Chapter Four
Beck
“I think I have a lead.”
I look up as Ryan approaches my desk, one hand on his hip, the other waving a file in my direction in excitement.
The now confirmed rape and murder of Jane Donovan last weekend has stumped us all for the past week.
We’ve had no leads, no clues, nothing. Nobody has even come forward to report her missing.
Her work colleagues barely knew her and short of a quick visit to her apartment in Brookline, nothing’s jumped out.
It’s been frustrating as fuck and definitely something I don’t need hanging over my head.
Especially when the captain is banging on with a we need to get these crime solving numbers up, rampage.
“Really?” I ask, looking up at him.
Ryan raises an eyebrow at me; something he does when he’s either pissed or thinks I’m being a smart ass. In this case, I’m going with the former.
“Really, Detective Asshole,” he says, sarcastically
I smile back. Yep, pissed. “Alright, spit it out then.” He throws the file on my desk, as though trying to make a point and I can’t help but ask, “Something bugging you, Ryan?” Falling into the chair on the other side of my desk, I grin at my friend as he leans back, hands behind his head and scowls at me.
“You look as though you haven’t gotten laid in a week or something. ”
“I haven’t,” he growls. “But that’s not what’s bugging me.”
“No?”
“No, smart ass,” he says, leaning forward. “What’s bugging me is the lack of information about this Jane Donovan.”
“I thought you said we had a lead?”
Ryan crosses one leg over his knee and stares at me. “No, I said, I have a lead. Big difference, dickhead.”
I roll my eyes. “Alright, just fucking spit it out already.”
Ryan sits up. “So, you know how no family has reported her missing?” he starts. I nod in response. “And that we haven’t been able to find any family either?”
“Yes, none of this is new here.”
This time it’s Ryan rolling his eyes at me. “Well, I started digging a little deeper, had the boys go back and look over her apartment again.”
“And?” I ask, just wishing he would get on with it. Ryan has a habit of being overly dramatic when he wants to prove a point. I get the feeling he’s been watching too many crime dramas and sometimes forgets he’s not actually on TV or in front of a camera.
“Well,” he says. “It turns out Jane Donovan isn’t her real name.”
“What?” I ask, sitting up straighter now. This is news.
“No,” Ryan says, smirking at me. “It’s actually Jane Dixon. Donovan is her mother’s maiden name, which she started using after an ex-boyfriend went all Fatal Attraction on her ass.”
“What the fuck?” I ask, suddenly very interested in where this is going.
Ryan nods before continuing. “Yep, the guy’s a complete dick by all accounts.
Only a short relationship, but didn’t take the break-up well.
Started off just following her around, then it escalated to spying on her.
When he started sending her pictures of himself jacking off outside her house in the middle of the night, it was the final straw. ”
“Jesus christ,” I say, reaching for the file. “Do we know where he is?”
Ryan’s palm smacks down on the file, stopping me. I look up and catch the gloating look he’s giving me. “Uniforms are bringing him in now and yes you are buying the beers tonight, thank you very much.”
I shake my head at him, simultaneously impressed at what he’s found out and annoyed that he didn’t come to me before sending someone to pick him up. “You do remember that I am your boss, don’t you Ryan?”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he says, standing and holding the file out to me now.
As I snatch it from his hand, I tell him, “So next time, make sure you keep me informed.” Ryan stares at me as though he’s waiting for more. “And well done, this is good fucking work.”
Ryan scoffs. “Of course it fucking is,” he says. “Interview room two, ten minutes.”
I can’t help but smile; I’m glad this guy is both my partner and my friend.
Most people are surprised when they find out we are, but we’ve been close ever since we went through the Academy together.
This bitching and chewing each other a new one, is all just part of the routine.
Underneath it all is a guy I respect immensely, and who I know, always has my back.
An hour later and the well-rehearsed good cop-bad cop thing Ryan and I have going has gotten us a full confession from the ex-boyfriend.
Turns out his jealousy reached epic proportions recently, when he discovered our victim had gotten herself a new boyfriend.
His little payback for her replacing him like this was to rape and murder her.
