by Mary Alford
“Barrett talks too much.” She tried to pass around him, but he blocked her. “Detective or not,” Mae said, tossing grit into her tone, “if you don’t move, I’m going to move you. And I promise you, size doesn’t matter. I can do it.”
While Cash towered above her five-foot-one frame, she was not porcelain, and attached to her petite frame was the muscle to maneuver him if necessary.
His hands shot up in surrender, but there was no teasing in his eyes. “I have no doubt, Mae. You’ve always been strong.”
No one had ever uttered those words about her before, but flattery wasn’t going to get him one solid inch. His charm no longer affected her.
He cleared a path for her to flee. “I just want to talk to you for a minute or two. Please?”
His voice and sharp blue eyes pulsed with desperation—a look and tone she’d witnessed dozens of times in family members who needed hope to cling to after a loved one’s case went cold. It never failed to reach out and draw her compassion. Even now it hit her chest with a dull ache and rippled through her rib cage. His scruffy jaw and wildly handsome looks didn’t hurt either. Ugh—she was a pitiful!
Reluctantly, she nodded. “Okay. Two minutes tops.” So much for the tough agent persona she’d worked hard to depict. But desperation wasn’t an emotion that could be easily faked. The loud music and fireworks in addition to shouts of joy and applause made hearing nearly impossible. Cash pointed to a more secluded area and she followed his long and purposeful stride. His broad shoulders squared—not in arrogance but in confidence and with a touch of swagger from the old days.
He’d always had sun-kissed skin, like his mother, who Mae had only briefly met once.
Cash leaned against a vending machine near the restrooms.
“Two minutes,” Mae reminded him.
He nodded and held up his index finger. “First, I should have said it years ago, but I’m sorry for what I did. For what I took from you.” His Adam’s apple bobbed and his jaw worked as if fighting for composure. “I haven’t been that guy in a long time, Mae. And, I’ve thought about you a lot over the years and how things ended.”
Was he serious right now? Mae tossed him a humorous laugh. “How it ended? It ended with you stealing my English essay and handing it in as your own, leaving me with nothing to turn in.” No one had even believed her, which was startling since Cash had never done any work that scholarly once in his life. But that was how things had always gone down for Mae. It was his word against hers and Mae had drawn the short stick. Cash barely passed the class using her paper and she lost out on 75 percent of the class grade. “It cost me the valedictorian spot. You catfished me and I fell hook, line and sinker. And now you want to ask me something by prefacing it with a weak apology. Like that’s going to get you what you want. I beg to differ at your statement that you’re no longer the same guy you used to be.”
Her words hit their target. His face faltered with a pained expression, and resignation surfaced with a slow nod, as if he’d expected the swift rebuke. Cash was not stupid—even if he had referred to himself during tutoring as a lunkhead or a moron. She’d always redirected his negative self-talk and never believed it.
But he was all about taking the easy way out and shortcuts, hence the stolen paper.
“You’re wrong, but I can see your point.” And now he was going to argue with her. She bit back a remark.
“What do you want, Cash?”
“It’s about my brother, Troy. You probably know he’s been in prison for about fourteen months for murdering his ex-wife, Lisa.”
Mae raised an eyebrow. What could she do for his younger brother? She’d only met him once or twice. “Barrett might have mentioned it. I can’t say I remember. What about it?”
He gripped the nape of his neck and squeezed. “Troy’s a lot of things—I’ll be the first to admit it. But he’s not a murderer, which means whoever did kill Lisa is roaming free. That makes her case a cold one.”
Ah, now he was getting to his agenda. Help on a cold case.
“I’ve exhausted my resources. I’m only one man, and I’ve never claimed to be the sharpest tool in the shed.”
“You’re a detective, Cash. You’re clearly bright enough to solve cases or you cheated on the exam.” Sadly, she believed the former. Cash was sharp and smart even if she didn’t like him and held a grudge about the past.
