Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Tate yawned as he turned down the road that would take him back to Josh and Rachel’s home. The party hadn’t broken up until after one, and here he was back at the house before eight in the morning. His friends had been adamant that he come to breakfast to hang out with everyone again.
The group would be much smaller than the party last night.
Just the core friends who had all gone to high school together.
It would be nice to spend time with them in a more informal setting.
Even with the friends who hadn’t left town, he didn’t get to spend much time with them. Everyone was busy with jobs and kids.
Except me. I don’t have any kids.
That hadn’t been the plan. When he and Cat had been dating, they’d both said they wanted a couple of kids. They’d planned to have them young, too, right after they finished college.
But Cat hadn’t finished college. She’d flown off to exotic locations to be a supermodel.
Shit, I sound bitter. I’m not. I’m glad she found success. I truly am.
Tate only wished that she’d handled their breakup a bit better. But they’d both basically been kids. They hadn’t known shit about the world or how actions could have repercussions years later. He couldn’t be angry with her for living in the moment.
And it had been her moment. To shine, that is. He’d always known she was special. Now the world knew it, too. He didn’t want to be that guy who begrudged his girlfriend an amazing career. He’d been happy for her, even when it hurt.
If she were in attendance this morning, he’d make a point to pull her aside and apologize for being an asshole last night. Yes, she should have reached out. But it didn’t mean that she was a horrible person. She’d just been young. They both had. Her apology had hit him the wrong way last night.
In the distance, he could hear sirens - faint but growing louder.
He reached to turn the radio down and glanced in the rearview mirror.
Blue and red lights flashed as two police cars and an ambulance came up behind him.
Pulling to the side of the road, he watched as they flew passed, in a big hurry to get where they were going.
And that was the thing…
There weren’t many houses down this road. Seven or eight, maybe? Including Josh and Rachel. They’d purposefully built out here, where the lots were large and they had more privacy. The dogs could run around, and Josh could park his boat in his oversized garage.
A pit had formed at the bottom of his stomach, and a deep sense of foreboding had taken up residence in his brain. Without a second thought, he pulled back onto the road, accelerating as he neared his friends’ home.
He could see the flashing lights and the emergency vehicles in Josh and Rachel’s driveway.
Finn, the local sheriff, was standing near the mailbox, and a small group of Tate’s friends had gathered, huddled together close by.
The EMTs were kneeling next to a body that he couldn’t identify from where he’d parked his vehicle.
When he stepped out, Winnie ran over and threw her arms around him with an audible sob.
“He was shot. I can’t believe this is happening. He was shot.”
That pit in his stomach clenched painfully tight. Winslow Heights wasn’t completely crime-free - it wasn’t Mayberry - but people being shot wasn’t a common occurrence.
“Glen was shot?”
Winnie looked up at him, her tear-stained expression confused.
“Glen? No, it’s not Glen. He’s inside with Josh and Rachel. They’re so upset. It’s Tyler. Tyler was shot. I think he might be dead.”
Tyler?
He’d only been spending the night because his parents were remodeling their house. And somehow he’d been gunned down at some point between the end of the party and this morning?
It didn’t make any sense. He didn’t even live in Winslow Heights.
Something had gone wildly wrong.
And one of his friends might be dead.
The whole scene was surreal.
Tate watched as Tyler was loaded into the back of an ambulance, the back doors slamming shut loudly, and the EMTs driving away with the sirens blaring.
He was alive but barely, probably needing surgery to stem the ocean of abdominal bleeding that had left a reddish-brown puddle at the end of the driveway.
“He was talking,” Rachel asked to no one in particular, clinging to Josh, her face wet with tears. “That’s a good sign, right?”
“Of course, it is,” Lindsay said. “Tyler’s going to be fine.”
Josh’s face was ashen, his gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. Tate wondered if his friend was in a state of shock.
“It could have been you,” Larry said. “You could have been shot.”
Finn, the local sheriff, cleared his throat to get their attention. His expression was grim, his lips in a flat line, and his brows pinched together.
“I’m going to need to talk to each of you,” he said. “Rachel, can we do this in the house, perhaps? Is there a private location where I can conduct the interviews? I don’t want to drag everyone to the station house.”
“We have to go to the hospital,” Diane protested. “We have to be there for Tyler.”
