Chapter Thirteen
CHIEF TYSON MET her at the door of the Rosetown police station.
“Where is she?” The fury in Izzy morphed into something that tasted bitter in her mouth. This man had enough crap to deal with. Helena had been murdered, and his son had almost been beaten to death. This incident was both frustrating and mortifying and underlined how bad she was at being a guardian.
“Come on back. I’ll take you to her.” He held the top of the counter high enough for her to pass through ahead of him.
“Jesse’s okay?” she asked quietly.
“The bodyguards arrived a couple of hours ago. Charlene and Ricky are with Jesse right now anyway.” He shot her a look. “I came in to handle this personally. Because I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything.” Izzy wanted to curl up with embarrassment but straightened her spine. “But I do appreciate it. Can you tell me what happened?”
“Group of girls sitting in the diner started taunting Kit over some photograph.”
“Have you seen it?” she asked.
He pressed his lips together. Nodded.
“Someone texted it to me.” Izzy could hardly breathe. “Did you read what it said?”
His lips were bloodless now. He indicated a door with his head. “She’s in there. You can go talk to her. I’m about to go talk to the parents of the girl she punched.”
“Punched?” Izzy grimaced.
“Broke her nose,” Tyson clarified.
“Oh…” Shit. Fuck. Hell.
“I’ll see if the girl still wants to press charges when she realizes she’ll then also be facing charges of spreading child pornography.” Chief Tyson didn’t say anything else, but the glint in his eye gave Izzy hope.
Suddenly the door behind them burst open and there stood ASAC Frazer, hair damp, the sharp scent of citrus shower gel coming off his skin in waves that made her want to inhale him. His blue suit was back in place, crisp white shirt, red and gray stripy tie—knotted perfectly but slightly askew. How he’d done all that in the time he’d had was beyond her.
“I told you to wait for me.” His eyes narrowed, and she was reminded this man was used to being in charge.
She put her hands on her hips. “Looks like you caught up, so what’s the problem?”
His blue eyes were frosty with disapproval.
She went to grab the door handle.
“Wait.” He touched the tips of his fingers to the top of her arm. Shivers of something dark and sensuous skittered along her nerves. She was disconcerted enough to do as he asked.
To Tyson, Frazer said, “I have someone trying to trace the primary source of the photograph. There will be charges pressed when we find them. Make it clear to everyone involved that this is a criminal matter, I want the kids deleting that image rather than spreading it far and wide.”
“Might be too late for that.” Tyson nodded. “But I’ll make sure the message gets out, then I’m going back to the hospital.” He hesitated. “Has this got anything to do with Helena’s murder?”
“I don’t know,” said Frazer. “Honestly? I doubt it.”
So what was he doing here? Izzy pushed open the door into the interview room and there sat Kit in a hard plastic chair, glaring at her. Her sister’s eyes were red and fresh tears streamed down her face. Izzy doubted she’d stopped crying for more than an hour since she’d found out about Helena.
“Did you see it?” Kit didn’t look embarrassed at all. She looked downright furious.
Izzy nodded.
“I suppose you think they’re right. That I’m a slut?” The words were a challenge, but there was enough uncertainty in them for Izzy’s anger to dissolve.
Izzy shook her head and sat down next to Kit, drawing her into her arms and letting her sister’s head rest on her shoulder. “I wish I’d been home that night. I wish I’d checked with the Cromwells about your plans.” If she could turn back the clock and do everything differently, she would.
“We’ll find out who took the picture and who spread it around social media,” said Frazer.
“What does it matter? It’s gone viral now.” Kit’s words were bitter. “I should just quit.”
“Quit what?” Izzy asked sharply.
Her sister’s young, blue eyes flashed. “School. Life.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Izzy admonished, fear squeezing through her veins.
“My best friend is dead. And who’s going to hire me for a real job now? Some dirty old man who thinks I can polish his knob while answering his phone? Everyone’s going to see that photo and think I’m a whore. It’s going to be around forever.”
