by Haley James
OFF LIMITS
BY HALEY JAMES
Copyright 2015 Haley James, all rights reserved.
No part of this work may be reproduced without written consent of the author. This book is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
NOTE: This book is for a mature audience only due to adult conduct.
Epilogue
The crime was brutal, that much was obvious. The amount of blood splattered around the room alone was enough to make any human in their right mind nauseas. The walls were covered, the sheets drenched, and the carpet destroyed. The bedroom nightstand table lay overturned on its side, broken picture frames flooded the floor, all showing the sign of the struggle that had taken place.
The woman’s body lay motionless on the bed, her limp hands tied to the bedpost, and her legs too covered in the rich red liquid to make out. Looking at her now, no one would know how beautiful she had once been. No one would know her laughter had once filled the empty void in so many people’s hearts. Her once naturally straight and perfect blonde hair now lay stained with dry blood and bald patches where her murderer had spent hours ripping her hair out of her sculp.
The setting was a quite suburban neighborhood, the house a light red, and like something out of a movie, surrounded by a white thick fence. It was the type of small town where no one locked the doors, the kind of town where people were raised to believe in the good. And it was the kind of town where a crime so brutal was sure to cause a stir hard to recover from.
In a few hours, Ashley Miller’s sister would walk through her front door, just like any other Friday. She would set her sister’s cup of coffee on the counter and walk to her bedroom to wake her. Only the second she set foot on the first step to the second floor, she would smell it, the awful stench to a tragic crime. And as she ran up the stairs faster than she thought she could run, she would see evidence of the fight that had started in the hallway then continued into the bedroom. And then, unlike any other day of her life, her sister would find Ashley’s lifeless body.
An investigation would begin and a small town in Texas would turn into absolute pandemonium. Then an obsessive hunt for the woman’s killer would begin, ending in awful tragic circumstances.
That, however, was in a few hours. For now, Ashley’s body would stay put, with the town of Burberry sleeping soundly in their beds thinking that everyone was as always safe and sound.
Chapter one
Melissa Miller pushed her foot down harder on the petal of her jeep careful not to collide into the rail on the side of the narrow road she was speeding down. The leaves had started to fall slowly off the trees indicating that fall was approaching, and on any other day she might stop to admire the beauty of the season change. It wasn’t any other day though. Today was the day Melissa had been waiting for, the day her sister’s killer would finally be brought to justice.
Sure, she had said this before, but today was it, she could feel it with all she had in her bones. Today she had finally found the break in the case she was waiting for, a year later. A year after that awful morning when she had walked into her worst nightmare, finding her older sister strangled and beaten to death in the bedroom of her two story red farm house.
A full year and the son of a bitch who had done unthinkable things to her flesh and blood was still walking around on the streets of their town, free as the wind. Melissa still had to see him everyday, knowing what he had done, and it took everything inside of her to not smack the smug look off his face every time she passed him on the street.
Today though, she would show him. Today, he would know the pain she had felt for the past year of her life every single day. She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when they slapped those handcuffs on him and toted him off to a nice gray cell for the rest of his life. The thought alone was enough to make her heart beat faster in her chest and she had to remind herself to breathe as she neared the police station.
As she swung the wheel of her jeep around the sharp turn and into the parking lot her small frame practically slid over into the center council. People often told her she was too small to be driving such a big car, but it was easy to underestimate just how brave 5’5 Melissa Miller really was. Easy to underestimate just how far she was willing to go for the things she cared about, and today was no different.
***
Mitch Manner peeked through the blinds of the window next to his desk and sighed loudly as Melissa Miller’s green jeep sped into the parking lot of his precinct. The car came to a screeching stop in the middle of the parking lot coming about an inch from crashing into his squad car.
He shook his head to himself and frowned. Didn’t she realize she was much too small of a woman to be driving such a big car? It was beyond dangerous; she clearly couldn’t handle the power behind it.
The door to the sheriff’s office swung open and sheriff Freeman came storming out with an intense red burning from the inside of his eyelids. “That crazy bitch is here again!” the sheriff gasped loudly stomping his way over to Mitch’s desk, “look at her, she has some sort of paper work with her.”
Mitch glanced out the window and noticed that Melissa did indeed seem to be picking up a bunch of papers off the ground that she had dropped.
“You better put her in her place, Mitch,” the sheriff continued, “a year later and she’s still poking around causing a stir all over town, people are starting to complain, Mitch, people are starting to talk, Mitch… it’s a wonder she hasn’t been locked up yet, acting like an absolutely crazy, a raving lunatic that woman is.”
“Oh, come on, boss,” Mitch says as he glances out the window again, now she was chasing a piece of paper toward the edge of the grass, and he wasn’t sure, but it seemed like she might be mumbling something to it, “she isn’t that bad.”
Sheriff Freeman scoffs loudly to himself, “get rid of her, Mitch, I mean it,” he says, stomping back toward his office, “and for good this time.” He slams the door to his office just as the front door to the police station swung open.
