Something New

by Cameron Dane

  Braden’s blood went cold at Zanger’s brutally honest depiction of the crime scene. Braden had been a cop for a long time and a detective for over a year, but nothing in his life experience could ever allow him to understand what it must have been like for Abby to sit for such a long time within the carnage of her murdered parents. Nobody could.

  Christ. Is it worth putting her through this again for just a small outside shot of finding a new suspect?

  The captain knocked his big fist against his metal desk, and the sound jerked Braden back into his office.

  “If you can’t do this, Crenshaw…”

  “Sorry, sir.” Braden mentally kicked himself and put his full focus back on the man who could kill this case before it even began. “Ms. Gaines is still very sketchy on her memory. As an officer of the law, I’m taking everything I hear from her with the knowledge that eighteen years have passed and she might not remember things as they actually were.” Zanger was intelligent, shrewd as hell with the politicians whose asses he had to kiss, and Braden knew it would be suicide to even attempt to bamboozle him. “As a man, though, I just want to help her get it all out so she can move forward with her life.”

  Zanger’s lips pursed into an even tighter line. “I hear you. Don’t let your personal feelings cloud your judgment, though. If something comes of this, your testimony in court has to be above reproach.”

  Braden clenched his jaw. “I know.” He bristled inside even as he understood it was difficult for the more experienced lawman to keep from lecturing his people.

  “You need to temper this woman’s hope with some reality too, Detective.” Zanger picked up the case file and used it as a pointing device. “You know as well as I do that old cases like this never even get reopened without some significant new DNA evidence. We never had that in this case to begin with. It’s an uphill battle.” The wear and tear of every unsolved case filled in the lines of the captain’s face, making him look battle scarred. “That church community was devastated when Cormack didn’t go to prison. I don’t want to needlessly put them through heartbreak like that again.”

  “I understand,” Braden responded. “I’ll make sure everyone I talk to understands that this is a case of our department reevaluating old statements and angles and that as of now we don’t foresee a new arrest being made.”

  “Talk to Father Jim first,” Zanger suggested. “I remember his being a good man. He knows his congregation inside and out. He’ll help point you to the people who knew the victims best.”

  “Have you been a member?” This time, Braden couldn’t cover his move to sit up straighter. “I didn’t know you went to church.”

  “I don’t. Father Jim’s or anywhere else. I just remember that he was very concerned about his congregation after the Gaineses were murdered.” Zanger’s lips pulled down at the edges. “You don’t live this job for better than twenty years without becoming cynical about whether there’s any kind of higher being watching over any of us. Right after the Gaines case”—his stare slipped to downright arctic—“we found a little boy who’d been deliberately starved by his parents and then a teacher who murdered a coworker she’d been fucking. You see and hear about some ugly shit in this job, and on your downtime you don’t exactly want to listen to someone tell you God has a plan for it all.”

  “I hear you. I’m not exactly a churchgoer myself.”

  “Not that my wife isn’t trying to transform me.” A gritty chuckle escaped the captain, snapping him out of his dark mood. “Karen nags me to try her church every goddamn week. For fifteen years straight, every Sunday, without fail. She’s Episcopalian.”

  Braden could picture the quaint slat-board-sided, white-painted building with black trim and an enormous wraparound porch. “The place over on Woodland, right?”

  “That’s the one. It used to be a private residence. The man who owned it willed it to his church when he died.”

  It wasn’t a huge place, but Braden drove past it regularly and recalled a decent number of cars parked there on Sundays. “Maybe you should go once, tell your wife you didn’t like it, and she’ll stop bugging you.”

  “Nah.” Zanger leaned back in his chair and grabbed a stack of mail out of a basket. “She’d just move on to something else. This one I can handle.”

  “Ahh. Got it.” Braden didn’t, though, not really. Then again, he’d never been married, so what did he know? “Thank you for your time, sir.” He grabbed the case file and pushed out of his chair with an appreciative nod. “I have some toxicology reports I have to track down this morning and then do some follow-up interviews with the witnesses from the gas-station robbery last week.”

