Holding the Truth

by Calle J. Brookes

  “No. I don’t want you to go anywhere.” It might be the biggest mistake of her life, but Bailey leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.

  She felt his surprise in the way he stiffened. But he didn’t pull away until she did. “Honey, I’m not exactly at my strongest at two a.m. If you don’t want me to slip this T-shirt off of you and show you just how much you mean to me, you’d better get clear across the bed. Across the room. Across the county. I...don’t have much willpower right now.”

  “I don’t want you to. And I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Bailey, honey...”

  “Are you afraid?”

  “You’d better believe it. Afraid of what you do to me.” His hands tightened on her and before Bailey could blink he rolled her beneath him. “Are you sure this is what you want?”

  “More sure than I’ve been in a long, long time. We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow.”

  Bailey wrapped her arms around his neck and held him.

  ***

  Clay knew what they were doing was about to change everything, but he didn't give a damn. Not any longer. Bailey was pale, tired, bruised, but she was right there in front of him. His for the night, at least. They were going to camp at his place while his chief deputy ran things for a while.

  "Bailey." He practically breathed her name. "Tonight, I..."

  "It's just tonight. When things around here are normal again, we’ll decide what happens next.”

  He didn't know if she was asking a question. Or telling him what she wanted. All Clay could do was nod, then reach for her.

  It might just be the next eight hours he would have her, but he was going to take what he could get.

  He was tired of living half a life. Of having nothing but the damned job. It was there when he woke each day, when he went to bed at night. There wasn't much else in between.

  Except that the job had brought him her. Without it, Clay wouldn't be where he was in that moment.

  He slipped one hand to her cheek. She tilted it into his palm. The heat of her nearly seared him. Soft blond hair, freed from the confines of the braid she'd had it in earlier, slid across his skin. Bailey smelled like the shampoo he’d always used. The shirt draping her narrow shoulders was his.

  It was his guest bed they were in.

  But that wasn’t what he wanted. Not for the first time.

  He wanted her in his bed.

  Clay threw back the blanket. “Not here.”

  “What?”

  “Not here. I want you in my room. The way I’ve always imagined.”

  “Always?”

  “Well, for the last thirteen months. Since you walked into my office that day.”

  “It seems like a lifetime ago.” Her fingers were combing through his hair. Clay just carried her down his hallway toward his bed.

  Where she belonged.

  If he had his way, she’d sleep there every night.

  For the rest of their lives.

  Just how he felt for her threatened to bring him to his knees right there on the old hardwood floor he’d been meaning to repair and varnish.

  He just hadn’t had much of a reason to worry about make the house look pretty. He kept it clean. It kept him dry.

  It was a fair trade-off. Now he wondered what Bailey thought about it. If she’d want to stay there. With him.

  He wouldn’t be able to breathe without this woman.

  And he’d barely even kissed her yet.

  Clay fixed that by lowering her to his bed and following her down, after grabbing what he’d need to protect her from the bedside drawer.

  His lips were pressed to hers before she was fully on the mattress.

  Clay slipped his hands beneath the shirt he’d loaned her and felt her soft, soft skin for the first time.

  ***

  It felt right. Being with him. Bailey didn’t stop to think, to put what she felt into words. Not now.

  Instead her own hands went to the waistband of his shirt and she pulled—until she had the cotton free of his shoulders and winging toward the corner of his room.

  Clay laughed. A low, wicked sound that went straight through her.

  Her T-shirt went over her head, and Bailey’s breath caught.

  His hand slipped up, and he cupped her through the sports bra she still wore.

  Her eyes stared into his. “Clay.”

  He breathed her name in response. “So many nights I’ve dreamed of you right here. With me.”

  “I didn’t have a clue. I thought you hated me.”

  His fingers trailed over the scars. She’d always have those reminders of what had happened to her.

  So would any man she allowed to see them. Clay’s fingers traced the worst one softly.

  Her hand covered his. “I don’t want to think about then. Not tonight.”

  “No. Neither do I. I just want to think about you.”

  Bailey smiled. In that instant, she’d heard the fire in his words. Felt it in how his hand had spread over her stomach. And rose. His fingers toyed with the bottom band of her bra.

  And then it was being lifted over her head.

  Bailey gasped when one of those hot hands covered her flesh for the first time.

  Within moments, they were both wrapped around each other, and all the pain and fear that had been between them was being erased.

  Until it just wasn’t there any longer.

  When she’d caught her breath again, Bailey pressed against his chest and brushed a kiss against his heart.

  He held her until she drifted off to sleep in his arms. Again.

  Chapter 121

  Lou forced himself to leave the sheriff’s street before one of the neighbors noticed him and called him in. He didn’t need his Chrysler being recognized.

  But knowing he was leaving Bailey inside with Addy sickened him.

  She was just a baby, compared with a man like Addy. Addy would never understand what she needed. He hadn’t with Kimberly.

  Not at all.

  Lou just drove.

  He couldn’t go back to Boethe Street; his one-room efficiency he’d rented under Bob’s name had most likely been blown to smithereens.

