Chapter Eight
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Lauren looked at her house when Jesse pulled to a stop in her driveway. As usual, she’d left the porch light on when she’d gone to work that morning so the place wasn’t totally dark. But it didn’t look especially inviting either. It felt like another place of shadows where an attacker could hide.
Snap out of it , she warned herself.
She was a cop, not an eighteen year old girl coming out of a salon and about to be kidnapped. She could protect herself despite her shaky nerves disagreeing with that.
“You know I’m coming in with you,” Jesse said, ending the silence that’d settled between them.
Yes, she had figured he would. He’d pretty much taken charge after they’d done their reports and Hallie had ordered them to go home. Jesse had led her out to his truck, helped her inside it, and driven the eight or so blocks to her house.
“I know you’re coming in,” she said, forcing herself to get out of the truck.
She didn’t have the energy to stonewall any other help or support Jesse might want to dole out. In fact, she welcomed it. It felt like a vise in her chest to even consider stepping into that dark house alone.
Jesse got out with her, and she didn’t miss the way his gaze swept around the yard and the neighborhood. She did some glancing, too. Looking for their attacker, who was still at large.
They walked to her porch, the quiet of the night pressing in around them, broken only by the chirp of crickets and katydids. The quiet was a stark contrast to the chaos of the past few hours. The shooting. Scrambling for their lives.
The explosions.
Followed by the chaos that followed an attack on two police officers. They’d had to be checked out by the EMTs, and once they’d been given the medical all clear, they’d had a mountain of reports to do at the station.
During those reports, they’d found out that Isabel was safe, that she had simply chosen not to answer her phone when Jesse had called her back. That’d been one of their big questions solved, but so many others remained.
While at the station, they’d gone over pretty much everything there was to go over—including Reardon and Belinda’s insistence that they hadn’t been the ones to attack them.
And while they didn’t exactly have alibis, there was no proof against them either so Hallie had had no choice but to release them.
Lauren wished she had a crystal ball to know if Reardon and his wife were indeed guilty, but since she didn’t, she had to hope they were telling the truth. And keep a close watch in case they weren’t. She believed in innocence until proven guilty, but she didn’t intend to trust them either.
“How good is your security system?” Jesse asked her as she used her phone to unlock the door and pause the system so they could go in without setting it off.
“Good,” she replied. “The best,” she amended. As a survivor of an abduction, she made sure she had the equipment to alert her if someone broke in. “Strike Force installed it.”
Jesse made a sound of approval as they stepped into the cool of the A/C. She immediately closed the door, locked it, reset her security, and turned on some lights. Then, she stood there a moment just to gather her breath.
He did some breath gathering, too. “Hell of a night,” he muttered.
“Yeah.”
She made the mistake of looking at him. Really looking at him. Their gazes collided, and she saw the hurricane of emotions in his eyes. Fatigue. Yes, it was there. Frustration. Yes, that as well. But as they stood there, something else began to stir.
Something familiar.
Something that had made her accept that date with Jesse all those years ago.
The heat came, and it was as if there’d been no time lapse between back then and now. She felt the attraction slide through her, overriding everything, including exhaustion and common sense.
Without breaking the eye contact, Jesse reached out, hooked his arm around her, and pulled her to him. They landed body to body. Breath to breath. Heat to heat.
And Lauren didn’t resist.
She let herself sink into him, just for a moment, her cheek against the warmth of his neck, the steady beat of his heart grounding her in a way she desperately needed.
His grip tightened slightly before he pulled back. His eyes searched hers, something unreadable flickering across his face.
She swallowed hard. “Jesse…”
But she didn’t know what she was going to say. Didn’t know if she wanted to stop this or let it happen. All she knew was that the heat between them was real.
Jesse’s hands were still on her waist, his thumbs brushing light circles over her hips, sending shivers through her. His gaze flicked to her lips, and for a moment, Lauren forgot how to breathe.
Then, he kissed her.
It wasn’t hesitant or careful. It was slow, deep, and deliberate, like he’d been holding onto this for as long as she had. Maybe longer.
Lauren melted into him, her fingers fisting in his shirt as she kissed him back, taking in the taste of him, the solid heat of his body against hers. She felt dozens of wonderful things. All good. All things she hadn’t been sure she would ever feel. Yet, it was all here. Right in this kiss.
When they finally broke apart, her head was spinning, her pulse pounding.
Jesse rested his forehead against hers, his breath brushing against her lips. “Why didn’t we do that when we were in high school?”
