by Stacy Finz
“You sore?” He wanted her again but was afraid it was too much so soon.
“No. Please.”
He touched her between her legs. “You sure?”
She ground into his hand just to let him know she meant business. Damn, he loved this woman. Griffin reached for a condom on the nightstand, rolled it on, and slid into her. Gazing down on her, he slowly took her up, loving her until they were both so close that he quickened the tempo. When she gave a little shudder and closed her eyes, he knew he’d hit the sweet spot.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and he plunged into her, deeper and faster. As she called out, he ravaged her mouth with hunger. He could feel her heat and her heart thudding. His own heart felt ready to burst. He pumped once, twice, three more times and let himself go. For a few seconds his mind and body went numb. He just lay like a human blanket over Lina. If he stayed pressed against her much longer, he’d be hard again in no time.
He rolled to his side and tugged her so that her head rested on his chest like a pillow. “You okay?”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever been better.” She kissed his shoulder as the morning light filtered in between the blinds, making shadow lines on the wall.
He sifted his hand through her dark hair, rubbing a long lock between his fingers. “If you moved in we could do this every night.”
“And then I’d never get my studying done.” She turned, resting her forearms on his chest so she could look at him. “What if I kept the apartment in Reno and stayed with you when I’m in Nugget? That way when I need to knuckle down on my studies I’ll stay there.”
If that’s all he could get, he’d take it. “That would work.”
“Rhys won’t like it.”
That was an understatement.
“I’ll talk to him,” Griffin said. “Make sure he understands that we’re serious. Because we are serious, right?”
“I’ve always been serious about you, Griffin. Always. But I’m only twenty. I need to finish school, and when I’m done I want to build bridges, make something of myself before I settle down.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t be a couple. I’ll go with you while you build bridges.”
Her lips curved up and she kissed him. “I’d like that.”
“I’ll get another dresser then.” He cocked his head at the one he’d already emptied.
For three days straight, people had been calling the hotline with tips about John Doe. Ever since Sloane had done the Today show, the phone had been ringing off the hook. Yet nothing had panned out.
Sloane hadn’t even gotten to meet Matt Lauer. Although the show had offered to fly her to New York, Sloane had opted to go to the NBC studio in Reno to do the live interview remotely. Easier, and after what had happened with Buck, she’d wanted to stay close to home for a while. For that reason the closest she’d gotten to Lauer was having his voice transmitted to her through a tiny bug in her ear. Today had sent a camera person to Nugget to film the bust and get B-roll footage of the station. Sloane’s entire family had seen the show in Chicago and hadn’t stopped razzing her about it.
Brady had been less enthusiastic, worrying that the publicity would bring more trouble to her door. At Brady’s hand—or skillet—Buck had suffered a bad concussion. In the meantime, he’d been put on unpaid administrative leave from the department, pending an investigation. That was pretty much cop code for he was getting fired. Rhys had come through, raising holy hell with LAPD, threatening to go to the FBI and the press if the chief didn’t take action against the men harassing Sloane.
Internal affairs had launched a full-blown inquiry. So far, it looked as if Roger Buck, distraught over his partner’s suicide, had been the main instigator. The original posse of trouble makers had let their anger go after Sloane left the department. But Roger had held on to his grudge like it was life support. He’d told Jake, who’d known the detective since his days at LAPD, that he’d only meant to vandalize her apartment. “Put a little fear into the bitch,” is what he’d said.
Sloane hoped Buck got the help he needed. As for Brady, these last few days he’d seemed to be somewhere else entirely. Quiet, distant, and broody. She suspected that he was waiting for the other shoe to drop with Sandra or preparing to bolt—from her, from Nugget, from anything that held roots. The thought of him leaving ripped her heart out. She’d tried to talk to him about it, but he wasn’t receptive to conversation.
“Sloane, you’ve got a call on line two,” Connie called across the room.
“Who is it?”
“Someone who saw Today and claims to have information.” Connie rolled her eyes.
They’d gotten a lot of nuts, as was common in high-profile cases. People claiming to be psychic, people wanting a substantial reward for information, people saying they have known John Doe in a past life. You name it, they got it. Every once in a while a legit tip came in. But nothing that had led to anything substantive. Sloane was starting to come to terms with the possibility that they might never solve the case.
“This is Officer McBride.” She waited for the person on the other end to respond. “Hello.”
“I think the man you found may be my son.” There was something in the woman’s voice, a tremor of such utter despair, that Sloane sat up straighter.
“Why is that, ma’am?”
“I have a photo. Is there a number or an email address I can send it to?”
Sloane gave the department’s email address and waited while the caller sent the photo. A short time later an email appeared, and Sloane clicked on the attachment. The picture, a young man maybe nineteen or twenty, bore a close resemblance to the bust.
“This is your son?”
“Yes. He disappeared four years ago.”
They hadn’t gone back that far in NamUs because the forensic folks speculated that he’d died in November. Those were some well-preserved bones if he’d actually been lying in the outdoors for that long.
