Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Monk huffed out a breath as they walked to the main building. “Let me call the police, and I’ll tell you while we wait.”
Helia’s hazel eyes searched his. For a moment, he got lost in them.
He’d heard that saying a thousand times before but always thought it ridiculous.
You got lost in the woods or when driving through a new city.
Not in someone’s eyes. He had no other way to describe it, though.
No way to describe how time slowed, or how there seemed to be an invisible magnet between his eyes and hers, making it impossible to pull away.
Or how the connection between them conjured images in his head, recalling the past but also hinting at a future.
And he definitely had no way to describe the feelings roiling through him.
Want and desire were the obvious ones. But something deeper lay at the foundation of it all, something binding him to her in a way he couldn’t—wouldn’t—deny even if he didn’t understand it.
“Helia? Collin?”
He held Helia’s gaze for one more beat before turning. “Vanessa, it’s good to see you again.”
“You, too,” she said, walking over and giving him a hug. “What are you two doing out here?” she asked, hugging Helia, too.
He glanced at Helia, who nodded. She’d tell her mom while he called the police.
He stepped away and dialed 911. By the time he was done giving dispatch the details, Vanessa and Helia stood in mirrored poses, one arm crossed across their stomach, the other elbow resting on top, fingers covering their lips.
“The police are on their way,” Monk said, rejoining the pair.
“I texted Harry. He’ll be down in a second. He was getting out of the shower,” Vanessa said. “You didn’t recognize him?” she asked.
Monk shook his head. “I didn’t see his face. Even if I did, I don’t know a lot of people around here. I probably wouldn’t have recognized him anyway.”
The door opened and Harry strode out. “What the hell? Who is it? Where?”
“We don’t know and over there,” Helia answered, pointing to where the birds still circled.
Harry cursed under his breath and started forward, but Monk put a staying hand on his arm. “The police are on their way. It’s best if we stay here.”
Harry wanted to argue; Monk saw it in his posture. But in the end, he nodded and wrapped an arm around Vanessa.
Helia stepped in front of him, putting her back to her parents. Heat flooded his body, sudden and strong, when she set her hands on his chest. He covered hers with his, more to steady himself than to keep hers there. “Who’s the third?” she asked. “The third murder?”
Her parents had moved off to sit on a bench in the filtered sun, leaving them space. Helia’s fingers curled into his shirt. He tried ignoring her scent as her warmth wrapped around him.
“Kendall thinks Roger was murdered,” he said, the ugly statement dousing the simmering heat between them.
Her eyes widened. Lifting a hand, he set a finger across her lips to stop whatever she’d been about to say.
“I don’t doubt what she heard, but I don’t know if it’s the full story.
And since Roger was cremated, we may never know. ”
“What did she hear?” Helia asked, her lips moving under his touch.
Mesmerized by the softness against his work-roughened skin, he traced the cushion of her lower lip.
Her pupils dilated and her tongue darted out, the tip grazing his finger.
Lust exploded through him swift and consuming, sucking the breath from his lungs.
Her fingers curled into his shirt, clinging to him.
His body wanted nothing more than to carry her off somewhere private, somewhere they could do all the things they’d done as teenagers.
All the things that would be so much better than he remembered.
And he remembered often. Helia had been and would always be the only woman he ever wanted.
She’d cemented her place in his life years ago.
Not by doing anything as cliché as “slipping through his defenses.” No, she’d given him her love, her support, and the space to choose to let his defenses down.
His choice. A freedom his father had taken from him that she’d given back.
Harry coughed, and Monk pulled his gaze from Helia.
The primal beast inside him roared at the broken connection, but the scared, injured child also buried inside him breathed a sigh of relief.
He wasn’t ready to go there with her again, not yet.
As much as his body craved her, his mind, and heart, carried too many questions.
He needed to be sure that what he felt now—what they felt—wasn’t just a remnant of who they’d been.
He took a tiny step back, not out of reach, but enough to let the cool morning air fill the space between them.
“She heard a man and a woman talking,” he said, answering her question.
“After they took Roger’s body away, I guess some people stayed in the house to clean up, knowing it would be shut down for a while.
She never saw them, but she heard a woman say that ‘it finally worked,’ and ‘who knew it would take so damn long.’ The man asked if she was sure ‘it would be undetectable’ in the autopsy. She assured him it would be.”
