Fingertips…where all this had begun.
He turned his head toward her. His eyes had resumed their normal warmth, and she shimmied against him. He wrapped his arm around her as she tucked her head against his chest, and she ran her hand over his tanned flesh and the spattering of brown curls across his pectorals, down to his six-pack abs. She never got tired of letting her fingers revel in the natural curves of his body. She let her hand go farther down, exploring along his groin line.
“Ready to go again already?” he asked with a soft laugh.
What had she done to get so lucky? And she wasn’t referring to sex or even to his body. If she let her heart have its way, she’d accept that Troy Matthews was different from the rest.
She arched back to look at him, positioning herself halfway over his torso and resting there with her hands under her chin. “So you never did answer my question.”
He smiled and hitched his brows. “Do you always seek verbal confirmation?”
“It helps for closure.”
“Closure? And I thought we were just getting started.”
She smirked. “Your stamina is impressive.”
“Well, I have been known to—”
She pressed a finger to his lips. Adrenaline rushed through her as her heartbeat thumped in her ears. Was she actually about to speak her feelings out loud?
His green eyes were watching, analyzing, anticipating…
She slowly drew her finger back. “I should go.” She wormed to her side of the bed—her side?—and got up. She pulled on her underwear and then her jeans as fast as she could move.
Troy got up, too, and came around behind her. Still naked, he kissed her again, in the spot beneath her ear. But its purpose was different from before. It wasn’t simply for satisfying carnal hunger…or had she lost it completely?
She turned, shaking the shirt and bra that she held balled in her hand. “I’ve got to—”
“Go? Yes, as you said. Is it because of Hershey?”
“No. He’s in the kennel tonight.”
He cupped her shoulders. “Then what’s the rush?”
Most women would have a hard time not letting their eyes drift down, but his green eyes held her gaze captive.
“Why not spend the night?”
She licked her lips, savoring his flavor. “I guess I could.”
The words came out of their own volition, but her brain wondered if she could trust herself with this man.
Probably not, she realized, but she couldn’t resist him any longer.
-
Chapter 57
MADISON ACCEPTED TROY’S INVITATION TO spend the night and they celebrated with a nightcap, though not the kind Troy had in mind.
They were in his living room, him on the sofa, her on a chair with her legs curled up beneath her. They were both drinking iced coffee—a treat with the benefits of caffeine and sugar. Both of which she’d need.
She might have agreed to spend the night, but it was far from bedtime. It was only about eight thirty. She cradled her glass and sipped it occasionally as she filled him in on the investigations so far and how everything was coming together based on nothing but wishful thinking and the feelings in the pit of her stomach.
“So this woman—the one who scratched your face—said ‘dark shadows,’ plural? Do you think that means anything?”
Madison shook her head. “She’s certifiable.”
Troy nodded, sinking further into the couch. “Hmm.”
“I’m thinking that the baby’s father killed Zoe.”
Troy set his empty glass on a side table. “The man might not have been happy about the baby coming.”
“Kids have a way of changing a person’s life,” she said. “Not that I know from firsthand experience,” she quickly added. She put her legs down and sat on the edge of the chair. “The girl’s mother was seeing a married man. What if Zoe—”
“You’re thinking the man had his marriage to lose?”
She met his eyes. “Why not? It would be quite the upset to his lifestyle. Assuming that he’s closer to the mother’s age, Zoe is not only young—”
“But she could have threatened to tell his wife about their affair, about the baby.”
Madison smiled at him. They were finishing each other’s sentences again.
Troy continued. “Maybe we’re getting too ahead of ourselves. We don’t even know the identity of the baby’s father or that Zoe was sleeping with her mother’s lover.”
“And it’s quite possible that even once the DNA is run through the databases, nothing will come back in the system. But this is worth exploring, isn’t it?”
Troy nodded.
“And if Zoe was pregnant from the married man and her mother found out…”
“She wouldn’t be happy, either. It’s looking like the killer could be Dear Mom or the man she was sleeping with. Of course, it would carry more weight if Zoe was also involved with him. Do you know who he is?” he asked.
“Yeah, he was Kimberly Bell’s alibi. A phone call was made to verify…” Her gut twisted. “He could have lied. We never pulled his background or spoke in person with him.” Maybe she had let the ball drop there.
“Maddy, I can see it in your eyes. You’re being too hard on yourself. You were looking at the mother, not the man. Cut yourself some slack.”
“But still…if he had lied, that means Kimberly did, too.” She shook her head as she got up and placed her glass on the table next to Troy’s. She’d never said she would stay put in his house for the rest of the evening. She had simply agreed to sleep here.
“Where are you going?”
“I owe it to three victims to provide meaning to their deaths.” With the words out, she recognized that she had borrowed them from the kook down at the station. But the summation worked. That was her driving force and always had been.
Troy rushed to her side and hooked her elbow. “That wasn’t really an answer to my question.”
