Her Best Friend's Keeper (Finley Creek Book 1)

by Calle J. Brookes

  Connections. They mattered, didn’t they?

  She’d met Mel and Brynna a few times as a child, but they hadn’t been in the same grades, or lived in the same neighborhoods, or even attended the same schools. It had been so casual. It wasn’t until Brynna had been hired by the TSP and Mel started coming down to the computer lab to see her sister that they’d put it all together. Figured out that they’d all known each other before. Figured out that they’d all been there the night Sara had died.

  That connection was the main reason they’d become friends.

  But now...

  It had been so hard for Gabby to let them in, hadn’t it? She’d been so scared to get close to anyone. She looked at the two as emotion filled her. “I love you both. You know that, right?”

  Mel looked at her for a serious moment. “Of course we do. And we feel the same right back. What’s going on, Gabs? What’s got you so spooked? Talk to us. Let us help.”

  “Mel means more spooked than usual. I think.” Brynna closed the door behind herself and locked all of the bolts carefully. Brynna rarely freaked over anything. Cool and logical, that was Brynna’s way. Maybe that was what made them such good friends? Logic, Panic, and Strength—the Three Musketeers of Finley Creek.

  “Something like that.” Mel took the closest chair. Gabby kept the area around that particular armchair clear of any obstacles for when her friends visited.

  Bug the Cat waited semi-patiently for Mel to get settled and then he hopped up in her lap. He was in love with Mel and would stick close to her side the entire time Mel was there. His infatuation was practically pitiful. Sometimes she suspected he pined for the other woman.

  “I was just...thinking of Sara again.”

  “No surprise. I heard Elliot was back from Brynna. I worked with him a few times in Garrity. He’s grown even better with age.”

  Gabby felt heat hit her cheeks. “Really? I didn’t notice.”

  Mel laughed. Mel had always had a very pretty laugh. “Liar. I think you noticed right away.”

  “So? It was kind of hard not to. He was right there, after all. All big and muscly and...looming. I didn’t know what to say.” So babble, babble, babble—like always.

  “So you said something typically Gabby-ish, didn’t you?” Mel grinned. She’d always told Gabby to embrace who she was—goofiness and all. To be who she was without excuses. Yeah—Gabby was still working on that one. “So...what was it?”

  “I don’t remember. I was just babbling. Babbly Gabbly, that’s me.”

  “Ouch.”

  “I don’t think it was that bad. He has a nice smile. And he smiled at you a lot.” Brynna always took the end of the couch near the window. She was a definite creature of habit.

  Well, so was Gabby. One reason why the two of them clicked so well, probably.

  They went to work, they went home. They did it all again the next day. Habit was the only way to go.

  At least Brynna and Mel had each other and the rest of their family, didn’t they? They went home to the house they shared with their father and two younger sisters. Heck, Mel was even a band parent for Syd. She was as close to being a soccer mom as she could get, without having an actual child of her own, anyway. They were a family and a close one, at that.

  They had each other.

  She had Bug the Cat, who was busy making moony eyes at Mel and ignoring Gabby completely. Silly cat traitor.

  She was so boring that even her cat preferred someone else over her. Hard to swallow, wasn’t it? “It was bad. But...it’s not like we ever had any good conversations before. It was just awkward. What was I supposed to say? Hi, how have you been since the funerals of most of your family? That probably wouldn’t have gone over all that well.”

  “Probably not,” Mel said. She was quiet for a moment. “He’s always been so sad. I worked a few cases with him and that always stood out.”

  “He has another brother,” Brynna said. “Whatever happened to him?”

  Chance. She knew him better than Elliot; he’d come around asking questions about the murders a time or two over the last ten years. He was a few years younger than Elliot, she thought, and looked a lot like his brother. But darker, leaner. Like his father. He was different than Elliot, though. More intense. Much more frightening. He was someone she definitely wouldn’t want to meet in a back alley—whether he was the good guy or the bad. Talk about some seriously scary mojo—Chance Marshall had it in spades. “Some say he’s gone off the deep end. I half believe it. He calls me sometimes, just to ask me a bunch of questions that I usually can’t answer. Freaks me out again every single time.”

