Chapter 38
Jackson County Sheriff’s Office
The briefing had gone on too long. Adeline couldn’t sit here much longer. Cummings and Ferguson were sending some of their troops to assist with the search. Half an hour from now they would divide up into groups and begin. Couldn’t happen fast enough for Adeline.
Wyatt had attempted to get her to eat. She couldn’t. She just needed to focus on the investigation. To find Jamison. And make him pay.
“Detective Cooper.”
Adeline jerked to attention, scanned the faces around the table.
“I want you to know,” Detective Ferguson said via the teleconferencing system, “how deeply sorry I am for your loss. I’m certain it’s very difficult for you to continue assisting with this investigation.”
Cummings chimed in with a similar sentiment. Adeline managed a nod. “Thank you.”
The silence that followed closed around her, suffocating her. “I . . .” She stood, sending her chair sliding backward. “I need to . . .” She skirted the long conference table and rushed for the door. In the corridor she made a mad dash for Wyatt’s office. She needed to be alone for just a moment.
The breakdown was coming and she couldn’t stop it. To allow anyone to witness it . . . she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t allow anyone to doubt her ability to continue being part of this investigation.
The secretary didn’t try and stop her as she twisted the knob and pushed inside Wyatt’s office. Adeline let the door close and sagged against it.
Her whole life, the one thing she’d been relatively certain of was who she was. Even when the bullshit had gone down over Gage’s death, she hadn’t once questioned herself as an officer of the law or as a woman.
She looked at her hands, turned them palms up and studied the lines there, then the veins beneath the pale skin of the backs of her wrists. She had no Cooper blood in her veins. She hadn’t gotten the blond hair and blue eyes from her great aunt on her mother’s side.
Her mother was dead. Murdered.
Because of her.
Adeline hugged her arms around herself. She had no one. She was alone.
Wyatt’s image swam before her eyes.
No . . . he . . . they were over. Too much time had passed. He had a life. So did she. A life she would return to as soon as this was over.
She would go back to Huntsville and get her promotion. Her life would resume.
Her life? What a joke. How could she just pretend that nothing had changed?
Her mother was dead!
Adeline didn’t even know who she was anymore.
She pushed away from the door. Grabbed her courage with both hands. “Adeline Maureen Cooper.” She was from Pascagoula, Mississippi, where she had at least one shithook for a cousin and an old bastard of an uncle.
All that Cyrus had said whipped around inside her.
He had nothing to do with who she was. She was Irene and Carl Cooper’s daughter. A good cop . . . if not a good daughter.
Stop. Letting herself go down that road would only hinder what she had to do. She would be okay. As soon as she took care of Jamison. Made him pay for what he’d done. A sob twisted inside her. She would be okay.
“Damn it.” She refused to cry again. “Suck it up, Cooper.”
Her mouth tightened with the anger lingering around the edges of the pain. She had a job to do here. Her mother was dead. She deserved to have her death avenged. Adeline did not have the luxury of time for this poor-me crap. She was a major crimes detective. She had a killer to catch.
The urge to run all the way back to Huntsville overwhelmed her for several seconds. She could put all this behind her there. Forget these people . . . this place. This insanity.
Once the case was closed, she reiterated. Then, going back would make life a hell of a lot easier.
She didn’t have to look back in this direction . . . ever.
Just when she thought she could pull it together, her heart pounded so hard it hurt.
The facts she had learned in the past twenty-four hours crashed in on her.
How could she not have known any of this?
She was a cop, for Christ’s sake. Not once had she suspected that her parents had been less than honest with her.
Left out this one huge important detail.
Adeline Cooper wasn’t who she thought she was.
Those moments in her mother’s kitchen when she’d collapsed in Adeline’s arms elbowed their way into her thoughts.
She’d been so afraid. The ride to the hospital in that ambulance.
Then waiting for word. If her mother had died—Adeline had been absolutely positive she couldn’t have handled that.
Cop or no. She was strong, but she wasn’t that damned strong.
