Darker Than Desire

by Shiloh Walker

  Sorenson frowned as he gingerly pulled out the faded brown journal, flipping through it. The details noted in it had his face going white, lines bracketing his face.

  “How is this useful?” he asked grimly.

  “Well. Missy says she didn’t look at it, said she couldn’t. Neither did the friend.” She slid him a grim smile. “The way I see it, there’s a good chance nobody knows about this. It’s possible we could let it slip that we found key evidence that will likely lead to the arrest of the rest of Cronus. Anybody willing to testify against the others will get a more lenient deal.”

  “You want us to bluff them into turning on each other.”

  Jensen arched a brow. “You got a better idea?”

  “No.” He smoothed a finger across his left eyebrow. “No, I do not. Let me think this through, Bell.”

  “Okay. If there’s nothing else, I think I’m going to head out to the judge’s place. I hear David Sutter is staying there, and it’s about time we pin him down and ask those questions that need to be asked.”

  She turned to go, but the chief’s voice made her pause.

  “Use care, Detective. We’ve got lots of questions, but that’s not a man who’ll respond well under too much pressure. Too much of it, and he’ll go nuclear on us.”

  She nodded and then continued down the sidewalk to her car.

  * * *

  Trust.

  David brooded over it, hours after she left.

  He was still brooding over it when Jensen Bell pulled into his driveway.

  He eyed her narrowly over the long, slim cigar he’d been trying to enjoy.

  He didn’t offer to put it out as she came toward him, just continued to puff on it as she came to a stop in front of him.

  “You do realize we’ve been trying to get you to come in and give your statement,” she said bluntly.

  David lifted his face to the sky, studied the endless blue. “You do realize I have little use for statements. Even less for cops.”

  “You have good reason.”

  That had him looking back at her.

  She arched a brow. “Surprised? I know some of the slime who have been wearing a badge. I want to beat them bloody. I’m waiting for the day they stand before the judge and end up getting slapped with a guilty verdict and they end up in the general population. However … I still need your statement.”

  “About what exactly?”

  * * *

  The man was beautiful, Jensen had to admit. A woman would have to be blind not to notice it.

  He was also either deliberately obtuse or an idiot.

  The cool blue eyes—a surreal shade of pale blue surrounded by a darker rim of near indigo—weren’t the eyes of an idiot, though. Jensen had tangled with this man before, the night of the fire, and she knew when she was talking to somebody with less than average intelligence.

  That wasn’t David Sutter. Caine Yoder. Whatever the hell he called himself. He could be Peter Pan and leading a merry little band of Lost Boys and she wouldn’t give a damn.

  She wanted his fucking statement. Once she could eliminate him—from all of the cases linked to him, and hell, did she have a lot of cases she could link to him—then she could move on to the others. But she couldn’t do shit until he stopped fighting her.

  Hooking a thumb in her belt loop, she tapped her nails against her thigh and studied him.

  He stared right back.

  Typically, people didn’t like it when a cop just stared.

  Actually, in her experience, people didn’t like it when anybody just stared.

  David didn’t seem to give a shit.

  She suspected he would sit there for the next hour and let her stare and he’d stare right back. His face would never yield a damn thing. While interesting to contemplate, it wouldn’t get her anything.

  “Look. I don’t have time to dick around with you,” she said abruptly. “You don’t like cops. You don’t trust us, and that’s understandable. I won’t go into detail about how much I’d like to go back in time and stop Sims from putting a bullet through his brain—he should have gone to court and he should have gone to jail. But he won’t answer for his crimes.”

  Taking a step forward, she held David’s gaze. “There are others who are going to get away with it if we can’t build a case against Cronus. Not to mention that both you and Lana Rossi are going to have a hell of a lot of trouble in your lives if we don’t get some answers about the night you two disappeared. There is information you know about the night your mother died, information you know about every fucking dirty secret in this town, and I know it. I can see it on you.”

  “Can you really?” His tone was bored.

  But flames burned in his gaze.