He shrugged off her subtle compliment—well, more fact than compliment.
“My point is that I’ve done everything from investigating to hiring a private investigator. I was wondering if you and your team may be able to look into it.”
Before she could decline, he raked his hands through his hair. “It’s killing me, Mae. Troy isn’t doing well and the last few times we’ve talked he’s mentioned ending it all. You’re our last chance and if anyone is smart enough to get to the truth, it’s you.”
Mae pinched the bridge of her nose as “God Bless America” blared through the speakers. She couldn’t help him and if she were being honest, didn’t want to. “How concrete was the evidence that convicted him?”
“Overwhelming, but I’m telling you there’s a whole lot that doesn’t make sense. If you’ll let me, I can show you the case files or share them with you by memory. I know every single word.”
“You memorized case files?”
“I did.”
Wow. Okay. But still. “If the evidence is overwhelming and you nor a PI could find anything new, then it sounds like it’s not a cold case, Cash. It’s a closed case. I’m sure you don’t want to believe that your own kin could do something like murder an ex-wife, but it’s possible that you can’t find anything because there’s nothing to find because he did it. Prison is hard on even guilty people. I don’t see how I can help you.”
Cash rubbed his temples. “I’m telling you he didn’t do it.”
“You also told me you didn’t take my essay. But you did. And it appears—based on evidence and probably testimony—that your brother took a life even if says he didn’t.” Mae didn’t try to soften the harsh blow. Cash needed to hear the truth in all its ugliness even if the disappointment and fear in his eyes unsettled her.
“I—I deserve that,” he said quietly, looking away into nothing.
For a split second, Mae felt sorry for him. But that sweet tone and gorgeous face had messed with her head and her heart once before; it wasn’t happening again. Detective or not, Cash Ryland couldn’t be trusted. “Sorry, but I can’t help you.”
“No, I get it.” He worked his jaw and let a defeated sigh escape his lips. “Apology still stands. I wish you well, Mae.” He turned and slunk in the darkness, his shoulders no longer confident but slumped.
The decent human being inside her nudged her to catch up and offer a quick scan of the case files with no guarantees, even if the hurt high school girl with a broken and betrayed heart protested. One look wouldn’t kill her. If anything, it would confirm she was right—closed case, not cold case.
She mentally kicked herself then chased after Cash, not completely sure where he’d gotten to. As she pushed through the crowd toward the woods on the edge of the park, she spotted him as he withered to the ground.
A dark figure bolted from behind Cash and tore through the congregated picnickers toward the trees.
Mae’s heart lurched into her throat as she bolted to Cash then dropped beside him. His faced was pinched in pain and his hand was covered in blood.
“Cash!” she hollered over fireworks exploding in rapid succession as the climactic moment began to wind down the grand show. “Were you shot?”
“I don’t know.” Shock radiated in his voice. Mae lifted his shirt to inspect the wound and cringed. “You’ve been stabbed. Call it in, Cash. And keep pressure on the wound.” She couldn’t be sure of the damage due to the dark night and the amount of blood.
He clutched t
he radio from his belt. “Delta 3 SO, send me a car to the west side of Willow Banks Lake near the pavilion, and start an ambulance to this location. I have been stabbed but am stable. Repeat, I am stable.”
Several first responders on duty ran in their direction, having heard Cash’s call into the sheriff’s office. And barely near the tree line, she spotted a dark figure. “You’ll be okay, now.” She jumped up and pursued the perpetrator. Weaving through families entranced by the fireworks overhead and oblivious to the fact that a detective had been stabbed, Mae rushed but lost the attacker in the shadows.
She kicked the grass and punched her palm. Heart racing, she doubled back to the scene. Ambulance lights flickered and Cash was being loaded onto a stretcher. “Cash!”
“Miss, you need to stand back,” a first responder said.