“It was hard to catch you in between girlfriends,” she muttered. “Plus, I was the nerd. You were the hot jock.”
Jesse grinned. “You were the hot nerd. It’s why I finally came to my senses and asked you out.”
Her stomach flipped at the way he said it, at the way he was looking at her now, like he was seeing everything she’d once convinced herself he never had.
She slid her hands up to his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath her fingertips. “Maybe we were just waiting for the right time.”
Jesse’s smile faded, and something more serious passed through his expression. “And is this the right time?”
He winced at his own question and grumbled an apology. What he didn’t have to spell out was this was very much the wrong time. They had a killer to catch, and they both knew it.
And that’s why they stepped back from each other.
Jesse groaned and scrubbed his hand over his face. She wasn’t sure if he was trying to wipe away the frustration or the fatigue. Or both.
“Look, this might sound like a dick move no matter how I say it, so let me just get this out there,” he told her. “I have a go-bag in my truck and want to stay the night. Not so I can keep kissing you. And just don’t give me that hot brainy look you’re giving me right now, okay?”
After the ordeal they’d been through, it surprised her to be amused at that last part. Then again, part of her “ordeal” tonight had been her first kiss from Jesse. Something she’d fantasized about for a long, long time.
“Hot brainy look?” she questioned.
“Sounds better than nerd,” he clarified. “So, are you going to give me a hassle about staying the night if I agree to whatever rules you lay out for me?”
Lauren sighed and wanted to hang onto this light mood a bit longer. But couldn’t. “I won’t give you a hassle,” Lauren assured him. “I don’t want to be alone in the house tonight.”
And because she did need to dole out one rule, she motioned toward the hall. “The guestroom is the first on the right.”
Jesse’s next long breath seemed to be one of relief. “Do the thing with security so I don’t set off the alarm when I go to my truck.”
She did, and then Lauren stood in the open doorway after he rushed outside and into the night. Part of her wondered if it was a mistake to be under the same roof as Jesse. Especially with her emotions running high.
Especially after that amazing, scalding, unforgettable kiss.
Yes, it probably was a mistake, but she was going to make it anyway.
It took Jesse less than a minute to get his bag and hurry back inside. Lauren locked up, resecured the place and then turned expecting there might be an awkward moment, or even another kiss. But neither happened because Jesse’s phone rang.
“It’s Griff,” he said, setting his bag on the floor. “You’re on speaker and Lauren is with me,” he added when he took the call.
“Good. Because this is something she’ll want to hear.
And see,” Griff tacked onto that, and she could hear something in his voice that filled her with dread.
“The CSIs went through Abilene’s house in Austin, and they found a room filled with photos and articles about Lauren’s abduction sixteen years ago. ”
Lauren’s throat clenched as Griff’s words sank in. She could feel Jesse watching her, waiting, but her mind was spinning too fast to react.
“A room filled with photos and articles?” she echoed, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Yep,” Griff verified. “Abilene seemed obsessed with your case, Lauren. There were old news clippings, printouts from archived reports, even notes written in the margins. It’s like she was studying you.”
Lauren thought her heart had dropped to the floor. Sixteen years ago, her kidnapping had been splashed across every news outlet in Texas. Her escape. The years of therapy that followed. Even now, reporters occasionally revisited her case, the girl who had survived when maybe others hadn’t.
Jesse frowned. “Why, though? Why would Abilene be so fixated on Lauren’s case?”
“I don’t know,” Griff admitted. “I’m sending you the photos now. It’s all mapped out, everything that was made public. Your escape, personal details about you. Whatever her reasons were, she was deep into it.”
Lauren swallowed hard, glancing at Jesse as his phone buzzed with the incoming images. And she soon saw that Griff was right. Everything from sixteen years ago and beyond was there. Her own life dissected and pinned to the walls like a case study.
“Shit,” Jesse spat out. “Maybe Abilene was the copycat abductor after all.”
Lauren shook her head. “Then why did someone kill her? And what about the phone call she got before she died?”
“Don’t know the answers to those questions either,” Griff replied. “But that takes me to the second thing I needed to tell you.” The grim tone went up a couple of notches. “We found Abilene’s abandoned car near Outlaw Ridge.”
Lauren’s pulse spiked. “And?”
She heard Griff swallow hard. “Nicky Holden’s body was in the trunk.”
A sick wave of nausea rolled through her.
Jesse cursed under his breath. “She’s dead,” he muttered.
“Yeah,” Griff confirmed. “Murdered.”