  He’d hoped Glen had been, too.

  But he’d heard on the radio that another blond woman’s body had been found.

  Down at Bracker’s Mill Road.

  The fingers hadn’t been mentioned, though. Lou was thankful for that.

  He didn’t think he’d been stupid enough to leave fingerprints on the box, but he hadn’t kept up with forensics while in jail.

  He always had enjoyed that part of the job, though he’d never admitted that back then.

  Perhaps he should have. He could have worked the lab and stayed away from Pete Holte and Shawn Jennson and not lost all that time with Bailey.

  Should-haves threatened to choke him.

  Must-dos were all he could cling to. And Lou knew it.

  He found himself back at Charlie’s girl’s place.

  Just to see what she was doing.

  To make certain she was ok. What he would do if she wasn’t, he didn’t know. But he owed it to Charlie after what he’d done to the other man.

  Lou didn’t exactly have many friends left. He should treat Charlie better than he had.

  A distinctive van was parked in that girl’s driveway.

  Fire burned Lou’s gut.

  No.

  This wasn’t happening.

  It just wasn’t.

  Lou turned the Chrysler around and started driving. He didn’t stop until he ended up back on Boethe Street. The part that he could still access, anyway.

  He had his gun. If anyone tried to stop him from doing whatever the hell he wanted, he could handle himself.

  Lou needed to find a safe place where he could come up with a plan.

  He turned the Chrysler around again. And headed back toward Value.

  He had to fix this, somehow.

  Chapter 122

  Veri too
k one look at Bailey and Clay when they walked in together early the next morning, and she knew they’d finally figured things out between them. She had to smile at that. She hadn’t smiled in more than twenty-four hours. Not since the storm had hit.

  Now that the storm was over, she had to turn herself to getting through. On her own two feet. Not with that man dictating what she was going to do next.

  Give a man a kiss and he’d take a mile.

  But that man could certainly kiss.

  He’d won last night. She’d intended to stay at the precinct and help, but Bert had swooped in and taken her home with him. He’d given her the room next to his, one floor above where his son and grandson—and their guests, the Lakes—all slept. His daughter and her fiancé had been around, too.

  It had shocked the heck out of Veri when he’d snuck into her room to talk.

  It hadn’t been all talk they’d ended up doing last night. There’d been nothing more than PG-13, but it had been enough to get her hot and bothered. And confused.

  She wasn’t about to get involved with a man like Bert just because her world had changed. That would be a stupid mistake, and Veri always thought her way through life instead.

  She and Bert, they were going to take their time. Figure out if what was going on was something she wanted.

  Veri was fifty-three years old. Too old to do something stupid with a handsome man. Even if it was Bert.

  She was thinking of him when the door opened again.

  It was just her and Bailey and Clay this early. Deb had worked eighteen hours straight, as had Loretta—even though Loretta had been injured when a tree had fallen on her place a few miles south of Veri’s. The Value TSP was nothing if not dedicated.

  Now that a few days had passed, she and the other three dispatchers and the two clerks were getting volunteers in rotation and getting their boys—and girl—out there where they needed to be.

  They were pulling together—like the team she knew they could be.

  “There’s breakfast in the break room! Make sure you eat!” she called after them. No doubt they’d already eaten, but Bailey at least needed the extra calories.

  She knew damned good and well that that girl had not slept in her own bed last night.

  The way it should be.

  Veri was smiling when the fax machine beeped. She grabbed the fax quickly. It was from Wichita Falls—where Bailey and Clay were headed in the next hour.

  This was information they no doubt would need.

  She took a quick look at the photo and gasped.

  Veri hurried into the sheriff’s office, not caring what she might be interrupting.

  Chapter 123

  Bailey looked up when Veri came slamming into Clay’s office, a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “I’ve seen him!”

  “Who?”

  Veri waved the paper toward Bailey. Bailey took it, then looked down at the black-and-white mugshot in front of her. “Glen Dale Washington.”

  “I have seen him. Spoke with him. At Lucinda’s Bar. He wanted to buy me dinner.” Veri looked sick. Bailey got it.

  The Wichita Falls lab had finally gotten a DNA match to the specimens found in the Sandoval body.

  And they’d tied that same profile to the male skin cells left behind on the purse that had belonged to Missy Layne, of Finley Creek.

  And to a hair found on Delores Chisholm, the victim from Garrity twenty-eight years earlier.

  “Glen Dale...” Bailey said slowly, as things began to click over in her head. “Glendale!”

  “Bailey?”

  “Delores Chisholm’s boyfriend. He was an intern at the same hospital she was. He left Garrity two years after she went missing and supposedly died in an auto accident. But this guy...he could be the same man.”

  She handed the fax to Clay, then watched as his face hardened and fury went through his green eyes. “I arrested this man nine years ago, Bailey. On assault charges. He must have gotten paroled. Back in April. I missed the hearing because of...other things.”

  “We need to talk to his parole officer and find him.”

  “I saw him at Lucinda’s.” Veri was stunned. It was easy enough for Bailey to see that.