He’s a lying little shit and as it turns out, totally spineless in the face of two detectives going to town on him.
Fucking asshole. Hopefully a trip to jail gets him a nice little dose of unwanted up the ass action in return.
“Drinks?”
I look up and see Ryan standing on the other side of my desk again, arms crossed over his chest and grinning at me. “You’re pretty fucking proud of yourself, aren’t you?” I say, standing and slipping on my suit jacket.
“For good fucking reason,” he says as we say goodnight to the rest of the team and walk out of the station together.
“God, you’re a dick,” I say, slapping him on the back as we walk into Finnigan’s.
“Yeah, but not as big a dick as you,” he says laughing.
I roll my eyes and order us beers before we both take a seat in a booth by the window.
By the time we’re on our third round of drinks, the pub has gotten busier, the rest of the day shift all filing in to end their week with some well earned drinks.
I’m in the middle of a conversation with Ryan over the likelihood of the Bruins reaching the playoffs when someone slides into the booth next to me.
Turning, I can’t help but shudder as I see Miranda sitting there, smiling at me and with her cleavage on full display as though she’s expecting a repeat of last weekend.
“Miranda,” I say, sliding away from her.
We haven’t crossed paths since I fucked her and made up some excuse about needing to go into work the next morning on Memorial Day weekend.
I thought I’d gotten off with a one-nighter, but I’m beginning to wonder if her showing up here isn’t a sign that she’s about to go all Fatal Attraction on me, too.
“Ah, this is Ryan,” I say, gesturing across the table.
“Hey,” he says, reaching out to shake her hand, his eyes never leaving her tits.
“Hi,” she says, before turning back to me. “I haven’t heard from you, so I thought I’d drop by.”
I hear Ryan chuckle across from me and I can’t help reaching out and kicking him under the table, a satisfied smile on my face when he grunts in response. “No, I’ve been busy with work, the homicide from last weekend,” I tell her.
“Any leads?” she asks, her hand sliding onto my thigh.
My jaw clenches. “Yeah, Ryan here managed to catch us a huge break,” I say, smiling as I turn to face my friend.
He scowls at me because he knows what I’m doing here.
I’m trying to offload Miranda onto him and painting him out to be the hero in this case is the best way to do that.
While I’m happy to give Ryan credit for helping us catch the guy today, when it comes to catching, or in this case, getting rid of a woman, neither of us ever plays fair.
“He basically solved the whole case for us,” I add on, smirking at him.
“Well, aren’t you clever,” Miranda says, fluttering her eyelashes at him.
Just as Ryan’s foot connects with my leg under the table, my cell phone starts to ring in my pocket.
“Excuse me, I need to take this,” I lie, practically pushing Miranda out of the booth so I can walk outside.
“Keep him company while I’m gone, won’t you,” I say to Miranda, jerking my thumb in the direction of my friend.
I answer my phone without looking at the screen, grateful to whoever it is who’s just rescued me from Miranda’s needy clutches. “Detective Beck O’Loughlin.”
“Detective?” the voice says. “Fuck, I didn’t know that.”
“Who is this?” I ask, stepping outside onto the street where it’s quieter.
“This is Rockport Chief of Police, Finn O’Loughlin, asshole,” the voice says. “Your brother.”
I pull the phone away from my ear and see the caller ID with Finn’s name across it. I’d thought I’d be happy to hear from anyone as long as they got me away from Miranda. Obviously this is the only exception. “What do you want?” I ask, not bothering to hide my annoyance.
“Oh, Pop and I are fine by the way,” he says, his voice just as annoyed. “I trust the big hotshot detective is his usual couldn’t-give-a-fuck-about-anyone-else, self?”
“Fucking hell,” I mutter. “What do you want, Finn? I don’t have time for this bullshit.”
I hear a car door slam through the phone and the background noises fade as though he’s just gotten into a car.
“I’m calling to let you know that the woman you love is in trouble, dickhead.
I know you don’t give a shit about anyone else, but you might be interested to know that someone certainly gives a shit about your girl, and not in the good way either. ”
“What?” I ask, my whole body freezing.