“And whose fault is that?” Izzy snapped impatiently.
Kit’s lip curled. “And there’s the truth about how you really feel.”
“I think you need to take some responsibility for the photograph. You shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place.” Izzy’s voice rose. She wanted to comfort and rail at her sister all at the same time.
Kit’s chin went up. “Now it’s my fault?”
“Of course it’s your fault!” It was hers too. Dammit. “In today’s society where cameras are everywhere? What were you thinking?”
“I wasn’t thinking that some asshole was going to post it online saying what they did about Helena,” Kit snarled. “They dared me to do it, so I did it. Screw. Them.”
“No,” Izzy stuffed both hands into her hair. “Screw you, apparently.” She stood and paced, wishing she knew what to do for the best. She didn’t want to judge, but this wasn’t okay. Izzy took a few deep breaths, trying to calm down. Being a guardian of a seventeen-year-old sucked, but then so did losing a mother and best friend—and no one knew that as well as Izzy did. The thought made her racing heart slow. Kit needed her support, not her censure.
Frazer stood near the window and watched the interaction. Dissecting their relationship. Dissecting her.
“I just think you’re too young to be doing that—especially at a party you didn’t even tell me you were going to.” Izzy’s insides froze as the horrors of what could have happened to her sister flashed through her mind.
Kit sneered as only a teen could. “Maybe if you learned to give good head you wouldn’t be stuck home every night like some fucking virgin.”
“A fucking virgin. Now there’s something I’d like to see.” Ted’s voice made her whirl around as he slipped into the room. He held his hand out to Frazer. “Ted Brubaker. Izzy and Kit’s uncle.”
Izzy’s cheeks burned with heat, but it wasn’t embarrassment—it was fury.
Frazer nodded and introduced himself. “Isadora was telling me about you earlier.”
Izzy raised her brow at his tone. Like they’d been sharing confidences.
“How did you know to come down here?” Izzy asked Ted.
His cheeks whitened. “Pastor Rice was sent the photograph in the hopes he could save Kit’s immortal soul. He called me about it. I called Hank, and he told me Kit had been arrested.”
“So now all your cronies have seen it too?” Kit’s eyes widened, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh, my God.”
“What did you expect? That you got to choose which guys ogled it?” Izzy smacked her hand forcefully on the table and both Ted and Kit jumped. Not Frazer though. He watched her intently. Then his phone dinged with an incoming text.
“Would you mind waiting outside?” Frazer asked Ted politely. But it wasn’t a question.
Ted muttered something about “only wanting to help” and then headed out the way he’d come.
“Who is the guy in the image, Kit?” Frazer asked as he seated himself across the table from her sister.
Kit crossed her arms and glared at him.
“You promised to tell me what was going on. You promised to tell me all the rumors and gossip,” he continued.
Kit had made him promises? And neither of them had bothered to tell her? Izzy worked hard to keep her anger contained because even though she felt like s
he was the one losing control, this wasn’t about her.
“Who is it?” he repeated the question.
“Damien Ridgeway.” Each syllable was bitten off.
“I’ll help you,” Frazer told her, “but I think we need to go over the ground rules, one more time.” He leaned closer, and his voice was so frigid it made ice crawl up Izzy’s spine. “You tell me all the rumors, all the high school gossip, and I’ll find out who killed Helena. Got it?”
Kit’s gaze shifted away from him and flicked over the floor.
“So I’m thinking you should have called me when you first saw this, rather than lashing out,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
Kit glared.
“I want the truth about what went down on New Year’s Eve. You got drunk?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
“After the party you and Damien went back to the rental cottage and got high on cannabis?”
So Izzy hadn’t removed the smell as well as she’d hoped.
Frazer shot her a look that suggested it would take more than a gallon of Lysol to fool him.
Kit nodded again, looking miserable.
“How did you get there?”
Kit slouched farther down in her chair. “On the back of his bike.”
