22. twenty
twenty
. . .
CREW
True to form, I was disgustingly full by the time we finished eating dinner—though I made sure to save enough room for both my and Lane’s pieces of Mama’s apple pie. I made a real nice show of vocally enjoying it while my brother looked on petulantly, a grimace tilting his lips down and murder in his eyes.
The best piece of pie I’d ever had.
After we cleared the table and helped Mama load the dishwasher, Aria disappeared upstairs, and Finn and West headed out to their respective homes on the property.
That left me, Mama, Lane, Trey, and of course, Aspen to enjoy a nightcap—with ulterior motives.
I’d been unsure about tonight, mainly because I knew how exhausting my family could be, and I was worried Aspen would run screaming in the opposite direction as they all started filtering into the house.
But she continued to surprise me.
She held her ground with all of my brothers, and spent most of dinner in deep conversation with Aria about music, which happened to be my sister’s favorite topic.
Though we told her several times that guests didn’t help with cleanup, she refused to listen, up to her elbows in soapy water alongside my mom as they cleaned the dishes that had to be hand washed.
Then we retired to the den. With Aspen’s permission, we turned the gas fireplace back on, dispelling the chill that tended to set in this time of year once the sun went down.
“I know Finn said it at dinner, Aspen, but I speak for all of us when I say how sorry I am for what happened to you,” Mom started.
Aspen gave her a twitch of a smile. I knew she hated being the center of attention, and neither wanted nor needed the sympathy and pity.
“You were in school with Roger and Vicky, right?” Lane asked, cutting right to the chase and saving Aspen from having to respond.
Mom nodded. “They were two years behind me and your father in school.”
I softened at the mention of my dad in the way I always did. My parents had been high school sweethearts, graduating and choosing to stay right here on the ranch, knowing they’d already found their forever in each other and wanting to start their family as soon as possible. As the story went, Mama was already a few months pregnant with Owen when they got married. All she ever wanted to be was a mom, and I was fucking grateful she was mine.
A weaker woman would’ve given up on me a long time ago, but she never once wavered in her support.
Aspen reminded me of her in that way—they both had that fierce strength.
“What can you tell us about them?” I asked.
“Good people, from what I remember. Vicky was smart as hell and planned to go to UCLA for school. I can’t remember what she wanted to major in, but I have no doubt she would have excelled in college. She was on every damn committee you could think of, from yearbook to student council, debate team, Key Club, on top of playing basketball in the fall and running track in the spring. She was…impressive.
“On the flip side, Roger was a goof. The class clown, if you will. One of the funniest guys I’d ever met, and had a personality way too big for this tiny town. On paper, he and Vicky shouldn’t have worked, and maybe they didn’t entirely because they spent a lot of time off and on. And when they were off, he…”
Mom paused and shook her head, opening her mouth, apparently about to skip over what she’d planned on saying, but the cop in Lane perked up.
“Tell us, Mama.”
“I don’t want to speak ill of the dead.”
“It’s not ill if it’s the truth,” Aspen added quietly. “And if there’s anything you can tell us to help figure out who hurt them, who hurt me , then you owe it to us to do that.”
This was why Lane had wanted Aspen here. Mama had a backbone of steel but a bleeding heart, and she’d already taken a strong liking to Aspen. My girl obviously wasn’t opposed to using that to her advantage.
Mom took a deep breath, eyes locked on Aspen as she said, “Roger got around. When he wasn’t with Vicky, he was with…everyone else. I doubt there was a girl in the high school that he hadn’t been with.”
“Even you?” Trey blurted.
Mom leaned forward and swatted at him. “No, not me, you little shit. I’ve been head over heels in love with your father since the day I first laid eyes on him.”
Mom and her family had moved to town over the summer before their freshman year of high school. That first day, they laid eyes on each other, and the game was over for them both. They dated until they were eighteen, got married at twenty, and had Owen shortly after. Their love story was the shit of fairy tales .
