by Cate Ashwood
Swish. Rattle. Bang! Swish.
Again and again, the copier fed the pages through and as quickly as he could, Matt snatched the completed set and tucked it back into the folder. At last, the paperwork had been duplicated and all that was left were the photographs of the crime scene.
The sound of a car door slamming made Matt’s heart leap into his throat. He shoved everything back into the folder and sped across the room to his desk. With shaking hands, he pushed the partial copy of the file into his bag. At the same moment, the original file tipped off the edge of the desk and onto the floor, pages flying everywhere.
“What the hell are you doin’, Kinsley?” Andy asked as he walked in, a to-go coffee cup in each hand.
“Nothing.” He hoped he sounded believable enough that Andy wouldn’t question him. “Just wanted to take another look at Chloe’s case before we go searching for John again. Guess I’m not quite awake enough yet, and I wasn’t paying attention. Set it on the desk wrong.”
He stooped to pick up the scattered papers, organizing them back into the folder the way they’d been before. He’d managed to copy most of the documents, but John was going to have to wait another day to get a look at the photos. Matt mentally kicked himself for not starting with the pictures in the first place.
Andy set the coffees down, then knelt to help Matt gather the last of the papers. “I get ya. I didn’t get much sleep last night, thinkin’ about things. Looks as though you didn’t get much either.”
“Huh? Oh. No. Not much.”
Andy pressed his lips together and nodded, as though he knew exactly how Matt felt. A slight pang of guilt pierced through Matt’s chest. Andy was a good man, and lying to him now felt like a betrayal. When it came down to it, Matt believed Andy would have his back, that he’d have John’s, but trusting him with a secret like this wasn’t just too risky, it would put Andy in a terrible position—one where he’d need to choose between friendship and breaking the law he’d sworn to uphold.
For Andy’s sake, and for John’s, the less he knew, the better.
“Captain has us out looking for John again today?” Matt asked. He’d been so focused on getting into the station before everyone else and making copies of the file without anyone seeing him that he hadn’t had a chance to think about what the day would bring. Spending an entire afternoon chasing someone who wasn’t going to be found was a waste of time—time that could be better spent looking for Chloe’s real killer—but at least Matt could ensure John’s safety.
Leading the hunt in a false direction would buy them time, and time was what they so desperately needed right now.
“Guess so. Though Lord knows why.” Andy sat down, propping his feet up on the desk across from Matt. “If we didn’t find him yesterday, chances are better’n good we’re not findin’ him till he wants to be found.”
Matt shook his head and lowered his voice. “Doesn’t matter anyway. You and me both know he didn’t do this.”
“I don’t know anything, but….” Andy dropped his voice, a conspiratorial whisper. “You wanna go over the file again, see if there’s anything we missed?” Matt was reminded how lucky he was to have Andy with him in this. When it came to partners, he could have ended up with Jay or Carl. Although Andy didn’t have every piece of information, he was still on Matt’s side for the most part, and that’s all that mattered.
“Couldn’t hurt.”
AN HOUR later, they were standing in the meeting room, pictures of the crime scene, Chloe’s body, and every piece of evidence they’d found spread out and pinned to the board so they could get a better view of it.
“Something about this isn’t right.” Matt stood, hands on his hips, leaning forward to get a better look at the photo of the crumpled, bruised flowers. There were magnolia trees all over town—they were the town’s namesake after all. Big, beautiful, crisp white flowers tinged with pinks and purples hung from the branches all over town, but this wasn’t coincidence.
There had to be something to it, something they were missing.
“Nothing about this is right,” Andy said.
Matt turned his head, but his eyes remained focused on the flowers. “Huh? No. You’re right. I just meant this. I don’t understand the flowers. I’m trying to wrap my head around some possibility of what it could mean, but I just have no clue.”
“Murderers, at least like the ones who did this to Chloe, are psychos. You know that. Not a lot of what they do makes sense, but if I had to guess, I’d say there was some remorse there. Those flowers meant somethin’ to him, and their placement at the scene was deliberate.”
“That’s the truth. I’m just trying to figure out what the significance is to him.”
“Good luck, but I think it’s a waste of time. Could be anything. Could be that Mom likes ’em, or there was a sale on bulk orders at the florist. Who knows? It’s not gonna make sense till we catch the guy and make the connection.”
Matt shrugged, the frustration burrowing in and flourishing deep inside him. There had to be something, one little tiny scrap of something to set them off in a new direction, because they were out of leads and they were running out of time.
“We never found Chloe’s gun,” Matt said, remembering the conversation with John from the night before.
“Chloe had a gun? No one mentioned that.”
Matt stared at the photo of the magnolia. It looked like her. Beautiful, pure, but battered and bruised in death. It made Matt’s chest ache.
“John says she had a revolver.”
“John says?”
Matt froze.
Andy looked hard at him, eyes narrowed, arms crossed over his chest, and when he spoke, there was an edge to his voice. “When did you speak to John?”
Matt scrambled for a plausible explanation. He couldn’t believe he’d fucked up so hard. He forced himself to relax, to seem much more nonchalant than he felt. “Few days ago. With everything that’s been going on, him going missing, it slipped my mind. I’m sorry.”
