by Sandra Owens
“I need to change, babe.” She startled when Nate dropped his hand down and pinched her butt, getting a soft chuckle from him.
“Enjoy your day, Taylor,” Mr. Tillman said.
She nodded, then nudged Nate to go.
“He seems to have taken an interest in you. Who is he?” Nate said when they were out of earshot.
“His name is Wade Tillman. That’s all I know. I need to tell Rand I’m leaving.”
He dropped his arm from her shoulder. “I already sent him home.”
“Oh, okay. I need a quick shower.”
“No problem. I’m here to take you to the police department. The sketch artist is meeting us there in about forty minutes.”
“I’ll make it fast.” She handed him the leather bag. “Hold on to my gun for me.”
“Can I use it to shoot your Mr. Tillman?”
“Play nice.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Me? I don’t know how to do nice.”
“True.” She headed for the showers. So far, she was doing okay with pretending the last few days had never happened. It was hard, though, because just looking at him in his bad-boy clothes made her want to climb right up him. And he always smelled so yummy.
Yep, it was going to be hard to stop loving him, but she could do it. She hoped.
Nate sat off to the side, listening to Taylor—her voice only a little shaky—describe her mother’s killer. He hated that she had to go through this, but she was holding up better than expected.
The woman was confusing him, though. She’d been as chatty as a magpie on the way to the police station, an about-face from the cold shoulder she’d given him ever since he’d made that stupid comment. He didn’t know what to make of it, and he didn’t like it. She should be miserable, because he sure as hell was.
“His lips were a little thinner than that,” Taylor said.
Janie Moore, the police department’s sketch artist, nodded. “Better?” she said after a moment.
“Yes, that’s him.” Taylor took the clipboard with the drawing on it from Janie, holding it up for Nate to see. “There’s something about his face that’s nagging me.”
He reached for the drawing. “Let me see that.” The picture was of a blond, brown-eyed man wearing wire-rimmed glasses, maybe in his early twenties. But the lips, the jaw line, and the eyebrows—he was sure he’d seen this man not two hours ago.
“Can you do a second one?” he said, handing the sketch back to Janie. “Same face, but age him about fifteen years with brown hair, hazel eyes, and no glasses.”
“Sure.” She clipped the page to the board, next to a fresh sheet of paper.
Taylor tilted her head, her brows furrowed as she studied the drawing. “Oh, my God. He could be Wade Tillman’s son, or maybe his younger brother.”
“That’s possible, but I think Wade Tillman and the young man in that drawing are one and the same.”
Her cheeks paled. “You’re saying my mother’s killer has been under my nose all this time? But their eyes are a different color.”
“Contacts.” He resisted the urge to move his chair next to Taylor’s so he could touch her.
“And he dyed his hair brown. I should have seen the resemblance.”
“Why?” he said. “He’s older, his hair and eye color are wrong, and he doesn’t wear glasses now. And he’s going by a different name.”
She chewed on her bottom lip. “Wade Tillman is Wayne Tompkins, and the man who killed my mother had the gall to ask me out for coffee? I’m going to shoot him in the balls.”
Janie chuckled.
“We’re not positive yet, but I’m feeling the buzz.” The bastard had asked her out?
“Yeah, me, too.”
“Here’s your second sketch.” Janie held up the page for them to see.
“That’s him all right,” Taylor said. She stood and began to pace. “Okay, we need to go to the gym and get an address for him. I want that son of a bitch today.”
Janie gave him a folder to put the sketches in, and after thanking her, Nate walked alongside Taylor as they headed for his car.
“I just can’t comprehend that he’s been under my nose all this time. I feel like he’s taunting me. What the hell is his game?”
Nate gave in to temptation and put his hand on her back. “I have a theory about that, but let’s hold off on speculating until Alex and Josh get back from their interview. After we hear what they learned, we’ll be able to get a better handle on this guy. In the meantime, let’s go to the gym and get an address for him.”
