Chapter Eleven
She leaned into the cold as she shouldered her way out of the SUV.
It was the only way to get rid of the hurt digging into her chest. Adrial had bought her dream home.
Then left it empty. She couldn’t think about why that bothered her so much.
Whether it was from the fact he’d lost the woman and child who might’ve someday slept in those bedrooms and played board games on the coffee table in the living room, or that Winnie was supposed to be the one to plant roses in the front yard and learn how to make sourdough in the kitchen.
It didn’t matter, did it? She and Adrial…
They weren’t that anymore. They weren’t anything more than two people who’d been thrown together in some cosmic joke. And she wasn’t laughing.
Their vehicle had crunched along the uneven single lane dirt road coated with a thick sheet of compressed ice and mud until her insides felt as jittery as her tremoring outsides.
Or maybe that was being so close to Adrial after years of staying clear of his proximity.
Now her boots sank into the few inches of powdery white snow that’d fallen in the past few days.
Shuddering winds cut across the solid frozen expanse of Hollow Lake from the ring of trees isolating the lake from the rest of town.
Curling her hands into the folds of her coat, Winnie stepped free of the SUV and shut the door behind her.
The wind chose that moment to kick up, throwing a thin layer of snow into her face.
Tiny pinpricks stung her cheeks and face.
She wasn’t sure what Adrial expected them to find out here.
Any evidence that might’ve been misplaced surely would’ve been found or destroyed from years of humid summers and biting winters.
But she couldn’t ignore that deep root of yearning and familiarity that charged through her at setting foot on these lands.
While Seattle had been where she’d always imagined herself ending up, Hollow Lake had once been an obsession.
A sanctuary she’d carved out for herself where she could hide from the sadness that’d taken over her house, the pressure to make up for her mother’s absence and all the undeserved hatred slowly killing her at school.
Swimming the length of the lake had provided a sense of strength she didn’t feel anywhere else, while the water beneath the surface had wiped the anxious thoughts and fears of being trapped in this town from her mind.
Until violence had tainted it.
While her coat blocked the bitter slice of wind, a cold dread she feared might never ease built in her hands and up her neck.
She could do this. She could solve this case.
For her dad and for Lila Mercer. For those who were still waiting for answers about their missing or forgotten loved ones.
She could do this for Adrial. All it took was one spark, one win, and she could fix whatever it was that made her so…
disposable. Familiar pressure slid along her shoulders and over her chest. The kind that hadn’t even lightened with her father’s death, and she burrowed deeper into the collar of her coat.
“The news coverage and papers never said exactly where the body was found.”
“The scene was on the north side of the lake.” Adrial shoved both hands into a pair of worn leather gloves as he stared out over the stretch where she couldn’t distinguish where the lake’s shore ended and the frozen layers of water started.
“There isn’t enough room to navigate with a vehicle. We’ll have to walk from here.”
Her arms automatically tucked into her sides as she followed his much wider and longer footsteps.
It was impossible to see the rocks and greenery tramped down underneath pristine inches of snow, and her ankles had their own idea of which way to face.
Cold seeped through the toes of her boots and past her wool socks.
Years of suffering through Black Hollow winters should’ve prepared her for the chill skirting up her spine, but she’d become too complacent in her modern house, complete with a gas fireplace that erupted at the flick of a button and access to hot coffee on every corner.
Tucking the lower half of her face beneath her coat’s collar, she ignored the burn at the tip of her nose and how easily her eyes watered. “What is it we’re hoping to find?”
She angled her head down but kept her gaze solely on the man in front of her.
On the way the muscles in his legs flexed and released with each step, how he expertly navigated the uneven terrain as though he’d been born in these woods.
Winnie fought to keep herself upright every few feet while Adrial seemed to glide, kicking up puffs of snow as he went.
Then again, he’d always been a little too good to be true. Too good for her, anyway.
“Not sure yet, but rebuilding a scene has been known to inspire new theories, force investigators to look at evidence in a new light and reveal something that might’ve been missed in the original investigation.
” Confidence bled into his voice. Only to remind her that he’d done this before.
His life over the past two years had centered on solving cold cases.
Starting with the one closest to him. “There’s a high chance we came out here for nothing considering it’s been twenty years, but we need to cover all our bases.
The discrepancies in the evidence lists is a good start, but—”
“It’s not enough. I get it.” Her brain had yet to fully process all of the information she’d learned in the past twenty-four hours.
Adrial had theorized her father had written that original evidence list while the crime scene technicians processed the evidence in real time, but where had the victim’s underwear and the hair they’d collected from the chains gone?
And why hadn’t there been anything in her father’s files detailing the missing items?
Arthur Hutton made notes about everything, including the coffee orders for the detectives assigned to work the case with him.
Had she missed a box? It was possible. Her childhood home contained an attic where her parents had stored Christmas decorations and a bunch of gnomes her mother collected in the backyard before her death.
As well as an entire species of nightmare-inducing spiders she never wanted to set eyes on again.
After hours of psyching herself up, she’d breached the entrance, only to scurry right back around as one of those hairy beasts crawled from a broken gnome’s eye socket.
Winnie failed to shut down the shiver that followed at the memory.
Her father might’ve stored more case boxes in the attic, but it would be a cold day in hell before she went back up there without a flamethrower leading the way.
But none of the files she’d gone through to rebuild the case file mentioned the missing evidence.
Arthur Hutton had been a good cop. Well respected and admired by his entire department—at least until the past few years.
There was no way he would’ve forgotten a detail like that, which meant… She didn’t know what that meant.