  “Do you think they’ll ever find the people who did it?” Brynna pulled a blanket off the couch and wrapped it around her shoulders.

  Gabby understood. She felt the sudden chill in the air, too. “I don’t know. I’m afraid of what the cost of finding them might be. What if they’re out there, just ready to hurt someone else? What if they’re out there just waiting for me? I think of that all the time. All the time; I can’t get it out of my head. I’m not so sure I ever will. I’m not so sure Elliot Marshall being back is all that great.”

  “The fear that it’ll get dragged back up again? I can understand that. The way it is now is safer. You don’t have to face it with it as buried as it has been.” Mel shifted on the chair, stretching her legs out in front of herself with a grimace. She’d said once she’d been told she’d most likely always feel pain from the shooting; Mel so rarely complained. She held out a hand toward Gabby and Gabby took it, barely resisting the urge to cling to the most stable friend in her life. The strongest. Mel continued, “The sting is still there, but the grief—maybe the grief has finally found a quiet place to rest. Seeing a guy like Elliot Junior who looks just like his father, and just like the rest of the Marshall family, it makes it raw. Makes it real again. And it hurts. It hurts to remember. Hurts me, too. I got my first period while spending the night with Sara when I was thirteen. Her mom was great about helping me. To lose them all—it’ll probably hurt forever.”

  “Yes, it definitely does.”

  “Then let’s shove the nastiness of that last night away for a while. I smell pizza. Good pizza, not like that cardboard dairy-free tomato-free stuff Brynna likes to buy at the grocery store.”

  “Hey, that’s the best pizza.” Brynna had a list of strange and weird food allergies that she had to watch for. Gabby kept a list of Brynna-safe foods stuck to her own fridge for when she did actually cook for her friends. And special dishes to reduce cross-contamination issues. Like she’d thought many times before—they all had their issues—quirks—didn’t they?

  “Uh huh. I smell pizza, and it’s Anne’s recipe. Let’s look at the old photos and remember how wonderful that family was. And just be thankful that we are all still here, and together, and so damned alive. And then I’ll tell you of the time Elliot and I were both tapped by our superiors to go undercover and he had to kiss me in the middle of a bar in Houston.”

  Mel gave a wicked grin. Gabby gawked. “Are you serious?” Gabby leaned forward eagerly. “You kissed him?”

  “It was only for a moment, and I was more concerned with the gang surrounding us to focus on the feel of the man—to my regret.”

  “I bet he knows how to kiss really well,” Brynna said. “He’s older and more seasoned. I’ve always wanted to kiss an older man. At least once.”

  “He’s thirty-six or seven, Brynna. Not exactly ancient,” Mel said as the oven buzzed. “Then again, you are the youngest of us. That’s probably way too old for you. Twenty-eight. That’s probably as old as you should go. Just old enough to be more experienced than you, but not so much that he’d totally overwhelm you.”

  “The oldest guy I’ve ever kissed was twenty-two. And he wasn’t very good at it.” Brynna crinkled her nose and shook her head. “It sucked.”

  “He wasn’t very good at being a man, Bryn. There’s a difference.” Mel looked at Gabby and smirked as she struggled
to her feet. “He was a real prick. I put glue in his car locks.”

  “Mel! That’s illegal!”

  “It was water soluble. If he could get to it all. He deserved it for what he did to her.”

  “That was vandalism. She shouldn’t have done it, but she did it because he hurt me.” Brynna smiled at her older sister, how she felt for her right there on Brynna’s face.

  “Of course.” Gabby’s kitchen was right off the sitting area of the living room and she could easily speak to her friends from the kitchen island. “And I won’t tell a soul that a former detective with the TSP put glue in some jackass’s car. I guess I’m a glue accessory after the fact.”

  “Gee, thanks. Make sure you’re a sparkly accessory, at least. Tell you what, go tell the Chief of the Finley Creek TSP that I confess and he can cuff me however he wants. See what he says.”

