I frowned as I studied the man. “No. Should he be familiar?”
“Maybe not,” Chief Wilkerson said. “But this guy should.”
He moved to the chalkboard where he pinned up a photo of another man.
This one that was very familiar.
A man that, until recently, I’d done very good at shutting out of my every thought.
“Monk.”
“Monk,” Chief Wilkerson confirmed.
“Son of a bitch,” I hissed. “And how are they related?”
“Monk is Raymond Pasqual’s brother-in-law,” Easton said as he twisted the board around with all of the writing, pictures, and diagrams on it.
That’s when I saw all of Monk’s information, there for all to see.
Monk was my case. My career-defining case that set me on the path to being known as the best detective there was in the area.
Monk had, for lack of a better word, gotten off scot-free for three murders until I was able to find information on him. And that information I’d found had put him away for close to life without the possibility of parole.
What was that information? I’d found a woman that was willing to testify to some things that she’d seen while helping Monk perform certain tasks for a particular clientele base that wanted to off their spouses.
He’d helped kill what we thought was hundreds of people, all for men and women that wanted their spouses dead for one reason or another. And the informant had been unwilling to the nth degree.
In fact, the only thing that’d kept that informant in line was a child that Monk had control over. A child that I’d saved from a car wreck. A child that, it’d been found, had brain cancer, after a routine CT scan of his head.
A child that was immediately flown to children’s hospital in Dallas where he was ‘safe.’
The mother had heard of me and had broken down and told me everything about her boss who’d been holding her and her son hostage, forcing them to do things they’d never wanted to do.
After finding her a place in witness protection, she’d finally been able to testify against Monk, and Monk, as well as almost all of his employees—those that were willing—went to jail for a very long time.
Only, it looked like we’d missed one, if the feeling I had was true.
And usually they were.
“Pasqual spent eight years learning. He has a doctorate in Criminal Investigation. Worked at a crime lab for two years. And all of a sudden, he’s now working as a menial driver for the Hair Chick,” Chief Wilkerson said.
And it all made a sick sort of sense—how he was able to do everything so perfectly to the point where zero evidence was left behind.
“Fucking sick.”
Chief Wilkerson nodded at my assessment.
“We’re bringing him in now,” he said. “Lucky for us, they’re in Paris this week.”
I nodded. “I’ll be here for the interrogation.”
• • •
Sixteen hours later, I was exhausted, ready to crawl back into bed, and pissy because I’d have to do it by myself.
Unless I could talk Fran into going to bed at seven in the evening.
Though the way I’d have to convince her would take energy, and I was quite low on that right now. Even after downing eight cups of coffee over the last few hours.
Arriving home, it was to find it empty.
No Fran in sight.
I frowned hard, wondering where the hell she was.
Picking up my phone, I saw all the missed calls.
Scrolling past Madden—he’d be pissed because we were supposed to have a meeting tonight about financials and I’d completely blown him off—I went to Fran.
But she didn’t answer.
I cursed and went to my voice mail, hoping to find an answer there, but only got a voice mail from my Grans saying that she loved me, and a pissy one from Madden for standing him up at the restaurant.
Grumbling under my breath, I went to the shower and quickly moved through my routine, coming out only two minutes later.
The steam rushed out right behind me once I opened the shower door, and I blinked when I saw Fran standing there with a bag of food in her hands.
She grinned at me when I finally noticed her.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “Where have you been?”
“I went and did all my errands for the day, then I went to my house and showered and changed, then went to CrossFit. Explained to Madden what was going on. Then went back home to shower and change because I was stupid and did it before class instead of after. Then I grabbed food, and was bringing it back here to put in your fridge for you to have when you got home, but found you home instead.” She paused for a breath of air. “And I got this sweet little show.” She indicated with her hand to my dripping body.
I snorted and pulled the towel down over my hips and covered up the goods, causing her to frown oh so cutely.
“What kind of food did you get?” I wondered.
“The stuff to make macaroni and cheese, and a rotisserie chicken.” She paused. “I’m not the best of cooks. You should know that before you finally do pop the question and ask me to marry you for real.”
A swift grin came over my face at her words.
“I know how to cook. Our children will be fed,” I mused.
Laughing, she turned on her heel and walked away, heading to what I assumed was the kitchen.
That was exactly where I found her once I’d slipped on some underwear and a pair of black sweatpants.
She looked at me as I entered the room, her gaze centering on my crotch.
“I like the gray sweatpants better,” she admitted. “They show off more of the goods. The black just aren’t doing it for me.”
Smiling, I walked up behind her and wrapped her up in my arms, making sure to rub my dick against her ass.
“Don’t worry,” I murmured against her neck. “My dick is most definitely still there. And always hard for you.”
Snickering, she started the water boiling on the stove, and then turned in my arms to wrap her hands around my neck.
