“I am not just another cop to you.” He was quiet and motionless for a long, miserable moment. Then he walked to the dresser, grabbed some clothes, and turned back toward her. “Or maybe I am. I guess I don’t really know what the hell I am to you. You sure as shit don’t seem to have a very high opinion of me.”
“That is not true.”
He came at her like a muscled wall of fury. “Isn’t it? I’ve tried to show you a hundred different ways that I understand your dreams. Still, you hide everything. Everything. Even vital information in a murder case.” He slapped a hand against his chest. “My murder case.”
“I’m sorry. I just wanted . . .” What? She didn’t have a good enough answer to justify lying to him. “To be normal, I guess.”
“Normal? What the fuck does that mean? I got news for you, babe: there isn’t one goddamned thing normal about either of us. My sister being murdered isn’t normal. Your family being murdered isn’t normal. Normal people don’t dream about the dead, and you know what, I don’t give a shit about normal. But I won’t be lied to.”
“I wasn’t trying to lie. I’m just afraid the dreams are going to drive a wedge between us.”
He let out a foul laugh. “Really? You think it’s the dreams driving a wedge between us?” He stepped closer and pinned her with a vicious look. “From the moment you helped me solve Tara’s murder, I have never been anything but fascinated by your dreams. I know they exist. I believe in them and I believe in you.”
He backed up, putting several feet between them. “See, the problem here is not me believing in you, it’s you believing in me. The fact that you don’t have enough faith in me to share an important truth about a case I’m working on says quite a bit, don’t you think? Then there’s the fact you seem to think I’m stupid enough to fall back into bed with Isobel just because she’s working in the same building. So don’t use the dreams as an excuse. They aren’t what’s driving a wedge between us. I’d say you’re doing a bang-up job of that all on your own.”
***
Jordan watched through a window as Ty’s truck peeled out of their drive. Not once since they’d been together had he failed to kiss her before leaving for work.
But he hadn’t kissed her today.
In fact, he’d said nothing at all before slamming out the door. Even after a shower and getting dressed, he’d still been too furious to speak to her.
She hadn’t bothered to make amends, either. Because after all, he’d been right about everything. So she’d hidden in the office fighting the guilt and pretending to study her father’s case file.
She dropped back down in the office chair and frowned at Beauty. “What?”
Beauty cocked her head.
“I know, I know, I owe him an apology. But it’s not like I can call or text him; his phone is broken.”
Sitting in an unorganized room full of boxes and staring at a computer screen was only making her foul mood worse. Try as she might, she was unable to entice answers about her dad’s case to magically appear in his file.
She needed answers about her family’s murder. Real answers from someone who might remember what happened. After her fight with Ty, she felt just surly enough to confront the one asshole who might have those real answers.
Uncle Bill.
A few keystrokes later, Bill’s address popped up: in a little suburb of Kansas City three hours away. She dressed, walked Beauty, and decided today was the day.
By noon, she’d made it to Bill’s subdivision. As she was searching for the right street, her phone vibrated with a text from Bahan.
Can you come to my office? I have Ben Steel’s file and there’s something you need to see.
She replied: How about tomorrow? I’m in Kansas City. Going to question my uncle. Stand by with bail money in case he’s a prick. I don’t think Ty will be bailing me out.
He responded: Keep your cool, hotshot. Call me when you get back!
Bahan had given her the dubious nickname of ice bitch for her interrogation style. Since questioning a suspect was usually one of her strengths, he apparently understood that she might have trouble interviewing her uncle. As she rolled to a stop in front of Bill’s house, she agreed that this interview wasn’t going to be the same as those she held with strangers.
No stark white room. No big wide table. No other cop to play off of. And thanks to her fight with Ty, her emotions were already all over the place. Ice bitch was going to be a tricky persona to pull off today.
She studied the house. Uncle Bill had new digs. It was an average house, average yard, average suburb.
He was about to get a very unaverage visitor.
A car sat in the drive, and the front door was open behind a glass-front storm door. She walked up the little brick walkway and knocked on the glass.
He wouldn’t recognize her. She was an adult. Her hair was longer, blonder. She was wearing sunglasses and make-up—a conscious effort to say: look asshole, you kicked me when I was down, and I got up anyway.
He walked toward the storm door and clicked open the lock. The son of a bitch just had to be handsome. Couldn’t karma and time have at least turned him into an ugly troll?
She no longer had to wonder what her father would look like—nice build, salt and pepper hair, bright green eyes. Her dad would look much like his brother.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
Jordan took her sunglasses off and stared up at him.
He started to smile before shock widened his eyes. “Jordan,” he murmured. For a moment, they both stood still, assessing each other in silence. “It’s been twenty years. Come in.” He opened the door and motioned her inside.
A small wave of relief ran through her when he didn’t blatantly turn her away. It wouldn’t have mattered—she’d have played as dirty as he wanted to play—but this way made it simpler. She glanced around the room, then turned to face him. “I didn’t think you’d recognized me.”
“Of course I recognize you. You look just like your momma.” His brows knitted together. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes. “Christ, I think you’re even more beautiful than she was, if that’s possible.”