There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Wayne Tompkins, a.k.a. Wade Tillman, had fixated on Taylor. The question was, did he see her as a substitute for her mother, a woman he’d fallen in love with and wanted to marry? Did he want Taylor for himself, or was he planning on killing her, too? The thought of the man being anywhere near her made him crazy. If he’d known this morning that Wade Tillman was their unsub, the bastard would be dead right now for no other reason than he’d dared to talk to her.
“The address the gym had on file for him was an empty lot,” Nate said. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” They were in the field office’s conference room—him, Taylor, Rothmire, Court, Alex, and Josh. He glanced at Taylor, sitting in the chair next to him. She was too quiet, had gone into silent mode ever since they’d pulled up to the lot overgrown with weeds.
He’d tried to talk to her after leaving the police station, but she’d ignored him. He had wanted to comfort her, and it was killing him that she wouldn’t let him. Wasn’t that for the best, though? They’d tried friends with benefits—he hated those words—but that hadn’t gone so well. He accepted the blame for that, since he apparently sucked at saying the right words that pleased a woman. But for her, he would have tried harder. That right there was a mind fuck. He’d never wanted to try before Taylor.
“Is Tillman at the gym every day?” Rothmire asked.
Taylor shook her head. “I’ve only seen him there a few times. The manager said he joined four weeks ago, around when the first victim was found.”
At least she was finally talking. He knew she blamed herself for not recognizing a killer, or at least sensing something was off about the man when he was right in front of her, but why should she have?
“What about the flowers he sent Taylor?” Rothmire asked.
“Dead end,” Nate said. “Paid in cash by a kid.” Unfortunately, Tillman was smart enough to pay a teenage boy they’d never find to go into the florist shop. He glanced to his left where Alex and Josh sat. “You talked to the retired cop, Archer something?”
“Bert Archer.” Alex leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “He retired five years ago. Said his last act before leaving the job was to enter Gretchen Tompkins’s murder into the cold-case data bank.”
“He thought we were looking for Doug Emmitt, and was disappointed to learn we aren’t,” Josh said. “Apparently, he never thought highly of his fellow cop.”
Alex nodded. “Yeah. Seems there’s some bad blood there. He said Emmitt was a man you didn’t want to turn your back on. The story goes that Emmitt was caught in the back of his patrol car with Gretchen, a known prostitute, while he was supposed to be on duty. He was given a week off without pay by the mayor. Turned out he kept seeing her, and when it came out, he said she’d given up the life and they were getting married.”
“They moved in together a few months before the wedding was scheduled,” Josh said, picking up the story. “One night her son called 9-1-1, reporting that Doug Emmitt was trying to kill Gretchen. Archer was on duty and took the call. When he got there, Emmitt was nowhere to be found.”
Alex sat back in his chair. “Gretchen denied that Emmitt had tried to hurt her, but there were bruises on her neck, arms, and face. She said she’d fallen. Archer asked the boy what happened, but he claimed he’d been asleep and hadn’t seen anything.”
“Sounds like either his mother or Emmitt convinced him not to talk,” Nate said.
&
nbsp; Alex nodded. “That’s what Archer thinks. Things were quiet after that until the day of the wedding. Another call from the boy came in. Archer took that call, too. When he got there, Gretchen Tompkins was dead—strangled.” He glanced at Taylor. “She was wearing a white dress and had a gold band on her finger.”
“And this was before the wedding took place?” Taylor asked.
“It was.” Josh took a picture from a folder, handing it to Rothmire. “Archer made a copy of the report and crime scene photos. Said some day he was going to see Emmitt behind bars.”
As the photo made the rounds, Alex said, “According to her son, Emmitt accused Gretchen of flirting with one of his friends. Yelled at her that once a whore, always a whore.”
Nate caught Court’s recoil. As a boy, Court had been hiding behind the couch the day their father had yelled those same words at their mother. It was the day she had left them, and if Court was right, she’d been pregnant. Nate needed to stop putting off finding answers.
