“What about Nigel’s alibi?” Darling asked.
“It still holds. We’re just accusing him of hindering a murder investigation now. He’s lied to us, and now we have physical evidence that ties him to the victim. It’s enough to hold him until we get some answers. I’m sure his lawyer is already earning his keep right now.” The chief stood to signal the conversation was over. “I also came by to make sure you were okay.” He didn’t smile, but she could hear the concern in his voice.
“I’m much better, thanks,” she replied. “I would have been worse had you two not found me.”
“Don’t look at me,” Chief Sanderson said. “Blame this guy. If he hadn’t been so concerned about you, we wouldn’t have gotten to you when we did.”
Darling turned to Oliver. He shrugged, trying to look indifferent.
“Well, I need to get back to it. I’m going to have an officer stop by later to take down your official statement and also take your prints so we can know which are yours in that car.” The chief turned to Oliver and put out his hand to shake. “Thanks for not giving up. Not everyone can keep their cool in these situations. I suppose I’ll see you and your boss around the station since we have Nigel in custody now.”
Oliver shook back. An emotion that Darling couldn’t place flared to life across his face.
“Actually, I’m no longer on the case,” he said, surprising Darling. “I might have said and done some things I shouldn’t have when I couldn’t locate Darling. I personally don’t regret it, but professionally it wasn’t the best call to make. Though I can’t complain at the moment.” Oliver looked pointedly at Darling.
“I can’t, either,” the chief agreed.
The chief said another quick goodbye and left. Darling waited until she thought the older man was out of the building before she turned on Oliver.
“You were taken off the case?” she asked with concern. “What does that mean? Does Orion lose the money now?”
“No, my team is still working with Nigel. Only I was taken off.” He sat back down at the counter. Darling held her hands wide in question. “Though I don’t know if even they will be working on it now that Nigel has actually been linked to Jane Doe. He might not be guilty of killing her, but this new evidence will make Nikki take a long second look. Do you think he’ll admit to the affair now?”
Darling decided to put a pin in the issue of him getting dropped from the case and instead went along with this thoughts. Because, truth be told, the new information hadn’t made the case any easier. Every clue was another layer of confusion. It was as if they were looking over a map and everything was a fraction off. They needed a key that would show them the correct way to decipher it all.
“I would imagine Nigel will either come clean about everything or give an alternate version. Something that covers him,” she answered. “Elizabeth should be in town soon, right? To admit to the affair now would ruin everything for him. He’s a smart man. He has to know he’s got his back up against the proverbial wall.”
“Nigel is a smart man.” Oliver was looking at the wall, but she doubted he was seeing it. Concentration mixed with confusion were two expressions she could pick out with ease. Darling knew the feeling well. “So, why would he leave a watch with his name in his mistress’s car?”
Darling had already picked up on that thread of thought.
“It could have been an accident.” She didn’t feel the certainty in it as she said it.
Oliver cast her a questioning look. “But...”
“But, I can’t get over the fact that I was the one who found the car. Me being taken and then left to find it couldn’t have been a coincidence, could it?” Like with the car, Darling tried to recall with new attention the moment after waking up in the darkness until her trek to the car. “If I hadn’t had walked that way, it’s true I might not have found it, but now that I think about it, there was no other place for me to go.”
“What do you mean? You could have walked off in any direction. You just lucked out and happened to go the direction the car was already in.” Darling knew Oliver was playing devil’s advocate now. She knew the idea of her finding the car being a coincidence wasn’t sitting well with him. However, he wanted her to work for her side of the argument. He was challenging her as he always had. Normally it would have made her angry, but she realized it was helping her work her own thoughts out, as well. Oliver Quinn, annoying her into being a better person.
“No, I think that was the only place to go,” she said. “I heard the chief tell the doctor at the hospital that he guessed I had to have been left a few yards away from the Pinketts’ property line.” She envisioned the aerial shot of the land she had once seen framed in the police-department lounge. It, along with other land reserved for hunting, was showcased in the room. “If that’s true, then if I had decided to walk in the opposite direction, I would have run into their woods.” Without meaning to, she shivered.
“Okay, so you could have walked into the woods.”
“But I wouldn’t have. Not with its hunting traps and animals galore,” she rebutted. “Plus, it somehow felt creepier to be trapped among the trees instead of out in the open.”
Oliver’s frown deepened. He made to grab her hand but then changed tactics and put his own around his cup instead. Darling felt a twinge of sadness. Whatever moment they had had earlier seemed to have been lost in the muck of all the questions regarding Jane Doe’s fate.
“You wouldn’t go into the woods, but that doesn’t mean whoever took you knew that. What about the road that cut through it all? If you had found that, you could easily have missed the car.”
She didn’t have a response for that. If she had found the dirt road Chief Sanderson and Oliver had come in on, she would have followed it one way or the other. She never would have seen the car. Maybe it was a coincidence. “Then why turn my phone back on?” she asked with a tilt of her head. “Why take my phone, turn it off, then turn it back on later so the car and I could be found?” Oliver didn’t have an answer to that, either. She let out a frustrated sigh. “We need fewer theories and more facts,” Darling muttered. “I’m so tired of guessing. What if we’re just grasping at straws?”