Still pinned under Andy’s assessing gaze, Matt swallowed hard. He wasn’t sure if Andy believed him or not, though the expression on his face suggested a firm no. They were trained to detect bullshit, and Matt was a shitty liar, but Andy shifted his attention back to the board. If he knew Matt was lying, he didn’t say so.
“Well, you remembered, so that’s the important thing.”
Yep. He definitely knew.
Matt’s pulse quickened at the thought of the copied file in his bag, as though it would call out to Andy, point a finger a Matt. “I’m gonna run to Waffle House and grab a sandwich before we head out,” he said, the lie feeling heavy on his tongue. “You want anything?”
Andy seemed to barely register what Matt had said. “I’m good, but make it quick.”
Matt took off without another word. He needed to get to John, let him know what had just happened.
Ten minutes later, he pulled up in front of his house. Matt couldn’t pinpoint why, but his stomach sank as he unlocked his front door. “John?” he called out quietly as he moved through the house. The kitchen had been cleaned, no trace of ash on the table, no dirty dishes in the sink. As if the night before had never happened. Matt didn’t need the confirmation as he went to his bedroom. He knew already. John wouldn’t be there. He was gone.
He spotted a small, folded piece of paper on his pillow. Matt picked it up slowly, trying to put off reality a little longer.
Written in bold, firm letters were three words. I love you.
Matt let out a heavy sigh and shoved the note into his pocket before heading back to the station.
“THOUGHT YOU were gettin’ somethin’ to eat,” Andy said as Matt sat down at his desk.
“Changed my mind.”
Andy looked at him curiously but didn’t say anything, only arched his brow.
At that moment, Matt’s cell phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw a number he didn’t recognize flash across the screen.
“Off
icer Kinsley here.”
“Matt….” John’s voice was hushed, and Matt could hear him take a long, deep breath, as if talking took too much patience.
Matt glanced at Andy and turned away from him, having to force himself to be calm. “Yes, can I help you?”
“I found him,” John said, his words rigid as they left his mouth. “Not a doubt in my mind.”
“Are you sure? Where are you?” With every step Matt took from his desk, Andy took one too.
“I’m at the last stop before a whole lotta nowhere.”
Matt knew that should mean something to him, should pinpoint exactly where John was, but his mind blanked. “I’m gonna need a little more than that.”
“Remember that fishin’ trip? The ride down, the fillin’ station on the way?”
Jesus. Of course he knew what John meant. “You gettin’ lost?” Matt asked, remembering now what John had said.
“I’m fixin’ to get found, I think.” John let out a breath before going on. “It was him, Matt. The attendant here.”
“What? How do you know? Why do you think that?”
Andy watched him closely, an intense look of concentration on his face as though he was straining to hear any scraps of sound he could from Matt’s phone.
“Her necklace. It’s here. Just layin’ here on the ground beside his truck.”
Matt thought John had more to say, but he didn’t let him get that far. Chloe’s necklace wasn’t exactly concrete evidence, but Matt knew how badly John wanted to find her killer. The last thing they needed was another innocent man getting blamed for it. Blamed, or worse. “Okay, okay. Stay the fuck put. We’ll be there soon.”
“Shit, he’s leavin’. I gotta go.”
“John, don’t you fucking dare. Don’t you dare hang up this phone. Go back to my place. Let us handle this.”
But it was too late.
There was silence on the other end.
Matt sprinted across the precinct and slammed his phone down on Cathy’s desk. “I need anything you can find on the Mud Creek Filling Station out on ninety-four,” he said. “Owner’s name. Address. Whatever you can get me as fast as you can get it.”
Cathy nodded, already typing the information into the computer.
“Matt.” Andy grabbed his arm and spun him around. “You wanna tell me what the hell is goin’ on?”
“John.” He could barely get the words out past the knot of fear constricting his throat. His imagination, well versed in the worst-case scenario, had already surged ahead. “He says he knows who did it…. He’s gone after him on his own.”
“Shit.” Andy speared his fingers through his hair and dragged his palm down the back of his neck. Tension stiffened his whole body, and Matt knew Andy was just as concerned as he was. “He tell you where he’s at? We gotta get to him before he does anything stupid.”
Matt tamped the urge to scream “no shit” at him, as his fear transformed to fury. “Down at the gas station, out by the crime scene.”
“Boot’n rally, y’all,” Andy called out over his shoulder, half the station looking up. “Gas station on ninety-four, all hands on deck.”
Matt had already grabbed the keys to the cruiser and was marching out the door, his heart pounding harder than his feet on the dirty pavement.
He climbed into the driver’s side of the car, starting it up and putting it in gear almost before the engine had finished turning over. Andy was already beside him.
“He tell you anything else?”
Matt shook his head. “Nope, just that he knew the guy who worked at the station did it.”
“Why the hell does he think that?”
Matt shook his head, not in the mood for details. “He found Chloe’s necklace.”
“How’s he know it’s Chloe’s?”
“You think I asked?” Matt took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at Andy. “If John says it’s Chloe’s, if he says he found the guy, that’s all I need to know.”
