Skeletons in the Mist (The McCall Twins)

by Jennifer Hayden

  “Tabitha’s going to be okay. He hit her in the chest but it missed hitting anything crucial. She’s in recovery.”

  Chas felt more relief. When he’d turned and seen Tabitha Kennings standing in his living room in the dark, he hadn’t noticed she was bleeding at first. It turned out that Donovan Dewitt had shot her when she’d attempted to escape from him. She’d fallen to the ground and played dead. He’d left her there and taken off and she’d managed make her way to find help.

  If Tabitha hadn’t found Chas and Trace in their house, they never would have figured out that Donovan Dewitt was behind all of the murders and that he had taken Roxy to an old garage near his property, where he’d been holding Tabitha and Dylan hostage for the past couple of days. Tabitha had saved Roxy’s life. If the police had gotten to that garage seconds later…

  “Hey. She’s going to be okay.” Trace set a hand on Chas’s shoulder and he realized his emotions were showing in his expression again. He wasn’t usually an emotional guy.

  “Chas?”

  Hearing her voice, he whipped his head around and leaned forward, reaching for her hand. Her eyes were open and she was staring from him to Trace and then back again. “Am I seeing double, or are you both here?”

  Trace chuckled at that and Chas found himself smiling.

  “We’re both here. Double the trouble. How are you feeling?”

  She grimaced, obviously in pain. “Everything hurts.” Her voice crackled. “Water.”

  He grabbed a cup and filled it with water, holding it for her so she could suck some through a straw.

  “Dylan?” She spoke the word softly, her eyes looking worried.

  “He’s fine. For now he’s staying with Aggie Colyar. Devon’s on his way there too. ”

  She visibly relaxed. “Thank God.” Suddenly she tensed again. “Is Dewitt…”

  “He’s dead. I didn’t have a choice. He was going to shoot you again.” He squeezed her fingers. “He was a bad guy, Roxy. I’m sorry.”

  “I know.” She whispered the word. “He hurt so many people…” Her voice broke off again and she turned away from him. “I’m sorry for all this. It was all my fault.”

  “Hey.” He stood and reached for her chin so that she was forced to look at him. “You can’t choose your family. None of this was your fault.”

  “Yeah,” Trace chimed in. “If you could choose your relatives, do you think I’d have chosen this knucklehead to be my twin?”

  Chas was about to glare at his brother, until he saw Roxy smile halfway. The sight was worth the insult.

  “Actually,” Trace added. “I would have chosen him anyway. You’ve got yourself a pretty great guy here if you can tolerate the fact that he’s a colossal slob.” He slapped his brother on the back again and then leaned over and gave Roxy a squeeze. “I’m going to leave you two alone and go check on Tabby again.”

  When he was gone, Roxy looked up at Chas. “Tabby?”

  “She was shot but she made it. Smart kid, that one.”

  She looked confused. “I still don’t understand how Tabby ended up with Dewitt.”

  “Wrong place, wrong time,” Chas explained. “When she was walking home the night she disappeared, she ran into Abel Flannigan. He apparently decided to drag her back to the old shack in the junkyard and have a little fun with her. He didn’t count on Donovan Dewitt being in the vicinity the next morning. Apparently Donovan didn’t care for pedophiles.”

  “He killed Abel?” she asked groggily.

  “That’s what Tabby said. It lines up with the facts. He already had Dylan at that point, locked up in the garage on his property. He wanted Myra’s journal and wasn’t getting anything out of Dylan. He naturally figured you were the only other person besides Devon that might know where the thing was. He attempted to kidnap you that night at the motel. When you fought back so intensely, he took off. Then he called you and asked you to meet him at the yard the next day—convinced you that he was trying to help you find Dylan. What he didn’t count on, was running into Abel and Tabitha—lucky for you. He ended up killing Abel. He hauled the body to the old Cadillac and then took off with Tabitha, knowing he had no choice if he wanted to keep her quiet. You stumbled upon Abel, Woody heard you screaming, and the rest is history.”

  He could see that Roxy was struggling to process all of this information. Her eyes were wide with shock. “How could he have possibly gotten away with all of this for as long as he did?”

  Chas shrugged solemnly. “Even his own wife had no idea. She knew nothing about anything in his past, or about his affair with your mother.”

  She inhaled a deep breath. “I didn’t recognize his voice at all. God, if only I had maybe—”

  “Don’t. There’s nothing you can do now to change things. There is no way you could have known that Donavon Dewitt was the person that called you that day. You hadn’t seen him in years.”