  “Listen.” Zanger’s rough tone stopped Braden with his hand on the door. “I can’t give you Watson or Kaufman for the Gaines case right now. It’s too little to go on to approve that much man power and that many hours. Your priority remains current cases and anything else new that comes over the horizon. If I see this doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere useful, I will shut it down.”

  “Understood.” Braden swung the frosted-glass office door all the way open. “Thank you, sir.”

  The captain already had his nose in his mail. “Keep me informed.”

  “Will do.”

  Braden had only taken one step over the threshold when Zanger groused, “And shut my damn door, Crenshaw.”

  “Yes, sir.” As soon as the Braden heard the click, he looked around the station, saw everyone going about their business, and he allowed himself a small but vigorous pump of his fist.

  Success. First step: call Abby. Second: talk to Lorene Jones on his own. Third: a conversation with Father Jim with Abby and Rodrigo riding shotgun.

  Braden prayed Abby was able to handle slipping into such a traumatic past.

  I’ll make sure she is. Braden couldn’t forget about the dark-haired Latino whose mouth he had taken so recently. Rodrigo will too.

  * * *

  Braden immediately spotted Abby’s car as he turned into the church parking lot. Perfectly timed. He pulled in alongside her just as she and Rodrigo exited the vehicle.

  After spending a half hour with Lorene Jones, who seemed kind and genuine despite Braden’s best efforts to go in disliking her on Abby’s behalf, Braden agreed with Abby’s assessment that Lorene had enough knowledge of Elaine Gaines’s personality, as well as her behavior in the final year of her life, to support a suspicion of an affair.

  Now it was into this sacred building that likely counted the majority of potential suspects as members of its congregation.

  Braden joined Abby and Rodrigo at the front of her car. The church, with its gleaming red brick facade, white pillars and trim, steeple, and stained-glass window depicting Christ with his arms stretched out in welcome, loomed some fifty feet away. A beacon of sunlight bounced off the bronze bell in the steeple as if God himself touched the building with his light.

  Good. We’re gonna need his help.

  With a glance above Abby’s head to Rodrigo, Braden saw the man stiffen his spine, and Braden did the same. Then Braden looked to Abby. She was pale, but as that was her normal coloring, not overly so.

  “You ready to do this?” he asked.

  Abby nodded, took a deep breath, and promptly folded right to her knees.

  Chapter Nine

  “Abby? Talk to me.”

  “Bit, are you all right?”

  Two distinct male voices swam in Abby’s ears, pushing through the sounds of crashing ocean waves putting a muting blanket on all the noises around her.

  The church Abby remembered so well from her childhood swayed before her eyes. Two towering spruce trees on either side appeared as giant green arms reaching out to drag her into the mouth of the brick building, where the structure would then swallow her whole and separate her from those she loved.

  “No goddamn way.” Rodrigo’s fiery will snapped through the crisp air and wound around Abby. “We’re not doing this today. She’s not ready.”

  Not
hing could have stabbed into Abby’s spirit and hurled her back into her body faster than Rodrigo’s strident declaration regarding her personal choices.

  She shook off the hands manacling her upper arms on both sides. “I’m all right.” Abby pushed to her feet, forced herself to look at the church again, and didn’t let her heart race out of control this time. “I don’t ever have cause to drive by this church. I haven’t seen it since I was a kid. It looks exactly the same as I remember it, and it threw me for a few seconds. I let myself get overwhelmed.” She hated admitting that to herself as much as she did these two men. “It won’t happen again.”

  Braden brushed away hair that had fallen in her eyes. “We can come back tomorrow, Abby.” He sounded like he was speaking to a dazed victim or shell-shocked witness. “Or the next day. Or the next. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”

  Rodrigo stepped in front of Abby and dipped down to get at eye level with her. “I don’t like it.” A stern line took over his mouth. “Your lips are too red when the rest of your face is too pale, and your eyes are kind of wild.”