An unexpected jolt of anger flashed through her. She wanted to hurt him. Yet it made no sense, none whatsoever, for her to feel anything toward the man. He’d done nothing.
Maybe that was why her reaction to him was so out of whack. When she’d needed someone most, he’d done nothing.
But he hadn’t been responsible for her family’s fate. Still, the urge to forbid him to ever speak of her mother again roared in her head. Which was just fucking counterproductive because she had no intension of leaving until she’d wrung every last detail about her parents from his memory.
“I won’t take up much of your time,” she managed.
“No, it’s fine,” he said. “Let me call my office and tell them I’ll be late. Would you like something to drink?”
“It’s not a social call, Bill. I need about ten minutes’ worth of answers from you. Once I get them, you can toss me out as cleanly as you did twenty years ago.”
His gaze never wavered from hers. She saw the challenge. Saw that he wanted to say something, maybe defend his selfish actions. Instead he nodded. “Let me make that call. I’ll be right back.”
Jordan felt beads of nervous sweat trickle through her hairline. She knew how to do this. She’d made an art form of drawing someone in before turning them out so neatly that they never felt the fatal swing of the blade.
Yet in Bill’s presence, she felt like the same hopeless, hateful ten-year-old she’d once been. The childish need to see him suffer was screwing with the trained cop.
She took a breath, flexed her fingers, and rolled her head left and right, loosening her shoulders. On the fireplace mantle was a picture of a young woman. Jordan moved closer, picked it up. It had to be her cousin Jessica. The big brown eyes were different, more mature, and yet just the same as she remembered them.
Her
uncle returned, handed her a bottle of water, and pointed to the dining table.
In her precinct, she’d often choose to stand, take the point of power. In this case, since her legs weren’t quite steady, she did as he instructed.
“What can I do for you, Jordan?” He eased down into a chair across from her.
“Are my parents and Katy buried in Saunders Cemetery in St. Louis?”
“Yes.” He didn’t pause or stumble with his answer, and for some reason that made the truth worse.
She reached for the water and choked down a swallow. “But you spread ashes with me. Were the ashes fake?”
“They were. I’m sorry.”
She scrubbed her hands up and down her face, hopefully with enough pressure to hold everything back. She knew that question shouldn’t have been the first one. She’d jumped track, screwed with the game plan.
Do not crumble. Not here. She forced her gaze back to his. “And what was the point of that cruelty?”
“The social workers said you needed closure, but we couldn’t take you to their funeral, or . . .” He glanced away. “Or to your funeral.”
They both sat quietly for a long, excruciating moment avoiding eye contact.
“Your father was involved with a very dangerous drug cartel.”
“But he wasn’t a drug dealer, as you let me believe.”
“He wasn’t. But his actions still led to what happened. Try to understand, Jordan—someone was supposed to kill all four of you. I did what I was told to do to protect you, protect the only member of my brother’s family that survived. I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” She echoed his words, managing little more than a whisper.
“Jordan, if anyone in that drug cartel had known you survived, you’d have been a target. Not a chance in hell a loose end of Jack Delany’s would be allowed to walk around alive, child or not. They’d have never taken the chance that you could have heard something or testified against them.”
He hunched forward, leaning into her space. “The only way to see that you stayed alive was by making sure, one hundred percent sure, the drug dealers targeting your family believed you were dead. I wanted to help you, but I had a wife and a six-year-old daughter.”
“You turned me over to foster care. Do you have any idea what that was like?”
“I know you didn’t understand then, but I know you’re a cop now; you have to understand what kinds of choices I was facing.”
She nodded because she did understand. There was no peace in his explanation, not for a young girl whose family had been murdered and whose closest relative had thrust her aside, but a little perspective was starting to break through. If she had a child with Ty, she had no doubt she’d go to any length to protect their family.
“It wasn’t entirely about us.” Bill swiped at the sweat beading on his upper lip. “Jordan, look, I know you hate me. I also knew this day would come. Please understand nothing was simple back then.”
She glanced at his hands and noticed they were no steadier than hers.
“If you think I haven’t felt like a bastard all these years, you’re wrong. They were talking witness protection. To keep you in our lives, the FBI said we’d need to pack up the whole family and disappear. Allie was on chemo for breast cancer. I’m not sure you knew that.” He looked up at her again. “We were a mess on our own before all hell broke loose with your family. I couldn’t ask Allie to leave everyone. Not her mom or her friends when she was so sick. She needed her family. Hell, I needed them.”
It had been easier believing he was a selfish prick. She really, really needed to hate him. Now she found herself sitting there without even the backbone of anger holding her together.
“I made a decision to take care of my family. Every single damn day I debate whether it was the right decision. But you were just so traumatized.” He waved a hand aimlessly. “You had a mountain of issues, needed almost constant attention. You’d lash out, melt down, refuse to eat. There were nightmares—the psychologist called them night terrors—almost every night. The only thing keeping you going were the drugs that numbed you. With all that Allie was dealing with, I just couldn’t . . . I’m sorry, honey, I just didn’t know how to do it all.”
