by Addison Fox
Weren’t people supposed to get smarter? Wasn’t a person meant to learn from their mistakes and make different choices? Wasn’t that what she strived to tell her patients, helping them past the blocks in their life to move on to something better?
Only the joke was on her.
They said doctors made the worst patients, and here she was proving the adage right.
“You think last night was a lie?” Trey finally asked, all hint of his teasing sexy smile vanished.
“That’s a loaded word.”
“You put it out there, Aish. You questioned if last night was the truth.” Trey quieted for a moment before he spoke, something tight and pinched in his tone. “It was to me.”
Did he really believe that?
“This isn’t the place for this conversation.”
“No, it’s not. But it doesn’t mean we’re not having it. Let’s go to my office.”
The heavy scent of pizza still lingered on the air. It was a smell she always associated with happy things—Friday nights and eating with your hands and friends—and now she’d have another memory to add to the list.
Breakup with best friend.
Even with the truth that loomed large before them, she followed Trey to his office. She was an equal participant in this charade and it was hardly fair to run out. And wasn’t she always fair? Always willing to listen to both sides. Willing and able to hear where the other person was coming from.
Hadn’t she done that for Kenneth?
Of course I love you, Aisha. I think you may be the love of my life. I just had the bad luck of meeting Grace first.
That memory had always loomed the largest for her.
Wasn’t that just so sad for him? Yes, it was sad for her. The reality of their circumstances meant she couldn’t be with him, but it also meant Kenneth couldn’t be with her.
The love of his life.
Which was a big steaming pile of BS but it hadn’t seemed like it at the time.
At the time she’d been heartbroken, desperately searching for answers to why it all hurt so bad. Deliberate in her need to believe that he’d be with her if only.
Trey stopped at his office door, gesturing her in and then closing the door behind them. The office was government grade, which meant it was functional and way too gray, but Trey had still made it his own. A few pillows she knew his mother had sewn herself rested on a couch that had likely come off the line when Clinton was president. And one of his sister’s paintings hung on a side wall, a lone wolf staring out of the image with startling eyes.
It was all vintage Trey.
That mix of family and function defined him, just as much as the wolf did.
Bree had chosen well when she’d painted the picture. She understood her brother as much as anyone and innately recognized that the representation of a hunter who could stand alone yet be fiercely protective of those he called his own was the perfect match for her brother.
“Why’d you pull away out there?”
“I didn’t pull away.”
Trey dropped his head before those penetrating golden-brown eyes lifted to hers. “Whatever else is going on between us, I deserve the truth.”
He did and Aisha was embarrassed at how quickly the words had tripped out instead of the real work that needed to be done. The confession she had to tackle head-on. The words that stuck in her throat like hardening concrete.
“I loved someone. When I lived in New York.”
“I know.”
That quick acknowledgment brought surprise and a bit of heat as she wondered why he’d never said anything. Unwilling to examine that reaction too closely, she pressed on. “I thought he loved me, as well. That I was going to marry him.”
A hard and, sadly, still-bitter laugh rumbled from her throat. “Which is incredibly hard to do when the person you expect to make a lifetime vow to is married to someone else.”
Something flickered in his eyes—anger? Remorse?—before he tamped it down. “I can see how that would be true.”
“He played me well, I’ll give him that. We even looked at engagement rings one Sunday out strolling the city hand in hand.”
Trey winced, but his voice never wavered above that level calm he seemed to channel. “A bastard of the first degree.”
“In the end, yeah, I guess he was.”
“I’m sorry you went through that.”
While it hurt, she wasn’t sure she could say the same. Whatever else Kenneth’s role in her life, he was the single biggest reminder that she had to be humble and fair when she dealt with her patients. The dynamics between human beings was rarely rational and it had taken her a long time to come to the realization that Kenneth had likely believed every word he’d said to her.
His tortured longing to be together. The “bad timing” of their romance. Even the whole “love of his life” thing had come out with a level of anxious sincerity that he likely believed.
Yet none of it made a life. Nor was it able to drive a relationship forward, built on trust and commitment and forever.
Not to her and certainly not to his wife.
“Have you ever wondered why you didn’t tell me about him?” Trey’s quiet voice carried all the power of a hurricane. “Why you felt you couldn’t share something that made you happy?”
“It didn’t feel right.”
“But you loved him. You were happy.”
She had been happy. For nearly a year she’d been blissful, floating on the sea of passion and adrenaline and the certainty that she’d found “The One.”
And still, she’d not told her best friend.
“I was.”
“For a long time I kept telling myself you’d come around. You’d tell me about him and your life together. You’d share this great relationship. But you never did.”
Whatever emotions she’d carried over Kenneth, both while they were dating and since, faded in the face of his hurt. Not only hadn’t she told Trey about Kenneth, but she’d also spent the time avoiding her friend, coming up with any number of excuses to duck having to tell him.