Andy took a breath, as though trying to steady himself. “We need more than that. Necklace is circumstantial at best.”
“So let’s bring the guy in, search his house, beat his ass.” Matt wanted to take the last bit back, but he couldn’t. He wanted to throttle the guy, watch him bleed. He wasn’t proud of it, but he couldn’t take it back either.
Where the fuck was Cathy with the information they needed? How hard was it to track down one owner of a shitty little gas station in Magnolia fucking Ridge?
He couldn’t lose John. He couldn’t. He’d just fucking found him, and if anything happened to him….
Matt set that dangerous line of thinking aside, refusing to let the thought even enter his mind. Cathy would get them the owner. Matt pushed their cruiser to the absolute limit. They would find John unharmed. And then Matt would beat the ever-loving shit out of him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
JOHN STOOD frozen for a moment, his fingers wrapped so tightly around the receiver on the old payphone that his knuckles were white. Yeah, Matt had told him to stay put, but fuck that. When he’d seen Chloe’s locket—the one John had given her on her twenty-first birthday—the chain broken, lying in the dirt by Cletus’s truck, John had nearly stormed into the store, ready to break every bone in Cletus’s body. Pausing to call Matt, try to explain, took all the patience John had. He picked up the phone again and then dropped it, let it dangle there so Matt couldn’t try to call him back.
Now, he watched Cletus close up his shop—hours early—and walk around the building to an overgrown dirt path. John felt like a stalker, like an animal as he tracked every move Cletus made. He held his .45 at low-ready, safety on for the moment, but his finger itched for the trigger.
John had never paid much mind to the woods behind the gas station, never noticed the little outbuilding. At a glance, it was falling apart, just a shack, but when Cletus opened the door to it, John could see a light on inside through the low-hanging branches and Spanish moss.
He edged his way closer, creeping over the ground as quietly as possible, like steam crawling over pavement after a hard July rain. John had no reason to be sure, no reason to wonder, but he simply knew that if there were any evidence to damn Cletus, it would be there, hidden in plain sight, just like John had been all his life.
Cletus glanced over his shoulder and then stepped inside, closing the door behind him, closing the door on John.
He slipped around trees, over soft red clay and thick, dank moss and pine straw, until he’d come to the other side of the building. Tattered old blankets covered each window, but John could see around the edge of one as the corner flapped every few seconds from the fan oscillating back and forth.
When Cletus came into view, John’s heart leapt into his throat, his pulse a fiery thrum as he jerked back from the window. Part of him wanted to plow through Cletus’s front door, while another part of him wanted to wait for Matt to arrive—which was possibly the most shocking part of his entire day.
John leaned close again and watched Cletus—his back to the window—open the door to a closet. He knelt down and fidgeted with something John couldn’t see, and then moved to the other side of the room.
Without giving it a thought, John ran around the house and tried the front door. Cletus had locked it, but John didn’t much care. The door was old, half rotted away. He knew he could bust right through it, but he didn’t want to give Cletus any warning. Instead, he went to the window next to the door and gave it a little wiggle. The old lock on it shifted just enough for John to inch it open.
The boards under his feet were weak and felt like they’d give out any second as John poked his head through the open window. He looked around to make sure Cletus hadn’t heard him, come out to see what the ruckus was. When he felt certain it was clear, he squeezed through the opening and pulled his gun again.
John moved through the small house, keeping his feet angled, his weight spread as evenly as possible, just like hunting deer out in the woods. The room lo
oked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in years. Cobwebs clung to the corners, fluttering when the fan hit them. An ancient-looking console television sat in the corner in front of a battered recliner held together with duct tape. A roach skittered across the scuffed top of the coffee table. He was sure he’d find much worse if took the time to look closer, but that wasn’t why he was there.
John glanced around and then followed the hall back to the bedroom where Cletus had last been.
So far, nothing John had seen would lock anyone up. Some people were filthy. Some people were poor. Neither was a crime. And John knew he’d need more than a locket—which could’ve gotten there any number of ways, if John were being honest with himself—and a gut feeling so strong he’d bet his life on it.
When John rounded the corner from the hall, he found Cletus sitting on the edge of the bed—nothing more than a sagging, stained mattress on a caved-in box spring and a few old pillows—Chloe’s gun in his hand.
Cletus ran the barrel of the revolver back and forth over his forehead, as if willing himself to pull the trigger, blow his own brains all over the faded wallpaper. He didn’t even seem to notice John. The scene was pathetic, even heartbreaking under other circumstances, but John didn’t have it in him to pity Cletus. He barely had it in him to keep from shooting him himself. Adrenaline and fear nearly choked him. He’d found Chloe’s killer. He was sure of it. But his thoughts were so muddled, his instincts going haywire, John questioned every move he made. All he wanted to do was to watch Cletus die gasping, but with every moment that passed, he knew Matt was one mile closer, able to do more than John could, back him up in a way he never knew he needed.
Cletus surprised him when he spoke. “Knew you’d figure it out eventually. Knew they all would.” His words broke on a small sob, his shoulders shaking as he slid his finger to the trigger, the gun still pointed at his own head.
“Figure what out?” John asked, not sure why. He just wanted to keep Cletus talking.