She looked straight into his eyes when she responded. “I’m going to talk to Donnie Holland.”
“The mother’s lover?”
“Yes, and if I’m right, also Zoe’s.”
There was something there, she could feel it. A connection, a motive.
“I’ll go with you. Just let me grab my ID and keys.” He went to walk away, but she pulled him toward her and kissed his lips. The taste of him, the smell of his sweat, the faint scent of his cologne, all tempted her, but there was work to be done. She had to resist.
For now.
-
Chapter 58
WITH THE NEW LINE OF thinking and a lot of conjecture, Donnie Holland made a perfect hypothetical suspect, and that was without a background check.
Madison and Troy were in her Mazda heading to the police station to get that missing piece now. In fact, Troy had insisted that they go into the meeting with Holland armed with knowledge. It must have come from his training for SWAT. She had a similar education, of course, but somewhere along the way, she had taken the reins and acted on impulse a lot of the time. It was one thing that drove Terry nuts. And it was also one aspect that had led to her capture by the Russian Mafia.
If Troy weren’t with her tonight, she might have just shown up at Holland’s door armed only with the information provided in an online directory.
She slowed for a yellow light and glanced over at Troy. “Holland could have all the motivation in the world. Think about it. First, he’s cheating on his wife. Second, he’s seeing a girl far younger than he is,” she said.
“You’re assuming Holland is closer to the mother’s age. You said you hadn’t conducted a background on him, so you don’t know for sure. She could be playing the cougar.”
“You’re right. But it’s just a feeling.”
“A feeling? The Bull—”
> She silenced him with a glower. “Don’t you even think about it.”
“Too late.”
“But going back to Holland… He gets Zoe pregnant. She refuses to get an abortion. Maybe even threatens to go to the wife,” she said.
“All right. And maybe she even tells him it was her great-aunt’s idea to keep the kid.”
“That would make him angry, right?”
“That it would,” he conceded.
“If any of this is what actually happened, he’d have a lot of motive. His very way of life would’ve been at stake.”
She maneuvered around a slower-moving sedan—what was with all the poky drivers lately?—and then signaled right to enter the police lot.
“You passed the guy to turn in front of him?” Troy asked.
“I’m special like that. But the guy was crawling along at twenty.”
Troy was shaking his head, giving a low chuckle, when he got out of the car.
They headed to her desk to pull the report on Holland. As soon as his face filled the screen, she had a hard time prying her eyes from it to read his information.
“It’s him,” she said.
Troy was hunched over her shoulder, resting his hand on the desk beside her. “Him who?”
“Witnesses at Club 69 described a blond man of short stature—” She wrested her eyes from Holland’s DMV photo and pointed to his height. “He is five eight with blond hair. The man from the club was said to be midthirties. Holland’s thirty-five. Anyway, this man at the club entered the back door and had a heated argument with Zoe. They said there was mention of payback and money. The girls—”
“The girls?”
She turned to Troy. “Other strippers at the club. One thought he was Zoe’s pimp and the other a drug dealer. And if I’m right about Holland, we are up to at least a quadruple life for Zoe. First she’s a stripper, cheating on her boyfriend with his best friend—” She caught the way his eyes fell. “Sorry…”
He straightened out to full standing position. “There’s no reason for you to be sorry. Continue.”
“Then she’s sleeping with a married man. And, of course, she deceived her great-aunt into thinking she was a sweet girl.” She had forgotten to fill Troy in on what Mario had told them about Faye Duncan going to the club and confronting Zoe. She did so now.
“Zoe must have had an exhausting existence trying to balance everything and who she was to everyone.”
“I would think so. We’ve got to speak to this guy.” She pointed to Holland’s face.
Troy placed a hand on her shoulder. “What else have you got on him? You mentioned the alley where you’re certain Zoe was murdered along with the vagrant—”
“Leonard,” she corrected.
There was something odd about his expression when she interrupted. She wasn’t sure if he appreciated the quirkiness or found it strange. Either way, he didn’t comment on it.
“Can you place Holland in the area? Where does he live? Work?”
She clicked around until she got to the screen she was looking for. “He doesn’t live near the soup kitchen, but…he works at Peace Liberty Hospital.”
“So he had access to both Zoe and her mother…or at least, it’s plausible that he did. You had said that the aunt was in for hip surgery a few months back, and the mother volunteered in the abortion clinic, right?”
Madison was nodding. “It’s not a far stretch to imagine that Zoe ran into Holland there, either.”
“It still doesn’t explain why she was in the alley,” Troy said. His eyes searched hers for an answer. She didn’t have one. Maybe she was trying to find meaning when there wasn’t any again.
“Madison?” It was Sovereign’s voice.
She rolled her eyes in instinctual response to his presence, clicked the monitor off, and rose to her feet.
