Chapter Twenty-Eight
Katie
“I’m going to get you some water, okay? I’ll be back in two seconds.”
“Please don’t leave me,” I whimper, clawing at his T-shirt. I can still feel the sludge on my hand, and even though I didn’t look in the basement, I know what it is. I can feel it crawling through my pores, digging its way into the membrane of my skin.
“Alfie, get a bucket of water, NOW!” Jonesy barks.
The sirens grow louder, and people start to stand on their front lawns looking over at the house.
Alfie jogs back to us a few minutes later, and I’m still trembling. Jonesy is stroking my hair, and I try to focus on the way his palm cradles the back of my head.
“I found some soap in the kitchen. The water isn’t hot, but it’ll do for a quick wash.”
“There’s a blanket in the back of Caleb’s car.
Get it and bring it here to hide her from them,” Jonesy says, commanding our friend like he’s the colonel now.
An officer cordons off the house again, and someone starts patrolling the area as Alfie holds up the blanket to hide me from the onlookers that have formed in front of the chain-link fence.
Jonesy doesn’t leave my side for a second—he holds my hand, not scared of the sludge as he wipes it clean.
He rubs each finger individually, murmuring for me to keep my eyes on him.
The revulsion spikes as I feel the sludge move down my fingers.
I can’t smell Jonesy anymore. I can only smell the sour rot, like cabbage clinging to my nostrils.
I twist my head, bile scorching up my throat as I vomit into the front yard.
Anthony storms over, Officer Sanchez bringing up the rear. “Stop washing her hands. It’s evidence. We have a procedure, Jones.”
Jonesy lets me go, drops the cloth into the bucket of water, and lunges at the detective.
“You’d think the fucking abattoir that you missed in the basement would be enough evidence for you to put that cunt away.
” He points toward Travis, now lying on the grass less than fifteen feet away.
An officer kneels over him, his knee digging between his shoulder blades as another officer handcuffs him.
I almost laugh; I probably would have if not for the smell of rot mixed with vomit making me grimace.
I’ve never seen Jonesy so mad, not even when he came back from overseas and I brought another guy to dinner club.
Anthony stares at me for a moment, seemingly perplexed that Jonesy is trying to rip the shirt clean off him.
Alfie drags Jonesy back by his T-shirt, pushing him until he returns to me.
His nostrils are flared, his eyes wide and staring at the detective until he charges off and barks orders at the police.
Jonesy’s shoulders relax an inch once he’s gone, returning to my side and picking up the rag once again.
“I’m giving you an out,” I whisper so he has to dip his head down low to hear me.
“What’s that, princess?”
“I said I’m giving you a way out. You’re not going to want to deal with me if I smell like this forever.”
“Katie . . .”
“Katie?” Not princess, not baby, but Katie. My chin wobbles, thinking he might just take me up on it.
“Yes, Katie. Princess. She-devil. Love of my fucking life. Whatever the hell you want me to call you. I want to take care of you, and I’ve done a shitty job of making that clear to you if you think a bit of stink is going to scare me away. You’re mine now.”
“You know we’re going to kill each other within a week.”
“But what a week it would be, princess.” He winks, and my lips involuntarily twitch upward.
A whimpered sob escapes, and a few tears begin to fall. The reality of our situation is setting in. I thought I was going to die. I thought I’d never have the chance to see where this went. To tell him exactly how I feel.
“I haven’t spoken to you since the appeal,” I say. “I was scared by what you said to me when I was on the stand. I’m scared of how quickly this is changing.”
“I know.” He strokes my hair, his other hand brushing across my cheekbone.
“I feel weak around you, and I hate it,” I admit.
“I know that, too. God, when Lottie told me you’d come here without me, I lost it, Katie. I need to seriously apologize to her later because I was a bull running into a red flag.”
“Did that vein pop out on your forehead like when you’re losing at Scrabble?” I sniff.
“Princess, my whole head turned into a vein. I was like a cartoon character who was breathing in too much air, and my head was blowing up like a balloon.”
I smile, because he looked like that two minutes ago when he was screaming at Anthony. “Lottie will forgive you.”
“She’s good like that. But I’ll still apologize.”