Izzy wanted to shake her sister all over again. That’s why she hadn’t seen Kit’s car the next morning.
“Is it possible Damien left the cottage at some point during the evening?”
Kit’s mouth compressed into a straight thin line. “I didn’t see him leave.”
“Is it possible?” Frazer pushed.
Kit’s slim shoulders bobbed up and down. “Maybe. I-I don’t know.” The first sign of uncertainty.
Frazer nodded and leaned back in his chair. “I’m going to trace that photograph, Kit, but to be honest it might be difficult to press charges because, as suggestive as it is, there’s no nudity, no intimate body parts on display.” He pulled out his cell and eyed the image with his head tilted to one side. “It actually looks staged to me, like something a pissed off seventeen-year-old would orchestrate to get back at the other girls at the party. But the scheme backfired when Helena died.”
Kit threw him a look that was both full of gratitude and reluctantly impressed. Because he hadn’t fallen for her trick and immediately condemned her the way Izzy had.
Izzy’s mouth dropped. “So, you mean you didn’t give him a…”
Kit shot out of her chair. “For God’s sake, Izzy. You can’t even say it. Jesus. Blow job. Fellatio. That’s a term you’re probably more familiar with as it’s Latin.”
“You didn’t do it.” Izzy repeated stupidly. Why it made her feel better she had no clue.
Kit eyed her archly. “Maybe I did it for real after we got high?”
But she hadn’t. Izzy knew she hadn’t. “I should have hosed the place down,” she said instead.
Kit sneered. “You should try it some time. It’s called having fun. I wasn’t expecting it to become an Internet sensation, I just wanted those bitches to freak out for a while before I showed them the other photograph. Prove what idiots and bullies they all are.” Kit showed them her phone with another photograph taken side-on with Damien’s pants clearly zipped and her smiling innocently up at the guy. Same pose, a million times less pornographic. “After Helena was killed I forgot all about the stupid photographs. Then I got pissed about what they wrote. Fucking bitches.” Kit wiped her eyes and picked up her coat. “Can I go now?” she asked Frazer.
“Who took the photographs?”
“Franky. Jesse’s friend. But I don’t think he’d have sent the picture to anyone, not with what happened to Jesse and Helena. He’s a good guy.”
The guy was in a shitload of trouble already. Izzy doubted he’d admit to another infraction.
“It’s a starting place and that’s all I need.” Frazer looked like he’d solved the whole problem. He texted something on his phone then checked his messages. “Chief Tyson got the girl you hit to drop the charges. You will need to apologize.”
“Like hell.”
He looked at Kit for a moment as if he was trying to figure out why she didn’t operate under the rules of normal logic.
Welcome to my world.
“Do it for Helena. You get tonight to think about it, otherwise you’ll be back here tomorrow, and Miranda’s parents will press charges for assault.”
Kit’s narrow-eyed glare could blister paint. “Fine. Whatever. I’ll apologize to the bitch, but the whole time I do it I’ll be staring at her squinty eyes and stupid fricking nose.”
* * *
KIT STALKED OUT, heading to the waiting room, which was thankfully empty except for Ted. Izzy followed close behind.
Ted stood when he saw them. “How about I take you home, Kit-kat?”
“I’ll take her,” insisted Izzy.
“I’m not a child. I can drive myself.” Kit was close to flouncing off like some pissed off debutante.
Izzy took another deep breath, searching for her elusive inner Zen. “I don’t want you driving when you’re this upset.”
“Why? Scared I’ll embarrass you?”
“No, I’m scared you’ll run off the road, or hit another car because you’re too upset to concentrate properly.”
“I don’t care,” Kit spat.
Izzy opened her mouth to argue, but Frazer beat her to it. “Go with your uncle, Kit. I’ll arrange for your car to be driven home.” He held open his palm for her keys.
“Fine. I’ll go with Ted.” Kit slapped the keys into Frazer’s hand, treating him with the same disdain she treated everyone else.