“From where, ma’am?”
“We’re from Pennsylvania, but Kevin was attending the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He was there less than a year when we stopped hearing from him. The school told us he’d stopped attending classes after six months.”
“Did you file a missing persons report?”
“With the San Francisco Police Department. When they discovered that he’d terminated the rental agreement on his apartment and friends told investigators that he’d left to travel, they stopped looking for him. He was an adult, Officer McBride.”
“And during those four years you never heard from him?”
“My son suffered from debilitating depression. He was better when he took his medication. Without it, he was erratic. We just prayed that he was okay and would eventually contact us again.”
Wanting to check Kevin’s missing person report, Sloane got his full name, date of birth, and social security number. She had his mother’s contact information from the email, but double-checked it with her. “Mrs. Fagan, did Kevin have a dentist we can contact?”
“Both his dental records and DNA are with your state’s Department of Justice.” She’d started to cry, clearly understanding the implications of what Sloane was asking. They would use Kevin’s dental records and DNA to match the teeth and DNA they’d extracted from John Doe’s skull. “For a long time I worried that this day would come. Having a child with a mental illness . . . it’s difficult, to say the least. Although the San Francisco police stopped looking for him, they submitted his information to the Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit at our request. It’s all right there, Officer McBride.”
“Mrs. Fagan, do you know why your son would’ve come to Nugget?”
“I didn’t even know of the town’s existence until I saw you on television. My husband and I have only been to California three times—the first time to bring Kevin to school, the other two to search for him.”
“I understand,” Sloane said. This had to be sheer hell for her. “You said your son went to a mus
ic school. What instrument did he play?” She hadn’t mentioned to Matt Lauer the forensic findings that John Doe had likely played a woodwind instrument.
“He could play everything. By the time he was ten, his instructors told us we had a virtuoso on our hands. But Kevin’s main instrument was the clarinet.”
From everything Mrs. Fagan had told Sloane, it sounded like Kevin could very well be their John Doe. It still, however, didn’t answer how he’d died. But as soon as Sloane could confirm his identity, she’d get to work on the next piece of the puzzle.
“Officer McBride, if it is our son, we’d like to come there and see to the transfer of the remains ourselves. We want Kevin home.”
The coroner would handle that, and Sloane didn’t know if for health reasons it was even allowed for a private party to transport bones across country. She would check to see if they could make arrangements with a mortuary, but at this point they were jumping the gun.
“Let’s take this one step at a time. I’m going to try to rush these tests to make a positive ID and then I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, if you have any questions at all, you call me.” She gave Mrs. Fagan her cell phone number. Her heart went out to the woman. Even if this wasn’t Kevin, it had to be unbearable to not hear from your son in four years.
When Sloane got off the phone, she found Rhys, Jake, and Connie hovering around her desk. No doubt Wyatt would’ve been there too, if he wasn’t riding patrol.
“You get something?” Rhys asked.
Sloane let out a long sigh. “I think so.” She told them what she’d learned, starting with Kevin’s disappearance four years ago.
Rhys let out a whistle when he saw the photograph. “Pretty damn close. The cheeks are a little sharper and the nose slightly wider on our dummy, but good enough for government work.”
“You think he died four years ago and we just found him now?” she asked.
“Not likely,” Jake said. “The forensic anthropologist could tell from the lack of soft tissue left on the skeleton and cracks on the bones from weather. There is certainly room for error. But four years? I don’t think so.”
“He could’ve become a drifter, falling off the grid for the last four years . . . especially if he was mentally ill and off his meds . . . and died recently,” Rhys said. “The question is, did he die of natural causes or was it a homicide? Since there’s no physical evidence of a homicide, I’m leaning toward natural causes. But if you’re able to confirm his ID, you’ll have a little more to go on. Maybe someone will remember a Kevin Fagan, if he continued to use that name.”
Rhys slung his jacket over his shoulder and headed for the door. “Good work, McBride. Go home.”
It was too late to contact the Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit at the state DOJ. She’d get on it first thing in the morning.
“You going home too?” she asked Jake.
“Pretty soon. Just have to finish a report.” He’d gone back to his desk and was on the computer. “You hear anything new about Buck?”
“No. I was gonna ask you the same.”
“He’ll be out on his ass. The question is, will they let him keep his pension? I hope not.”
Sloane didn’t care. She just wanted to be left alone. “I seem to attract trouble, don’t I?”
He looked up from what he was doing. “You’re one of the good guys, Sloane. Trouble’s over and we’ve got your back.”
They did indeed. Rhys, Jake, Connie, and Wyatt were colleagues she could depend on. Especially Rhys, who’d taken a chance on her and had remained her stalwart supporter, even going up against a department a thousand times the size of Nugget PD on her behalf.
She went home, hoping to drag Brady to the Ponderosa. At least go for a run. It didn’t get dark until seven now, and the evenings had gotten warmer. It took a few minutes for him to answer the door. Usually he waited on the porch for her. Sloane caught a glimpse of his laptop on the coffee table and asked what he was up to.
