“The preliminary observations show that she’d been beaten and stabbed, badly.” Coleman interrupted. “They’re going to check for rape during the autopsy, but it wasn’t an accident. In fact, your initials were carved into her thigh, Cole.”
That news turned my gut, and I sat back, the reality hitting me now. “She was a fucking huge bitch, but Jesus she didn’t deserve to be murdered.” Getting up, I started pacing with my family watching me. “Who does that to a girl? Who actually hurts one like that?”
I could see Ebru watching me out of the corner of my eye, and shit did I want to go over and pick her up and make sure that she was okay and didn’t have any injuries on her. I know it was irrational and stupid because we’d just been together and I knew for a fact that she was perfect, but the fact that someone targeted Adele made me worry that Eb was next. I might sound like a cold hearted asshole thinking like that and not about Adele, but she was everything to me; I couldn’t be without her.
Before I could act on it, Mom walked up to me. “It’s okay to be upset sweetie. You guys dated once upon a time, and with the baby as well…”
“Fuck that,” I fumed. “Yeah she didn’t deserve to die, but I’m going out of my bastard mind worrying that they’re going to go after Ebru. What if this is it starting all over again? What if it was a warning? What do I do if they actually win and hurt her?”
The room had gone totally silent and Ebru was looking at me with tears in her eyes. I felt like crying like a little bitch too.
“There was no baby,” Coleman rumbled from where he was now leaning against a wall.
That fueled my anger even more. He really wanted to argue over semantics at this precise moment? “Fetus, baby, whatever you wanna fucking call it, man. Really?”
“No, Cole, I’m saying that there was no baby.”
Walking backward, and hoping to dear God that I made the target that I was aiming for, I collapsed onto the couch next to Ebru. “What?”
Reaching into his back pocket, he pulled out a square of paper, that he unfolded, and read us what was on the pages. Or actually, what wasn’t on them. “Full medical records for Adele Tanner, and we got all of them,” he stressed, looking over the top of the paper at me. “There is no mention of a pregnancy that year at all. Two years after it, she had three pregnancy scares. Only one of which was true and she aborted. She was diagnosed with Chlamydia in 2013, and aside from the other normal shit that you’d expect to find, there were no other pregnancies or pregnancy scares in 2010.”
I couldn’t figure out what he was saying. I knew the words, but right now what they meant just wasn’t registering. “But…but…she said…”
“She was fucking lying,” Brett fumed, bringing my focus on him and the pretty woman sitting beside him.
“I’m sorry, my asshole of a brother didn’t introduce us.” I stood up and walked over with my arm out as Brett and the girl gaped at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had? “I’m Cole.”
Looking at Brett first, she slowly raised her hand and shook mine. “Sabine.”
I was about to comment on the accent that I’d heard, when Brett stood up and gently helped her up from the couch that they’d been sitting on. When he moved her into the center of the room, I noticed that she had a limp. I’d never seen Brett actually show that he cared about any chick before and the care that he was taking with her threw me. With his arm around her, he introduced her to the room.
“This is Sabine. Sabine this is my family. There’s so many of y’all that if you could introduce yourselves one by one instead of at the same time that would be great.” He was such a bossy shit. “Sabine works for TCO and is from France. And before anyone asks, yes she hurt her leg and is recovering.”
The poor woman’s cheeks were on fire as she looked around the room, but my family followed their orders and, one by one, got up and introduced themselves to her. When it was all over, we were all back in our seats and there was now an awkward silence in the room.
Clearing his throat first, Dad asked, “How are you feeling about what you’ve just found out, son?”
It had started to hit me more as I’d watched my family with Brett and his girl, and when Eb had walked back over to me and sat down on my knee, I’d felt the force of the loss. Or the truth about the loss as it was. It was taking everything in me not to break down and cry like a bitch.
“I don’t know what to think. It’s been six years and every year I mourned that baby…” I broke off as Mom started crying loudly.
“She was lying, Cole,” Coleman growled. I had a feeling that if she’d still been alive, he’d have made sure her life was a living hell.
“Who would kill her?” I asked him. Maybe she’d pissed someone else off?
The front door opened and one of Coleman’s guys walked in and whispered something to him. His furious, “You have got to be fucking kidding me!” made Ebru jump. No one said anything while they had a quiet discussion between them and then Coleman turned and looked straight at me.
“I’ve got to take you in.”
“Where?” I had no idea where we were going, but Brett apparently did.
“Oh, fuck no! He didn’t do it.”
Coleman looked at him and nodded, but the grim look on his face told me that this wasn’t going to be a fun field trip. “We know that, but there was a note.” Looking at me, he explained. “The police want to ask you some questions and for you to provide your alibi. They found Adele’s belongings an hour ago, and amongst them was a note that said something along the lines of I hope you enjoy the gift, Cole.”
I sat completely stunned by this. What fucking gift? Who even thought of shit like that as a gift? I mean, it’s not like you could return or exchange it, was it? I wasn’t going to argue with him, though. It wouldn’t have done any good anyway, I needed to go in and answer their questions so that they’d know that I had nothing to do with this.
