Chapter 10
10
RAE
“ Y ou okay?” Alec asked, concern tightening his features.
“Yeah,” I said with a forced smile. “What did you order?” Hopefully that would distract him from my clearly puffy and red-rimmed eyes from the few rogue tears.
“Thai like you wanted. I didn’t know what you’d like, and I’m starving, so I ordered the entire menu.” His shoulders rose and fell in a disinterested shrug. “Whatever we don’t end up eating can go into your to-go shrine you have in your fridge.”
“Funny.” I bypassed the living room and went straight to the fridge to pour more wine. But when I wrapped my hand around the bottle, I paused. If we were going to discuss the case, I needed to have a clear head, and if I poured another glass, there would be several more to follow. Setting the bottle back in the fridge, I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with tap water instead.
Look at me being responsible.
Back in the living room, the two males huddled around Charlie’s computer, whispering between them. I chose the three-legged stool I usually used as a side table and sat without a word.
Alec studied me. “We have the files pulled up on the five cases, the four older ones and the most recent. Ready to clear your name and find the son of bitch stalking you?”
Hope bloomed within me as my hand tightened on the slick glass. “Yes. Hell yes.”
His answering smile turned feral. “So are we.” Turning back to the screen, he continued. “They’re searching for the man from the library today. Thankfully he didn’t wear gloves when he inserted the thumb drive he left behind, so we know who he is.”
“Jason Pouch,” Charlie stated. “Thirty-nine?—”
“Thirty-nine.” Disbelief shadowed the word. “I would’ve said late forties at the youngest.”
“Meth and a bit of jail time will do that to you. Recently paroled from a three-year stint for possession.” Charlie’s brows furrowed as he concentrated on the screen. “Looks like it wasn’t his first time either. Maybe he’s a small-time dealer or runner. If we can narrow down which kingpin he worked for, maybe that’ll help us narrow the search for the man after Rae.”
“That’s a good angle. Or I can find out exactly who the fucker is once they apprehend this guy and I can question him.” Alec’s fists flexed in his lap.
“As long as I don’t have to go back to the station with you,” I said with a frown. “I hope I never have to see Detective Asshole and Guard Pencil Dick again.”
Alec froze with a predatory stillness. A flash of worry crossed Charlie’s face.
“Interesting names. What happened before I got there?” The protective edge to Alec’s voice sent a shiver down my spine.
I licked my lips, suddenly nervous from the thrumming tension filling the room. “The detective never told me his name, just accused me of kidnapping someone, then made a comment or two about my weight. Which was dumb because that asshole was twice my size, and he made it seem like I was the size of a damn cow.”
“What?” Alec practically growled and leaned forward, shoving the computer aside. “What exactly did he say, Rae?”
“I don’t want to repeat it,” I whispered and avoided his stare. “It’s embarrassing.”
“Why?” To my surprise, genuine confusion clouded his voice.
“Because what he said was true.”
“The fuck it is,” Alec shouted and stood. “What did he say? Exact words.”
I couldn’t deny his steely command.
“He said I probably killed the guy who’s missing because he turned down my advances, which wasn’t true. Then he said it wouldn’t have surprised him that the new victim would’ve turned me away because someone like me would smother a guy like him.”
When I dared a peek toward the couch, Alec had both hands interlaced behind his head, his chest heaving.
“Calm down, Hulk,” Charlie placated, both hands raised in surrender like he would approach a wounded bear. “He might have been using it as a tactic to get her to confess, catching her off guard to make her slip up.”
“And the guard?” Alec questioned, ignoring Charlie.
“Careful what you say here, Rae,” Charlie whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “He’s about to Hulk out on us.”
I angled my head in confusion. “Why?”
Sympathy softened his eyes. “You have no clue, do you?”
“No clue about what?”
“Rae,” Alec snapped. “The guard. What did he say?”
“He, um,” I stammered, searching for the right words to not upset him further. Running trembling fingers through my ponytail, I pulled it over my shoulder and played with the ends. “He basically said the same thing, but what he suggested made me the angriest.”
“What did he suggest?” His words came out more of a hiss.
Oh boy. Alec was really worked up. “He said it to the woman in the cell with me.” I chanced a glance at Charlie, hoping for help on how to calm Alec down. “If she wanted to get out of holding sooner, then she knew what she had to do. I read between the lines.”
Alec’s stormy gray eyes shuttered as his hands dropped to his side. The new wave of calm was more frightening than his vibrating anger. For a second I wondered if he planned to kill both the detective and guard.
“I need to make a call,” he said, his tone unnervingly flat.
“Stay inside?” I half questioned, half pleaded. After those pictures, my anxiety around their safety ran rampant.
That stony mask slipped a fraction for him to shoot a small smile my way. “Sure, Sunshine. Can I use your room?”
After my nod of confirmation, he spun around but didn’t immediately walk away.
“Do you have any sound-canceling headphones in that bag of yours?” he questioned Charlie, who dipped his chin. “Good. Give them to her, and don’t let her take them off until I’m done, understand?”
When he stormed off, I tensed, prepared for the bedroom door to slam and shake the entire house, but it never came.
“Here.” A set of huge headphones dangled in front of my face. “Boss’s orders. What do you want to listen to?”
“Why can’t I hear the call?” I slid the expensive-looking headphones off his finger and turned them this way and that, inspecting them.
“I have a feeling he doesn’t want you hearing him. No one wants his girl to hear him at his worst.”
I wanted to tell him, again, that I wasn’t Alec’s girl but moved past it to the more troubling word. “Worst?”
“Yep.”