An EMT crouches next to me and introduces herself. Tutting at Jonesy, who refuses to let me go as she examines me. Pushing down the horror of a stranger hearing my confession, I keep talking to Jonesy.
“I’m sorry I came here without telling you. I was excited about a break in the case, and I wanted to prove that my gut feeling could be trusted again. I just didn’t want to get here and find nothing and have to admit that I’ve lost my touch.”
“The nearly getting murdered part was a much better option.”
I punch his shoulder right before flinching and clutching my ribs.
The EMT rolls her eyes and lifts my shirt to find the red patches on my torso and the evidence of a purple bruise forming between my ribs where Travis had kicked me.
“So that was Travis, huh?” he says, distracting me from the prods the EMT is making over my stomach.
“You know?”
“Yeah, I got a call from the lab tech who was processing the evidence. Travis’s DNA was found under the original victim’s fingernails, and his saliva was found on her neck. I’m guessing he’d been hooking up with her and she’d refused to go home with him.”
I nod, thinking. “I had a feeling Travis might be related to the colonel,” I say nervously. “Travis confirmed it before he dragged me down to the basement.”
Jonesy doesn’t look surprised. He gives me a summary of what the lab technician told him, including the fact that Travis’s real name is Travis Marrs-Rogers.
He dropped the second surname when he joined the military.
He had a criminal record and was perhaps trying to hide it.
Or maybe the colonel didn’t want to be associated with him in case it didn’t work out, who knows?
“You think the colonel is Travis’s father?”
“I can confirm that. Katie, Dr. Jones,” Anthony interrupts, his thumbs hooking into his ballistic vest, looking serious, but much calmer than a few minutes ago.
He goes on to explain that Kenny, the lab technician, had been drip-feeding the team information on the way to the crime scene, and that’s when Anthony decided to check Travis’s story.
It turns out his cell phone pinged off a nearby cell phone tower long after he said he’d left the bar.
I sit up straight now; I’m not feeling so dizzy, and the EMT guides me to the ambulance, where Jonesy takes a seat next to me as Anthony remains by the door.
Alfie is giving a statement as well as Caleb, who I can see is repeatedly glancing over at Travis Marrs, his nostrils flaring and fists clenched.
Anthony draws me back to the night of the first murder, well, the first discovered murder. “Connor was also there, but as Kenny confirmed—”
“He was roofied,” Jonesy interrupts.
“Roofied?” I squeak. “So he definitely didn’t do it?”
“We’re beginning to think not,” Anthony continues. “I have an officer with Connor Maddox now. We’ve told him that the colonel had been arrested, and he gave up everything. The colonel and Marrs have been visiting him in prison, threatening to hurt his girlfriend if he didn’t keep his mouth shut.”
“But why would they use him?”
“Apparently, Marrs had been overlooked for the promotion that was about to be announced. He’s twelve years older than Connor and was sick of being overlooked by his superiors.”
“But the victims are buried in Connor’s house . . . the clothes, the CCTV,” I say.
“We’re ready to take you to the hospital now,” the EMT interrupts.
I grip the EMT’s arm, but she barely flinches. Jonesy immediately tries to soothe me, but I’m sitting up on the gurney, trying to get out of the ambulance. “Wait . . . if you leave me on a goddamn cliffhanger, Anthony, I swear to God—”
He sighs heavily, his gaze flicking upward. “Can we have five more minutes? Clearly, she’s not that unwell.”
The EMT scoffs. “Right, I didn’t realize you were a medical doctor, Officer.”
“It’s Detective, actually.”
“It’s Detective, actually,” she mocks. “I watched a true crime documentary last night. How about I walk in on your job and tell you what’s evidence and what’s not?”
Jonesy’s grin widens as he looks at the EMT in awe until I slap his arm and he attempts to control his snigger.
“We’re wasting time. If you’re that into true crime, surely you want to know what happens?” I implore. She rolls her eyes and starts fiddling with some of the tubes hanging from an IV bag.
Anthony sucks in his cheeks before continuing. “Connor Maddox doesn’t live here. He lives with Hannah, his girlfriend, as you know.”
“But . . . he’s registered here.”
