Xavier stood, facing the man with all the bravado of a wet noodle. “That’s a choice I’ll have to live with.”
They left the room and headed down the hall to the holding cells. A lithe figure hovered near the processing station. Jolie lifted her head and met his gaze. Her eyes shifted to a darker shade when she realized he was going into a cell.
Once the door clanged shut, he remained rooted in the middle of the cell, staring back at her through the metal bars.
Bowing her head, she walked away from her post and followed the sheriff back down the hall toward the bullpen.
Xavier didn’t look, but he sensed her pause halfway down to look back at him. He didn’t falter, he didn’t buckle under the weight of her stare. The moment it lifted and she was gone, he staggered to the bunk and sank onto the stiff, cold mattress.
She hadn’t put up a fight for him before throwing him a cell. Why?
Because she didn’t care about a killer.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Xavier was innocent—Jolie could feel it deep in her bones
But she had to do her job. God, couldn’t he understand that? She’d gone to The Killdeer so she could try to convey to him in some way that she didn’t believe it. Try to shield him from the crap that would fly. Be the kind of cop he’d been insisting she be from the moment he’d told her to be decisive. But she’d botched that all up, too. And now he hated her.
“Joles, you okay?”
She looked at the hand on her shoulder and then up at the man standing next to her. Jennings removed his hand, snagged his chair, dragging it closer to her, and sat. To avoid his gaze, Jolie fiddled with a pen.
“Is something wrong?”
“How’s your leg?”
He blinked at her sudden switch in topic. “My leg is doing fine. Don’t deflect—what’s going on?”
“You damn well know what’s going on. I don’t need to spell it out for you.” She slapped the pen on the desk and pushed out of her chair.
“Murdoch, sit.” The order came from the other side of the bullpen.
Jolie flopped into her chair as Hamilton rounded the dispatch station, Con keeping pace with him. She did not like the grim masks on both men’s faces.
“Nash, Jennings, go pick up Linda Maddox and Wendi Kruger and bring them here,” Hamilton ordered.
With a parting shake of his head, Jennings rose and left with Nash.
Jolie sank farther into her seat as Hamilton and Con made themselves comfortable on the corners of nearby desks. The two were like twins, sitting there, arms crossed, looking at her like she was a petulant child. It felt almost the same as when Dad would corner her and “impart” some bullcrap wisdom.
“Since you were in charge of connecting the Maddox case with the Kruger one, we thought it best to let you know the results,” Hamilton said.
“And what are they?” she asked.
The sheriff sighed, letting his arms fall to his sides. “The DNA on the remains we found today is an 85 percent match to Anthony Maddox. Just to cover our bases, we’re getting a sample from Linda Maddox.”
Jolie closed her eyes and bowed her head. She’d been right. God, how she hated that she’d been right. “Do you think the same thing has happened to Sarah?”
“I hope to God it hasn’t,” Con said.
“So now what?” she asked.
“We find Sarah,” Hamilton said. “When Wendi gets here, I want you to go over everything you can with her. Maybe something you discuss will jog her memory, and then we can finally pinpoint what happened to Sarah before she ends up like Grace.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Murdoch, you’ll do more than your best.” Hamilton slipped off the desk and headed back to his office.
“Sheriff, wait.”
He turned back. “What?”
“Do we know how Grace died?”
Hamilton sighed. “Doc Drummond and the DCI examiner aren’t 100 percent certain, but there’s a hole in the back of the skull.” With that, he disappeared into his office.
Jolie’s gaze flicked to Con, who was lingering.
He sat there, studying her, and then he stood, inching closer. “Your instincts were right. Don’t let a setback cloud your judgment.” With those parting words, he joined Hamilton in his office.
Jolie chewed on his statement, her gaze drifting to the hallway leading back to the holding cells. Were the results from DCI’s testing causing her to doubt what she sensed, what she knew in her heart? She hadn’t thought so, but then again, what did she really think?