Melissa’s small frame bursts through the door practically getting hit by it as the wind closed it roughly behind her. Mitch gives her a once over. Dark brown hair a mess, glasses tilted to the side, and bags under her eyes indicating a lack of sleep. Her jeans were worn and her sweatshirt looked like she had spilled coffee on it earlier that day. Who was he kidding; she was kind of a mess.
“Well, I’ve done it,” she declares loudly making her way over to Mitch, tripping over her own two feet as she went, but recovering before her body hit the ground.
Mitch rolls his eyes. “Would you watch where you’re walking, you’ve only been doing it for 26 years now.”
Melissa throws the mess of papers in her hands down on his desk choosing to ignore his sarcastic comment. “There you go! You’re welcome.”
Mitch glances down at the pile of papers in front of him like it’s about as interesting as someone putting a pile of rocks on his desk. This was a story he had heard one too many times, at least once a week Melissa Miller was in here with some new “evidence” she herself had discovered, because apparently the police didn’t know how to do their job.
“And what,” Mitch says picking up one of the papers in front of him and pretending to give it a once over, “exactly am I looking at here?”
“This is the key to locking Charles Morgan up for good!” she announces happily.
“Oh, yeah?” Mitch says setting the paper back down on his desk, “what is it this time? A secret name change we didn’t know about? Is he selling children on the black market? No, no, I got it, he’s really a woman trapped inside a mans body.”
Melissa’s eyes narrow, shooting daggers into Mitch “Well, this is exactly the type
of thing that keeps my sister’s killer out on the streets after all this time.”
Mitch leans back in his chair and shoots Melissa a sympathetic look. “You have to stop, Mel, you just have to stop, people are starting to talk.”
She takes a step back and crosses her arms across her chest. “Well, I don’t care what people say.”
“I know you don’t,” Mitch stands up from his chair, revealing his 6’2 frame and walks around his desk so he’s facing her, “but the sheriff does.”
“Well, maybe, if the sheriff was a little less concerned with what people thought and more concerned with justice my sister’s memory would have a little peace.”
The comment tugs on Mitch’s heart just a little bit, and he can’t help but to feel bad for the woman. I mean, here she was, after all this time still messed up from that morning so long ago. And the worst part was that there was nothing he could do about it. He had been trying to put the pieces together for a year now, but every lead seemed to be a dead end.
“What do you have here, anyway?” he asks her tearing his eyes away from hers and back toward his desk.
Melissa’s eyes light up and for a second she looks hopeful again. “He has another piece of land, Mitch! Upstate! One he never told the police about in the initial investigation! Why wouldn’t he tell us? I mean you…why wouldn’t he tell you if he had nothing to hide…”
Mitch eyes scan the paper in front of him and he frowns, “this isn’t his land, it’s his brothers land, probably a vacation home, or something for his family.”
“Or,” Melissa says waving her arms around as she talks, “he put it in his brothers name to get us off his track, who knows what he’s hiding up there! This could be the brake we have been waiting for! I figured me and you could take a drive up there tonight after dark and—“
“Whoa, whoa, slow down there, Nancy Drew,” Mitch says cutting her off. “First of all me and you aren’t driving anywhere, that would be against the law without a search warrant.”
“So get one,” Melissa says rolling her eyes, like she’s talking to a two year old, “isn’t that what police officers do?”
“No, it’s not what we do, we need probable cause, and we have none. His brother owning a house upstate doesn’t prove Charles Morgan is hiding anything, just like him having a sexual relationship with your sister doesn’t prove he killed her.”
“He wasn’t having a sexual relationship with her! He was stalking her! Following her all around! How many times do I have to tell you before you get it!”
“Not according to him,” Mitch says slowly.
Melissa snatches one of the papers out of Mitch’s hand and laughs sarcastically. “Forget it. I should have known better than to come to you. You don’t take anything I say seriously.”
Mitch rubs his temples with his hand and sits down in the chair in front of his desk. “Melissa you’re acting unreasonable again. Now like I told you last time, you can’t just go around making up evidence…”
“Oh, don’t you dare! This isn’t high school anymore, Mitch. I don’t have to listen to you! You aren’t the captain of the football team and everyone’s hero, you might have had me star-struck back then but not anymore! I’ve grown up and you’re a police officer now so I suggest you start acting like it.”
“Star-struck?” Mitch says allowing an amused expression to come across his face.
“Ugh! Just forget it!” She throws her hands up in the air and snatches her papers up off his desk in one swift moment, marching toward the door.
“You have to stop, there’s going to be consequences to your actions soon, Melissa, I can only do so much.”
“I won’t stop,” the small woman says as she opens the door, “until the man who killed my sister is off the street.” Then she lets the door swing shut behind her leaving Mitch alone once again.
Chapter Two
Melissa walks through the front door to her small red house, throwing her keys across the breezeway and letting them land with a hard thud against her perfectly painted wall. The nerve of that Mitch Manner, who did he think he was, anyway? Just because he had been the big man on campus all through high school and college didn’t mean he knew everything now. She was a different person now, she wasn’t the same naive girl she had been back then, she didn’t have to put up with his bullshit.