It looked like this case would wrap up in a day or two, and then he’d make that trip back to Dunnellon and find out once and for all if their mother was there. If they had a brother or sister out there somewhere, it was time to find out.
“Wayne told Archer that he tried to pull Emmitt away, but Emmitt threw him across the room,” Alex said. “Wayne hit the wall, stunning him. He watched Emmitt strangle her and then put the ring on her finger. ‘Only good whore is a dead whore,’ Emmitt said, then walked out the door, never to be seen again.”
Taylor let out a breath. “It’s really sad that her son had to watch her murder.”
She would know how sad that was better than anyone sitting around the table. “You okay?” Nate asked.
“I’m at peace.”
She smiled at him, and his stomach clenched, wanting that smile in his life forever. The thought was so startling that he didn’t know what to do with it. Run? Accept that she might be the one woman in the world he could love? What about his fear of being an abuser like his father? That hadn’t gone away.
He should probably put as much distance between him and Taylor as possible. A deep ache settled in his chest at the thought of not having her in his life. This was all stuff he needed to think about when he wasn’t in the middle of a murder investigation. He tuned back in to what Alex was saying.
“Archer said the boy was crying, begging his mother to wake up. He said it was the saddest thing he’d ever seen, but what he told Wayne . . .” He glanced around the table. “This is important. In an effort to comfort Wayne, he told the boy that his mother was now an angel in heaven.”
“And thus the seed was planted,” Nate said. “What happened to him? Did he have family to take him in?”
Josh shook his head. “No, he went into foster care, and Archer lost track of him.”
“I’ve found Wayne Tompkins’s birth certificate and his foster care records. He didn’t last long in any of the homes he was put in,” Court said, his fingers flying over his laptop keys. “At the age of seventeen, he walked away from his last foster home. A year later, he enrolled in Miami Dade Junior College, but dropped out after six months. Looks like he worked odd jobs for a while, and then he was arrested for domestic violence on a girlfriend. Got six months for that. After he was released, his trail goes cold.”
Rothmire scratched his chin. “Is there anything that connects Wade Tillman to Wayne Tompkins that we can use as evidence?”
“Looking for that now,” Court said. A minute later, he raised his eyes from the screen. “It always amazes me how stupid some people can be. Wade Tillman has a Facebook page. His profile picture is an angel.” He turned his laptop around so everyone could see. “His last post, dated yesterday, was that he’d found his angel.”
Taylor’s cheeks drained of color. “He means me,” she murmured.
Nate didn’t care that they were in a room full of fellow agents and their boss, all of them watching. He put his hand on her chair, swiveling it to face him. “We knew that—you knew that—already, tiger.” He used her power name on purpose. Tigers killed. They didn’t get killed. “It’s just hearing it said aloud that’s freaking us all out.” He wrapped his hands around her cold ones. “I would die before I let anything happen to you.” And that was the God’s honest truth.
She blinked, as if coming out of a fog. Her eyes settled on him. “Would you really?”
“Damn straight I would.” The room and people around them disappeared. All he saw was her, the woman he loved. And yeah, that realization was like a boulder falling on his head. One that knocked him flat on his ass.
Rothmire cleared his throat. “I expect an invitation to the wedding, but before that can happen, we have a killer to catch.”
Nate managed not to smile at the sudden pale-pink blush in Taylor’s cheeks at their boss’s announcement. He should probably be embarrassed, too, but the ache that had been residing in his chest since he’d gone stupid, saying stupid things to her, had vanished. He didn’t know if she’d ever forgive him, but he had news for her. He was hers, plain and simple. If she needed him to grovel, he’d do that. Well, he’d do it while making her scream his name against the foyer wall so she could add a few more scratch marks to it.
He met Rothmire’s amused eyes. “Right. Ah, so, Court, you got an address on him?”
“You don’t have to give Facebook an address to set up a page, but they do require a mobile number or an email addy that I can trace. I’ll have something in a sec.”