“Well, let’s look at the facts, then.” Oliver got up from his stool and disappeared into her bedroom. Moments later he was back with a pen and one of her notebooks. He flipped it open to a blank sheet and started a numbered list. “Nigel Marks spent the late night and early morning at Mulligan Motel with Jane Doe.”
“Which he denies having done.”
“Jane Doe was killed while Nigel was eating with Orion agents. Giving him a valid alibi.”
“Elizabeth Marks also has a confirmed alibi,” she added. He quickly wrote that down.
“Jane Doe’s fingers and teeth were removed, meaning the killer didn’t want her to be identified, or maybe the killer wanted some trophies.” Oliver hesitated before writing the last part down. Darling tried not to picture the body in the tub. “Then a mysterious person gives you pictures of Nigel and Jane Doe over the course of several months this year. Nigel’s lawyer reasons it could be anyone or the images could be doctored. Without the original files to be tested, the cops can’t keep him or get him to reveal her identity. You get another note saying to stop investigating, and they take your camera only to return it. Acuity gets ransacked, you get another note and then you’re taken. You find Jane Doe’s car stripped car with Nigel Marks’s watch in it.”
When he was done, she looked down at the shorthand list.
“I feel like we’re just talking in circles now,” she breathed out. “We’re missing something.”
They lapsed into a thoughtful silence. Maybe it was time to leave the case alone. Maybe they were hurting it instead of helping. It was already her fault that Derrick, the lead investigator, had been hospitalized. If she hadn’t kept digging...
“Oh, my God, that’s it,” Darling exclaimed. Oliver met her wild stare with skepticism.
“What?”
“Let’s stick with the theory that there are two people involved in the killing of Jane Doe. So far they’ve shown up whenever I discovered something new. The office was tossed looking for the security tape. They got it, so that should be it, right? But then they grab me two hours later? Why?” Before Oliver could answer, she beat him to it. “Because I found Harriet Mendon.”
“Wait, what do you mean you found her?”
“Before you and I had it out at Acuity, I looked up where she worked.”
Oliver’s features seemed to reanimate.
“Oliver,” she continued with new enthusiasm. “I think Harriet Mendon is our key.”
Just as quickly as excitement at a new lead flashed across his face, a darker emotion replaced it. When he spoke, it made the hair on the back of Darling’s neck stand up.
“Then we’d better find her before they do.”
Chapter Eighteen
Darling found the number of the boutique where Harriet Mendon worked and left an urgent message with the owner, a friendly woman named Barb. She also left a new message on Harriet’s home machine. One way or the other, she wanted to cover all her bases.
“Okay, it’s time I change out of this robe,” Darling said when she was done. “Make yourself at home.”
Oliver looked around the living room with a new perspective after she went to her bedroom. He imagined his recliner in the corner, the picture of his parents next to the one of Darling and friends on top of the bookcase, his shoes tossed off next to the front door and the fight that would always come from him leaving them there.
Holiday get-togethers, quiet nights spent in, loud meaningless arguments that would never last long and makeups that would certainly last longer. There they were, moving around the small space without an ounce of regret or anger or guilt.
He pictured the two of them finishing something they had started when they were basically kids.
And loving every moment of it.
“It just isn’t my week,” Darling said a few minutes later, interrupting his thoughts.
“What happened?”
“Do you want a list or a long-winded sentence?”
He gave her his full attention. “Let’s go long-winded sentence this time.”
She took a deep breath.
“Elizabeth called because she’s at the police station with Nigel—who apparently finally realized it was a good idea to tell the truth about knowing Jane Doe. But Elizabeth wouldn’t say the name—and because of everything that happened, she terminated my contract,” she said in a rush. “Finding Jane Doe’s killer isn’t her top priority anymore.”
“Or she wants the police to handle it since you were kidnapped and left for dead by the same person or people,” Oliver pointed out. Darling frowned and sent him a pointed stare. He held up his hands in defense. “It’s guilt, Darling. She doesn’t want to deal with it if something happens to you while under her orders.” His thoughts turned to Nikki. “It has nothing to do with your job performance.”
“I know,” she admitted. “But the way she spoke...” Darling’s brow furrowed and she sucked on her bottom lip, thinking of the right words. “She didn’t sound upset at all. I guess I just assumed that finding out the identity of her husband’s mistress might hit a nerve, even if she already knew about the affair.” She shrugged. “Either way, I’ve been fired, so the case doesn’t matter anymore.”
The private investigator tried to look nonchalant. She leaned on her crutches in the doorway of her bedroom, gaze going through him as she focused on some thought in the distance. Oliver didn’t point out that neither of them was ready to let the case go without getting justice for those who had determined Jane Doe’s fate and hurt Darling. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited. It didn’t take long.
“Who am I kidding?” Darling exclaimed. “Like being fired is going to stop me.”