She was a strong independent woman now! She could care less what that Mitch Manner thought of her. He was of no importance to her! I mean, honestly, acting like a child he was. Dismissing her evidence like it was nothing more than a joke, implying that she would ever give up on trying to put that good for nothing jerk behind bars! She would show them both. Mitch Manner would regret the day he ever doubted Melissa Miller!
And then, all of a sudden, almost like a flash of lighting shooting across the sky in the middle of a perfect sunny day, her emotions changed. All the anger she had felt in her body, all the negative feelings that she had felt with everything she had inside of her faded to black, and all she was left with was sadness. Because, let’s face it, stupid Mitch Manner wasn’t the real problem, the real problem was the fact that she had yet to come to terms with her sister’s death. And no amount of bickering with the town’s heartthrob was going to fix that. Just like no amount of books she read, or no amount of research she did, or no amount of hours she spent in the office was going to erase the sadness that lived in her soul. And now looking around her empty house, she was reminded all too well that once again, she was alone.
Completely and totally all alone, and that’s the thought that kept running through her head as she let her small frame sink to the ground. As she wrapped her hands around her knees and let her eyes once again fill with the familiar liquid of her painful tears. It was a feeling she was all too used to these days, and one she was afraid she would never be able to get rid of.
***
While Melissa Miller sat in her small house crying over her lost sister, Mitch Manner was fighting a different battle across town. A battle, he too, had become all too familiar with. His battle, however, was not with himself, it was with his mother.
“I heard that this is the year he plans on striking again. I heard he’s going to do it on the eve of Ashley’s death, to send the police a message.”
This was the problem with living in such a small town, word traveled fast. So chances are if you told someone something that morning, the whole town would know by the time afternoon hit. Of course, whatever you said was sure to be twister around with a bunch of statements added to it, it was like one big never ending game of telephone.
Mitch sighed and set his cup of coffee down on the counter in front of him. He was at the diner his family had owned for as long as he could remember, passed down from generation to generation. His father was still convinced Mitch was going to wake up and realize being a police officer was silly and his real dream was to manage the family business any day now. Mitch didn’t have the heart to tell him that was never going to happen.
“Mom, no one’s going to strict again, okay? Especially not on the eve of anyone’s death. This isn’t a movie, it’s real life.”
His mother shrugs, reaching over and filling his coffee cup up with more of the hot liquid, “I’m just saying what I heard, that’s all.”
She was a small woman with gray hair and a kind smile. Upon meeting her, people awful had a hard time believing Mitch was her son. It was tough to process that such a tall and handsome man had come from little Mrs. Manner. Of course, usually when people saw Mitch’s father, they understood a little bit better.
Ray Manner was just as tall as his son, with the same rich dark eyes, the same perfect smile, and the same broad shoulders. His dark locks framed his naturally tanned skin perfectly, and if you hadn’t known him his whole life, you would never imagine him to own a place like a diner, you would think he owned a car dealership, a fine piece of real estate, or something equally as sophisticated. You also would never imagine that he was as kind as he was, but he was a gent
le and good-hearted man, who had worked hard to pass those same morals down to his son.
“Well, you heard wrong,” Mitch picks up the sugar and drops two spoonfuls into his steaming hot cup. “How many times do I have to tell you to not buy into the gossip that floats around this town?”
“Gossip? What gossip? I don’t buy into such things. I’m just saying what I heard. Why that nice Melissa was in here just this morning telling me about some secret paperwork she came across-“
Mitch practically spit the coffee that was floating around in his mouth out all over the counter. “She was WHAT?”
Of course, of all the people in town, leave it to his mother to have taken a liking to Melissa Miller. Ever since high school his mother had been convinced Melissa was some kind of saint. It was Melissa’s sister Ashley who had been class president and captain of the cheerleading team, Melissa was always quite, and kind of mousy, easily taking a back seat to Ashley’s beauty and extra curricular activities. Mrs. Manner, however, had claimed to see something special in Melissa for years.
The first time she had met her had been at the local high school one night. The first football game of the season was a big deal around there, had been for as long as anyone could remember, and it was an occasion the whole town made the effort to come out for. So there was Mitch, starting quarterback and captain of his senior class team, ready to lead his team to its championship season, and as he’s about to step onto the field he looked up in the stands to find his family, and there was his mother, sitting right next to Melissa Miller, laughing away.
At first he thought he must have seen wrong for sure, but after opening and closing his eyes a few times, he realized he had in fact had it right. Melissa Miller and his mother were up in the stands chatting away like they had known one another for years, not just minutes.
Ever since then his mother refused to let go of the idea that Melissa was some sort of goddess. She even refused to let her pay for anything when she came into the diner, she could eat there three times a day if she wanted for the rest of her life and never have to pay a dime. If you knew Mitch’s mother at all, you would know that free food meant she loved you more than words could say. It was all kind of ridiculous, and a notion that Mitch had long ago stopped trying to figure out.