Finding Justice

by Rachel Brimble

  He immediately reddened. “Oh, no, I meant you’re all grown up and not the girl running around with her hair hanging out of its ribbons all the time.”

  Cat laughed and cupped her hand to his jaw. “I know what you meant, silly. It’s great to see you looking so well.”

  His blue eyes sparkled. “You, too. I couldn’t believe it when Jay told me you were coming back home for a while.”

  Warmth furled in Cat’s stomach. He called Templeton Cove her home in the same easy way Jay had. She glanced at Jay. “I’m not so sure about the Cove being home, George.”

  She turned back and George’s smile faltered as he looked from her to Jay and back again. He opened his mouth to say something and then shook his head. “Hmm...well, whatever you might say, you know as well as I do this is where you belong.”

  They lapsed into silence and the tension permeated the room. After a time that must have been moments but felt far longer, George cleared his throat. “So, how’s Julia?”

  Cat stared. “Um...fine. She’s fine.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Just fine? The woman I remember was full of life, running around after you and Chris but always managing to look so damn glamorous.” He sighed. “Yes, a gorgeous woman who should never have been left a widow at such a young age.”

  Cat swallowed as tears lodged in her throat. “She’s carrying on as she always did. You know Mum, strong as an ox and just as stubborn.”

  He laughed. “She had to be, with you lot trying to run circles around her. I remember the time you swore you never pinched that makeup from her bag and then came in with it all smudged around your eyes. Lord, I had to leave the room so she could tell you off without me standing there fit to burst with laughter.”

  Happy memories rushed into Cat’s heart. “She didn’t miss a thing back then, did she?”

  “Nope. She had your cards marked, you and Chris, both.” He winked. “As we all did. The pair of you couldn’t get anything past me, either. No matter how many times you tried.”

  Cat continued to smile, her heart aching with the heavy weight of her mother’s demise bearing down on her chest. George’s intelligent gaze wandered over her face as though looking right inside her. She looked to the floor. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Hey.” He put a finger to her chin, forcing her gaze to his. “While you’re here we’ll find time to catch up properly, okay?”

  She smiled, warmth spreading through her. “I’d like that.”

  “Good. But right now, I must get on.” He pressed a kiss to her cheek. “I’ll see you soon, my darling.”

  Cat smiled, not wanting him to leave. No part of her wanted to be left alone with Jay. “See you.”

  George moved to step away and then stopped. His canny gaze fell on Jay and his brow furrowed. “Cat got your tongue?” He laughed. “Did you hear what I said? Cat got your tongue. Cat. Catherine.” He shook his head and swiped a hand under his eye. “Lord, I make myself laugh sometimes.”

  The tension hitched up a notch, the silence heavy and awkward.

  George’s smile dissolved and he looked from Jay to Cat and back again. “Right...well, I’ll leave you to it, then.”

  He shot Jay a meaningful glare before ambling from the room and out toward the kitchen that lay beyond. Alone again, Cat met Jay’s stare.

  “I...” She shook her head as any words to sum up how she felt escaped her. “Just show me where I’m sleeping.”

  “Cat, we need to talk.”

  Anger rose in a hot flame scorching her heart. “Not yet. I can’t...I can’t even look at you right now.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut. “I told you the truth. Surely that’s better than lying?”

  “The truth?” She trembled. “How about you telling me the truth, the whole truth when you picked up the phone and summoned me here like some damn innocent, huh?”

  His eyes snapped open, their brown depths shining with what looked like unshed tears. “What?”

  Anger blistered through Cat’s sympathy. “You heard me. Now, I said show me where I’m sleeping.” Her breath rasped painfully against her throat and her chest grew tight.

  After a long moment, he threw up his hands. “Fine. Follow me.”

  He brushed past her toward the stairs and she followed. Stopping at the third door along a long gallery landing, he pushed opened the door. “I’ve put you in here.”

  “Thank you.” She stepped inside and slammed the door.

  She waited with her forehead against the wood until his hesitant footsteps disappeared. Only then did she release her held breath.

  “No, no, no.” Cat’s words whispered out on a breath of barely contained despair.

  An addict. Jay was an addict. An addict like her mum...and possibly Sarah.

  She pushed away from the door and faced the room. She shook her head. How had he afforded the cabin? How had he managed to get sober and look so damn good while her mother festered in her own destruction? The room and its opulence swam in her blurred vision as she stumbled toward the four-poster bed.

  Cat willed her heartbeat to slow. How could seven years pass and a man still smell the same? His lingering scent of musk and man infuriatingly teased her nostrils as it had before. When she’d sat next to him in the taxi, the smell had risen between them. She inhaled, actually smelled him like she was Hannibal Lecter savoring his next meal, for crying out loud.

  He’s a suspect. A suspect. A recovering addict. An angry man, a selfish man, a dishonest man...