My heart squeezed painfully at her use of the present tense, though. Dad had been gone for twenty years, but she’d never moved on. Not for lack of trying on our part. Our old ranch foreman, Cyrus, had always held a torch for mom. After Dad died, he’d stuck around another five years until we all managed to get back on our feet. When he retired, we encouraged Mom to go out with him—or anyone—but she never listened. She always claimed she only had room in her heart for one man, and that man had taken it with him when he died.
Fuck, I wanted a love like that. Their time together had been cut short, but my parents were the blueprint. The standard I held every single one of my own relationships to…which was why they’d been few and far between.
Like Mom said: she knew the first time she looked at him, and I hadn’t experienced that yet.
Or maybe, I had, and simply wasn’t willing to admit it to myself.
“Okay, so Roger was a slut,” Lane muttered. “Not helpful, but good to know anyway I guess?”
It seemed odd to me that Lane, the literal fucking cop who had been trained to peel back the layers of what people weren’t saying and expose the truth underneath, couldn’t see this potential lead that was staring him right in the face.
So I was forced to do my brother a solid.
“Who else was he hooking up with at that time, Ma?”
Lane’s head jerked in my direction so quickly, his neck cracked, and Aspen shot me a proud grin.
Jackpot .
“You don’t think one of them could’ve—” Lane started, but Mom cut him off.
“Honestly, he always had a few girls in rotation. And at that point, I’d been out of school for a few years and was busy being pregnant and a new wife. You’d be better off asking some of their other classmates. ”
Lane withdrew his damn notebook and flipped through it, scanned a page, then said to Mama, “What about Angela Mickelson?”
“Why does that name sound familiar?” I mumbled.
“She was the third victim,” Aspen replied softly.
“The name rings a bell,” Mama admitted, “but I can’t say for sure whether she had any sort of relationship with Roger. I don’t remember her being in high school when Jase and I were.”
“Besides,” I pointed out, “Angela is dead. It’s not like she’s the killer.”
Lane huffed out a laugh. I knew my brother well enough to understand he was trying to save face, because he was embarrassed I’d jumped to the obvious conclusion before he had. “You don’t think this killer is a woman, do you?”
“Of course not,” I told him honestly. “There’s no way a woman could do all this.”
Trey nodded. “I’d have to agree that a woman couldn’t have done this.” He looked at Aspen. “I mean, you’re tiny, but you still weigh over a hundred pounds, right? There aren’t a lot of women that could handle lugging deadweight around like that, and not a single one of them lives in Dusk Valley.”
“What I do think, though,” I continued, giving Trey a nod of approval for having my back, “is that there could be another guy on the other side of these relationships who was caught in the crossfire, either because of Roger fucking around or because he carried a torch for Vicky, and they’re taking their aggression over the situation out repeatedly on innocent women.”
Lane huffed an irritated breath out through his nose. “When did you become a cop?”
“Learned from the best…”
“Aww,” Lane grinned, sinking back into his chair. “That’s sw?—”
“Trey,” I finished.
Trey wasn’t technically a cop, but he had spent nearly a decade in the Secret Service and the bulk of his time since in private security. Basically the same thing, right?
Plus, nothing made me happier than busting Lane’s balls.
Trey, Mama, and Aspen burst into laughter, but as quickly as he’d reclined, Lane shot to his feet.
“I’m leaving.”
“Oh, c’mon, princess,” Trey cooed. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“I have to work early,” he grumbled, then bent to kiss Mama on the cheek before stomping out of the house.
“I do too, actually,” I said, rising to my feet and looking down at Aspen, extending my hand. “You ready?”
Before she could reach for me, her mouth opened on an impressive yawn, giving me my answer.
I helped her up, electricity shooting up my arm at the contact. It brought me right back to the night before in her room, when I’d had her pressed against that wall.
Fuck, I’d wanted to taste her. To lick my way up the column of her throat, capture that perfect mouth with mine, and show her exactly what my lips could do to her other set.
She wanted it too. Her cinnamon eyes had darkened, pupils blown wide.
But I wasn’t in the habit of taking something I wasn’t offered, and when —not if—I finally got Aspen naked and willing beneath me, it would be because she asked for it.
