Chapter 30
LAWSON
I strode into the station and gave Daniels a chin lift. “How’d you pull desk duty?”
Something passed over his expression. “Smith wanted to take an hour to check on Adrienne’s mom. I told him I didn’t mind covering.”
My gut twisted. Smith was one of our younger officers, around the same age as Adrienne, both of them having been born and raised here. They’d probably gone to school together, might’ve even been friends.
“Hell. Poor kid.”
Daniels nodded. “Small towns. Everyone has a connection.”
“You’re right there.” I’d have to check on Smith later and make sure he was hanging in there.
Daniels glanced over my shoulder to the street. “You hear anything new?”
He knew I would’ve gotten word to the station if I had, but I didn’t blame him for asking. We were all desperate for news, clues, anything. “Nothing yet.”
Daniels grimaced. “Seems like this guy could be good for it.”
My back teeth ground together. “Let’s hope so. And let’s hope he can lead us to Adrienne.”
I made my way deeper into the station. The last thing I’d wanted to do was leave my house and Hallie. But this was where I needed to be. And I had to get my head in the game.
The station was fairly empty, but Nash waved me over to his desk. There was none of his typical humor on his face. “How is she?”
I swallowed hard, an image of Hallie pale and shaking in my arms filling my mind. “She’s better. Shaken, but better. What’s the deal with our guy?”
A muscle in Nash’s jaw ticked. “They transferred him to the psychiatric facility in Brookdale. Lawyer wouldn’t let us talk to him until he was evaluated. Shrink said he needed to be put on a hold.”
I let out a stream of curses.
“It’ll be at least a few days before we get a crack at him,” Nash said.
“I still want charges filed. He’s guilty of assault, at the very least.” I didn’t want to think about what else. If he had been the one to kill Kimber and take Adrienne, he might know where Adrienne was.
Nash leaned back in his chair. “I’ve already got the county prosecutor on it. I knew you’d want to move.”
“And tell that damned public defender that his client may know where an innocent woman is.”
He tapped his fingers on the arm of his chair. “I tried to make that point. Lawyer wasn’t all that moved.”
“Of course, he wasn’t,” I muttered.
“I tried talking to Len before the lawyer got here. He wasn’t in his right mind. Just kept mumbling about finding her.”
Rage flared, hot and bright. He wasn’t getting anywhere near Hallie.
Nash was quiet for a moment, watching me. “You think there’s a chance he’s the guy who took her? Took all those women?”
I scrubbed a hand over my jaw. “I don’t have a clue. Seems almost too easy. That unsub hid his kills for a long time. This guy doesn’t seem like he could hide anything.”
“Could be devolving,” Nash suggested. “His mental illness taking its toll.”
“Maybe,” I hedged.
Nash went quiet again but was still watchful.
“What?” I clipped.
“You care about her.”
I stiffened. “Who?”
Nash sat up straight again, his chair letting out a loud squeak in the mostly quiet room. “Don’t play dumb. You know exactly who I’m talking about. Hallie. The gorgeous nanny your boys are already half in love with.”
No, the boys were already there. How they’d all reacted today was proof of that. Vicious claws dug into my chest as panic set in. My boys were attached, and no matter which way I moved, I could screw this to hell, making them lose her. I could lose her.
“Why do you look like I just said you have a month to live?”
“It’s complicated,” I muttered.
Nash pushed to his feet and got in my face. “Law, it’s me. I know exactly how complicated this kind of thing can be. How terrifying. But be honest. With yourself, at least.”
Blood roared in my ears. “I care about her. So much it scares the hell out of me.”
A shit-eating grin spread across Nash’s face.
I gave him a shove. “Don’t be an asshole.”
Nash didn’t care at all. “It’s about damn time, brother.”
“It’s not time for anything. She’s thirteen years younger than me. She’s my employee. There are a million reasons I shouldn’t go there.” But I couldn’t stop touching her, wanting to be close enough to bask in her light.
“She feels safe with you,” Nash said, the humor leaving his expression. “For someone who has been through what she has? Nothing says more about what she feels for you.”
That twisting sensation was back, low in my gut. “I made so many mistakes before.”
Nash’s expression darkened. “You didn’t make mistakes. Melody did.”
“I made the mistake of trusting my kids with her.”
“She was their mother.” Nash stilled. “Are you scared to trust Hallie with them?”
“No.” The answer came quickly and with complete certainty. Something that should’ve surprised the hell out of me. “She’d do anything for them. They love her. I just—” I couldn’t find the words for the sick feeling that lived in my gut.
“You don’t think you deserve it.”
My gaze jerked to Nash’s.
“You think because you believed Melody’s lies that you need to pay some sort of ultimate price and never be happy again. That’s bullshit, Law. You’ve been taking care of everyone your whole life. It’s okay to reach for some happiness.”
My mind whirled. Was that what I was doing? Punishing myself for my past mistakes?
“I—” My ringtone cut off whatever I was going to say, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket.
“Hey, Roan.”
He didn’t waste any time on polite greetings. “One of our officers found a body.”
The parking lot of the trailhead was already packed with vehicles. As Nash and I slid out of my SUV, I caught sight of Luisa and her assistant getting out of the coroner’s van.
“We gotta stop meeting like this, Law,” she said as she slung a bag over her shoulder.
I grimaced. “I’d take a beer and pizza over this any day.”
“You have any leads?” Luisa asked, falling into step next to Nash and me.
“One possible, but he just got put on a 5150, so we won’t be talking to him anytime soon.”
Luisa let out a few muttered Spanish words. “At least he won’t be able to hurt anyone if he’s in a hospital.”
If it was him.
As we headed up the path, Roan met us. His expression was harder than anything I’d seen on him in a long time, and his gaze was locked on me.
“You need to brace.”
An electric current raced through me. “Tell me.”
Roan just shook his head. “You need to see.”
I wanted to deck my brother for his cryptic statements, but I picked up my pace. A burn lit in my muscles as I rounded a bend in the trail. And then my blood went cold.
Crime scene techs had already put up lights since the sun was sinking low in the sky. Their forethought meant every inch of the visual assaulted me.
Adrienne lay sprawled across the trail but arranged as though she might’ve been sleeping. Flowers were woven through her hair, and she was clad in one of those damned white nightgowns. Only you could see the blood seeping through it from too many wounds. Dark, angry bruises littered her throat.
Nash muttered a slew of curses behind me.
I jerked my gaze to a tech. “You get all the photos?”
He nodded, his face pale.
My back teeth ground together. “Lift the edge of the nightgown so we can see her hip.”
The man crouched low, carefully lifting one side of the gown.
There weren’t any cuts this time. There was an angry red brand.
The same one that had been burned into Hallie.