She wanted this mess over with, Sarah found and brought home, and Xavier cleared of any wrongdoing. Then maybe he’d decide to stick around and explore a relationship with her. That was what she really thought.
Xavier might be angry with her, but it wasn’t going to stop Jolie.
She spun back to her desk and gathered her notes and reports on Grace and Sarah. Then, between her desk and Jennings’s, she spread out everything. When Wendi and Linda arrived, Jolie was going to sit both women down and begin piecing together what it was about their daughters that made them targets of a kidnapper and a killer. And somehow, she was going to figure out how Xavier ended up on the wrong side of the equation.
In the process, Jolie hoped to God she would get to the bottom of this and prevent any more abductions from happening in McIntire County.
• • •
The moment the women arrived, Jolie had everything prepared. While she worked, she’d fought the urge to go back to the holding cells and check on Xavier. His outright rejection of her being in the interview room, and his parting glower when he’d gone into the cell, kept her on task. He was mad, as anyone would be when put in his position. She was being a coward, but it was expected in the face of the events that had landed him behind bars. If she had her way, he wouldn’t be there long.
Sheriff Hamilton escorted Linda Maddox into his office to relay the bad news. That left Wendi Kruger standing in the bullpen, looking like a lost child in the middle of a store. But it was the surprise visitor next to Wendi that floored Jolie.
Rena Chapman’s Houdini act had gone unanswered in the wake of Anthony Maddox’s death. Jolie had forgotten she wanted to talk with the young woman.
Dragging in a deep breath, Jolie let it out slowly and then approached the women. “Would the two of you come with me?”
“What’s going on?” Wendi asked. “Have you guys found Sarah?”
“Sorry, not yet, but I think we’re getting closer to finding out what happened.” Jolie pointed to a small room they used as a conference room when needed. “I want to go over some things with you, to refresh my memory about what you remember.”
With a hesitant nod, Wendi walked into the room, Rena following right behind. Leaving the door open, Jolie waited until both women chose a seat, and then she sat next to Wendi. Jolie had transferred the reports and notes she had written over the course of the investigation from her desk to the conference room where she laid them across the table.
An awkward silence filled the room. Rena fiddled with the row of earrings in her right ear, her gaze flitting from the walls to the ceiling. Those who had much to hide always acted the guiltiest.
“Ms. Chapman, why were you in such a hurry to leave Wendi’s house the other day after I brought up Clint Kruger?”
The younger woman’s gaze came to a halt on Jolie. Red spots peppered her features.
“I’ll advise you not to give me the go-around. We’re trying to find Sarah before something bad happens to her.”
“Bad how?” Wendi demanded.
Jolie held up her hand to quell Wendi’s panic. “Ms. Chapman?”
More awkward silence.
Stay patient. She’s going to crack. Silence is your friend at this point. Jolie kept repeating the mantra.
“I had to leave,” Rena finally blurted.
“Why?”
“Because I couldn’t be there while Wendi talked about Clint, and not gi
ve it away.”
Wendi craned around to look at the younger woman. “Give what away?”
Like a terrified lamb trapped in a corner, Rena began to wail. It took a whole lot of willpower for Jolie not to roll her eyes. What was the deal with the waterworks? Geesh!
However, the tears brought out the truth.
“It was Clint’s idea for me to be sick that day. He knew Sarah wouldn’t have a ride, so he got her number from me and then called her about the time she’d be done with the class. But when he got there, she was already gone.”
“You know he wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near her,” Wendi said, her voice rising an octave.
“I’m so sorry, Wendi. He wanted to talk with her, see how she was doing. He missed her. And now he’s dead.” Rena sobbed harder.
“Did Clint contact you after Sarah went missing?” Jolie asked, trying to get this back on course before Wendi throttled the other woman.