  “Why would I talk to him again? I mean, I plan to give him copies of the pictures of his family, and that is it. Period. Nothing more between me and Elliot Marshall, Junior, at all. Certainly nothing like handcuffs.”

  “Probably not. I don’t think you’re the type he’d be interested in, to be honest.” Mel started tearing up the lettuce Gabby handed her. “He prefers the temporary no-strings type, I think. The exact opposite of all of us. I think we’re all safe from his clutches. Darn the luck. I bet he has good clutches… I’ve not been clutched in a year and a half.” A fleeting brush of sadness went over Mel’s face so quickly Gabby was almost certain she’d missed it.

  “Ok, let’s talk about something else, please. Like how was St. Louis?” Anything to turn the conversation from Elliot. Anything. “What did you find out?”

  “It’s not like I thought. If I take the job, I can do most of it from here. No relocating, thank goodness. Gretchen, the woman who owns the company is really nice. And she believes in what she’s doing. In what I would be doing. It’ll be part-time, as needed, at first.”

  “I didn’t want you to have to move. Carrie’s so far away. I didn’t want you to be, too.” Brynna grabbed the drinks and plates from the cabinet. This was something they did a lot, just hanging out together. Gabby liked that they were just as comfortable in her apartment as she was in the home they shared with their father and two younger sisters.

  Connections again.

  “It was a huge factor, to be honest. But let’s face it, disability after only six years with the TSP isn’t much, especially since I was off the clock and out of state when this happened. I can’t spend the rest of my life doing nothing. I can’t even keep the house clean easily. Cooking is about the extent of my abilities right now—if I don’t move around too much. But with Blessed Reunions I can do something that makes a difference. And the money will help.”

  Gabby understood. Mel sucked at not doing, didn’t she? “What is Blessed Reunions exactly?”

  “It’s a company of what are basically licensed private investigators. They are contracted by people who are looking for lost loved ones. Like Carrie.”

  Gabby knew the story of Mel and Brynna’s older half-sister. Carrie’s mother had kept her a secret from their father until Mel was around eight. Then he’d tried to find the little girl but hadn’t succeeded.

  Brynna had actually found her, while flipping through a computer forensics journal that Benny had given them while on their lunch break. The resemblance between Brynna and Carrie was strong enough for Brynna to wonder. To do a little digging until she had her answers.

  “It’s not right what was done to Carrie. Or my dad. Gretchen is the sister of Dan Reynolds, the man who helped save my father and Carrie’s life when we first met. His daughters were kidnapped fifteen or sixteen years ago, too. Blessed Reunions helps reunite families, if possible. And provides counseling for families that can’t reunite. And other services. I really want to be a part of this; if I can. Gretchen seems to think I can do a lot of the job remotely or by phone.”

  “So you’re going to take it?”

  “I’m seriously considering it. Leaning toward it, actually. We’re still haggling details. I won’t be doing much investigating, but I can use the phone and computers to do a great deal of the legwork for other investigators.”

  Gabby hugged her friend. She knew just how dark the days had gotten for Mel when she’d first been injured. “It sounds wonderful.”

  “I’m just glad you’ll be able to do it from home, where you won’t get hurt again. Or you can just stay home with us forever. I didn’t like that you were considering leaving us.”

  Mel looked at her younger sister and smiled. “I know, Bryn, I know. That was one of the main issues for me, too.”

  “Ladies, pizza is ready.” Gabby changed the subject quickly. Brynna hated any talk of her sisters leaving their childhood home. It was a discussion they’d all had before. Vehemently.

  “Great. Let’s eat and I’ll tell you about this really hot guy named Bertram that I met in St. Louis. He’s from Houston originally and has a body that makes Elliot Marshall look like a stick boy. Talk about yum.”

  Yep. It was so…normal. Mel and Brynna were exactly what she needed tonight.

  CHAPTER TEN.

  ***

  GABBY got to the lab early and left a plastic container on Benny’s desk with a note telling him what it was and that she appreciated him. Then she headed up the elevator toward the office she’d been in only once before. She was having a difficult time separating the idea of Sara’s older brother Elliot from Division Chief Marshall—her boss. Even now, two days after she’d first seen him in the computer forensics lab.

