“When David was trying to help me remember what had happened, he wanted to take me back to the site of the accident.”
“Did you go?”
She shook her head and her face paled. “I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Whenever I thought about it, the nightmares intensified and I had panic attacks. David thought it was because I saw something, experienced something so awful that my brain doesn’t want to remember.”
“He could be right.”
“Could be. But I still think this is the only way to finally put my past to rest, to heal and move on from it.”
“When do you want to go?”
“As soon as possible.”
TEN
She didn’t want to go. With everything in her, she did not want to go. The thought terrified her. And because it did, it also made her angry. Why should she be afraid? What had she seen?
“You should have stayed home.”
The voice echoed in her head and she blinked. She knew that voice. Had heard it before. But who? It wasn’t Tyler or Collin. She struggled to grasp it, but she couldn’t quite snatch it from the recesses of her mind.
“Macey?”
She tuned in to Chad. “Sorry. The memories are coming faster. Each time something happens, it’s like the dark curtain is pushed aside a bit more. But even before someone started trying to kill me, I was remembering more, so maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with the events.” She rubbed her head. “I don’t know. I have noticed one thing, though.”
“Come on. Let’s sit down.” He led her to the corner of the waiting room. She sat in the chair next to the wall, and he pulled a chair around to face her and took her hands. “Okay, what have you noticed?”
She could feel his concern in his touch. The comfort. She was so glad he was there. She focused on answering his question. “I’m not getting migraines when I try to remember.”
“Well, that’s a plus. And you think going to the scene of the wreck will bring everything back?”
She nodded. “I tried it once before and just got a massive headache and no memories.”
“When was that?”
“When they were initially investigating the wreck and the murder. I’ve never been able to go back, but . . .” She closed her eyes for a moment then opened them. Turmoil rolled inside her, but she forced the words through stiff lips. “I think it’s time to try again.”
“I can take you out there.”
She pulled one of her hands from his and pressed it to her head. “I need to finish my shift. I’m off tomorrow night at seven.”
“Then we’ll go first thing Wednesday morning.”
“Let’s hope I live that long,” she murmured.
He scowled. “Not funny.”
She frowned right back at him. “I didn’t mean it to be.”
He stood and pulled her into a tight hug. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Macey,” he whispered against her ear.
“I know. I don’t either.”
She let him hold her, relished the feeling of just being in his arms and feeling safe. She snuggled closer.
That was how Lilly found them when she came back inside the hospital. Macey caught the woman’s eye and tapped Chad on the shoulder. He didn’t move. “Ah, Chad?”
“Shh.”
“Lilly’s here.”
“Tell her to go away.”
Lilly heard him and rolled her eyes. “I just talked to the lab. No prints on the note or the phone from your kitchen sink.”
Chad let Macey go, much to her disappointment. But she couldn’t ignore reality any longer. “He wore gloves,” she said. Dejection hit her. Would they never catch a break?
Chad squeezed her shoulder. “Hang in there. We’ll figure it out.”
She nodded but wasn’t sure she believed him.
Chelsea came over and Macey introduced them. She tried to picture her friend through Chad’s eyes. The African-American woman was pretty with dark eyes that smiled. She had her black hair smoothed back into a ponytail and looked comfortable in her uniform. Chelsea looked at Macey. “Ready to go?”
“Yes.” Macey nodded to Chad and Lilly. “Thanks for coming over. I don’t expect you to find much on the card, but I appreciate the effort.”
Chad shrugged. “You never know. Sometimes you get surprised.”
“I guess.”
“I’ve got some friends in high places. You can rest assured someone will be watching your back during your shift. Got it?”
Macey nodded. “I’m not going to argue about it, I’m just going to be thankful for whatever you can do.”
“That’s a good attitude.”
“Or a desperate one.” She gave him a tight smile.
“Sometimes desperation can work in your favor.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Chad pulled the SUV to a stop in front of Tyler Norwood’s most current listed address. His mother’s home. He examined the front of the house. “Looks pretty quiet.”
Lilly opened her door and stepped out of the SUV. “You want me to take the back?”
“Sure. I’ll knock. Let’s hope he’s feeling cooperative today.”
Lilly disappeared around the corner of the house. Chad walked up the porch steps, keeping his eyes on the windows, looking for anything—a flutter of a curtain, the appearance of a weapon. Anything.
And got nothing.
He rapped his knuckles on the green wooden door.
Also nothing.
He rang the doorbell.
Then he tried the knob. It twisted easily in his grasp. He let the door crack open. “Hello? Anyone home?”
When there was no answer, Chad gave the front door a gentle push, and it opened on silent hinges. He called to Lilly, who joined him on the porch a few seconds later. He led the way inside with Lilly at his back.
“Police! Anyone here?”
He stopped walking and just listened. Silence.
He moved into the kitchen. “Garage is out there.”
Lilly glanced out the window in the kitchen door. “Hard to see anything. It’s too dark.”
“That door locked?”