  Mierda! Jeez, he even has me cursing his favorite word in his own language now.

  “My eyes are wild because you pissed me off, Rodrigo.” Abby threw back her shoulders and stuck her chin up at him. “You don’t get to decide when I can and can’t do something just because you got me a little damp this morning.”

  He flashed a smile that would have made a wolf envious. “Try full-on soaking wet, Bit.”

  Braden elbowed in between Abby and Rodrigo and swung an arm around each one’s shoulders. “And now I think Abby is just fine.” With a step, he got all three of them moving. “Let’s go inside before she jabs you one in the jaw, Rodrigo.” He glanced back and forth between them, his pale eyes dancing in the sunlight. “Can’t wait to hear more about that little exchange later, by the way. About the wetness”—he dropped his gaze briefly to the apex of Abby’s thighs—“and about where in the hell that Bit name came from. I’ve always wondered but never could grab a good moment to ask.”

  Abby saw Rodrigo open his mouth. She rounded in front of Braden in one smooth move and clamped her hand over Rodrigo’s lips. Feeling suddenly buoyant, Abby matched Braden grin for grin. “I was whipping Rodrigo’s ass in an argument, and Jonah said, ‘You’re gonna let this little bit of a thing beat you?’” It was hard to walk backward, explain, and keep Rodrigo’s mouth covered—particularly when he kept disturbing her palm with enticing little licks that pulled funny lines in her belly. “Jonah was just kidding in that strange way of his. There’s nothing little or bitlike about me. Rodrigo had to go taking it seriously, though—”

  Rodrigo nipped her skin right then and shocked her into yanking her hand away.

  Jeez, he looked like he’d won a hard-core footrace, and Abby barely kept from growling at the silently crowing man.

  “I didn’t take Jonah seriously at all.” Rodrigo picked up the story but kept his eyes on Abby, not Braden. “I did see how it got all your little prickly quills up, though, and knew I could have some fun. The name bothered you so much it just stuck. I don’t even think about how it came about now.” His voice went all soft in a way that made Abby think about his rough hands running over her bare skin. “It’s just what I automatically call you sometimes. It just happens.”

  Abby couldn’t break Rodrigo’s stare, and in response, her stomach somersaulted some more. “It doesn’t bother me anymore.”

  “I know.” Rodrigo reached out and rubbed his thumb against her cheek. “I would have stopped a long time ago if I’d thought it truly did.”

  Quickening his stride, Braden moved in beside Abby and put a hand on her waist, bringing her to a stop. “And now we’re here.” He turned her around, and she realized they stood at the two steps leading to the church’s front doors.

  His hand still resting at her back, Braden asked, “Are you sure you’re ready?”

  The white double doors went up so high that even as an adult Abby had to crane her neck back to see the top.

  I used to love coming here. Abby watched her hand as if it were disconnected from her body as it closed around the door handle and pushed it down. There’s nothing to fear.

  With a measured, steady breath, she said, “Let’s do this,” and shoved open the heavy door.

  Soft light from fluted wall sconces filled the interior of the church’s vestibule, creating shadows along the padded benches that lined the perimeter. Pristine, neutral-colored carpet covered the floor to mute the sounds of men’s dress shoes, women’s heels, and the rambunctious play of the excitable children, which in this church, Abby had never been.

  Abby’s extreme shyness as a child no longer mattered, though. Nor did her memory of hiding behind her mother’s or father’s legs as they spoke to Father Jim after Mass. The tall blond man in black robes, who’d often tried to coax Abby out to say hello, had rarely succeeded, even though his smile and easy laugh had made Abby happy whenever she had had chance to hear it.

  Like right now.