Sucking in air, Rena grabbed tissues from the box on the table and stuffed them up against her nose to stem the tide. When she was somewhat calmer, she swallowed. “Yes, he told me he’d seen this beige car pass him as he was going to the shop. He thought he recognized the car and knew who it belonged to. If Sarah was with that person, Clint was going to find out.”
“Did Clint tell you who he thought it was?” Jolie asked.
Rena shook her head, then once again buried her face in the tissues and let the tears flow. Wendi gaped at the woman, her features a mixture of anger and grief. It was too bad this was how Wendi had to learn that her daughter had been snatched while her father was trying to make amends.
Sitting back in her chair, Jolie mulled it over. Clint hadn’t been the kidnapper; he’d been trying to save his daughter. They were all now aware of who the owner of the beige car was, but Anthony Maddox was dead. The day of the fair parade, Xavier had spotted Anthony driving Sarah to the park—for what reason they didn’t know—and the Australian followed. Clint must have been right behind Anthony, and probably moments from rescuing Sarah, but someone had put a stop to all of it. If the evidence was right, had it been Xavier? In a blackout moment, had he misunderstood the situation and attacked and killed Clint? Yet that didn’t explain how Xavier received the blow to his head. There had been no visible signs that Clint had fought back, not that he’d stood a chance against a man like Xavier.
“Damn it,” Jolie muttered and bolted up from her chair, startling the two women. “Wendi, you’re free to go, and so are you, Rena. I’m done here.”
“Deputy, I’m not going anywhere. I want to know what’s being done to find my daughter.”
“I’d advise you to discuss that with the sheriff. Right now, I need to see a man about a situation.”
• • •
Xavier had a second to get up from the cot before Jolie appeared. She grabbed the bars and practically pressed her face into them.
“You’ve got to remember what happened that day at the park with Clint.”
“I don’t have to remember anything.”
“Yes, you do, because whatever is locked up inside that mind of yours is going to get you out of this jail.”
Her insistence almost made him reach through the bars and cup her face. Almost.
“The evidence says I did it. Why are you so damned determined to prove otherwise?”
“Because I know—in my heart, I know—you’re not a killer. You might have done it in war, but that was completely different than with Clint. You didn’t kill him, not even in a blackout moment.”
Her impassioned speech was enough to make a man swim with a tank full of starving great whites. Xavier hobbled closer to the bars. “How do you know it wasn’t in self-defense and I went overboard?”
“Clint was in the park to rescue Sarah. He knew something was wrong, and he found the car you’d seen Sarah in. I think Anthony was driving her somewhere to meet up with someone, whether that was Clint or another person, I don’t know. Whatever happened there, you weren’t figured into the equation.”
Frowning, he turned and paced the cell floor. “I think you might be reading into this too much.”
“No, I’m not. New light’s been shed on the whole ordeal.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you. I haven’t even told the sheriff yet.”
He shook his head. “So you run back here and demand I just undo the damage inflicted on my brain and tell you what I know.”
Slamming her hands against the bars, Jolie glared at him. “Whatever bug you have up your ass, let it go for just one second and work with me. I’m trying my damnedest to get to the bottom of this and find Sarah. We all deserve the truth and to find the person responsible for taking Sarah.”
Riled up, her eyes on fire … Xavier felt that familiar twitch in his gut, that powerful attraction to her. In all his life he couldn’t remember anyone wanting to move heaven and hell for him. Even Ariel and his mum hadn’t been this determined.
“What’s it going to be, Xavier?”
“You gave up on me, Jolie.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You did. When you came to the pub to arrest me, you gave up.”
“I was doing my damn job, like you told me to. What? Would you have rather had the sheriff do it and make a bigger deal out of it than it was?”
“Better him than you. At least I could have held out hope that you were still trying to prove me innocent.”
Her shoulders drooped. “That’s what I’m doing. I never stopped.”
She was. Why else would she still be here, harping on about him remembering?