“It gets worse,” he continued as I stood up. “Someone has come forward and given a statement that they saw you with her last night.”
I felt the blood draining from my face at the implication of it. Spinning to face Ebru, I didn’t even have to tell her that I hadn’t been.
“Bull fucking shit.” She fumed, and then turned to my parents. “Sorry, but I’m pissed.” Mom gave her a nod in understanding and motioned with her hand for her to continue. “He was with me from three o’clock yesterday, and I can even prove that he was in bed with me last night too.” Her cheeks went scarlet at what she was revealing by saying that. If I wasn’t maybe being accused of murder, I might have laughed. “I’m coming with you. If they want to ask him questions, then they can ask me questions too seeing as how we live together and are getting married and all that.”
Coleman nodded and we walked towards the door. “I wouldn’t worry about it, bud. I’ve also got a tracker on all of y’all’s cars, Latham is getting the data to bring in and show the police to prove that the cars didn’t move last night. Any of them.”
The relief that I felt at hearing this was short lived. “You stuck something to my baby?” I hissed as we got into the SUV.
Turning his head to look at me, he grinned. “Nah, don’t be dumb.”
“So, how are you going to prove that it didn’t move? You just said that there were trackers?”
“Yeah, but they’re not all stuck. We had to screw a couple of them on too.”
I was hoping that we got to the police quickly before I actually committed a murder. No, I’d wait and check the damage that they’d done to the ‘Stang and then I’d kill him.
It wasn’t until later that the news that Adele had been lying and that I’d been living in hell for no reason for six years finally sank in. If I hadn’t had Ebru, I don’t know if I’d have been able to get my head around it as quickly as I did. All of the pain, all of the tears, the living hell…none of it had been true.
“So, you didn’t have any reason to want her dead?” T
he officer that I didn’t recognize asked me.
It was on the tip of my tongue to say ‘well yeah now I do’, but thankfully Coleman had drilled it into me to think before I spoke and to be careful how I phrased things. This was one of the questions that he’d said they’d ask. The thing was, I had no reason to tell anything but the truth.
“No, I didn’t. We were in a brief relationship of sorts six years ago that ended. I hardly saw her after it up until about seven months ago. Even then, it was at the bar, or once when I was putting food from that new Italian place in my car.”
The officer consulted the paperwork in front of him. “We have a statement here that says there was an incident between you and Ms. Tanner at Ethan Knight’s club in July.”
“It wasn’t an incident, per se,” I explained. “She was yelling at me and was removed from the premises.”
“What was she yelling at you about?”
This was the bit that I’d been dreading. “She had claimed that she’d aborted our child after our relationship ended in 2010. That night, she revealed the loss to my friends and the family members who were there.”
I had a feeling that I’d really fucked myself up now. “So, would you say that you had a motive to want her dead?”
Shaking my head, I tried to explain it in a way that would make him see sense. “No, not at all. She did that six years ago, six. Life moved on after it. That night, anyone can tell you and I’m sure the security footage will prove - I did nothing in return. We left shortly after so that I could tell my family what had happened and I haven’t seen her since.”
Maybe I should have waited for my lawyer to arrive, but I’d just wanted to get this over and done with when we’d gotten here. At that moment, the lawyer in question walked through the door. “Miss Wells has given a formal statement providing an alibi for Mr. Townsend,” he placed some paperwork in front of the officer as another one walked into the room and nodded his head. “Coleman Hart has also provided evidence that my client didn’t leave his home in the form of security cameras that are stationed around Mr. Townsend’s home, as well as trackers placed on all of the vehicles owned by the Townsend family. Not one of them went anywhere aside from their places of employment yesterday; security footage of these places can also be provided.”
The officer’s lips thinned as he read over it all, and I made a mental note of his name to give to Coleman to look into. He looked way too upset that they couldn’t get this to stick on me.
Looking back up at me, he placed the paperwork into the file in front of him. “You may leave Mr. Townsend. However, I’m going to request that you do not leave the area in case we need you to…” he paused, and then said with a sneer, “assist with our inquiries.”
This was one hinky asshole, and from the look on my lawyer’s face, he was thinking the same thing. Right now, though, I needed to get to Ebru and get her out of this place. The fact that she’d been around filth was bugging me, and I hadn’t been there to protect her. The worry that someone could get to her and do what they did to Adele was also riding me hard. I couldn’t lose her.
Ebru
I was pissed that someone had tried to set Cole up for what had happened to Adele. Don’t get me wrong, I was shocked and upset about what had happened to her, even as a heinous lying bitch she didn’t deserve that, but someone had tried to frame Cole. Thankfully, we had enough evidence for Cole’s lawyer to confirm that his status was now ‘assisting the police’ with their inquiries, instead of being a person of interest. He’d also met with another police officer. Apparently, this was one that he knew, and after we’d gotten home he’d immediately asked Cole about who would have done this to her. She wasn’t popular apparently, and had left a trail of pissed off wives and girlfriends behind her after she’d fucked their men. I wonder if she’d known Isla’s stepmom and stepsister?
