“You’re not useless. You’re amazing. These past three days have been hard, Cat, and I’ve only just got here. I think you’re amazing and you’ve done your best...which doesn’t make what I’m going to say next any easier.”
Cat turned her back to Jay’s land and stared at the house instead. She pursed her lips together, scared to say more, scared her brother would sense just how lost and helpless she felt. Or how, deep down, she burned with envy for his happiness, his future and his whole damn life.
“Are you there?” Chris’s exhalation rasped against her ear.
“Yes.”
“Mum is in the grips of something neither you nor I can help her with. When I checked in with you from time to time, you never said things were this bad. Why? Did you think you could fix this alone?”
Cat clenched her jaw. “Of course I didn’t. She begged me. Begged me not to tell anyone, including you. She drinks, then she sobers up, then she drinks some more. It’s a damn roller coaster and when you look after an alcoholic you love, you’ll do anything to protect whatever scrap of dignity they have left. It’s not black-and-white.”
“I know that. At least, now I do.”
“You’ve come in at the tail end.” She shook her head. “When you look at Mum now, you’re seeing the now-or-never moment. Alcoholism happens so slowly, you barely notice it until one day you come home from work to find your mother asleep in her own vomit.”
Silence. Cat screwed her eyes shut and willed her racing heart to slow. Everything she’d held in check poured out. All the hurt, the pain, the disappointment, the helplessness rolled around and around and flew from her mouth in a ball of desperation. She bit back a sob.
“I want a life. I want to find someone like you have. Want to plan my own wedding one day.”
“And it makes me happy to hear you say that, because that’s what I want for you, too. There’s no right or wrong way for either of us to handle this. Mum needs to be in rehab.”
Cat pressed her fingers to her closed lids. “I don’t think I can abandon her. Not after all these years of trying to get her sober.”
“You think you’re abandoning her? Come on, Cat. You’re a cop. You know there are situations best left to the professionals. That damn pride of yours is getting in the way of what’s right for Mum.”
She opened her eyes and drew in a shaky breath. Jay was walking around the open-plan kitchen, clearing up their dinner of takeout Chinese. She probably had fifteen minutes, tops, before he came outside.
“Look, I can’t get into this right now. I’m not down here on holiday. I’m trying to find out who killed one of my best friends. Sarah was—”
“Sarah. Damn it, where’s the letter?”
Cat frowned. “What letter? What are you talking about?”
“Hold on.”
Crunching and shuffling of what sounded like papers being tossed aside filtered through the line.
“Chris, what are you doing?”
“Got it.”
“Got what?”
“The letter I assume is from Sarah.”
“What?” Trepidation dropped like a stone into Cat’s stomach. She turned her back to the house and gripped the balustrade. “You’ve got a letter from Sarah? But—”
“It’s postmarked four days before you left, and as you’ve been speaking to Jay on the phone for longer than that, I knew it wasn’t from him. I’m assuming Sarah wrote it before she died.”
“That means someone had it for a week before mailing it. Open it right now and read it to me.”
CHAPTER TEN
CHRIS CLEARED HIS THROAT theatrically, and Cat rolled her eyes. Her nerves were stretching to breaking and her pulse hammered with trepidation. Sarah had written her.
“Dear Cat,” Chris read. “This is Sarah. It’s been far too long since we’ve spoken and now this silence is something I can’t believe either of us allowed to happen. You are my best friend. Always have been. But so many things have happened over the past seven years I can’t begin to explain everything in a letter.
“I need to see you, Cat. Desperately. I’m in trouble. Big trouble.
“I know it’s wrong of me to expect you to help me after all these years of no contact, but please, please come to the Cove. Things are escalating at a rate I can no longer control and I’m scared. Scared that by the time you read this letter, I’ll be dead.”
Chris stopped and sucked in a breath. “Oh, my God. She knew, Cat. She knew someone was after her.”
Cat squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her hand to her stomach. “Keep reading, Chris. Don’t stop until the end.” She glanced toward the cabin. Jay met her gaze and she waved. He waved back and then continued cleaning up.
Chris cleared his throat once more. “Okay, where was I? Ah, right. Okay. Once I have finished writing this letter, I will make a final bid to change things. To stop you being involved. But right now, I don’t know who else he’ll listen to. You are my last hope.
“I am praying that between us, we can convince him he has to give himself up and stop the madness.
“Drugs are an evil, evil thing, Cat. They ruin lives.
“For now, I’m just begging you to come. I’ve taken fifty thousand pounds of his money as ransom. He has to listen to me. He has to. He has to stop what he’s doing. With his money gone, I hope he understands my desperation. I’ve hidden it on Cowden Beach. When you get here I will tell you where and my lover’s name. It’s too dangerous to tell you now.
“I love him so much, I’d leave the Cove tomorrow for him, Cat. I want us to get married, have a family.