“Research,” he said.
“Research about what?”
“Restaurants.”
One word answers weren’t really her thing, so she didn’t press. Clearly he was looking for jobs. With Sandra in the wind for so long, maybe he felt safer about resuming his old life. Without her. She couldn’t think about it right now. The prospect of him leaving made her chest squeeze to the point that she couldn’t breathe. So she changed the subject entirely.
“I may have found the identity of John Doe.”
“Seriously?” He ushered her in and she grabbed the spot on the sofa where he’d been sitting so she could snoop at what he’d been looking at on the computer. But the screen was on Google. “What happened?”
She told him the story like she had Rhys, Jake, and Connie. “Sad, huh?”
“Really sad. You think it’s for sure him?”
“I do. Everything fits. It’s just weird that he goes missing four years ago and dies in November. Doesn’t it seem odd to you?”
“Not necessarily.” Brady’s theory was similar to Rhys’s. “Strange that he would come to Nugget, though. And how did he get here? No one ever found an abandoned car, right?”
“Nope. That was one of the first things I checked. A bus perhaps. As soon as the DNA test is done and I know for sure it’s him, I’ll look at bus records.” Although it was a railroad town, the trains only carried cargo. Presumably, he could’ve been a freight hopper. But there would be no way to tell unless railroad personnel busted him and kept records. Doubtful.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“I thought we’d go to the Ponderosa. Give you a little break from cooking.”
“Okay. Let me just put on a different shirt.” He had on a sweatshirt that had seen better days but looked comfy.
She followed him into his bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and watched as he tugged the ratty hoody over his head. He stretched, grabbing the top of the door frame, and his arms and chest rippled with muscle. She could never get enough of looking at him. His broad shoulders. The smattering of hair that sprinkled his chest and disappeared under the waistband of his jeans. Washboard abs to die for.
And the thing about Brady was that he was as nice and kind as he was good-looking. Finding both in a man was a rarity in Sloane’s opinion. Most of the handsome men she’d known had been conceited and self-entitled.
“Brady?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s going on? You seem different lately . . . quiet.”
He pulled a long-sleeved thermal over his head, followed by a T-shirt, and sat next to her on the bed. “If it hadn’t been for Skeeter, I would’ve missed Roger Buck breaking into your apartment. More than likely he would’ve been there waiting for you when you got home.”
“But you didn’t miss it. You clocked him, knocked him out cold.”
“Yeah, what if I hadn’t?”
“Then I would’ve clocked him and knocked him out cold.”
“With all due respect, Sloane, you’re what? Five seven? A hundred and forty pounds? I don’t care if you’re trained in self-defense or carry a gun. So is Buck, and he could’ve crushed you.”
“Brady, why are you doing this? Everything turned out all right. You saved the day and it’s over.”
“That’s the thing, Sloane. Who knows if it’s over?” She knew he was talking about Sandra. “Next time it might not turn out so lucky.”
“Brady, it’s honesty time. What are you really trying to tell me? I feel like the past few days . . . the Buck drama . . . should have brought us closer together. Instead, it’s driven a wedge between us. You’ve hardly talked to me and you seem a million miles away—like you’re done with this, with us. So, I’ll just lay it on the line for you because I don’t want to wind up like Aidan and Sue. And after everything that’s happened, it’s become crystal clear to me that I’m in love with you. I want the house and the kids. Maybe not right now, but someday.” She looked at him, hard. “I’m not asking for an instant proposal. But we go t
o Sierra Heights to look at those houses, and even playing around you made sure to let me know that the idea of us living together was out of the question. You once said that couples should be on the same page. Brady, are we on different pages?”
He just sat there, stiffly. Minutes went by and he said nothing. Sloane could hear him breathing—or perhaps that was her taking in nervous gulps of air—and the low hum of the heater. More time ticked by and still nothing. It seemed like an eternity. Finally, Sloane realized that the silence spoke louder than words.
She got to her feet and left.
Chapter 24
Sloane drove off. Brady could hear her studded tires churning the gravel on the driveway. He should’ve said something. But when she’d thrown out the confession that she loved him, he froze like the proverbial animal caught in the headlights. The words had paralyzed him. Not because he’d never heard them before, but because he wasn’t ready to return them.
Love was too complicated, came with strings attached, and in his experience usually involved loss. Case in point his parents. Rationally, he knew he was emotionally stunted. People died, they got divorced, they went away. That was life. So when someone perfect came along, like Sloane, you embraced and cherished every moment together.
Except he wasn’t made that way. For him, feelings were messy, constricting, and petrifying. As soon as they got too intense, he packed a duffle and said sayonara.
After Buck, he’d put off telling Sloane about his job offer. He was starting to think that working for Breyer Hotels was all wrong for him. Initially, he’d been seduced by the money and the opportunity to make his mark. But Brady liked the restaurant scene, liked partying, liked being his own man. And it was getting time for him to move on anyway. Nugget was starting to feel too permanent—like roots. And leaving now might put psycho Sandra off his scent.