“I need to get your statements first,” Finn insisted. “This is an attempted murder case. We have protocols for this.”
“C’mon, man,” Glen replied, shaking his head. “We can’t tell you anything. We were all inside. No one saw anything.”
“Then your statements won’t take long,” Finn shot back. “If you don’t willingly give a statement, I can get my deputies to escort you to the station.”
Glen muttered something under his breath, but didn’t say anything more. Tate’s attention wasn’t on his old friend anyway. It was directed at the person who had stepped out from behind Winnie and Glen.
Cat.
“It’s a possible murder investigation,” she said. “We need to cooperate. I can tell you that New York City cops wouldn’t be asking nicely like Finn is.”
“Fine,” Glen said, throwing up his hands in frustration. “We’ll give our statement. You’re right. It won’t take long. We didn’t see or hear anything.”
In silent agreement, the group returned to the house, Tate following behind them. He was still trying to wrap his head around what he’d walked into this morning.
Tyler had been shot. What in the hell? Why? And by whom? It didn’t make a lick of sense.
“You can use the home office,” Rachel said, still sniffling from her earlier tears. “I’ll bring out some coffee or something. Oh my god, I’ve got a French toast casserole in the oven that I completely forgot about.”
Rachel darted into the kitchen with Diane on her heels.
“There’s a bunch of food if anyone is hungry,” Winnie said. “Help yourself. Rachel and I have been cooking since six.”
“Thanks, but maybe later,” Tate said, his gaze on Cat. “Maybe I should go help Rachel with that coffee.”
“No need,” Winnie replied. “We started it before?—”
She broke off, her hand flying to her mouth as a sob broke through.
“Jesus, Winnie,” Glen said, his tone scathing. “Keep it together. Tyler isn’t dead yet.”
Winnie burst into tears, her shoulders shaking with the force of her sobs. Cat immediately went to comfort the other woman, putting her arm around her and whispering something into her ear.
“Yes, I would like to get some air,” Winnie said, glaring at her husband. “Let’s go sit on the front porch. Call us when we’re needed.”
“I hate it when she gets so emotional,” Glen said when the women were outside. “We’re all upset, but she tries and makes everything about her. She and Tyler weren’t even that close.”
Tate wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond. Yes, they were all upset, but Winnie was someone who wore her emotions on her sleeve. She’d always been that way since they were kids. It hadn’t bothered Glen before.
“It must be a shock to her,” Tate finally replied. “I’m not sure how to react myself.”
Truth be told, he was still trying to understand it all. He had to keep repeating to himself that Tyler had been shot.
Shot.
“Can I give you some advice?” Glen asked. “Don’t get married. Stay single. It’s much easier.”
Trouble in paradise? Winnie and Glen had been together for a decade. They’d always been happy, but in a quiet way. They’d never been one of those couples who had lots of public displays of affection, but they’d been solid as far as Tate knew.
“I think you’re both under a lot of stress,” Tate said. “What happened this morning has knocked us all off balance.”
Glen sighed and nodded in agreement.
“Shit, don’t listen to me. It’s all just so…I dunno. What’s this world coming to? Tyler was helping out, you know? Like he always does. And he gets shot for his trouble. It’s just not fair.”
“Tyler was helping out? How?”
“It’s garbage day,” Glen explained. “Josh and Rachel were working on getting the food out for the guests this morning, and they’d forgotten to put the garbage bins out.
Tyler jumped up and offered to put them out.
Didn’t even wait for an answer. You know how he is.
He was on it in a second. Then we heard what sounded like the backfiring of a car, and Tyler didn’t come back right away.
Well…Josh looked out the front window… He saw Tyler lying on the ground. ”
“That bullet was meant for me. I know it was.”
That statement came from Josh. He’d slipped into the living room after setting Finn up in the home office.
“Why do you think it was meant for you?” Tate asked. “Has someone threatened you?”
“No,” Josh replied with a shake of his head. “But Tyler was wearing my sweatshirt. Whoever did this must have thought it was me.”
It would depend on how far away the shooter was from Tyler. From a distance, the two men could be mistaken for one another. They had the same blond hair and a similar haircut. They were almost identical in height and frame. Put Josh’s clothes on Tyler…
A case of mistaken identity could be a real possibility.
“We don’t know exactly what happened yet,” Tate cautioned. “Did anybody see anything? Who all was here when it happened?”