  It just seemed so weird to think of him that way.

  Officer Journey was at her desk already, and it was neatly organized. Gabby didn’t quite understand how the other woman functioned that way—organization was definitely not her strong suit. And Journey always looked so put together and beautiful. Sleek.

  Gabby felt like a frumpy middle schooler most of the time. Just give her a pair of baggy overalls and a Beanie Baby and she was all set.

  Journey looked up at her and smiled. “Good morning, Gabby. How can I help you today?”

  “Uh…is Elliot, I mean Chief Marshall in? I have something for him. It’s pizza. His mother’s recipe. I had friends over last night and they took half the leftovers, but there is so much I…” She didn’t mean to ramble. It just always sort of…happened.

  “Of course. I’ll buzz him and let him know you’re here.”

  “Thanks.” Ok, she was really doing this. She’d give him his mother’s pizza and then get back down to the Gabby-Cave and be perfectly fine.

  It was just Elliot, after all. An older version of Slade, right? Old family friend. Old family friend.

  Officer Journey opened the doors leading into the Division Chief’s office. Gabby stepped in for the second time that week. Elliot sat behind his desk, wearing his dress greens.

  Wow. That was her first thought.

  He looked really good in his dress uniform. His desk was as ruthlessly organized as Officer Journey’s and every inch of the room shouted power to her.

  This wasn’t exactly a chump change post; the head of Finley Creek TSP had serious juice behind them. Behind Elliot. The enormity of the position he held sank in. He practically ruled this little empire—and she was bringing him leftovers in a plastic container.

  That made the gulf between them seem all the more…Grand Canyon-like. He stood and rounded the desk. He held his hand out to her. Gabby stopped walking. “El…Chief…I’m not sure what I’m supposed to call the guy I’ve known since I was eleven who now happens to be my boss. A pretty important one.”

  “In here, Elliot works just fine. Or El, like Chance does. Out there with the piranhas, probably better use Chief.” He smiled as he said it and leaned back in his chair. She wasn’t certain, but it almost looked like some of the tension that had been in his shoulders lessened a little. “You’re in early today.”

  “I caught a ride with Jarrod again. He had the 8:30. I’m on at
9:30. I—uh—brought you something.” She held out the container. “I got out one of your mom’s cookbooks. One she was working on before she died. I made pizzas for my friends last night. Way too many leftovers. I made it just like she’d taught me, with garlic butter on the crust and everything. And she’d made notes that you really like mushrooms, so…anyway. I brought you some. I figured of everyone in the world, you’d like it. I brought some for Benny, too.”

  She sat it on the desk, feeling like a great big doofus when he just stared at her.

  ***

  ELLIOT hated pizza. Correction—he hated all pizza except the kind his mother used to make. There had never been another pizza as good as hers. And there probably never would. Sometimes there were things he missed more than others.

  The sight of his mother in the kitchen was one that would be burned into his memory for the rest of his days. The joy she’d taken from feeding all of them when he’d been a child, and then the pride when she’d turned her lifelong hobby into a successful career would be something he never forgot.

  One of his main regrets had been that he’d never spent much time in the kitchen with her. She’d insisted he and his siblings learn the basics, but only Chance and Sara had enjoyed the process as well as the results.

  He took the pizza the woman in front of him was holding out. He’d probably just toss it in the trash, but he couldn’t refuse it. Or the memory card she held in her other hand.

  “I know you’ve probably got tons of photos from Slade but I didn’t know if you had these. And I thought you’d like to have them. I made copies. And I’ve got your mom’s last cookbook. It’s her recipe for the pizza. I just…I’m sorry, I’m rambling again, aren’t I? I’ll leave you alone now. I’ve got tons of work waiting in the lab. I should probably—”

  He didn’t know how else to shut the woman up. He put a finger over her lips. Blue eyes widened behind thick lenses. She licked her lips unconsciously. Elliot’s gut tightened. What would she do when a man touched her other places? Just how sensitive was she “Gabby, thank you.”