Izzy should have been embarrassed, but she was too numb from the events of the last few days. She trailed outside the police station, and a feeling of complete and utter failure settled around her shoulders as Kit stalked off toward Ted’s truck without a backward glance.
She folded her arms over her chest. “She hates me.”
“She’s hurting.”
“And I made her furious. Rather than supporting her I acted judgmental.”
“She’s acting like a brat and is old enough to know better,” Frazer said grimly. “Any guardian seeing their underage charge apparently performing oral sex is allowed to get a little upset. I’d be worried if you didn’t.”
“Why did she let me think the worst of her?” Izzy didn’t get it.
“I’m guessing it was a way of punishing herself for what she sees as failing Helena.”
Izzy turned horrified eyes on him. “And rather than talking about her feelings, she let everyone think she was screwing around with Damien when Helena was killed?”
“She was screwing around with Damien when Helena was killed—doesn’t mean it was her fault. But she needed them to think the worst of her because that’s how she feels about herself. And she wanted the excuse to lash out at people, including you, when she proved them wrong.”
“How did you know she was lying?”
One side of his lips curled up, and there was a glint in his eyes that made her breath catch. “Let’s just say I had a little help from a guy who’s good with technology.”
She watched Ted and Kit drive away. Kit didn’t even look at her. Izzy wanted to hide her eyes with her hands and make it all go away, but that was weak and pathetic and not something Izzy would give in to. “Do you have kids?” she asked instead.
He shook his head and stared out at Pamlico Sound, which ran about a hundred yards behind the red-bricked building. “No kids. No one.”
“Not even a dog?” He loved dogs. She didn’t know what she would do without Barney.
His eyes hardened. “My ex took my dog. After a week or so, he escaped her yard and was hit by a car.” His shoulders were rigid, his face a series of stern lines.
“Do you think she did it on purpose?” Izzy asked. She’d heard the bitterness in his voice when he’d spoken about his ex to Jesse earlier.
“Let’s just say I had no problem signing the
divorce papers after that.”
A lump formed in Izzy’s throat. He didn’t say more, but she knew it had hurt. “I’m sorry about your dog.”
His gaze remained impassive. “It was a long time ago. Your uncle has always lived on the island?”
She nodded and they started walking towards her car. “He was mayor for about fifteen years. He retired when my mom took sick. Helped to look after her. She had cancer.”
“You didn’t nurse her?”
Tension radiated along her spine. “I was deployed.” And grateful to be deployed. “Made it back just before she passed. Ted watched Kit when I bought out my commission.”
“Why did you enlist?”
“At first it was expediency. They paid for medical school, which I couldn’t have afforded otherwise.” The sea breeze tangled her hair. “But I was honored to serve my country.” They weren’t just words. It had been a privilege to give back, to support troops who needed her. “And the Army suited me. I enjoyed not having to make decisions about what to do with my life.”
His brows rose. “That’s a pretty honest assessment though you don’t seem like someone who has difficulty making decisions.”
“It isn’t the easy stuff I struggle with—like what to make for dinner, or whether or not I should workout. And I know what I’m doing when it comes to patient care.” Her gaze cut to his and then quickly away. “But figuring out where I can be the most effective? Where I’m needed most? Someone forcing me to take a vacation? The Army makes those things easy.”
“You don’t strike me as someone who likes being told what to do.”
“I don’t, except in certain situations.” And suddenly her mind was in the gutter and for the third time in fewer days a fierce blush heated her cheeks. “I’m not talking about in the bedroom.” Because whether he was interested or not, she wasn’t about to have that misunderstanding between them. The day someone started tying her to the bedposts was the day she broke their jaw. “But I like rules, I like structure, organization, standard operating procedures. All the things teenagers hate.”
As silence stretched between them Izzy remembered the words Kit had thrown at her. Maybe if you learned to give good head you wouldn’t be stuck home every night like some fucking virgin.
Cold Fear Page 17