He nods. “For tax purposes, he rented out the house to Travis when Travis got kicked out of the army base housing. He needed somewhere to stay, and Connor got to collect rent checks tax-free. He told my officer he didn’t want to get in trouble for not declaring the income to the IRS.”
“And so he said nothing, and got put away for murder instead?” Jonesy scoffs.
“By that point, Travis had already visited Connor in prison and threatened to murder Hannah if he said anything about him living there.”
Holy shit. The log had said that there were two soldiers who visited Connor in prison together.
“So the colonel knew all along?”
“I think he suspected Travis had something to do with it from the start. Hence why he sent him on the training exercise to avoid being interviewed. It also kept him away from Connor’s house.
The Colonel also set off the fire alarm at the base during your interviews.
Tilly just told us today when I approached him with the other evidence. ”
Jesus Christ. This is so much information to take in.
“So, Travis roofied Connor, put him in the car, put on his T-shirt and baseball cap, murdered a woman, and then framed Connor for it, all for a promotion?” Jonesy asks, his brow scrunching.
“That was probably part of it,” I say. “But the colonel shunned him. Asked him to change his name so he’d have no connection to him.
If the colonel knew what he was like and wanted to keep a close eye on him, Travis would probably want to make that as difficult for him as possible.
Not telling people where he lived, having this secret life that no one knew about.
He probably thought he was smarter than everyone around him.
And then to get overlooked for a promotion again, maybe he snapped?
Or maybe he wanted to punish the colonel further. ”
“But the bodies in the backyard . . .” I say, confused at how all this is fitting together, even with new evidence coming to light.
“Travis told Connor exactly where they were so he could point them out to us.”
We’re all silent for a moment, even the snarky EMT has quietened down and stopped fidgeting.
Anthony coughs awkwardly, and I hear one of the other officers calling his name.
He turns and holds up a finger to them, indicating that our conversation would be over soon.
He turns back to me, a slow, satisfied feeling sitting in my belly.
The tightness in my chest is loosening. “Katie, I’m so sorry I said you were losing your touch.
You knew something was off about the case.
You never believed Connor had done this.
I’m sorry for doubting you and for making you doubt yourself,” Anthony says, his head hanging low.
“It’s okay—”
“It’s not,” Jonesy interrupts, his hand covering mine and squeezing.
“Jonesy—”
“He’s right. It’s not. But, given you’re now a victim of this case, I think I can safely take you off it and give you some vacation time,” Anthony says, stepping out of the ambulance.
“Will you keep us up-to-date?”
“Of course.” He nods sternly at us both, closing the doors and tapping the back twice.
“That guy is a douche,” the EMT says as soon as the doors slam shut.
“We should be friends,” Jonesy says to the EMT, grinning, before dropping a kiss on my forehead, his nose wrinkling in a cute, if not rather insulting, scrunch.
“You smell terrible,” he adds, to really twist the knife.
“I’m pretty sure my hand squelched in someone’s intestines when I was in that room.”
“Please don’t say anymore,” the EMT says, turning slightly green.
I ignore her. “You know I’m going to be even more messed up now, right?”
“Want me to chase you through an abattoir next time we fuck, princess? That might help.”
“Jesus Christ!” the EMT yells. “Hurry up.” She slams her fist on the partition between the cab and the back where we are, and I feel the driver floor it.
“Do you think that would work?” I ask, only slightly seriously.
“Only one way to find out.” He shrugs.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Only for you.” He drops another kiss and grins against my lips.
“What if I never got to tell you how I feel?” I say. A small whimper overwhelms me.
“Katie, princess, you tell me every day how much I annoy you. I know. Don’t you worry.”
“No . . . I love that you annoy me. I love it so much it’s actually terrifying.”
“That you love being annoyed?”
“That I love being annoyed by you.”
He takes a deep breath. We hadn’t discussed what he said in the court room and it sits heavily between us.
“You’ve had a traumatic experience. I don’t want you to say something you don’t mean because I saved you.”
“God, you’re such an ass.” I roll my eyes. “I love you, Jacob Jones. Now give me the most disgusting kiss you’ll ever have.”
His eyes pop wide, but he wastes no time in crashing his lips to mine.