  Although she saw the peach satin-finished wallpaper and the thick, cream carpet pile, her mind still reeled with Jay’s news and what that now made him in her mind. Cat dropped backward onto the bed and covered her face with her hands as bitterness scorched her throat. Is that why he called me? Does he know about my mother and assume we’ll have some sort of affinity? Is any of this about Sarah?

  She groaned into the silence of the room. She couldn’t even leave, couldn’t run away despite the urge rising in her on a tidal wave. The possibility of Jay being a suspect stuck hard in her mind. Yes, he’d loved Sarah back then, but four years was a long time. A lifetime for an addict. Had Sarah given up on him? Or enabled him? Had she been selling drugs rather than using? Cat’s mind whirled with a kaleidoscope of heartbreaking possibility.

  How had all three of their lives spun so completely out of control? Drugs and alcohol had seeped into their once-innocent lives and completely obliterated their dreams of what was real and what wasn’t. Sitting up, Cat swiped angrily at her cheeks. No tears. No self-pity. She stared at the closed bedroom door.

  She had to give him the benefit of the doubt. Had to seek out the evidence and assess it logically and unemotionally. The reality was that Jay had turned things around and surrounded himself with luxury. She was happy for his success. He had managed to get on in the world, and even though Cat hadn’t done too badly in the intervening time, she had little more money now than she had when she was last at the Cove.

  Her mum’s stealing, spending and drinking it away had seen to her lack of savings. Swallowing against the pain of what had happened to her family, Cat pressed her hand to her stomach, willing the gnawing shame away.

  She and Jay lived different lives now. Lives tainted by toxic substances—but different lives, all the same. The fact she had left her mum in Chris’s hands and came to the Cove still felt liberating. She’d shown both of them, in no uncertain terms, that she gave priority for certain people and certain circumstance
s. She drew in a shaky breath. It would take a while for the guilt skimming over her skin to disappear, but despite the short time since she and Jay had been reunited, some of her responsibility was already subsiding.

  This trip, even with its sickening cause, would allow the perspective and space she needed to figure out how to help her mum and herself from falling into the abyss of hopelessness that grew wider every day.

  Tears threatened and she snapped her eyes open, determination heating her blood. Jay couldn’t have killed Sarah. He would never be capable of locking his hands around her throat, squeezing and squeezing until no breath came from her. But if he had been high...

  She shook her head vehemently in an effort to banish the ugly consideration from her mind. Her thoughts were born from her perpetual doubt about everything. Nothing more. She needed to put his addiction to one side. She needed to think clearly and professionally.

  Maybe her coming to the Cove was God’s great plan. She might have been sent there to learn enough from Jay that she would return home with the inner strength to put her mum into rehab. Who was to say her mum couldn’t emerge a success story, just as Jay had? Cat’s chest tightened as she tried and failed to bring forth some faith, some belief it would all come right in the end. She gripped the silky-soft bedspread beneath her. It had to be possible. She had to believe Jay’s intentions had been nothing but honorable when he’d asked her here. She had to. The alternative was unbearable.

  Her thoughts turned to Sarah. For her friend, it was too late. Drugs or no drugs, Sarah was dead, her life over. The one thing Cat knew for sure, even before uncovering a single thing, was that she and Jay owed it to Sarah’s memory to solve her murder and live the best lives they could.

  She had to work from the foundation that Jay was innocent until proven guilty. She would put all her energy into finding the killer without closing her eyes to the truth. It was out there waiting to be uncovered. Cat Forrester never left anything uncovered.

  She pushed to her feet and marched into the ensuite bathroom. Jay might have suffered problems in the past seven years, but so had she. Whatever those problems, they didn’t make him a killer.

  She’d shower and change and then phone Chris to see how things were at home. Trying to act as though the lavish silver-and-gray-tiled bathroom—complete with silver faucets and thick gray towels stacked on chrome shelves—was the norm for her, Cat stripped off her clothes and stepped into the open shower. The hot water slid in torrents over her head and down her body. Closing her eyes, she soaked her hair as she relived the anger and self-hatred in Jay’s eyes when he confessed his addictions.

  God knew there would be plenty of time for them to talk during the coming days.

  She opened her eyes and reached for the shampoo. This wasn’t a time for accusation. It might be the perfect time for a few revelations...from both of them. But asking him about the drugs and how that affected his relationship with Sarah was vital, whether he liked it or not. There was a very real possibility the drugs were the reason for their estrangement. Addiction killed friendships like arsenic killed people.

  Digging her nails into her scalp, Cat scrubbed her hair as though scrubbing out the turmoil, shame and disappointment of not being able to “fix” her mum. Jay didn’t know her mum as anything other than glamorous Mrs. F., as he used to call her. Telling Jay about her deterioration brought a harsh sense of fear and betrayal to Cat’s conscience. She feared his reaction to her as well as to her mum. Added to that was the horrible feeling that if she shared their family secret, she was talking behind her mother’s back. Painting her in a way Julia would rather die than Jay know.