As Lane had done, I folded myself over Mom and pressed a kiss to her cheek, murmuring good night, then stepping back so Aspen could bid her farewell.
Mama got to her feet and hauled Aspen into a hug, saying something in her ear too low for me to hear. When they pulled apart, Aspen nodded, took my proffered hand once again, and let me lead her out to the truck.
The sun had sunk completely below the mountains by then, but it lingered somewhere behind them, silhouetting the peaks and turning the sky a pretty, bright pink. Aspen stopped in the middle of the drive, pulling me up short with her, to admire it.
“This place is breathtaking,” she said softly.
“My favorite place in the world,” I agreed.
“How come you don’t live on ranch land like Finn and West?”
I grinned as I tugged her the rest of the way to the truck and helped her in, my hand lingering on her hip for longer than was strictly necessary, slipping down the length of her thigh as she buckled herself in.
“I do,” I said. “A hundred thousand acres, remember?”
“So all the way over there”—she gestured in what she thought was the general direction of my house—“is still your family’s land?”
“A hundred thousand acres is roughly a hundred and fifty square miles, so yes. Trey and Lane have houses on the land too.”
“You guys really love it here.” It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t treat it as such, especially not when she continued, her eyes sparkling and teeth glowing inside a grin in the dashboard lights. “I can see why.”
I hoped that meant she was falling in love with it too. That maybe, when this was all over, she’d want to stay.
“What did my mom say to you back there?”
Aspen’s hand came up to cup my cheek. “She told me to take care of you.”
I scoffed. “I’m a grown man.”
“We all have scars, Crew. Even you.”
I couldn’t argue with that, and now was not the time or the place to get into the gritty details of my personal trauma. With a curt nod, I moved out of the way and gently shut the door. I’d taken one step toward the driver’s door when someone called my name.
Lane sat behind the wheel of his personal SUV, window down and staring at me .
“What?”
“Got a present for you in the back.”
Curiosity piqued, I opened the hatch and found several boxes, each labeled with an assortment of letters and numbers. Instantly, I knew what they were.
Lane met me at the back to help me load them into the bed of my truck. When he finished, he clapped a hand to my shoulder, stalling me in place as his fingers dug into my flesh.
Retribution for earlier, no doubt, but also a reminder that if I fucked this up, there would be hell to pay.
“Be careful. This killer is operating in the shadows, and getting close to Aspen could paint a target on your back. I can’t—” Lane cut himself off and cleared his throat. “I can’t add you to the victim list.”
“Aww, big brother!” I crowed, socking him on the shoulder so he released mine. “You care!”
He hooked an arm around my neck and ruffled my hair. “You tell anyone, and I’ll kill you. Just like I’ll kill you if these files wind up in anyone’s hands but yours and Aspen’s.”
Laughing, I shoved him away and made for the driver’s side of my truck. “Love you too!” I called as I popped the door open.
“Yeah, yeah,” he grumbled before speeding off.
“What was that about?” Aspen asked when I settled behind the wheel.
For some reason, I wasn’t quite ready to share my bounty with her. Maybe I was worried she’d take the files and run, cutting me not only out of the investigation but out of her life.
So I did what I had to: I lied.
“He was getting rid of some old weights and asked if I wanted them.”
Aspen snorted. “You don’t have enough in that basement of yours?”
I hitched a shoulder up. “You can never have too many. Plus, I’m getting stronger.” In the dashboard lights, I made a show of flexing and patting my bicep, and Aspen giggled. “Gotta increase my weights if I don’t want to lose muscle.”
“Trust me,” she mused. “I don’t think you’re in danger of that happening anytime soon.”
“You been checking me out, little phoenix?” Flashing her a grin, I put the truck in drive and rolled away from the house.
“Yep,” she answered proudly.
“Good,” I said. “Me too.”
“You’ve been checking yourself out?” she quipped.
“Woman…” I warned.
A deep, throaty laugh filled the cab, and I couldn’t help joining her.
“Please. You know you’re hot.”
“All that matters is that you think so.”
And speaking of hot , had it gotten warm in the cab, or was that coming from us?