Jordan swallowed hard. She’d been a mess, she knew that was true. “When I asked if my dad was a drug dealer, why didn’t you tell me the truth? Couldn’t you at least have given me that much?” she murmured.
He opened his water and took a long drink, then sighed like the weight of the world was pressing down on him. “Maybe I should have told you the truth, but the FBI has a division that takes care of family members when their loved ones are killed in the line, so I thought they knew what was best. Only your case was so unique that all of us—me, them—were just fumbling through it. I believed they were trying to do the best thing for you, and so was I. I did what the social workers and psychologist said to do.”
“Lie to me?”
His expression turned harder. “Did you ever tell anyone that your parents and sister died because your father was a drug dealer?”
She shook her head. “Of course not. It was no one’s business.”
“Exactly. It shamed you, so you didn’t speak of it. You were stubborn as hell. They tried to change your name and you refused. They wanted to cut your hair and you went crazy. We feared if you knew your dad was FBI and died in the line, you’d talk about it or ask questions.”
“I’m thirty years old. It never occurred to you to find me and tell this information once I grew up?”
“What are you going to do with the information now?”
“What the hell do you think I’m going to do with it?” she lashed back. “I’m going to find the asshole who ordered the hit on my family.”
“Yes, and then you’re going to end up just like your father. The man who shot your family is dead. It’s over, Jordan. Move on.”
“I don’t think so.” Jordan slid the picture of Anton Linder out of the folder she’d carried in with her. “My dad’s case file say’s this is the guy who killed Mom, Dad, and Katy.” She turned the picture around on the table and slid it toward her uncle.
Bill nodded. “Yeah, that’s him. The neighbors heard gunshots and called the police. The cops chased him. He ran and jumped in a car. He was doing about ninety when he wrapped himself around a light pole a few miles from your house.”
“It wasn’t him. That’s not who I saw do it.” Jordan’s hand had an ugly tremble in it as she grabbed the picture back.
Her uncle reached out, wrapped his larger, steadier fingers around hers. Until a few minutes ago, she’d have bet his touch would have spurred anger or an outburst. Maybe even hatred. Instead, she felt nothing more than the bone-deep sorrow that had just about eaten her alive over the years. Only this time, it wasn’t her sorrow that pounded at her. It was Bill’s.
“He’s the one. He had the gun in the car. Your mom . . .”
“Just say it,” Jordan lashed out. She yanked her hand away. “What?”
“Your mom apparently scratched him. His skin was under her nails.” Bill nodded toward the picture of Anton Linder. “There was never any doubt that he was the one. But no matter how many times the police showed you mugshots and pictures, you kept insisting it was someone else. We never understood why.”
“You weren’t there. The police weren’t there. I was there, and I saw a tall guy with long black hair and a scar.”
“Did you really see him? Because you told the police you were hiding in a closet the whole time. And the man you just described couldn’t have killed your family, Jordan. The man who fits that description was your father’s partner, and he was already dead. The cartel had murdered him the night before.”
“But . . .” The air in the small house turned thick and murky, as though she were inhaling through a dirty filter. She tried like hell to take in a few steadying breaths, but her chest felt crushed under the weight of the shock. It was nearly impossible to breathe, think, or ta
lk. “But the other man, I’ve seen him over and over in my . . .”
. . . dreams. No, not going there.
“In my mind, I can still see him.”
“Probably because he worked with your dad. You must have met him. You were just a child and under so much stress, no one blamed you for having the details mixed up.”
Could she have had the details that mixed up? She thought back to the dream. She hadn’t actually seen the man with the long black hair and the scar pull the trigger, but he’d been there. Always with a fierce expression and panicked movements. Had he been trying to warn her of what was coming instead of being the one who’d killed her family?
Closing her eyes, she thought back, tried to make sense of all the scrambled memories. Had she once again spent years hating the wrong man?
She stared at Bill and managed one last question. “Was his name Ben Steel?”
Her uncle blew out a long sigh. “God, Jordan. That was twenty years ago. I don’t know if I remember all the names, but yeah, Steel sounds right, I think.”
She cleared her throat. “Thank you for talking to me.”
“Jordan, stay for a while. I can get you some coffee and we can call Jessica—”
She shook her head. “I have to get back.” She was cool and professional now, so maybe he wouldn’t guess that he’d ripped one more piece of earth right out from under her. She stood and headed for the door.
“Jordan,” he said
She stopped.
“You’re always welcome here. I hope you come back. I’d like to see you again. I think Jessie would like it, too.”
She turned back to him. “How is Jessie?”
“Good. She graduated with a psychology degree, works with troubled kids.” His proud smile was impossible to miss. “Seems to love it.”
“What happened to Aunt Allie?”
“She died about four years after you’re family died. The cancer just kept coming back.”
So neither of them had had a particularly easy go of it. “I’m sorry.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out a business card, and laid it on a small table near the door. She didn’t know if they’d ever keep in touch like family, but she no longer wanted to blow up and sever the bridge to his knowledge about her father, either.
Dream Caller (A Dream Seeker Novel Book 3) Page 11