“I’m assuming, since you were gone for so long, that you caught a break?” She sounded so hopeful.
“We did,” I confirmed. “But we can’t find him. We have every authority in three states now aware of who he is, though. Not to mention his face was plastered across almost every single TV station on the five o’clock news. If that doesn’t flush him out, I don’t know what will.”
“Did y’all share it on social media?” she asked.
I pulled out my phone and showed her the link. “Over a hundred thousand shares.”
She shook her head. “Wow.”
“People are fuckin’ scared. Especially around here. So yeah, they’re going to share it because they don’t want him taking their kids and wives,” I told her.
She shook her head and yawned. “You ready to eat?”
I gestured to the noodles. “I’ll get those. You get the butter.”
Together we finished off the macaroni and cheese, then I went to shredding the chicken.
“Light meat or dark meat?” I asked as I held out the two paper plates full of both.
“I like light,” she admitted. “I think the dark is a little too fatty for me.”
I grinned. “We’re already making a great pair. Between the two of us, we’re going to eat a whole goddamn chicken.”
She snickered. “Unless you’re going to help me with some of this? I doubt it.”
What she didn’t eat, I did.
And when we were done, we cleaned up the kitchen as if we’d done it a hundred times, and not just for the first time.
Half an hour later, as I all but fell into the couch beside Fran, who was going over a large stack of papers, a sense of wrongness started to hit me.
I wasn’t sure why, though. It felt like forgetting to do something that was really important, yet I couldn’t figure it out.
“What are you reading?” I asked curiously
, rubbing the center of my chest as if that would fix the raw ache that resided there.
“A list of errands that I need to do,” she said. “I have a full day tomorrow, and the next day. Half a day the following day. And then I’m free for two whole days.” She paused. “I was thinking we could take your grandmother to Vegas.”
My brows rose.
Her cheeks heated at that. “Not to get married. Just to Vegas. She seemed very receptive to the idea of going and playing slots.”
I grinned at her words.
That grin fell off my face as if it’d never been when I realized what, exactly, I’d forgotten.
“Have you heard from her today?” I asked, sitting up a little straighter in my seat.
Fran blinked. “No, was I supposed to?”
I nodded my head. “Actually, yeah. I thought you’d tell me what she wanted when I got home. She called about an hour before I left the station and wanted to know something. I told her I was in the middle of a big break in the case and asked her to call you.”
“She didn’t call.” Fran sounded worried now, too. “Should I call her?”
Instead of answering, I called her back. “I’ll call. See what she wanted.”
Except, when I called back, she never answered.
“It’s late,” Fran suggested. “After ten. She has to be asleep.”
I told myself that was it. But after at least an hour of sitting there worrying about it, I decided to just go check on her.
“I need to go check on my Grans.” I stood up from my seat on the couch.
Fran, who’d been partially leaning on me, stood up, too, heading to her room in the next second. “Let’s go.”
I knew the moment we entered my Gran’s house that something was wrong.
That something was different this time.
That presence—the one that was always there when I needed it most—was gone.
I found her in her bed. Sleeping peacefully. The large stuffed animal that Fran and I had spent over twenty minutes trying to win her by her side, tucked against her chest, and she was smiling. Even in death.
“No,” I croaked.
Fran walked over to the bed and put a knee in it, her shaking hand reaching for the woman that meant the world to me.
“She’s gone,” Fran whispered shakily.
I fell to my knees beside the bed, the last person that was my family leaving me all alone in such a cruel, mistreated world.
“I need a minute,” I croaked. “Actually, I need about an hour. Can you… can you leave me with her? Can you go back to my place? I’ll call when…”
I’ll call when I can talk to you and not cry my goddamn eyes out.
“Yeah,” she whispered, crawling off of the bed. “I can.”
But before she left, she made sure to kiss my cheek. “Love you, Taos. You’re not alone anymore. Remember that.”
I turned back to the bed after she left and looked at my grandmother’s blue lips. “I should’ve listened to you and spent more time with you. You knew, and I refused to accept it.”
I couldn’t tell you how fucking hard it was to not hear her immediately respond with her sarcastic, grandmotherly voice.
But if the ache in my chest was any indication, I didn’t think that the feeling would be going away anytime soon. If ever.
CHAPTER 24
Brains are awesome. I wish everyone had one.
-Text from Mavis to Fran
FRAN
Leaving him with his dead grandmother felt like taking a knife straight to the heart.
But he’d asked for the time alone with her, and I wasn’t about to argue with him.
Plus, I felt like I was intruding.
I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t know Madden’s number to call him and tell him. Hell, I didn’t even know who to call in the case of a death. The police? The justice of the peace? Paramedics?
Shit.
Thinking that I’d take that time he asked for to research what to do in the event of a natural death, I drove back to Taos’ place, my head in a fog.
