my body goes taut. She must feel it—my whole frame coiled and ready to break something.
I will annihilate them if they so much as breathe on one of her black, bouncy curls.
“You were right this case wasn’t what it seems. And there’s someone potentially out there trying to cover it up.
Someone who knows you’re the officer in charge now.
I need you to let me be there for you.” Heat builds under my skin.
“Or if not for you, then for our baby. There’s no problem with calling in backup, Freya. That’s all I’m asking.”
It comes out rougher than I intend. I run my thumb along her jawline and—Christ—I want to kiss her, but I won’t.
She didn’t come to me for that.
But when her lips part, my pulse punches straight into my throat. She has no idea how easy it would be for me to burn the whole damn world down for her and the little life we made without meaning to.
She lets her head fall back down to my shoulder.
I glance down at her.
“Okay.” She concedes, glancing up from my chest. “You watching my six. Me chasing threads. It’ll be like old times.”
“Yeah,” I agree, knowing damn well it’s different. “Like old times.”
This isn’t a stakeout. This isn’t a long night killing time in a parked car for some man who wants to find his wife cheating to get out of an expensive divorce settlement. This is Freya. This is our child. This is my entire future that today might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Whoever loosened those guardrails at the quarry just put themselves on my radar.
And I don’t miss.