He inched closer to the bars and gripped her hands clenched around them. “I don’t think I can remember any more than I have.”
“Try. Please.”
“I have, countless times, every day. Still, nothing comes back to me other than the bits I’ve already told you about.”
“Could you at least figure out how you got another concussion? Something had to hit your head to do it.”
She made it sound so easy. There were countless areas of scar tissue. Broken nerves that couldn’t connect. And, God forbid, traces of blood in places that interfered with normal brain function. She was asking for the impossible.
But that face. That sweet, pale face with the spray of freckles and pinched mouth peeking through those cold, iron bars held him in place. Staring into those hazel eyes, he saw once more the hope of a better future. One he wanted to share with her. And he couldn’t damn well do it in prison.
If she hadn’t given up on him, why should he? Hamilton had told him to fight, even if it was for Jolie.
A’right, fine, he’d do it. Xavier tried to reach into the back of his mind and pull forward what happened that day. Jolie’s face became a haze, her image replaced by what he did remember: reaching the park, going down the path, and coming upon Clint. It was this point that became fuzzy, blurry swirls of grays and colors with no lines or definition.
“Xavier, what do you see?” Jolie’s whisper penetrated his mind.
Clint’s image, this time sharp, clearer. Xavier’s hands spasmed. This wasn’t right. Was it? Clint was lying on the ground, his neck contorted at an odd angle. Someone else was there. Stepping back from Clint. An already dead Clint Kruger.
“Fuck me.”
Xavier wheeled away from the bars, gripping his aching head.
“What? What is it?”
Massaging his temples, he peered at Jolie. “I didn’t see it before. I couldn’t remember it.” He straightened, letting his hands fall away from his head. “Jolie, you need to bring the sheriff here.”
“Not until you tell me what you remembered.”
“No, this is so far out of your realm, you can’t be involved anymore.”
She slammed the side of her fist against a bar. “I’m not some damn weak female for you to boss around. Tell me what you saw.”
“And I wasn’t born yesterday. If you’re anything like those Rivers sisters, you’ll get y
our ass into a whole heap of trouble, and I won’t be a part of that. Jolie, I love you, but I’m not about to feed you to the dingoes.”
She blinked then staggered back from the cell. “You what?”
Wait, what did he just say? “That … came out wrong.”
And there went the moment. Fury replaced her shock. “You’re such an ass, Xavier Hartmann!” She spun on her heel and stormed to the exit.
“Where are you going?”
“Far from you. If you’re so damn gung ho on cutting me out, so be it. I’m going to put an end to this stupid homicide case to get you out of jail, and I’m going to find Sarah.” With that, she quit the room.
Xavier gaped at the empty space where she’d been.
Was she out of her mind?
Chapter Thirty
What in the name of God had Xavier been thinking blurting out something like that he loved her? Jolie couldn’t fathom how, in such a short time, he would know this. They barely knew each other. Hell, they’d only just slept together. Her face flamed hot. It had been too soon to even have sex with him.
Fudge! Beating her head against the steering wheel would feel good right about now, not that it was a good option while she was driving. She’d turned into those girls she’d loathed in high school, the ones who would jump in the sack the minute a boy paid attention to them and then wonder why they got dumped the minute after that boy shot his rocks off with her.
“You’re such a cliché, Joles.”
Turning onto the road leading to her parents’ home, she shifted gears, bracing for the confrontation with her father. She had to get away from the department to process everything she’d learned and to wrap her head around Xavier’s declaration of love, which he’d so “smoothly” recanted.
Men! Say one thing and mean another. Come on, Jolie, focus already.
Breaking the news of what had actually happened to Grace Maddox to her father was a better option than sitting around reading into Xavier’s words. She had cleared it with Sheriff Hamilton, who seemed all too eager to let her be the harbinger of bad tidings. Despite the hardened shell Dad presented to her and the world, deep inside was a man who would shatter once he learned that he’d actually failed someone.
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