Though I’d only spent one day with the woman, I knew that I would grieve harder for her than I would for my own grandmother that I’d known for my entire life.
My head was so focused on how bad my heart hurt, that I didn’t notice the signs.
I walked into the house, not thinking about serial killers and my name being out there, but about how sad Taos had looked when he’d walked through that door. The same door that, only hours ago, he’d walked out of with a huge smile on his face.
The first thing I noticed when I got into the living room was the entry table being a couple of inches away from the wall where it usually sat.
I frowned hard at it, dropped my keys onto the table, and then looked at the window where it’d been in front of.
I had just swung the door closed, reached for the lights, and then felt something wrap around my neck.
My automatic response was to struggle, and struggle I did.
I fought, kicked, screamed, and bit as I tried in vain to get away.
The man that had a hold of me, that had something wrapped around my neck, was so strong that I had no hope in getting him to let me go based on my strength alone.
By the time that he had me subdued, his big body lying on top of mine, pinning me to the ground, I had nothing left.
He was too big. Too strong. Too determined.
And my puny strength put against his was laughable.
“All done?” He laughed in my ear.
I closed my eyes as silent tears started to track down my cheeks.
“I don’t like it when they cry. I like it when they scream, punch and hit. It…” He dug his erection into my back, and my mind just… blanked.
I went to a place that was light. That there was no scary man holding me down, in the dark, and pressing things against me that no woman would ever want pressed against her.
Fight, girl.
Fight.
I heard the voice in my ear and knew without a shadow of a doubt that it hadn’t come from the man that it sounded like. It was part of my dissociative event. Something my therapist said that I did when I was coping in unhealthy ways.
After the first time that I was targeted by a serial killer, I’d met with a therapist who helped me get back on the road to being healthy, as well as a contributing member of society.
She’d told me that when I disconnected from my thoughts, feelings, and surroundings, I was escaping reality in an unhealthy way to try to cope with what had happened to me.
And I might have been.
Since I hadn’t experienced one of those events in a long time—at least since before I’d started CrossFit—until right then.
Right there.
But my irrational brain, and my rational brain, were warring.
Stay here where it’s okay.
Fight. Don’t just give up.
There were two very different thoughts.
Fight.
Fight.
Fight.
I came to again with the taste of blood in my mouth, the man laughing in my ear, and an understanding that if I didn’t fight right now, I would be getting something that I didn’t want. That I didn’t think that I could recover from.
Fight.
The man was busy trying to pull down his pants, but he was holding on to me as if he expected me to fight.
And about two seconds ago, it would’ve been something I had no intention of doing. I just couldn’t deal anymore. At least, that was then. This was now.
And I wouldn’t allow myself to go down like this without giving everything that I had to give. Because this was Taos’ house. He’d just suffered one of the hugest blows a man could suffer—losing his only other living relative. I wouldn’t make him come home to me dead, too.
So I had to fight.
When he shifted off of me to get to his pants, taking my complacency as me giving up, he shifted almost completely, lea
ving me the only opening I had a feeling I would get.
I bolted, scrambling on my hands and knees while he was struggling to get his dick out of his pants.
He looked up and laughed, happy that I once again had some fight in me.
I wasn’t sure what to think about it.
But what I thought and what I felt were two different things.
My usual MO was to overthink everything, to second-guess, and then triple-guess. How I felt was enraged.
So fucking pissed that I wanted to fight this motherfucker.
I ran, and ran hard, for the kitchen, knowing without a doubt that I wouldn’t be making it to the bedroom, or even out the door.
The guy’s dick may be out, and his pants halfway around his waist, but I wasn’t fooling myself.
He was big, in shape, older, but still able to move.
And he would overtake a girl in a heartbeat.
Which left me with one choice.
The kitchen.
The first thing that I got to was a paring knife that I’d left on the counter from dinner. I’d started to put it in the dishwasher earlier, but Taos had stopped me, saying putting knives in the dishwasher ruined them.
So I’d left it on the counter, intending to wash it later.
I reached for it at the same time that the man caught me.
His hand went into my hair at the same time my fingers closed around the knife.
I turned at the same time he yanked and had no choice but to go down or be pulled backward.
I went down but I didn’t go out.
The moment I hit the ground, I swung the knife at the back of his ankle.
He bellowed loudly and let me go, trying to step back on the injured foot, but he cried out in pain and fell backward, releasing the hold on my hair.
I scrambled back just as the front door slammed open so hard that it banged against the wall.
I hit the cabinets across the room and started to stand myself upright as my fucking grandmother walked through the damn door.
“Francine Pope, you will talk to me right now, or else!” she cried out as she walked into Taos’ house as if it was her own.
“Grandmother,” I gasped. “Call 911 and hurry back outside!”
My yell didn’t stop her forward movements. Instead, it only caused her to hurry.
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