Only she couldn’t avoid the issue any longer. “How’d you find out?”
“Your mom mentioned it to mine at the market. It was a casual comment, how she hoped you’d bring him home for a family function. My mom brought it up in passing, assuming I already knew.”
Aisha remembered that time. Her mother had planned a picnic to celebrate Tanisha’s graduation from high school and had been so excited to meet Kenneth. Aisha had been equally excited for the moment she’d introduce him to her family.
She’d booked her plane tickets, offering to put her and Kenneth on the same reservation, only he’d said he would handle his own. His secretary was also booking his work travel that week, he’d told her as they lay in her bed on a lazy Saturday afternoon, and he’d have to fly in from business up in Seattle. Oh, how perfect it all was. Her successful business-traveling boyfriend, flying in to meet her family after a week of meetings.
Until she’d driven to the Denver International Airport, receiving a text as she was pulling into a parking spot that he wasn’t coming. That he’d been stuck in meetings and had to work on a project for a demanding client that would occupy him all weekend.
Just perfect.
Only in her haze and desperate desire to believe in him, she’d soldiered through, rationalizing his behavior as a matter of course when you dated an older, successful man. She could hardly be mad when he was stuck on the other side of the country, working all weekend.
Later, she’d accepted there’d likely been no trip to Seattle. Or any of the numerous other places he told her he was often heading out to. They’d been excuses to cover up when he was really spending the time with his family.
“I’m sorry you found out that way.”
“Are you?” Trey asked, his
hands going to his hips. “Even after all this time, when you’ve still never said anything. Are you sorry or are you really just relieved you didn’t have to tell me?”
“I don’t owe you an explanation for something that happened in my personal life.”
That calm, cool visage broke wide-open. Anger pressed deep grooves into his face, his mouth a solid slash that set his jaw. “Like hell you don’t.”
“I don’t, Trey. We’re friends.”
“We’re more than friends. We always have been and this weekend’s proved that.”
“Don’t mix up the two.”
“It’s all mixed up, Aish. All of it. How I feel about you now. How I felt about you then.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means I cared about you! And you didn’t think to tell me about the most important thing in your life. You hid it from me and you went away, too. Other than text messages I don’t think I talked to you more than three times that entire year.”
“It was never the right time to tell you.” As excuses went it was a lame one, especially when she really owed him an apology. But it was all she could handle at the moment. “And then it was over and there wasn’t anything to tell you other than what a clueless idiot I’d been.”
“You can tell me anything.”
“I know you think that, but I couldn’t tell you. Every time I thought to I found another reason to put it off.”
“Why?”
The heavy rap on his door was followed by the briefest pause when Daria pushed her head through. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“What is it?” Trey rarely lost his temper or his patience, but the strained response indicated he was close to losing both.
“Agent Roberts is here. He’s got backup.”
“Backup?”
“It looks like his supervisor has joined in on today’s fun.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Daria ducked out as fast as she’d come in but it was enough to give Aisha her window of escape. “I’ll leave you to it.”
“We’re not done talking about this.”
“Probably not.”
Trey moved in closer and reached for her hand. She felt the warmth of his fingers closing around hers. The way his thumb rubbed lightly over the back of her hand. “I’m here for you. Always.”
“Just like I am for you.”
“We can’t lose that.” His gaze bore into hers, and she saw all the years that spanned between them, starting way back to that day on the playground. “Ever.”
“I know.”
He squeezed once before striding from his office. She watched the door a few moments before her gaze drifted to the image of the wolf on the wall. Although Bree had painted the animal alone, Aisha knew how wolves worked. In the wild, there’d be a pack nearby.
She was part of Trey’s emotional pack, just as he was to her. And still, it was hard to talk to him about Kenneth. Hard to talk to him of her naïveté and her embarrassment. Harder still to explain why she’d never told him about Kenneth from the start.
Things to think about and question, but she’d save all of it for the privacy of her own home. A Sunday afternoon curled up with Fitz on the couch over a weepy movie might be just what she needed.
It was only as the credits rolled on a good weeper with Julia Roberts a few hours later that she allowed her conversation with Trey to replay in her mind.
He’d said she could tell him anything.
But could she?
Kenneth had ruined enough of her life and shattered her self-confidence to the point she still had moments when she was reminded of just how badly she’d been hurt.
Like today.
If she told Trey, she’d make it real. Tangible. And possibly create a barrier neither of them could ever fully get past.
She stroked Fitz’s soft fur and stared at the rolling credits on her TV screen.
And acknowledged to herself that she’d never felt more alone.
* * *
Trey had dealt with the Feds over the years. You didn’t get to spend long in the role of sheriff without bumping up against federal agencies from time to time. He’d also had a few run-ins when he’d worked in local law enforcement before becoming sheriff. Each time, he’d accepted there were a pecking order and a hierarchy. It was less acquiescence and more the understanding of chain of command and, to some degree, just how the world worked.