“What the hell was Kendall doing there in the first place?” she demanded. He wouldn’t lie, he liked that her first concern was for the young girl.
“Her mom liked Roger’s parties. She left her there after the last one. I’m guessing it was a week or so before he died. Kendall swears she’ll be back.”
“Her mom’s done this before.”
Not a question, but Monk nodded.
“How old is she? The look in her eyes is far older than I’m guessing she is.”
“Twelve.”
Helia winced. “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“Is there any way we can find her mom without alerting the police?”
“I’m trying, but I don’t know her last name or her mom’s name.”
“You didn’t want to push,” Helia said.
Again, he nodded. “I told her I have friends who can help find her mom under the radar, but I didn’t force the issue. I’m hoping she’ll eventually trust me enough to share those names so I can pass them on.”
Helia patted his chest, but her eyes were on the vineyard, her mind somewhere else entirely.
The sound of tires on the drive had all four turning. Helia’s hand dropped from his body—a contact he sorely missed—but she didn’t move far.
Two police cars pulled into the courtyard, Harry directing them where to park. By the time the four officers were out of their vehicles, a third arrived with Jess behind the wheel and Carter beside her.
Helia shifted to his side, her fingers gently brushing his. Not letting himself think of the consequences, he wrapped his hand around hers.
“Harry, what can you tell us?” Carter asked, striding over as the officers collected gear from the trunks of their cars.
“Nothing,” Harry said. “Helia and Collin found it,” he added, regret heavy in his voice. As if he wished he could take this on himself rather than leave it to him and Helia.
Carter and Jess eyed them. Both detectives dropped their eyes to his hand closed around Helia’s as they approached.
“What can you tell us?” Carter repeated.
“I came over this morning to see if Helia wanted to head to town for breakfast,” he said, with a subtle squeeze of her hand. “She was on her way out to check the birds.”
“Birds?” Jess interrupted.
Helia pointed with her free hand to the still-circling vultures.
“We don’t get a lot of vultures around the vineyards.
Well, not around these vineyards. I saw them out my kitchen window and thought it was weird.
I wanted to investigate. As Collin said, he was standing on the stoop getting ready to knock when I opened the door. ”
“We decided to check it out before breakfast. I wasn’t really expecting much. Maybe a dead rabbit or other small animal,” he said. “But well, that’s not what we found.”
The two detectives raised their gazes again to the circling birds. “It’s there?” Jess asked.
“He is, yes,” Monk answered.
“What’s the best way out there?” Carter asked.
Helia pointed to the dirt alleyway between two vineyard blocks they’d walked down. “Down there, then turn right at maybe the thirtieth row or so. I wasn’t counting so don’t remember. But you can follow the birds.”
Carter nodded to the four officers, who gathered their kits and headed out. Monk wished the detectives would go with them but hadn’t expected them to. They’d wait until the scene was secure before adding extra footprints.
“How do you know it’s a man?” Jess asked.
“I didn’t see a face, the body was turned away on its side, but they were in a suit,” Monk said. “It fit like a man’s. Short blond hair, one hand flung over their hip, the hand looked male, too. Large. But I guess, to your point, I don’t know for certain.”
“Did you touch anything?” Carter asked.
Monk shook his head. “I stopped twenty feet away. Helia was behind me.”
“I didn’t even see it, him, whatever. Collin blocked my view.”
“You didn’t check to see if he was still alive?” Jess asked.
Monk gave Helia’s hand another squeeze. “There was no point.”
Carter and Jess stilled, like predators preparing to hunt. Information, for now, but they’d turn to him—or Helia—eventually.
“Meaning?”
He hated having to answer with Helia at his side, but her fingers curled around his, as if telling him it was okay.
“His side is split open. Like someone took an axe or machete here.” He pointed to his waist, right above the top of his jeans. “The cut ran all the way to his spine. His hips twisted away from his torso.”
Both Carter and Jess blinked. He’d seen much worse in the military, but he doubted the Napa Valley detectives regularly encountered that kind of brutal violence. Vanessa paled and made a small sound of distress. Harry wrapped his arm around her as Carter and Jess shifted to form a circle.
“When was the last time you were out that way?” Jess asked.