Mae frowned and retrieved her badge and shoved it at the deputy. “Agent Mae Vogel, MBI. I witnessed the stabbing, so I think I’ll be coming a little closer.” Ignoring the deputy’s scowl, she hurried to Cash. His eyes were closed and his face was pale; he wasn’t as stable as he had let on and her stomach roiled. She flashed her creds and demanded information from the EMTs.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” one of the paramedics said. “We need to move. Now.”
“I’m coming with him.” Mae didn’t wait for permission and hauled herself into the back of the ambulance. It made sense to go along—professionally—since he was the victim and she was a witness who would need to give deputies a statement.
This had nothing to do with the fact that she’d once fallen hard for him.
* * *
Cash winced as the ER doctor finished stitching him up. He’d skated by on the skin of his teeth according to the doc. The stabber had been sloppy or in a hurry and missed Cash’s major organs, but the deep wound hurt and the stitches hadn’t helped. His entire left side burned and throbbed.
“I’m gonna give you a couple pain meds to hold you over until you can get a prescription filled tomorrow. Take them, Detective. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” The doc handed him the script and pills and patted his shoulder. “And watch your back.”
“Ah, funny. Stick to healing instead of humor,” Cash teased and returned the shoulder pat. “’Preciate it.” He squinted at the prescription with jumbled letters. Doctors’ handwriting were rotten to begin with but it wouldn’t have mattered if the letters were perfectly spelled out. Cash would have trouble reading them regardless.
He had dyslexia.
He hadn’t realized it until his mentor and boss figured it out when Cash was eighteen and graduated high school. Until then, he’d figured what everyone else said about him was true—he was nothing but a below-average kid who could barely read or write.
Sometimes he still struggled with spoken words more than written ones. But at least he now knew there was more to his disability than simply not “getting it”—and knowing was half the battle.
Since the diagnosis, Cash had been figuring out how to navigate the world with his challenges. God had been faithful and placed the right people in his path at the right time to help him, whether it was going to the police academy or taking the test to make detective. But his dyslexia wasn’t something Cash freely discussed.
At the moment, he was more concerned with how to help Troy. Without Mae, Cash was lost, but he owed his brother. Cash was responsible for Troy’s downward spiral into criminal activity because he’d been the one to introduce his brother to it when Troy was only twelve and Cash had been sixteen and mad at the world. Troy’s misdemeanors hadn’t helped him during his murder trial, and that Troy had physically abused Lisa had been the nail in the coffin.
Cash was convinced Troy didn’t kill her, and whoever had was now targeting Cash.
It was no secret he never gave up investigating and he’d even been pretty vocal in bringing Mae—a cold case investigator—into the case. Anyone could have heard through the grapevine or firsthand, which meant the killer was in Willow Banks and most likely a citizen.
But Mae had turned him down and her bias against him fueled her negative response. Cash couldn’t drop the ball now, though. Troy might not make it much longer and even though he’d been to a few church services in prison, he hadn’t given his life to Jesus. The eternal consequences were too great and time was too short and not on either of their sides.
He exited the sterile, bleach-scented examining room and strode down the hall, the stitches pulling at his hot, fevered skin around the wound. Some of his colleagues had come in with him and taken a statement, rallied to support him and assure him they were after who hurt one of their own. But it had been a blitz attack and Cash had nothing concrete to offer. Mae might have seen more but he’d noticed that she hadn’t been in the room. It would have lit up if she had. Mae was different from any other girl he’d ever known and her bravery and strength tonight proved she hadn’t changed.
Memories invaded his mind as he followed the corridor to the lobby. Asking Mae for tutoring had seriously wounded his pride, but he’d desperately wanted to graduate high school and Mae had been the smartest—and kindest—girl he’d ever met.
He’d gone with the intent to charm her with his flirtatious ways and persuade her to tutor him. He was ashamed to admit he’d been pretty good with girls back then but the moment he’d entered Mae’s personal space all his swagger and false bravado had disappeared and a shyness he’d never experienced had bubbled to the surface. No other girl had ever produced the buckled-knees effect on him or made him feel vulnerable and nervous.