With her left gloved hand, she tried the knob. “Yeah. Locked.” She pulled a Maglite from her back pocket and shined it through the glass. “There’s a car backed into the garage, but I don’t see anything else.”
“Okay.”
He started moving again and they quickly cleared the den, kitchen, and master bedroom of the small two-bedroom, two-bath home. The door to the second bedroom was shut.
He reached for the gloves he’d tucked into his pocket and pulled one on. He then grasped the knob, twisted it, and gave the door a soft push.
Lilly stepped around him to sweep the room. He saw her freeze. “He’s here.”
Chad entered and gave a grunt. A body lay in the bed. “Ugh.”
Lilly pulled on gloves and approached the dead man. She leaned in. “Single bullet hole to the left temple.”
“Any sign of the weapon?”
She searched the area around the body then went on all fours to look under the bed. “No. At least not that I can see.”
“So it’s not a suicide.”
“No, more like an execution,” Lilly said.
Chad pulled his phone from the clip on his belt. “I’ll call it in.”
Lilly backed away. “Where’s his mother? She lives here, too.”
His finger hovered over the screen. He looked up. “I don’t know. There’s no real odor, so he hasn’t been dead long. Lots of blood, so he was definitely killed here, though.” He checked his phone. “If his mother had found him, she would have called the police. At least I would think so. But there’s been no report yet.”
“You think she just hasn’t been home to find him?”
“Either that or . . .”
“She’s dead, too?”
“If she was here when the killer took out Tyler, then yes, she’s probably dead too. But where is she?” They’d cleared the
house and hadn’t found her. His eyes roamed the room. “Closet door is open. There’s nowhere to hide a body in there.”
“We checked the house. She’s definitely not here.”
“Let’s go through every room one more time.”
They did and found nothing.
“Maybe she went away on vacation or something,” Lilly said. “It is almost Christmas.”
“On vacation without her kid?”
“You never know. Families are weird.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. “Let’s try the garage again, then we’ll start looking into the family and if Tyler made any enemies in prison.”
“You think the person after Macey could have done this?”
“I thought Tyler was the person after Macey, so now I just don’t know.” He paused. “So why go after Norwood?”
“To keep him and Macey from talking?”
“About what? The night of the wreck?”
“Maybe the bag he allegedly gave to her. But she wasn’t talking to him,” Lilly said. “At least that’s the impression I got.”
“No, she wasn’t. And she didn’t have any intention of talking to him either. She also doesn’t have any memory of the bag of stolen stuff being in her possession.”
“Doesn’t mean it wasn’t, though. She doesn’t remember much of anything about that night.”
“True.” He motioned for her to follow him back into the kitchen then opened the door that led into the garage.
Lilly shivered. “I’ll get the CSU team and medical examiner out here so they can get started on the scene.”
“All right.”
“Cold enough to hang meat in here,” she muttered as she pulled her phone from the clip on her belt.
“Definitely not insulated.” He looked around. One of the garage windows was cracked, which didn’t help the temperature. He stepped up to the vehicle, an older model red Chevy Impala, probably late seventies. And froze. “Lilly?”
“Yeah?” She looked up from her phone.
“I think I found Mrs. Norwood.”
ELEVEN
The rest of Macey’s shift passed quickly with no more attempts on her life. She even got a couple hours of sleep without the nightmares haunting her. Still, she was exhausted and couldn’t wait to climb into Chelsea’s guest bed.
She showered, dried her hair, and changed into a pair of jeans. She pulled a sweatshirt over her head then grabbed her uniform jacket. She hadn’t had time to snag her personal jacket when the bomb went off. She’d been too busy running for her life. And she hadn’t had time to have her clothes cleaned since the smoke and water damage.
When she walked out of the station at seven o’clock Tuesday evening, she found Chad waiting for her. He was parked with the engine still running. She headed for him and he rolled down the passenger window. She leaned in, drawing in the scents that came with him. She liked them all. Spicy and masculine. “Are you my escort home?”
“I am.”
“I’m going to Chelsea’s apartment. She took off a little early to see her dad, who’s been in the hospital with congestive heart failure, but she said she’d be home in a little while.”
He nodded to the bag she had slung over her shoulder. “You have enough clothes?”
“For now. I talked to the insurance company a little while ago, and they’ve done the assessment. I can go in and get some more clothes whenever I need to. They’ll have to be washed, of course.”
“That was fast.”
“I know. I’m impressed.”
“First time for everything, I guess. Is the insurance company sending you a check?”
“Yes. I should be getting that in the next week or so, and I can start putting my house back together.”
“Good.”
Her stomach rumbled and she gave an embarrassed laugh. “All right, I suppose that means I need something to eat. Do you mind if we swing through a drive-thru?”
He pursed his lips and nodded to the passenger seat. “I can do better than that. Hop in.”
She lifted a brow. “All right.”
The back of her neck tingled and she looked around, trying to find the source of her unease.
“What is it?” Chad asked.