  “The first day I got here he approached me. I sensed that he wasn’t happy to see me. I just thought it was because Devon had been caught peeping in his windows.”

  “I would have thought the same thing.” Chas gave her a sympathetic smile. “You should know, Dylan had the journal this entire time. He took it from Myra’s house the night of the murder. He buried it in the junkyard, near the workshop. We have it now. The whole story about your mother and her affair with Dewitt is in there.”

  She was quiet for a minute, obviously digesting everything that was coming back to her now. Moisture filled her eyes as she bit her bottom lip. “I’m glad he’s dead. He was never really my father anyway.”

  “Yeah, he was a sick man.” It still bothered Chas that Dewitt had been sitting in the mayor’s office right upstairs the entire time they’d been working on things. He’d been right under their noses, eavesdropping on everything they were talking about. It had been easy for him to keep a step ahead of them.

  “You saved my life.” She said the words quietly and he met her gaze.

  “Actually, Tabby did. She and Dylan were both with Dewitt at the house when he broke in and took you. She tried to get away and he shot her and left her for dead. If she hadn’t come to us when she did—”

  “He was going to shoot me again. You saved me.”

  He shrugged. “I was just doing my job.”

  “You’re good at it. When I first met you, I thought you were too unorganized to be a cop. Now I see differently.”

  “I like what I do,” he said nonchalantly. Then he looked at her seriously. “I like you too, Roxy. If anything had happened to you…” His voice broke off and he swore. “It would have devastated me.”

  She gave him a tired smile. “I like you too. My life is a mess right now, Chas. I have no place to live. I have no job and no car. I have Devon and Dylan to worry about too. Even though technically we’re not blood related—”

  “I know. Things are complicated. We’ll work all that out later. You’re staying around though, right?” He was a little worried about her answer.

  “I don’t know about Cavern Creek. I like Spokane though. I’m really more of a city girl these days.”

  He thought that over. “The city’s good. Close, and there’s lots to do there. I can deal with that.”

  She gave him another weak smile, then her eyes started drooping again. “I’m so tired. Will you stay?”

  He squeezed her hand affectionately and leaned back in his chair. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Three months later...

  Roxy went to work unpacking boxes. They had moved into the three-bedroom house a few days earlier. It was a huge improvement over the small apartment that she and Dylan and Devon had been sharing for the past three months, while they had tied up loose ends in Cavern Creek. The new house was in Spokane, not far from the Riverfront Park. The rent was reasonable and the school district was good. Devon and Dylan were going to be starting new schools in a week. Dylan was a seventh grader now and Devon a ninth grader.

>   Both boys had struggled a bit after the ordeal in Cavern Creek three months earlier. Adjusting to life with a person they barely knew had been challenging—for Roxy as much as it had been for them. But they were the closest thing to family that each other had. They had all accepted that fact.

  Strangely enough, the rock in their situation had been Chas. He’d won the trust of both boys fairly quickly and whenever there was a problem with one of them, he seemed to be able to communicate with them when she couldn’t.

  Aunt Myra’s house had been sold and now both boys had a decent college fund set up for them. Roxy had found a job at a local doctor’s office as a receptionist—actually the doctor was Chas’s older brother, Jared. He’d recently opened up his own practice with two other doctors and they had needed someone just at the perfect time. She liked the atmosphere of the job and the location. The salary wasn’t bad either. It was three times what she’d been making at the newspaper in Seattle. She’d already managed to buy a decent car and was putting money away into savings so she could hopefully start school for herself soon.

  “Good grief, how much more stuff is there?”

  Roxy turned at the sound of Myles’s voice. He’d come to visit just in time to help her move out of her apartment. He wasn’t big on heavy lifting. Thank goodness Chas and Trace were.

  “That’s the last of it. Chas made the final trip this morning.”

  “Hm. When’s his brother coming back? He’s hot.”

  Roxy rolled her eyes. “He’s straight and he’s taken.” She’d met Willow Malone, Trace’s longtime girlfriend, and they’d instantly become friends. She was glad because she knew that Trace was Chas’s best friend in the world, as well as his brother.

  “All the good ones always are.” Myles flopped down on the unmade bed. “So when’s the handsome prince moving in?”

  “He’s not,” Roxy said, sliding a shirt onto a hanger and shoving it into the closet. “We agreed that we’re not ready for anything like that yet. It’s only been three months.”

  “He’s pure eye candy and he adores you. What’s to wait for?”

  Roxy rolled her eyes again. “Like I said, it’s only been three months. Besides, the ball’s in his court. He’s the guy.”