Then he’d gone and betrayed her—one of his biggest regrets other than his bad influence on Troy.
As he rounded the corner, he touched his hand as if he could feel her holding it on the way to the hospital, but she hadn’t been in the ambulance. Must be some weird dream he had when he passed out. He approached the lobby and did a double take.
Mae perched on the edge of a blue waiting room chair, bobbing her knee and resting her thumbnail against her two bottom teeth.
A couple of his colleagues remained and as Cash entered the waiting area near the lobby desk, they stood at attention and offered condolences and inappropriate jokes, lightening the heavy moment.
Cash appreciated their presence but all he wanted was to talk to Mae, who was gazing at him.
Surely, she’d already given her statement and could have left by now. Had she been in the ambulance with him?
Finally she stood and her expression teetered on concerned. Mae Vogel concerned about him? He didn’t deserve that but he’d take it.
“Are you okay?” She cautiously approached him, looking at his wounded side.
“Sore as all get-out and I have some stitches, but I’ll live.” He shrugged.
She met his gaze with sincerity and worry. Maybe she didn’t hate him as much as it appeared at the celebration. If looks could kill, he’d have already been dead. But that wasn’t her expression at the moment. “I’m sorry I didn’t catch him,” she said. “He all but vanished into the woods.” She motioned with her head to the few remaining colleagues. “I gave the detectives my statement.”
Two deputies and one of his CID colleagues grinned from behind her, gave him thumbs-ups and waggled eyebrows. Clearly, their deputy work was shoddy. There was nothing romantic between him and Mae. She stepped aside and he talked a few moments with them and one by one they trickled out the glass sliding doors, leaving only him and Mae.
“Hey, no worries you didn’t catch him.” The fact that she’d sprinted off after the perpetrator alone was pretty cool. It was her job—but it was well...kinda hot. Oh, he could not be thinking along those lines. Reel it in, Ryland. Reel. It. In. Think case. “This proves I’m right.”
She frowned. “How’s that?”
“The real killer doesn’t want me to investigate and tried to shut me up permanently.” Now Cash had even more incentive to press forw
ard.
“Is that what you told Detective Nicholson? He’s the one who took my statement, but I didn’t see much. A dark figure. As far as I know, no weapon was located at or near the scene.”
“Shane. Yeah, I did.” Cash refrained from admitting that Shane wasn’t so sure Cash could or should be making those leaps, but he felt it in his bones. “It’s too coincidental with the timing of the attack. And because they don’t want me investigating, it tells me that out there somewhere is evidence against them.”
Mae tucked a small strand of pale blond hair behind her ear. She wore it shorter now than in high school; it hung straight and thick to her collarbone but it was every bit as shiny and every bit a distraction. “Have you considered the possibility that your past is catching up to you and your attacker is an enemy with a score to settle?”
The question was legit but it stung regardless. Cash had done a lot of people dirty, cut corners while looking out for number one, but his life turned around at eighteen when he’d been caught dead to rights shoplifting. Since then he’d worked tirelessly to redeem himself by building an honest reputation that hung on integrity and faith. He’d also spent hours giving back to the community through outreach programs for troubled teenage boys.
He stroked his chin, thinking about that possibility. “You make a valid point, Mae, but it’s been fourteen years since I got into any trouble. If you’d take a look at the case files, you’ll see many things overlooked or not brought up by my brother’s defense attorney or appealed by him. Troy was framed. I’m not biased. As much as I love my brother, if he were guilty I would expect justice to be served and his punishment to be exacted.”
Mae held his gaze and pursed her lips then sighed. “Fine, Cash. I’ll take a look at the case files—”
“They’re at my house.”
Mae raised her eyebrows. “Did you get special circumstances to do that?”
Taking home case files was frowned upon but not necessarily a hard rule.