“Care to fill me in?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?” I sighed and rested the headphones on my lap.
Charlie studied me for a second, the bright light of the screen highlighting his chiseled features. “Because I value my life and his trust.”
“You trust him? I thought you two didn’t like each other.”
A lopsided smile tugged at his lips, making him appear years younger. “We get under each other’s skin, sure, but I trust him with my life. Now”—he nodded to the earphones—“put those on before the yelling starts.”
Charlie’s words still hung in the air when Alec’s shouting voice boomed through the house. In a rush, I slipped the headphones over my ears, the room immediately going silent.
“These things are awesome.” I might have shouted, but I couldn’t tell. “Have any eighties love songs?”
Charlie’s nose scrunched in disgust with a quick shake of his head.
“Beatles?”
That earned me a smile and nod. Seconds later, the soothing sounds of my parents’ favorite group filled my ears. Closing my eyes, I lost myself in the music, allowing the memories to flitter through, reminding me of a time long ago when I was truly happy.
I lost track of time listening and flipping through a Wired magazine Charlie had dug out of his laptop bag and tossed my way. Alec’s movement, as he sat on the couch with a dozen bags covering the coffee table, drew me back to the present.
He motioned for me to remove the headphones. “Food’s here.” I handed the amazing bit of technology and magazine back to Charlie with a smile of thanks. “Let’s eat.” The rip of paper bags and delicious aromas filled the small room. My stomach growled with ferocity at the same time as Alec’s. “Where are we?”
“While you handled that, I pulled up everything they have on Rae’s parents’ murder.” I felt the blood drain from my face. My hand froze over the chicken curry. “The evidence was circumstantial.” While Charlie rambled on, Alec pushed the chicken curry container my way with his chopsticks. “Bloody footprints, but more dots than large amounts, unlike the puddles surrounding the bed?—”
“Easy, Bekham,” Alec cautioned.
I forced a smile and began eating the noodles and chicken, but it tasted bland after hearing that. “It’s okay. I need to hear it all.”
“There’s only one set of soaked footprints, when she ran from the bedroom. Then the obvious rage in the overkill.”
I cringed. That was a new detail. “What do you mean, overkill?”
“They both died of stab wounds to the heart, but there were dozens of other lacerations along the torso. Your mother’s body had the most.” Charlie chewed on the end of a pen that he’d been using to take notes. “They were already dead, so why keep killing them? I’d wager to say this was personal. Which is why they suspected Rae’s involvement. From the police notes, the Chapins didn’t have any known enemies and really kept to themselves.”
“If it was personal, that means the person knew Rae was home.”
The noodles near my lips slipped from the chopsticks as I stared wide-eyed at Alec.
“There’s more to confirm that.” Charlie’s fingers flew over the keyboard, that pen now clenched between his white teeth. “But first, look at what they found on the bodies, mixed in the blood, which meant it was shed during the murder or when Rae found her parents. The hair length and color doesn’t match her parents, and visually, the color matches Rae’s dark brown, so they never sent it off for DNA. They just assumed it was hers.”
“Lazy bastards,” Alec snapped. “Get that evidence from the station and to the FBI office in Dallas, labeled priority by the Texas Rangers.”
“Slow your roll there, Hulk. I plan to, but before I rush over there and demand they shift through cold case files, I wanted to make sure there isn’t anything else they’ve overlooked or maybe we could have reanalyzed with the latest technology.”
“Smart. But call me Hulk again and see what happens.” He tossed one empty container to the coffee table and searched through the others before picking up one that looked questionable to me. “Damn, this is excellent food.”
After finishing my food, I set the empty box on the floor and picked up the container with warm soup.
“Where the hell do you two put all that food?” A bit of wonder laced Charlie’s voice. “Have to watch every calorie and work out like a madman to keep this amazing physique.” He waved a hand down his lean chest.
“Um, pretty sure you can see exactly where I put mine,” I stated dryly before shoving a spoonful of soup past my lips.
“Don’t judge yourself or what you offer by the poor judgments of others.” I blinked up at Alec. “Those bastards wouldn’t know a real woman if she sat her pussy on their faces.”
I covered my mouth to not spew out soup with my laugh. Alec grinned and went back to devouring his food like it might run away from him.
“What else, Charles?”
“You’re a fuckhead,” Charlie grumbled.
“Yeah, Charles?” I added. “What else did you find?”
“Et tu, Brute?” Charlie mocked. “I have half a mind to not tell you about the blood trail they found leading from the parents’ bedroom to Rae’s, which was how she ended up with those blood dots on her socks.”
“What?” Alec said around a mouthful of food.
“Looking at the pictures and diagrams of the crime scene, the trail of drops of blood go from her parents’ room to Rae’s. The distance between each drop suggests the blood flowed down the killer’s hand and dripped off the blade of the knife as he walked the short distance to Rae’s room.” Pausing, he leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “There was also a significant puddle just inside her room.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand.” I absentmindedly set the soup container on the coffee table, my mind whirling with questions.
Alec’s features turned grim. “It means whoever killed your parents was in your room that night.”
Charlie sighed, drawing my wide-eyed gaze. “And stood there long enough for a small puddle to form inside your room.”
I almost died right there and then. The man, the person tormenting me, watched me sleep with my parents’ blood on his hands. Breathing turned difficult, my throat closing as my mind raced. Heart thundering, I swayed on the stool.
“Rae, breathe.”
Alec’s voice continued in the distance, but the buzzing in my ears made the words too muffled to understand. My vision narrowed, tunneling to black as little sips of air slipped into my lungs before everything went dark, oblivion sweeping me away for the time-out my body demanded.