“Oh now you’re listening, huh?”
“Just cut the crap, Finn and tell me what the fuck is going on,” I say, my stomach clenching at the thought that Kelsey could be in trouble.
My brother exhales deeply and I can’t help but wonder if this really is serious.
Even though I’ve told myself every day for the last ten years that Kelsey and I are over, that I’d moved on and wasn’t going to think about her anymore, I knew I was completely full of shit.
There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about her, there probably wasn’t a week that went by that I didn’t look at that damn photo album I had of us.
And she was sure as shit the image I conjured up every time I jacked off in the shower, regardless of how sick that idea was.
Christ, at this rate, I was fucking kidding myself if I ever thought I was getting over this woman.
“Beck, are you listening to me?” Finn asks, interrupting my trip down memory lane.
“Sorry,” I say, shaking my head. “I missed that.”
“I said, Kelsey has gone and gotten herself a stalker. At first it was just harmless stuff, watching her when she was out, maybe following her a little more than was considered normal. Then he started turning up at work, at all hours, threatening her when she wouldn’t take him back.
We served up a restraining order, but apparently that didn’t deter him much because tonight he turned up at her place and physically assaulted her… ”
“What the fuck!” I shout down the phone. “And what the hell have you been doing all this time? Why don’t you arrest the fucking asshole, actually do your job, Finn?”
I hear what sounds like a hand punching the dash and I know it was a dick thing to say. I’m about to apologize when my brother speaks. “Don’t you fucking start, asshole,” he says. “You lost any right to tell me how to run this town when you decided to fuck off to the city.”
“Finn…” I say.
“Shut it, Beck,” he says, not letting me speak.
“I’m only calling you now because I know Kelsey’s never gotten over you, despite how much she tries to pretend she has.
And if you have any fucking feelings left for her, which at this point I seriously doubt, you’ll call her and check that she’s okay.
Maybe suggest she take a little vacation while we try and track down the fucker who’s messing with her. ”
I let out a deep breath. Finn has no idea what I still feel for Kelsey.
How would he; we’ve barely spoken in three years, ever since Pop retired and took over the pub.
And I sure as shit don’t act like I still care for her, leaving Rockport and never going back was a pretty good indication of that.
But it’s all a big fucking lie. A lie I’ve been telling myself every day for the last ten years and which has now just become really fucking obvious.
Of course I still care about her, I’ve never stopped loving her.
“You still there?” Finn says, and I can hear the exhaustion in his voice.
“Yeah,” I say. “And look, I’m sorry for what I said before.
I didn’t mean to suggest you weren’t doing everything you can.
” If it’s one thing I do know, it’s that my brother is a good cop.
We’d both been brought up by a family of cops, our dad, granddad and even great-granddad doing the same job.
And even though we disagreed about a lot of things, doing the job properly was something we all felt the same way about.
If it’s one thing the O’Loughlin’s were, it was good fucking cops.
After me, I couldn’t think of a better person to look after Kelsey, than Finn.
“I’m sitting outside her house right now,” my brother says. “I’ve got my deputies out looking for him and as soon as we find him, he’ll be charged. I don’t think she’s going to be in danger much longer, but it probably wouldn’t hurt if she took a little vacation until I’m sure.”
Suddenly memories of the victim from a week ago flash before my eyes, making me feel sick.
I’m in danger of losing my beers as I start to imagine Kelsey’s stalker following the same path.
Hadn’t Jane’s started off as innocent spying and occasionally following her?
And look how that had turned out. Jane was dead and lying in a freezer at the morgue, raped and strangled while her ex-boyfriend was spending the night in jail.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, knowing there is no avoiding what I know I need to do.
“So you’ll call her?” Finn asks.
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “No,” I say, my jaw clenched.
“Jesus christ, Beck, can you for once…”
“I’m coming home,” I say, the words forced out as though even I can’t believe I’m saying them.
“What?”
“I said, I’m coming home,” I repeat, knowing there’s no escaping the fact that I finally have a reason to go back to Rockport.
Fuck.