  Cat squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn’t tell him; it was too hard. Shame wavered inside her. Shame for her mum and herself that their lives had changed so completely upon the demise of just one man—her father. Jay was clearly braver than she would ever be. She respected him all the more for it.

  Twenty minutes later, with her hair wrapped in one towel and her body in another, Cat padded barefoot into the bedroom. She sat down on the bed and pulled her tote bag toward her, fumbling inside for her cell phone. Finding it, she dialed home.

  Chris picked up. “Hi, Sis. How’s it going?”

  Ignoring his question, Cat drew in a breath. “How’s Mum?”

  Silence.

  Cat frowned, annoyance prickling at her nerves. “Chris?”

  “She’s okay. She’s had a drink and gone to bed.”

  “In what kind of state?”

  “Coherent, laughing, wondering if you’ll have sex with Jay Garrett again.”

  Cat’s eyes widened. “What? She said that?”

  He laughed. “Yep, kind of wondering the same thing myself.”

  Feeling as though she was in a parallel universe where she was the only one not finding their mum’s alcoholism amusing, Cat glared into the empty room. “Looking after Mum isn’t a game, Chris. She’ll try to lull you into a false sense of security. You don’t know what it’s like—”

  “Listen, I’ve thought about everything you said...or shouted last week. You’re needed at the Cove. I can take care of Mum until you get back...but when you do, things are going to change.”

  Cat rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Didn’t you say you and Melinda have set a wedding date? What are you going to do, ask Melinda if it’s all right to move Mum into your new marital home for a while? You really think one night of dealing with Mum and you know what’s what?”

  “No, but Melinda is on board with this and no one is moving in with anyone. Mum is moving out.”

  Cat swallowed and pressed her hand to her stomach. Rehabilitation. “What are you talking about?”

  “Just concentrate on what you have to do there and leave Mum to me, okay?” He blew out a breath. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. “You’re there to find your friend’s killer. I can’t do that. Only you can. Please. Just let me do the bit I can help with because there’s absolutely nothing I can do to help Sarah.”

  “Don’t try to distract me, Chris. You want to put Mum in rehab, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Cat fisted her hair back from her face as the habitual feeling of helplessness stole over her, the same as it did every time she heard the word rehab. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t fight the feeling if she put her mum in rehab, she was turning her back on the woman who did everything for her children until the day her husband died.

  For twenty-two years, Julia Forrester loved her children, cared for them and held them. What did they know about losing the love of their lives? Chris loved Melinda and would, by God’s grace, have her for the rest of his life, and Cat...Cat hoped to have her own love one day, too.

  “Cat, I know what you’re thinking.” Chris’s voice cut through her worry.

  “No, you don’t. Do you think I haven’t tried that route?”

  “I don’t know, have you?”

  “Yes. Nowhere will take her until she admits there’s a problem, and she won’t do that. You can’t just drive by and kick her out of the car in the hope a kindly doctor will pick her up, brush her off and deliver her back to you once she’s clean.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you? Do you know what it’s like to beg the woman who brought you up to admit she needs alcohol like most people need water?”

  “Cat, stop.”

  “No. I won’t stop until you start taking this seriously.”

  “I am. I feel like shit for leaving you so long, okay? Le
t me sort this out.”

  Cat said nothing as fear of the unknown washed over her, twisting her self-confidence into a ball and kicking it through the window. She stood and paced the room. Her heart raced and panic seeped into her veins. She needed to leave. To go home and be with her mum. It had been the pair of them alone for so long...

  “Cat? You still there?”

  Tears spilled over her lids as she nodded. “Yes.”

  “It’s my turn. I love you. Now get off this phone and find the bastard who killed Sarah.”

  “But—”

  “I mean it. Go find him.”

  The line went dead. Cat snapped the phone closed and tossed it behind her onto the bed. She swiped at her cheeks. She wanted to believe Chris could find a place where their mother would be well looked after and treated with as much respect as Cat gave her, but he didn’t have the slightest clue what he was talking about.

  Cat hauled her suitcase off the floor and onto the bed. Fine. If he thought he could do it, let him. Unzipping her suitcase, she forced her mind once more to Jay’s past addiction. It wasn’t the fear her broad shoulders couldn’t take anymore, but rather the more he told her about himself, the more obligated she felt to tell him about the mess of her own life. That wasn’t why she came. She was there for Sarah...and to think about what to do next at home. Not to cry on the shoulder of a man she’d once loved.

  Inspector Harris had agreed to four weeks’ leave of absence. Would it be enough time to find Sarah’s killer? Either way, it had to be enough for Cat to make a decision about her mum. She sometimes felt her life slipping through her fingers, a life just as precious as the one so brutally taken from her friend.

  She wouldn’t waste it. Not anymore. She and Jay had some serious work to do.

  Minutes later, she headed downstairs. When she reached the bottom step, she halted and stared around in wonder. The open-plan lower floor of the cabin was enormous. She had walked through it in a dreamlike state when they arrived, Jay’s revelation of his drug abuse had blocked out the sight and sound of everything.