  “Meaning that you’re waiting for him to be ready.”

  The words annoyed her but she shrugged and nodded. There was no use in trying to lie to Myles. He knew her too well. “He’s changed in a lot of ways, Myles. He’s a good man. The best. But he had an active social life before he met me. I think he’s a little hesitant to permanently kiss that goodbye.”

  “If I found the right person, I’d jump on it in a heartbeat.”

  “Or you could go jump off something else,” a voice said dryly.

  Roxy turned around and saw Chas standing in the doorway, an annoyed expression on his face. He’d obviously heard their conversation.

  Over the past three months, Myles and Chas had grown to like each other. Chas had been a little uncomfortable around Myles in the beginning. Myles was a flirt and he tended to say what was on his mind, which was something that had driven Chas crazy at first. And as far as Myles was concerned, eye candy or not, Chas was a slob and somewhat of a Neanderthal. They were total opposites, these two. But they’d developed a mutual understanding and now got along fine for the most part.

  “Honey, you’re home. I didn’t hear you come in,” Myles said, his sarcastic smile growing bigger.

  Chas rolled his eyes. “Don’t you have something to do? I have exactly twenty-eight minutes until I have to head back to work. I’d like to spend some time alone with my girl.”

  Myles continued to grin. “Well if you want me to leave, just say so.”

  “Leave,” Chas said, his arms wrapping around Roxy from behind.

  When they were alone, Chas leaned over and let his lips run along the line of her jaw. “I missed you last night.”

  “I missed you too.” She leaned into him and let his spicy scent surround her. On nights when he worked the late shift, he always stayed at his own place in Cavern Creek.

  He turned her in his arms and their lips met, the kiss deepening instantly. He gave her a gentle shove so that she landed on the bed on her back. He came down on top of her and surprised her by staring into her eyes, instead of kissing her like she’d thought he was going to do. When he continued to stare at her, she rolled her eyes. “What?”

  “I love you.”

  The words startled the heck out of her and she found herself frozen. Neither of them had ever spoken the “L” word before.

  “I just thought I should tell you, because when I walked in here a minute ago, I heard some things that make me think you’ve misunderstood my position on this relationship.”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Roxy, I love you.”

  The words stunned her again. The longer she stared into his eyes, the more her heart began to melt. “I love you too,” she finally said softly.

  He looked relieved. “Just so there’s no confusion here, I know my single days are over and I’m okay with that. But I’d like to be able to decide when I’m going to propose on my own. Is that okay with you?”

  She nodded hesitantly. This was a whole different side to Chas that she’d never seen before.

  “Okay, good. Let’s get busy. Now I only have twenty-three minutes left.”

  Later that night, she and Myles were sitting on the couch with the boys, watching a sitcom. It was after eight. Dinner had been done and the dishes were cleaned up. All that was left was teeth brushing and an hour of television.

  The phone rang and Roxy glanced at the caller ID. She was surprised to see Josh’s number pop up. While she and Josh were friendly enough, he rarely called her. Instantly her heart stopped. She knew Chas was working tonight. She answered the call quickly.

  “Josh?”

  She heard a bit of static. “Yeah, Roxy, it’s me. I only have a minute. I’m in the hospital emergency room and they’re making me shut my phone down.”

  Roxy’s words died in her throat. The emergency room. Oh God.

  “Before you start panicking, Chas is okay. There was a shooting. It was out at the Flannigan place. He’s got a few cuts and bruises but he’s fine.”

  “Thank God.” The words came out breathlessly. “I’m on my way.” She almost hung up, but she heard his voice at the last minute.

  “You’d better hurry. Trace took a bullet. It doesn’t look good.”

  ~AVAILABLE NOW~

  THE CONCLUSION TO THE

  McCALL TWINS SERIES

  BENEATH

  BURIED SECRETS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Jennifer Hayden lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and kids. Writing has been a passion of hers since the age of eleven when she wrote her first mystery. She now has thirteen books available,including:

  HIDE AND SEEK

  UNBROKEN

  COLLISION

  SWEET REVENGE

  SAY MERCY

  SOUNDS OF NIGHT

  ROOT OF ALL EVIL

  AFTER THE RAIN

  IN THE EYE OF THE STORM

  HOPE FOR CHRISTMAS

  HEAD OVER HEELS FOR CHRISTMAS

  SKELETONS IN THE MIST

  BENEATH BURIED SECRETS

  FOR MORE INFORMATION:

  JENNIFERHAYDENBOOKS.COM