“Just that creepy feeling of being watched.”
He frowned and glanced around. “Get in the car.”
She opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. Once she had the door closed, she caught sight of a white Kia sedan pulling out of the parking lot of the restaurant next door.
“Is that him?” she asked.
“What?”
“That white Kia you said was sitting outside my house. Follow it. And hurry! He disappeared around the corner.”
Chad put the car in gear and pulled out after the vehicle. “You know it might not be him.”
“He was sitting there watching me. It’s him.”
Chad did his best, she knew he did, but by the time they turned the corner where the Kia had gone, it was no longer in sight.
She let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Great.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I didn’t see him fast enough.”
“And it might just be a coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences. Whoever was in that car was watching me.”
He raised a brow in her direction but didn’t argue with her. She silently admitted he could be right.
He drove with practiced ease, his eyes roving from one mirror to the next. “I have some news for you.”
She glanced at him. “What?”
“My partner and I went to Tyler Norwood’s home to see if we could talk to him, get a feel for whether he was the one threatening you, trying to kill you.”
She sucked in a breath. “And?”
“He was dead. Shot in the head in his bed. His mother was also killed execution style.”
“What?” she whispered. Pain tore through her. She’d loved Tyler with all of the teenage passion she had in her. And while he’d done a rotten thing, he hadn’t deserved to be murdered. Nor had his mother.
She blinked. Her eyes didn’t want to stay open. That was the first thing she noticed. Next the pain hit her. Her head, her back, her hip, her legs. There wasn’t a square inch on her body that didn’t hurt.
She rolled her head to the right and found Tyler staring at her from the front seat. “What did you do?” she whispered.
“I didn’t do it! I didn’t know he was going to kill him!” Tyler’s eyes were wild with fear and shock and pain. His teeth chattered, and Macey clutched her head. She retched up what little she’d eaten that day.
“Shut up,” Collin gasped. “Shut up or I’ll shoot you, too! Both of you.” He lifted his head from the steering wheel and turned to face her. Blood ran down his face, into his eyes, and he groaned even as he lifted the gun.
Tyler opened the passenger door and rolled out of the car and onto the ground.
Somehow they’d landed mostly upright, but all of the windows were gone. Macey crawled through the nearest one. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. The damp earth rose up too fast to meet her and she thumped against it with a pained groan.
The driver’s door opened. Collin fell out, still clutching his weapon. Again he lifted it. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he stilled. The gun fell from his limp hand and landed beside him.
“Collin?” She scooted toward him, the pain in her back making her cry out and stop. She clutched the ground, hoping her head would stop spinning and the nausea would ease.
Tyler made his way around to her. She couldn’t move. “Ty?” she whispered.
He shoved a bag in her hand. It felt funny. Almost like neoprene, like the material her scuba suit had been made out of when she’d taken lessons two years ago.
She wanted to laugh. Hysterically. She’d just nearly been killed and she was thinking about scuba lessons?
“Go,” Tyler said and groaned. “Go. If they don�
�t find the stuff, they won’t have any proof. You’ve got to hide it.”
“ . . . looks like whoever shot them caught them by surprise. Tyler’s mother was in the car, the keys still in the ignition, so she was probably getting ready to go somewhere when the killer shot her first then went and found Tyler in bed—and you’re not hearing a word I’m saying, are you?”
“I hear you.”
“Then why do you have that very blank stare?”
“Because I remember. Part of it, anyway.”
He frowned. “What do you remember?”
“Tyler gave me the bag of stuff from the safe.”
“Okay. And?”
“And that’s it. He gave me the bag and told me to hide it so the cops wouldn’t find it. He said if they couldn’t find the stuff, they couldn’t prove he and Collin had stolen anything. Or were even at the house.”
“So where did you hide it?”
“I—I—” She tried to pull the images back but slammed into a black wall. “I don’t know. I think maybe I blacked out at that point.”
His fingers gripped hers. “Macey, they never found the bag of stolen goods.”
“I know.”
“So that means you must have hidden it.”
A slow pounding started at the base of her skull once more and she winced.
“Stop,” he said.
“What?”
“Stop thinking about it.”
She let out a low laugh that held no humor. “How?”
“Ask me what my favorite color is or why I’m not married or something. Just get your mind off of it.”
She blinked. Why he wasn’t married?
“Never mind,” he said. “We’re almost there.” He turned left onto North Main Street. Traffic was heavy in the downtown area, but it didn’t take too long to find a parking spot. “Are you all right with Trio’s?”
She finally took in her surroundings as she climbed out of the car. Maybe he was right and she just needed to quit pushing. “Sure. Love this place.”
“Great.” He waited for her to come around beside him then placed an arm across her shoulders while he glanced behind them.
“So why aren’t you married?” she asked.
Chad grimaced. Of course she wouldn’t go for the favorite color question. Well, he’d opened the box, he might as well deal with it. Lilly would say he’d done it on purpose. And truth was, maybe he had. “I was engaged once.”
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