Troy stepped back from her but kept the space between them to a minimum. The stance was very much male and possessive, and she kind of loved it. Not because she wanted to rub anything in Sovereign’s face. She just rather liked Troy staking claim to her. She shook her head at the thought. What was happening to her?
“Did you have officers canvass the businesses near the alley?” she asked Sovereign. “And what about the apartment buildings?”
He gave a curt nod. “I did.”
Sovereign obviously wasn’t feeling too charitable when it came to sharing his findings.
“Did you find anything useful?” she prompted.
“Not really. There were a few occupants in the one building—that run-down one right in the area—that testified to hearing a woman screaming that night. But they either never bothered to look or they didn’t see anything.”
“Which was it?” Troy asked.
“Which was what?” Sovereign countered.
“They didn’t look or they didn’t see anything? It can’t be both.”
Madison tucked her chin to her shoulder, smirking. Sovereign had the tendency to be somewhat vague. When she looked back at the two men, they were squared off, their stances solid and peacocked.
“Both.” Bitterness drenched Sovereign’s one-word response. “Some looked and didn’t see anything. Others didn’t bother looking.” Sovereign slid his gaze from Troy to Madison. “Do you have a lead on your case?”
“Well, Sovereign,” she replied, “I’ll be sure to fill you in when we solve all three murders.”
“I’m assuming one of those is my case.”
“You better get to work then, because I’m about to do your job for you.” She turned to Troy, tempted to take his hand but deciding against it. “Let’s go.”
-
Chapter 59
DONNIE HOLLAND’S HOUSE WAS DARK except for a light on in one front room. Based on the limited illumination and shadows, Madison guessed it was a small study or office.
Two cars were in Holland’s driveway—one probably belonged to the missus—but Madison wasn’t going to let that stop her. Holland had to answer for his indiscretions and, possibly, the murder of three people.
Troy stood behind Madison on the front step while she rang the doorbell. Troy felt like he was her bodyguard, and she liked thinking of him as her protector.
The door creaked open to a woman who was about the same age as Madison.
Madison held up her badge. “We’d like to speak with Donnie Holland.”
The woman’s brow wrinkled. “My husband? Why?”
“I’m afraid it’s a matter we need to discuss with him privately.” It wasn’t Madison’s place to interfere in their marriage, and it most certainly wasn’t her place to disclose her husband’s infidelities, despite the temptation. “Is he home?”
She nodded and moved to the side to let Madison and Troy into the house. “I’ll get him for you.” She eyed them skeptically as she walked away. Seconds later, she returned with a blond man who was slightly shorter than she was.
He let his eyes trace over them. “What is this about?”
“Are you Donnie Holland?” It never hurt to confirm.
“I am. What is this about?”
Madison caught the flickering of light behind him. The couple must’ve been watching TV somewhere.
She let her gaze go to the woman and then back to him. “We’d like to speak with you in private.”
It seemed like he considered protesting the request at first, but then there was a light in his eyes. He must have understood Madison’s silent communication. A man like Holland had many tracks to cover, and it was best he not take any chances.
He swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple heaving, and he touched his wife’s arm. “Why don’t you go back to your TV show? This won’t take long.”
Her eyes probed Holland’s, but she nodded. “Fine.”
Madison watched her carefully, wondering if the woman had any inkl
ing as to what kind of man she had married. Did she realize the secret lives he led? The fact that he may have killed three people? Murderers were often people most would never suspect. But the truth was that all killers fell into the category of father, husband, mother, wife, child, or sibling.
Holland’s wife left the foyer, and he turned a cold gaze on Madison and Troy. “Come this way.” He led them to a small office. It was the room with the light on that she’d noticed when they’d pulled up to the house. He gestured to a love seat. Neither Madison nor Troy took him up on the invitation.
Holland slipped behind an L-shaped desk with a hutch. The surface was stacked with books and papers. He didn’t seem self-conscious over the mess.
“What is it that you need to discuss—” he made a dramatic show of checking his watch “—at nine thirty at night?”
“Kimberly Bell.” She’d drop the mother’s name first and get the basics established.
“What about her?”
“You know her?”
“I do.” He settled into his chair. There was no indication of remorse over the affair, no guilt in his expression. Despite his earlier fear of being exposed, he had fine-tuned the art of deception.
“You are having an affair with her.”
He shrugged a shoulder. “I’m still not sure why this warrants two cops in my house. A lot of husbands get action on the side.” He paused to shoot a sly smile at Troy.
Madison followed Holland’s gaze. Troy’s jaw drew tight, all hard lines. Yes, Troy was “a keeper,” as her grandmother would have said.
“Did you know her daughter, Zoe Bell?” Madison asked.
“It’s not like we spend time getting to know each other.”
This man nauseated her. She slapped a photograph taken of Zoe at the crime scene down on the desk. On top of it, she placed one of Zoe when she was alive and well.
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