Adrial pointed ahead. “The scene is just up here.”
She latched on to Adrial’s voice guiding her through a section of thick trees as easily as a mosquito was drawn to her freckled skin in the summer.
Which was too easy. The coat he wore shifted over broad, mountain-like shoulders as he curved free of the trees and back along the frozen shore.
His hair curled along the wool collar of his coat as he checked back over his shoulder for her.
Her fingertips tingled with the urge to sweep it free like the times she used to run her nails over his scalp to relax him at the end of a hard day.
Had Katie done that for him during their marriage?
Had she been able to get him to go to sleep with the cases he worked wouldn’t stop haunting him? She hoped so.
Her rib cage tightened at the thought Adrial had gone so long without someone being there for him.
He had his team. She’d met a couple of them when she’d been at the Cold Hollow Investigations offices, but having friends wasn’t the same as having a partner to rely on.
Someone who knew what you needed before you did, who could be there without judgment or hesitation.
She’d learned that the hard way after the divorce.
Turned out, all of her and Dan’s friends had really just been Dan’s friends.
Looking back, it made sense. She’d met them all through him, and he’d kept them in the divorce.
The people she’d met up with for lunches and invited over for barbecues on the weekend, who’d taken her and Dan out on the bay in their boats and doubled with on movie nights… None of them had been hers. Not really.
There’d only been one person in her life she’d called hers.
Someone she’d chosen for herself despite her father’s protests and the looks she got from her classmates.
Someone who’d never once asked her to be anything other than the weird comic-book-obsessed nerd with frizzy red hair and too many freckles to count.
But, in the end, Adrial had ended up being someone else’s.
He’d become a husband and nearly a father and still kept his wife’s photo displayed in a house that didn’t feel lived in.
And, hell, wishing that had been her life—her house, her baby, her photo on the bookcase—hurt more than she wanted to admit.
“You good?” Slowing, Adrial narrowed his attention on her as though he’d sensed the anguish churning her stomach.
“I’m good.” Her voice wavered, exposing the lie.
Winnie unclenched her fingers in her coat pockets as she maneuvered around a boulder wedged between Hollow Lake’s shore and the line of trees they walked through.
Feeling rushed through her hands and washed her free of emotion.
As much as she wished things were different, that wasn’t ever going to be hers and Adrial’s life.
She wasn’t going to live in her dream house or pose for wedding photos.
She wasn’t going to have his babies or be the one he turned to in the middle of the night.
And that… It was okay. She didn’t need those things.
She’d had her shot at marriage and owning a house and going on couple’s vacations and date nights, and it hadn’t been as great as advertised.
She and Adrial could work this case together.
They might even be able to be friends when this was over.
She didn’t have a plan, and for the first time in her life, maybe she didn’t need one.
“We’re here.” Adrial kicked at a chunk of ice and a slither of water lapped at the shore where it’d dislodged.
Cracks had formed in a web pattern in response, the punch of sound echoing across the surface of the lake.
It wouldn’t take much to break through. He pointed out across the lake.
“Lila Mercer’s body was discovered about ten feet straight out from this boulder. ”
Years of swimming this lake from end to end revealed the gap in that logic. “Are you sure?”
His eyebrows met over the bridge of his strong nose. “Yes. I wasn’t working the case at the time she was found, but there are hundreds of crime scene photos and scene sketches pinpointing this location. Why?”
“Ten feet out from the shore isn’t very deep on this end of the lake.” She shrugged, her hands still protected within the confines of her coat. “I figured the killer would’ve dropped Lila Mercer closer to the center rather than risk exposing the body to changing water levels.”
“You’re right. There are far deeper areas where he could’ve dumped her body and gotten away with it.” Adrial studied the ice, shifting his weight between his feet. “He could’ve wanted her found despite the chains meant to hold her down.”
“Or he didn’t have a boat.”
“Boats are more noticeable. They’re loud and require a lot of moving parts to get them into the water, even at night. Not many people would come out here once the sun went down, but a boat would be an anomaly. Something someone might report the night he got rid of the body.”
“So he dragged her out here under his own strength.” Adrial looked at her then, really looked at her as though he’d never seen her before. Almost…admiring. “That’s something we never considered. Makes sense.”
She tried to ignore the flare of pride in her chest and bent her knees in a feigned curtsy. “I aim to please.”
His smile stopped her heart. Warmth seeped through her jaw as Adrial’s fingers framed her jaw, and a heaviness sank into her low belly.
She couldn’t help but dip her gaze to his mouth as his lips parted, couldn’t stop herself from wondering if the kisses they’d shared was as life-altering as she remembered.
Before she had a chance to think what a bad idea it was being this close to the man who’d left her in Black Hollow without answers, his mouth was on hers.
Adrial angled deeper, sought permission for more.
And she gave it to him. Every second of loneliness over the years.
Every angry thought and hurt. Every instance she replayed their relationship, conversations and missed cues.
She gave it all to him in punishment for leaving her here alone, fisting her fingers in his coat, and for once, she could breathe.
His entire body locked up. He added more than a foot of space between them, and her heart threatened to punch through her chest. He was going to stop this. Pretend it hadn’t happened. “Winnie—”
His knees buckled. Adrial hit the ground.
Her shout echoed off the surrounding mountains as she clung to his shoulders. Stinging pain lanced between her fingers as she came into contact with something solid lodged in his back. “What’s…?”
A knife. He’d been stabbed.
Adrial weakly shoved her toward the edge of the lake, where the ice had thinned. “Run.”
He collapsed to the ground.