“But if I’m dead when you get here, it’s imperative you find the money. I’ve left his name with it as evidence. He told me he would kill me. He has to face a trial if he takes my life. I love him, but my parents deserve to know I still believed in justice despite the stupid decisions I’ve made in the name of love. If I’m dead, it’s my lover who killed me. I love you, always, Sarah.”
The seconds beat hard in Cat’s head as silence hummed down the line. After a long moment, she heard Chris draw in a heavy breath. She opened her eyes as thoughts and scenarios ran riot in her head. Sarah must’ve been so scared. Confused. Ashamed. Alone. Not knowing which way to turn. Who was this man? This lover? She’d known he would kill her. She had actually known her life was in danger.
“Cat, are you still there?” Chris asked.
“I’m here.”
“What are you going to do?”
What was she going to do? “I don’t know. I need to think. Look after Mum, okay? I’ll call you.”
“Cat...”
“I’ll call you.” She snapped her phone shut and stared out into the night.
Sarah had written Cat the same day she’d asked Jay to meet her...the same day she’d died. Regret sped Cat’s heartbeat, and helplessness crawled over her shoulders. It was likely that Sarah would’ve phoned her, too, if she’d had an up-to-date number to call. An old-fashioned letter had been her terrified friend’s only option because of the years that spanned silently and unnecessarily between them.
Somehow they had allowed contact to waver. If they hadn’t... Cat shook her head. She couldn’t go there.
Jay. Jay was an addict. Sarah mentioned drugs. Wanting to marry this man. Was it Jay? Was Jay her lover? Revulsion knotted her stomach and Cat sucked in a breath against the pain that slashed her heart. No. Tears burned her eyes. She couldn’t think that. She
wouldn’t allow herself to think that until she was forced to.
Her heart beat painfully as she stared blindly ahead. Jay...
Cat shook her head. Focus. Focus on the facts. What had caused the delay in mailing the letter? Why had it not reached the mailbox until over a week later?
Cat closed her eyes. God, this was hopeless.
Was Sarah’s lover a close friend or colleague? Jay? Or someone neither of them knew? Sarah had wanted this mystery person to leave Templeton Cove with her, but was it for his safety rather than love? Cat gripped the phone tighter.
Their friend had called out for her and Jay, and they’d failed to get there in time. The cop in Cat told her that was no coincidence. Was her killer possessive enough—or guilty enough—that keeping Sarah’s best friends at a distance had been his most important mission?
Cat stared out into the darkness. If the killer found out about the letter, he could have intercepted it. A paper trail could be followed. Did he send it anyway, making a huge and vital mistake? What happened that day, a week later?
Questions whirled in a kaleidoscope inside her head and a slow ache pulsed at her temple. She raised her eyes to the millions of stars above and counted her breathing. In for three, out for five, in for three, out for five. She stared at the breathtaking phenomenon of the Templeton Cove sky at night. A blanket of black velvet punctured with stars and a crescent moon, bright and dazzling white, a magical scythe close enough to touch.
She lifted her hand as though intending to pluck it right out of the sky.
“You’ll never catch one.”
Jay’s voice seeped into the silence, deep and smooth.
“Hey, you, what took you—” Her heart lodged in her throat, cutting off her words and a wave of violent nausea lurched in her stomach. He stood in silhouette, holding two bottles of wine by their necks in one hand and the stems of two glasses in the other. Two bottles of wine. Her gaze went from his face, to the wine and back again.
Someone with Jay’s addictive background shouldn’t be drinking. The fact he had two bottles was a pretty clear indication he didn’t have any intention of stopping at one.
“What are you doing?” Her mind raced as goose bumps erupted on her arms. Why hadn’t she considered that Jay might not take drugs anymore but could easily be using something else as a crutch? The counselor had warned her about the same outcome if her mum ever became ready for treatment.
He stopped. “What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Raging disappointment gathered momentum and burned like acid in her stomach. “Like what?”
“Like I’m about to attack you or something.” He stepped into the amber light cast by the glow of the lamps dotted around the veranda. His teasing smile dissolved. “My God, are you crying? What happened? I saw you on the phone—”
“Why have you got wine? Was the water you served for the last two nights a way to lull me into a false sense of security? Now I’ve been with you awhile, now you’ve kissed me in the damn forest, you think it’s okay to get hammered?”
“What?”
She dipped her head toward his hands. “The bottles, Jay. The two bottles.”
“These?” He held them up. “It’s these making you look at me as though I’m Freddy Krueger?”
“Yes. It’s exactly that.”
His shoulders slumped and his brow creased. “Cat, you’re going to have to help me out here.” He stepped closer and she stepped back. His eyebrows lifted. “What have I done? I thought we could have a glass or two under the stars, that’s all.”