But he had zero interest in placating Agent Stefan Roberts and the man who, it had quickly become apparent, was the agent’s “big boss.”
“These incidents are concerning, Sheriff.” Deputy Director Jared Wright rubbed at his goatee. “Very concerning.”
“I agree.”
“Yet they continue to happen.” Wright’s gaze narrowed. “Have you connected with local law enforcement?”
He and his team had connected with everyone, from local law enforcement to the various private security firms that provided protection for businesses in Roaring Springs and beyond. Although all of Bradford County was affected, Roaring Springs had been the epicenter of the problems and had retained the majority of Trey and his team’s focus.
“My team and I are in regular communication with the Roaring Springs PD.”
He was going to give a list of all the organizations they’d been in contact with but decided at the last minute to hold back. Whatever interrogation Wright felt he was entitled to, Trey was determined not to make it easy.
“So lots of eyes on the town.”
“I’d say so, yes,” Trey said.
“And still a killer continues to find a way.” Wright stroked that goatee again. “Even coming as close as this sheriff’s station to drop off a package of a victim’s remains.”
That reality had stuck in Trey’s chest since the mysterious phone call earlier in the week, and while it frustrated him to have it tossed in his face, he knew his own anger on the matter was a fuse just waiting for a spark.
“The killer knew the exact distance to keep away from the station’s security cameras. The package was just out of range.”
“And no one else on the street caught a glimpse of a man with a package?”
“We’ve checked all the footage up and down the town. Nothing is a match.”
Nothing was.
Each and every video feed they’d reviewed had turned up a shocking lack of detail. No one with a package. No one moving in a furtive manner. He’d looked at the feeds himself and nothing had indicated a killer on the loose. Hell, nothing had even indicated a person of interest for him and his deputies to bring in and question.
“Then you find a match, Sheriff.”
Trey’s gaze drifted from Wright to Agent Roberts, who’d sat quietly at the table while his boss delivered his thoughts. “I thought good old-fashioned police work meant you hunted for the truth. Not a convenient way to wrap up a case.”
“I’m not talking convenience.”
Trey was done playing nice. “Then what are you saying?”
“A killer has walked these streets without punishment for nearly three months. Who knows how much longer before that? Yet your department’s been unsuccessful in even coming up with a few viable leads to tug.”
It was the matter of a simple inflection when Trey heard the real problem. The slight note of frustration that proved the killer had not only stymied all of them, but that the Feds were as frustrated as he was.
“It sounds like my problem is yours, as well. Isn’t that what you’re really trying to say, Director?”
“This is your county, Sheriff.”
“And you’ve made it clear this is your investigation. Maybe if we did a bit more work together instead of in separate streams we’d get farther.”
Wright glanced toward Agent Roberts. “We’ve kept you informed.”
Trey had no interest in throwing the agent under the bus. His assessment from the first was that Agent Stefan Roberts was a good guy. That didn’t mean he needed to give him any leeway for carrying out the Machiavellian practices of his leadership.
“Agent Roberts has done what he can, but I’ve no doubt your resources are far vaster than my own. What sort of detail have you gotten out of national databases? Any like crimes? Any missing persons who match the feminine description of what the killer seems fixated on.”
“We’ve found a few hits but nothing that’s panned out.” Agent Roberts stepped in, taking effective control of the conversation. “What I’m more concerned about is the seeming change in direction. The sixth victim off the mountain, Sabrina Gilford, didn’t match pattern. The woman lying in your morgue doesn’t, either.”
“I’ve read the reports,” Wright snapped. “But why a copycat?”
“That’s what we don’t know, sir,” Roberts continued. “But Sheriff Colton has had several family members who have also been targeted this year in various ways. Something seems to be seething under the surface.”
It was the most accurate description Trey had heard yet and verified what had bothered him. Each attack on his family, each strange occurrence from the murder setup in January on Wyatt’s ranch to the way Bree had been targeted the prior spring to the lurking danger they’d faced at the film festival in July. All of it had seemed under some sort of external control that didn’t match the way each case wrapped up, neat and clean.
He’d been satisfied the cases were closed yet couldn’t help but feel something lingered just out of his reach, like a flash in his peripheral vision. But each and every time he tried to look at it, he couldn’t quite see it.
Even as he knew it was there.
Was he looking in the wrong place? Or had he been lulled into a false sense of security when each case had wrapped, thinking the danger was over only to be masterminded from afar?
“Do you agree with that assessment, Sheriff?”
“Yes. I’ve tried not to go this direction, but there is something decidedly personal about what’s going on. But I don’t say that to take our focus or attention off a killer. There is a psychopath on the loose and none of us can forget that.”