“While you’re waiting, suit up,” Rothmire said. “I have a judge standing by, ready to sign a warrant.”
Nate stood. “You heard the man. Let’s get this done.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The address was a small ranch-style house in North Miami. Their backup team evacuated the residences on both sides of their target house and had secured the premises.
“No one will blame you if you sit this one out,” Nate said quietly at her side.
Taylor bit back her first retort. He wasn’t saying she wasn’t capable of being a part of this operation. “I’m good.” She’d had to fight to be in on the arrest, arguing that after what their perp had put her through, she had a right to be here. Nate had seemed to understand that, and after getting a nod from Rothmire, he’d agreed. And considering the whole team was here, she didn’t doubt they were all keeping an eye on her.
“Then let’s do this.”
Court and Alex were stationed at the back to make sure Tompkins didn’t try to run. She, Nate, and Rand approached the door. They split up, Rand on one side, her and Nate on the other.
Nate fisted his hand and banged on the door. “FBI. Open up!” When there was no response, he banged again, repeating the words.
There wasn’t any noise coming from inside, no TV or radio blaring, no car parked in the carport. She sensed the house was empty.
“There’s a sliding glass door in the back that I can jimmy open,” Alex said, his voice coming over their headsets.
“Do it,” Nate answered. “Station yourself at the corner of the house, Rand, so you can warn us if a car pulls in. Taylor, come with me.”
She followed Nate to the back. Alex had the door open by the time they walked up. Guns drawn, she, Alex, and Court entered behind Nate, splitting up to search the house. Taylor and Nate ended up in the kitchen.
“Does he ever cook in here?” She glanced around. The electric stove was spotless, as were the counters and sink.
“Doesn’t appear so,” Nate said, peering inside a cabinet.
She opened the refrigerator, eyeing the contents, or more like the lack of contents. Other than a dozen bottles of water, a plastic bottle of milk, ketchup, a bottle of hot sauce, and a tub of butter, it was empty.
The freezer was loaded, though. She doubted he could squeeze another frozen dinner into it. So he lived on microwaved food. Moving to the small pantry, she frowned. The only things on the shelves were video cassettes. Who used those anymore? She tilted her h
ead, reading the titles.
“Nate, you need to come see these.”
Seconds later, he stepped behind her. “What?”
She moved aside so he could see into the pantry. “Taxi Driver, The Killer Inside Me, The Machinist, to name a few, and one with the handwritten title of Snuff Film,” she said. They were in the middle of a search. She shouldn’t be intentionally brushing her arm over his.
His gaze landed on where their arms touched, and then he lifted his eyes to hers. An entire butterfly farm came awake in her stomach, fluttering their wings in response to the heat in his eyes. But she reminded herself that she’d put them back in friends-only status, although the butterflies apparently hadn’t gotten that memo. She’d have a stern talk with them once he was no longer invading her senses.
He turned his attention to the shelves. “The snuff film’s probably a fake. Most of them are, but we’ll have to check it out, make sure.”
“Yeah, if it’s real, it will open up a whole new investigation.”
“Nate, you need to come see this,” Court said from the hallway.
More murder tapes? When she tried to follow Nate into one of the bedrooms, Court put a hand on her arm.
“Maybe you should wait here,” he said.
There was something in his voice that gave her pause, but she shook him off. “Not happening.” She was here to do her job, not be coddled. When she walked into the room, the air left her lungs.
“The hell?” She knew the bastard was stalking her, but to see pictures of her at different ages wallpapering one wall—along with ones of her walking the girls to school—caused a burning rage like she’d never felt before to roar through her bloodstream.
“My girls,” she whispered. “I’m going to kill him.”
A growl sounded low in Nate’s throat. “If I don’t get to him first.”
She wanted to yank all the photos off the wall, but until they caught Wayne Tompkins, they would have to stay. “This is so creepy, Nate. He’s been stalking me since my mother was killed.”