She swallowed against the lump in her throat and wiped her fingers beneath eyes that wouldn’t stop running. Raw, biting hurt hummed over the surface of her skin as she stared at him. What was she supposed to say? How was it fair she’d left behind one addictive personality only to travel hundreds of miles to be faced with the same thing in Jay?
Her initial anger seeped from her bones, leaving her defeated and weak, emotions she felt all too often around her mum. “Should you really be drinking?” She quietly slipped back into the familiar, if unwelcome, role of addict support.
His frown deepened. “Should I be drinking?” His jaw tightened. “I don’t drink. The real stuff is for you and the fake stuff is for me.”
Cat started. “One of those is non-alcoholic?”
“Uh-huh.”
Her breath left her lungs in a rush and she covered her face with her hands. “God, I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot. I thought...”
He stepped close and pulled her hands away. “You are an idiot, but you’re my idiot, so it’s okay. I’ve been sober a long time and I’m never going back down that road, so you can relax.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions like that.”
He smiled. “Don’t be. I love that you care enough to want to slice my balls off if I ever touch anything again.”
Relief swelled her heart with love and respect for him. She looked into his gorgeous brown eyes and his sincerity stared back at her in all its cocoa-colored glory.
“Still, I had no right—”
“Enough with the apologies, Sergeant Forrester. I imagine clearing up Friday night drunkards makes most cops a little edgy around alcohol. You’re entitled to a little wariness.”
She dropped her gaze to the planks of wood at her feet. “Exactly.”
Seven years ago she couldn’t hide anything from him and feared the same would be true again. Jay knew her like she knew herself and in a life partner that was a good thing...but in a friend you’d soon say goodbye to, it wasn’t. Getting anything but the truth past him made her feel like a rabbit trying to get past a bloodhound.
“Hmm.”
She looked up. The concentration in his gaze as he studied her stripped Cat bare and heat warmed her face. “What?”
“It’s more than the wine, isn’t it?” He leaned his body toward the small bistro table beside them. The bottles and glasses clinked against its wrought-iron surface as he set them down.
His gaze returned to hers. “Well?”
Panic thumped in her ears. She couldn’t tell him about her mum. She couldn’t let him know what she was dealing with at home. Shame twisted like a tornado inside her after all the admiration he’d bestowed on her. Guilt that sometimes, like right then, she wanted to run home, far away from him, and deal with her mess without having to look at him and see the desire for her to want him in his eyes. She needed to sort out her personal problems herself. Help her mum recover herself.
They weren’t together. They were separate. One a cop, the other a suspect.
No more Cat and Jay. No more Jay and Cat.
“Cat?” His gaze bore into hers.
“It’s just... I can’t.” She blew out a breath. “Can we talk about Sarah? That’s the most important thing right now.”
He stared for a moment longer before walking to the table and sitting. When he reached for the wine, Cat joined him at the table. “Non-alcoholic for me, too.”
His gaze lingered on hers, intense but kind. “Hey, you can drink around me, you know. I don’t mind.”
She struggled to keep her gaze steady with his. “I know that. I just don’t like alcohol. I’d prefer the non-alcoholic stuff.”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
He filled their glasses and they drank, their gazes locked above the rim. He winked, sending Cat’s stomach into a violent frenzy of lust and longing. Their kiss at the
forest had been sensational, her body willing to take the moment so much further. It had been scary and right all at the same time. She’d had lovers, occasional as they were, but nobody came close to causing the barrage of physical sensations inside her Jay had—and did.
Her gaze wandered over his handsome features, the smooth curve of his jaw, down over the strong masculine neck to the solid ridge of his shoulders. The sight of him pushed an unexpected lump into her throat.
“You’ve done well for yourself,” she said quietly. “I’m proud of you.”
He smiled and took her hand. When he lifted it to his lips, Cat watched him press a lingering kiss to her knuckles. “Thanks.”
They fell into silence and he looked out over the veranda. His face relaxed in thought. She took a sip of her wine with her free hand, wanting him to keep hold of the other. If he held her, she couldn’t run away. They might well have a significant lead to Sarah’s killer with her letter, it might be the thing to clear Jay from her professional wariness and into the realm of innocence she hankered for.
All too soon she’d return to Reading where her mum needed her and when she left, she didn’t want it to be with him in handcuffs.
As time passed, who was to say her heart wouldn’t become his again? Her passion for him was growing at a rate so fast it made her head spin and her common sense seep from her pores on a sea of hopelessness. He turned and lowered his glass to the table.
“So, do you want to tell me who was on the phone?” The concern in his voice brushed over her skin like silk. “Is everything all right?”
Putting her glass on the table, Cat shook her head, refocused. “No. No, it’s not.”
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
“I was talking to Chris.”
“And?”
Cautiously, she ran her gaze over his face, prepared for a reaction she hoped she didn’t see. “He had some news for me. News that puts Sarah’s death in a clearer light in some ways, a dimmer light in others.”
Finding Justice Page 13