  The rich boom of male laughter carried through the open doors that led to the body of the church some dozen feet away. The sound transported Abby backward to the last time she’d heard her mother’s twinkling laugh. Two days before she’d died, Abby’s mom had brought Abby with her on a mission to drop off a huge batch of cookies either for the next big meal for those in need or for the next gathering after Sunday Mass. Abby couldn’t remember. Her mom had always been baking something to donate to the church. Elaine had sat Abby down in the vestibule with a book and a toy and told her to wait there quietly. Abby remembered reading her book four times and walking her doll around all the benches twice while she waited. Every once in a while a person would pass through the vestibule and wave to her, which would make Abby hide her face against the wall. Finally, the murmur of muted voices trickled from down a hallway toward Abby. Father Jim had laughed as he and Elaine entered the vestibule. Abby’s mom had done the same, and the two different voices that often made Abby smile became jumbled into one melodious sound.

  Today, again, one of the laughs she remembered so well reached across the church and sent frissons of awareness down her spine.

  Her legs started moving, following the direction her memory led her. “He’s here,” she shared with Braden and Rodrigo, who flanked her.

  Rodrigo hastily crossed himself as he bent down to Abby’s ear. “Who’s here?”

  Abby skidded to a halt at the back row of pews. Far down the center aisle, right at the altar, stood a man in black with his back to them. A woman in a pink skirt suit was at his side.

  “Father Jim,” Abby answered. Even though she couldn’t see his face, for a moment Abby felt her mom and dad at her sides and wanted to scurry behind the protection of their legs.

  She didn’t think she’d done more than whisper, but her voice must have carried in the empty church. The woman in pink looked up, and Father Jim turned right then, landing his attention on the trio at the back of the building.

  Father Jim spoke to the woman in a low voice; she nodded in response and disappeared through a side alcove. Abby didn’t wait for the father to come to her. The warm, fuzzy memories of this priest slipped away to be replaced by a vision of her dead parents and then the terror of her first night in the revolving series of foster homes she’d resided in until turning eighteen.

  At least one of which he could have stepped in and prevented.

  As Abby strode up the aisle, the backbone she’d had to figure out how to create for herself pushed itself ramrod straight and helped slow down the furious beating of her heart. She registered Rodrigo saying he would hold back but be within glancing distance if she needed him, and Braden sharing that he would remain within hearing range but allow her some time to speak with the priest on her own first.

  Abby reached Father Jim parallel to the second row of pews, ready to spew eighteen years’ worth of pent-up thoughts, but standing so close to such an important figure from her past put a l
ock on her tongue. The well-built man in the white collar still stood well above her height. Only the slightest hints of silver threaded his blond hair, and any lines on his face could just as easily have come from spending time in the Florida sun than as a sign of aging. Abby remembered sitting across from this man—priest—and making up stories to share with him during confession. Most of the time her shyness tied up her tongue, and on the few occasions she had done something really bad that needed confessing, she most definitely did not think it was smart to confess it to someone with a direct link to God. Rules or not, she wasn’t going to do it.

  Standing in front of the father right now, Abby was torn between wanting to spill all her deepest fears and shocking him with tales of her recent activities with two men.

  Maybe not a good idea to lead with that, girl.

  Abby didn’t know how long she stared at the priest in stupefied silence, but it was apparently long enough for him to think he should break the silence first. “Abigail.” Father Jim stretched out a hand in offering. “My goodness, I would recognize you anywhere. You are the picture of your mother.”

  “Thank you,” Abby murmured as she shook his hand. As with Lorene, she didn’t exactly know the correct way to respond to a comparison of someone whose life had been cut short at almost the same age Abby was now. “That’s nice to hear.”

  “Lorene spoke to me privately and shared that you would like to speak to me about your parents.” Father Jim lifted his arm toward the front row of pews. “I think it’s good that you are open to connecting with them again. I am here to help in any way I can.”

  So Lorene had kept her word to be discreet. Abby felt better knowing that, even though the father would learn the truth soon enough. If not from Abby, then from Braden. It was nice to know Abby could trust one person in this church, though. And that in a lot of ways, Lorene probably remained Elaine Gaines’s best, most stalwart friend.

  She had to choose her son over me. Any mother would do the same.