  Something subtle, and lethal.

  “Do you want them to get away with what they’ve done?”

  He lifted a heavily muscled shoulder. “Seems to me that somebody has been busy lately. Dealing out their own form of justice.”

  A dark, ugly smile curled his lips as he looked back at her. “I don’t think there will be as many skating by without answering this time, Detective Bell.”

  He knows. The realization hit her, hard. The cop in her wanted to demand he tell her, and now. If he didn’t, she could just haul him in. But that same part of her held back—David was too smart. Too sly. And too angry.

  She understood that anger. The man who’d killed her mother was currently sucking down painkillers and getting a book or two a week as cancer ate away at him. He hadn’t been tried for her death. He might answer to God, but he wouldn’t answer here and the injustice of it all sucked.

  Frankly, justice sometimes sucked, but Jensen believed in her job, at the heart of it.

  Which was why she didn’t make that demand. The man in front of her would shut down. She knew, without a doubt, he would rather go to jail than tell her any damn thing. He might, eventually, tell her on his own timetable, but that was a maybe.

  Refocusing, she blew out a controlled breath.

  “Let’s put all of that to the side. I didn’t even come here, specifically, to discuss any of that. We need to talk about that body that was found over there.” She nodded to the Frampton house. Trinity Benningfield’s place. It was going to be torn down. Noah had passed the news on to Adam and Jensen had heard it from her sister—Chris worked at the bar Adam owned. The small-town grapevine made sure everybody in town would hear about it in no time flat.

  David didn’t look at the house. He continued to stare at her. A few weeks ago, he’d worn his hair in that bowl-like haircut she was used to seeing on the Amish who came into town. It was cut shorter now, almost brutally so, with nothing to detract from the harsh, beautiful lines of his face. Nothing to protect a person from the unyielding power of his gaze, either.

  Now, as he continued to study her, Jensen realized she had to fight the urge to look away. That made her mentally square her shoulders. The jackass. She wasn’t going to play these games with him.

  A few more seconds passed and then he said, “The body. You mean my mother.”

  “Your mother,” she prodded. “Yeah. Let’s talk about her.”

  “I don’t see the point. She’s been dead twenty years, give or take.”

  Blowing out a breath, Jensen did a silent count of ten. “That is just what we need to discuss. How she came to be dead, why she was put down there, why the authorities weren’t notified, why you disappeared. All of that. That’s why I need your statement.”

  * * *

  Jensen Bell, he’d heard, was like a dog with a bone.

  It looked like they’d given him to her for a chew toy.

  Settling his weight back on his hands, David tried to decide whether or not he wanted to talk to her. He had no desire to tell her anything, but sooner or later he supposed he’d have to give them something. If he didn’t, they’d just keep at it; plus, they’d also keep hassling Lana.

  Lana was going to have to deal with them on some level, anyway. But if he
gave them enough to satisfy them, maybe they’d leave her alone.

  He’d already ruined enough of her life. Now that she was finally trying to put it back together, he sure as hell didn’t want the past to interfere. Not if he could stop it.

  And he didn’t want it messing with Max, either.

  What if they decide to mess with you? It was a quiet voice, one that murmured from the back of his mind, but he brushed it aside. If they decided to place the blame for all of that on him, it was no more than he’d expected and far less than he deserved.

  He’d deal with that when and if it came to it.

  He debated a few more seconds and then shrugged. It was going to come out. Sooner or later. Much better, he figured, if he controlled the circumstances. “I was going to run away. I reckon you can imagine why.”

  Something that might have been surprise briefly lit Jensen’s eyes, but then it was gone. “You wanted to get away from your father.”

  “Yes. It was that, or kill myself. Lana…” He paused, searching for the words. “She’d figured out what was going on. She had planned to give me money, knew of a place where I could go. We’d gone there to meet. My mother heard of it somehow and followed us. We got into a fight—physical. My mother had a gun, called my father.” His lip curled as he thought of it. “She told him there was a problem. She would deal with the problem, but he had to come and get me.”