I didn’t want you to know that you weren’t my little girl.
The tears escaped, slid down her cheeks.
And then that bastard Jamison had killed her. Now Adeline had no choice but to handle it.
Her mother was dead.
“Goddammit.” She staggered back, collapsed against the wall next to the door and slowly slid to the floor.
She just wanted her mother to be well and at home, where she had always been. Her whole life Adeline had been able to count on coming home to find her there.
Until she had selfishly walked away from everything. No, not walked—run . . . she’d run as fast as she could. Why the hell had she let that old bastard send her running? She’d pretended not to give a shit. Had even pretended the decision had been hers and had nothing to do with Cyrus’s edict.
Lies. All of it. She’d lied to herself and everyone she cared about. How could she hold her parents’ decision of nondisclosure against them when she was just as guilty of holding so very much back?
How could she return to her life in Huntsville knowing all that she knew?
But then, what the hell did she do when this was finished?
Go someplace new?
Running would damned sure be a hell of a lot easier than dealing with all this. Someplace where no one knew her. Where none of this history could find her.
But she wasn’t twenty-one anymore. Shaking off the dust and heading for new territory would change nothing.
This was her life. Who she was.
No matter where she ran, she couldn’t escape herself.
All this time she’d thought she had done just that, but she’d been fooling herself.
More lies . . . more pretending . . .
The runaway cop—sounded like the perfect theme for a movie.
The door opened.
She glanced up as Wyatt crouched down next to her. “Addy.” He searched her face. “You should stay here while we get things started out there. Take a break. Let the rest of us deal with this search.”
Was he out of his mind? She struggled to her feet. “No way in hell. I’m fine. Let’s go.” She straightened her jacket. What was wrong with these people?
“You are not fine.”
She closed her eyes, tried to stop the sound of his voice from reverberating in her ears.
“Addy?”
She glared at him. “The truth is, I may never be fine again. But that’s not going to stop me from finding this son of a bitch.”
“You’re exhausted,” he said gently. “You’re upset. You have every right to be.”
“Look, Dr. Phil,” she glared at him, “give me five damned minutes and I’ll be good to go.” All she had to do was wash her face and take a few more deep breaths.
“If you insist,” he relented, his frustration showing.
“But, like I told you before, I’m not letting you out of my sight,” he said flatly, those hazel eyes hard with determination.
“You stay right where I can see you twenty-four seven until this is over. After what happened in that cemetery, I’d think you would be down with that. ”
“And what happened to my mother?” He needn’t forget that part. If Adeline had been on her toes she would have sensed the danger before it happened. She’d fallen down on the job as a cop and as a daughter.
“Yes,” he confessed.
She folded her arms over her chest. “And if I don’t agree to those terms, what do you plan to do about that, Sheriff Henderson?” This was ridiculous. How could she do the job if she had to be right under his thumb every second?
“Put you in protective custody as a person of interest to this case.”
Impotent laughter bubbled into her throat. “You are seriously cracked if you think I’d let you get away with that shit. Remember, I know as much about the law as you, hotshot.” Anger had completely taken over all those weaker emotions now. Even she realized she wasn’t reacting rationally.
“Try me.”
She took a mental step back. He was serious. The fury in his tone as he’d uttered those two little words warned that he would not back off. Allowing him to control her every move was out of the question.
“I’m out of here.” She started around him, but he reached out, closed his fingers around her arm.
“If anything happened to you,” he stared into her eyes, “I don’t think I could bear it.”
A fist rapped against the door. “Sheriff Henderson?” The secretary. “The others are waiting for you.”
Wyatt’s gaze held hers as if there was more he wanted to say. There was certainly more she should say, but she didn’t dare.
As much as Adeline wanted to, she wasn’t entirely sure she could trust him not to let her down again.
He certainly couldn’t trust her not to run again.
The only thing they could both count on was that they were damned good cops.
For now, getting the job done—for her mother, for the missing women—would have to be enough.