Oliver clapped. “That’s my girl!”
Darling smiled. He could see how tired she felt.
“But first, coffee?” he suggested.
That earned a bigger smile. “That sounds wonderful, Mr. Quinn.”
* * *
“DEPUTY HEATH, I never got a chance to thank you for helping to find me.”
They had already gone through an entire pot of coffee waiting for the deputy to show up to take Darling’s statement.
“It’s no problem,” she replied, wasting no time in getting down to business. She pulled out her printing kit, and Darling offered her hand. The older woman looked as if she also needed some coffee. “I can’t wait until we catch those sons of b—”
“Those?” Darling interrupted. A wild kind of excitement crossed her face. Oliver bet she was ready to call out every clue she had that connected to two killers rather than one. “As in more than one?”
Oliver watched as the deputy’s cheeks tinted pink. “I meant,” Heath said, “whoever is responsible. We have a very promising lead and I—personally—am confident we’ll have this case closed up soon.”
The private investigator held her comments back while Deputy Heath finished the prints. Her gears were turning. That much Oliver could tell from his seat at the kitchen counter. With a bit of distance between them, he tried to look at her from an objective viewpoint.
Tired yet determined. Hurt yet unperturbed. Curious yet cautious.
“I can’t disclose that information right now,” Heath said after everything was done. “Give us tonight, Darling. Everything will make much more sense in the morning.”
Oliver was ready to point out that after what Darling had been through, she deserved at least the name of Jane Doe, but the investigator shot him a silencing look. Neither pressed the issue as the deputy left.
“A sane person would probably take all of this—” Darling waved her arms around “—as a sign to change professions, huh?”
Oliver came around and took a seat next to her. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you aren’t like most people.” He patted her knee on reflex. She didn’t pull away.
“I guess you really dodged a bullet back in the day.”
Oliver tensed. Whether it was an off-the-cuff remark or a pointed comment about him rejecting her, he didn’t know. What he was sure of was that he didn’t like that she seemed to be blaming herself for what had happened. He cleared his throat.
“Darling,” he started, but he was cut off when she touched his hand with hers.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, voice resolute. “What you’ve done in the last week is more than most would have done for me. You saved me and it cost you. I’m sorry for that, Oliver.” She meant to pull her hand away, but he held it fast. Darling’s green eyes were calm as they searched his.
“Don’t you dare apologize to me after what I’ve done,” he said, voice filled with grit. “And I’ll never regret what I did trying to find you. Never.” Unlike their kiss earlier that day, the atmosphere darkened. There was lust—he was certainly feeling it—but there was also pain. Had he gone too far when he left her? Had he changed her life for the worse instead of for the better? These thoughts pushed Oliver off the couch as if he had been burned. Darling let go of his hand, eyes wide. He didn’t miss the flush across her cheeks, either.
“Well, thank you,” she said in a rush, also standing. “I—uh—think I’m going to dry my hair.” She reached back and took her crutches leaning against the couch. Oliver didn’t respond. Guilt and regret were slamming against his rib cage. He shouldn’t want her—shouldn’t imagine a life with her—after deciding to cut ties with no explanation. She had a life. She deserved better than him. Always had, always would.
He watched as she awkwardly began her walk
back to the bedroom. The crutches clinked in the silence. However, she didn’t make it far. Oliver was in front of her in an instant.
Her eyes were red, tears waiting on each rim. His last image of the younger Darling had been with tears in her eyes, but his mind didn’t connect that vulnerability or memory to the woman standing in front of him. He didn’t connect it the day she found out what her parents had done, and he didn’t even think to compare it to the cold, naked woman he had held in his arms that morning.
Bringing his hands up, he cradled her face and moved closer.
There was the difference. Between his fingers and the heat of her skin was an electricity he couldn’t ignore. It coursed through each of them before crashing together. Rapid, shocking, sensational.
And it was begging him to not let go.
Before the world could catch up to them, his mouth covered hers.
Chapter Nineteen
Hunger. Passion.
Pain. Lust. Desire.
Everything exploded in the kiss. Darling didn’t know which thought to rest on as Oliver’s lips pushed and pulled at more than just her body. There were a million reasons they shouldn’t be intertwining and yet she couldn’t recall a single one.
Darling’s eyelids fluttered closed, and she let herself enjoy the moment. Oliver’s lips pressed against her with an undeniable hunger that ate its way right into hers. Her crutches clattered to the ground as she wrapped her arms around his neck, seeking a new anchor. A new lifeline. His tongue found hers, and they tasted each other for the first time in eight years.
Their painful past melted away. They were finding their way back to each other. Back to the home they had made all those years ago. Darling moaned against his lips. She had missed this.
Oliver deepened the kiss, moving his arms around her and pulling her flush against him. It forced a new proximity that woke up every part of her body. She arched against him and he grabbed her hips. She felt him push against her and a new thrill began to pool below her waist. Another moan escaped against him. Oliver silenced it with his own. Instead of raw hunger, Darling could feel the control in it. He deepened the kiss only to break it off a moment later.
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