At the moment, I was feeling guilty because I knew that I should be angry for Cole and the fact that she’d lied to him, but a bigger part of me was feeling relieved at the news, and it didn’t stand well with me. She’d never had his baby inside of her, that was something that relieved me hugely. I hadn’t ever thought of it like that, but now that I was…I think I’d worried about the possibility of me never being able to give him that. I hadn’t ever focused on that worry, but at the back of my mind, especially working in the hospital, I saw first hand that fertility doesn’t happen to everyone and what if I couldn’t ever give him that? But then there was the fact that Cole had hurt so badly over this for six years and it had all been a lie. How do you ever recover from that?
“What are you thinking about so hard?” He came out of the bathroom and sat beside me on the bed. Shrugging, I looked towards the television on the wall. I didn’t want to tell him this because he hadn’t really spoken about the news yet. “Tell me.”
Looking over at him, I saw the genuine concern on his face and felt frigging awful for saying this. He had every right to be the one who was sharing what was going on inside of him, not me and yet another insecurity of mine.
“I feel guilty and relieved,” I started, picking at my nail like I normally did when I was uncomfortable. “I feel guilty because I feel relieved. I also want to cry and scream for you. It’s like a war between them.”
He pulled my hand away and smoothed the now ragged nail on my thumb. “What do you feel relieved and guilty about?”
“She didn’t have your baby inside her,” I whispered so low that I was pretty sure that he hadn’t heard me.
Pulling me onto his lap, he proved me wrong. “I feel the same.”
We were both silent, thinking about the implications of what we’d both just admitted. I don’t know how he could be so calm after finding out that the baby that he’d mourned for so long had never even existed, but we all dealt with these things in our own way.
“I’m sorry she lied to you.”
He hugged me tighter and kissed my hair. “I’m sorry I fell for it. I haven’t gotten my head around it yet, but it’s not really the kind of thing that’s easy to do that with is it? I promise, though, that as soon as I have, we’ll sit and talk about it okay?”
“Cole…” I didn’t know how to even broach this subject with him. “What if I can’t have babies?” I felt like crying at the thought of never getting to have a miniature Cole, except sane, running around.
“Is there any reason why you think that might happen?” He didn’t sound put off by the possibility, he genuinely cared.
“With my job, I know that fertility doesn’t just happen for everyone. Some people are lucky, but some people aren’t. What if we’re not?”
Laughing softly, he pulled away and lifted my face so that I was looking at him. “We’ll be just fine baby. No matter what!”
“But how do you know that? You can’t be sure? And then what if…”
“What if green men come down from the sky? We can’t live on what if’s, baby. No matter what, you and me will be just fine.”
Life had changed so much for me since meeting this guy. It didn’t take a psychologist to point out that I’d had issues holding myself back from people, and that I’d gone through the motions but had never been fully there. I also knew that I had insecurities from my upbringing, but if I could take the steps forward with my parents, then I could trust the world and trust that good things did happen. And Cole Townsend was the best thing that could ever happen to me. I was going to help him heal from this like he’d helped me heal. He was right, no matter what we would be just fine.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cole
It was the wedding day; we’d actually reached it without Ebru murdering me, or anyone else for that matter. I discovered one thing about my fiancee during all of the plans - she had no patience, at all. If something took time to happen, she lost it. Thankfully, I’m smart enough to know that laughing right in front of her when she did it would have resulted in a painful death, so I learned to hold it all in. Ren and Tom had
n’t been as smart when they took her out to do a couple of wedding-related chores and had witnessed her lack of patience. Lesson learned.
My family had watched me closely after the news of Adele’s lie and death. Fortunately, my friend Milo had taken over my side of the police investigation and had said that there was sufficient evidence to clear me of any suspicion. The asshole who had initially been investigating me had been let go of after it was discovered that there was a large deposit of money into his account the morning that Adele’s body was found. So far, they didn’t know who did it or why, but Piersville PD were working with the Feds, who were handling Morrison and the rest of the case. Hopefully, at some point soon we’d have an answer.
The anger that I felt over the time that I’d spent mourning the baby still simmered inside. How anyone could lie about that, I’ll never know, but Adele was the most manipulative and malicious woman that I’d ever met to date, so I wouldn’t put it past her to do it to hurt me. The fact that it now meant that Ebru would be the only woman to ever carry my babies, though, was the most beautiful relief ever.
Now, I was standing in the church that Louise was buried at waiting for my wife-to-be to come and say ‘I do’ so that she was stuck with me forever. There would be no black eyes, no fly’s in the mouth, no fuck up’s whatsoever today. It was going to be perfect.
The music started up, and Brett elbowed me in the back to get my attention. Turning around, I saw Ebru walking towards me on her Dad’s arm. She’d decided to forego the bridesmaids and instead Ren, Luke and Tom had carried the babies down the aisle with them throwing out handfuls of petals. Brett had refused to carry one of them because he was still terrified of them, but looking at how close he and Sabine were, it wouldn’t be long until he had no choice to hold one - his own. The babies had been handed off to their mothers and Ava and were now quite happily smacking the shit out themselves and the poor women holding them. I just hoped that she liked the surprise that I’d had made for her side of the altar. Her maid of honor was going to be right there with us.
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