  “That’s probably one of his hunting grounds. You were damned lucky, Veri,” Clay said. “Did anyone else see him that night?”

  “Jeff was in there with Connie. Her shift was ending, but other than that. It was the night I had the flat tires.”

  “Tires? I thought it was just one?” Bailey asked.

  “Both tires. The mechanic thought I’d driven over some sort of glass.”

  “Not likely. I’d say he followed you and did something.” Clay said. “He’s smart enough to instigate something like that. And he’s a cold sociopath who gets angry when he doesn’t get his way.”

  “He’s our killer. We have to find him.” Bailey looked at Clay, waiting for his instructions. “Do you have any idea where we can start?”

  “Veri, find me an address or a license plate number. Anything you can. Bailey—call the prison. Get a parole officer for Glen Washington. Cell mates, any known connections. We need to find an address.”

  Veri hurried back to her desk and phone. Bailey took the photo and hung it on the whiteboard in the conference room where she and Clay had been working. “He was in jail.”

  Clay had followed her. She’d just felt him right behind her. “Yes.”

  “That was always one of the possibilities. That he was incarcerated.”

  “It was.”

  “We need to connect him to the other bodies.”

  “That might not happen unless we find him and get him to talk.”

  “If nothing else, maybe he’ll tell us where the other women are. So their families can finally have their answers.”

  “It’s a possibility. But first, we need to find him.”

  Chapter 124

  Glen was taking the opportunity to get himself out of Finley Creek and away from Boethe Street forever. He had gotten lucky.

  Half of the apartment building he was in had been hit. It was only his good luck that his place was still standing. He’d packed his single bag of belongings, loaded his truck, and was getting out of there.

  Where he was going, he didn’t have a clue. But he was going and going fast.

  Lou Moore had been following him. Lurking.

  It made it difficult for a man like Glen to find someone to stave off the lonely nights.

  He couldn’t exactly date with a chaperone like Lou Moore lurking everywhere.

  Glen had just rounded the hood of his truck when someone came up behind the driver’s door.

  And slammed it on Glen’s hand.

  He couldn’t help himself. Glen yelled out.

  Glen was jerked around—to face Lou Moore.

  “Lou, what the hell?”

  “In the van, now.”

  Lou shoved the gun right into Glen’s gut. Glen got into Lou’s van.

  “Turn around.”

  Glen fought the urge to piss his damned pants.

  Something had cracked in Lou. And that made him beyond dangerous.

  “I said turn around!” Lou grabbed Glen’s shoulder. Glen swung out, knowing it was useless.

  The larger man knocked him to the floor. The gun slammed into the back of Glen’s head.

  Chapter 125

  It took them hours, but by that afternoon, Bailey had a good idea of who Glen Washington was. She had prison records, parole records, and had spoken to his supervisor at the Finley Creek Parks and Recreation department.

  He hadn’t been able to tell her much. Glen Washington was assigned to work on crew four, but the assistant supervisor of that crew had been one of the victims of the storm.

  That route wasn’t going to lead anywhere.

  Clay had taken Jeff and Jeremy and coordinated with two of the Finley Creek officers to serve a warrant on Washington’s apartment in Boethe Street.

  The man hadn’t been there. Or at hi
s job or anywhere else neighbors had said to check.

  Not that neighbors on Boethe Street kept tabs on each other.

  Someone had suggested looking up a local handyman named Bob something or rather. Apparently, he and Glen had had altercations recently.

  Bailey was trying to identify Bob in more detail.

  There were a lot of Bobs in Finley Creek.

  Clay walked by where she was working twenty minutes after two and dropped a familiar deli bag on her desk. “Eat, honey.”

  “Did you?” He’d been doing stuff like this all day. She hadn’t missed Veri’s smirk. But the older woman didn’t have room to talk.

  Bert was waiting for her in the lobby. He’d parked himself there an hour ago and was waiting until Veri’s shift ended at three. Something had been mentioned about taking Veri shopping. Her bedroom had been one of the rooms destroyed in her home. She’d had a few things in her clothes dryer that had survived, but Veri was a lady who liked clothes.

  And Bert wanted Veri.

  Now things were starting to make sense to her.

  Chapter 126

  Murdoch got stuck with Cam again. His older brother had arrived after Murdoch had fallen into his bed—hours past when a normal man stopped working.

  Murdoch had been a part of the third wave of TSP officers to hit the streets of Finley Creek to help with rescue efforts.

  Most everyone on the missing lists had been accounted for.

  Except two TSP deputies who had been on patrol in the southern part of Finley Creek County. No one knew what had happened to them, or the vehicle they had been driving.

  The man and woman had been in their late twenties, and fresh on the job. The woman had been even younger than Addy’s Deputy Moore.

  In total, the TSP in Finley Creek had lost six patrol officers, one detective two years away from retirement, and two evidence techs who’d been on a scene when the mega-storm had suddenly risen around them.

  The storm had come with barely any warning at all.

  Far too many people had been caught out in it.