  He watched as Jensen reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, black notebook. She made notes as she started to fire off questions. “She had a gun? You saw it?”

  “Clear as I see you now,” he said softly, the image settling in his mind. “She had it pointed at Lana.”

  “Was Lana this problem?”

  With a tight smile, he said, “Of a sort. Ol’ Pete was coming to get me. She didn’t call Jimmy Rossi and tell him to do something about his recalcitrant daughter. My mother was going to handle that particular problem.”

  “What happened?”

  “We tried to run.” That wasn’t the exact truth. He remembered how he’d felt. The fear and how, not for the first time, it had bled into rage. Anger had grabbed him before that—grabbed him and held him in a choke hold, one that blinded him to anything and everything else. But in that moment, he’d been clearheaded. Clearheaded and ready to kill. Diane had looked at him, really looked, and he’d seen the shock in her eyes. It had felt good. He remembered that, too.

  “What then?”

  Blinking, he turned his head. The sight of Jensen standing there threw him for a moment. He’d felt lost to those memories. To that memory. Seeing his mother go down. Hearing the crack, the shatter of glass. He’d lunged for her and she’d brought up her feet, kicked him. He’d gone down and she’d moved, grabbed one of the shards of glass from the floor.

  He could still remember how it had felt when it went in. How it had felt to look into her eyes as she did it.

  It had been almost a relief.

  She hadn’t ever loved him, and he knew that.

  But in that moment, he’d been able to let go of any idea that he should love her. As blood spilled out of him, he’d almost felt free. But then Diane had turned on Lana and he lunged for her.

  Diane was dead.

  Somebody would probably have to answer for that.

  If they tried to go after Max …

  No.

  Decision made, he studied Jensen from under his lashes. Everything he said here could be proven in one way or the other. The scar he had was old, but it didn’t look like anything he’d done shaving or working on the farm.

  Lana didn’t remember much and she’d been out of it after hitting her head.

  And Max …

  Grimly, David focused on the river.

  Maybe if he did this, it would help lift some of the weight he dragged around. He felt no guilt over what had happened to his parents, didn’t wonder how much his dad might have suffered before Max put him out of his misery. He didn’t regret their loss at all.

  But he had almost choked over the guilt about what he’d done to Lana’s life. Now he had a chance to fix some of it, he hoped. By just telling the truth he’d hidden for so long.

  Averting his gaze, he focused on the river, the way sun glinted off of it, so bright it almost blinded him. “She had the gun pointed at Lana. She was going to shoot her. I ran at her, knocked her down. She dropped the gun. I would have done more—attacked her, I guess. But she kicked me and I was on the ground, bleeding. There was glass—a window. I guess a window busted, a bullet went through it or something. Broken glass, everywhere. She had a big shard of it and got up, shoved it in me. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe for a minute, it hurt so bad. Then she got up, went after Lana, cut her with that glass. I was trying to get up. Lana hit her. She went down. We got out. Tried to run.”

  He’d let it go at that for now. It was all the truth, and if he was going to do what he planned to do he wanted to take his time, make sure he gave everything in one piece, had it all together in his head.

  Aware of the intense scrutiny, he looked up and met Jensen’s eyes. One dark brow arched. “Just like that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Both of you injured, and you run. Just like that.”

  “We sure as hell tried.” He shrugged easily enough, went back to studying the river. He thought of the rusted-out wreck that was still tucked in one of the barns over on Abraham’s land. By now, David couldn’t even get the engine to turn over. He’d tried, once, a few years ago. Out of everything he’d owned, that car was the one thing he’d valued. Because every now and then he’d thought about the freedom it offered.

  Not that he’d ever thought of running—not until Lana. He’d get caught; he knew that. If he ran, they’d find him, bring him back. But there were other kinds of freedom. Taking that car, speeding down those winding roads that ran through southern Indiana. Pressing on the gas, at just the right moment. Ignoring the brakes. He could have flown. Free, for the first time in his life. And it would have all ended.

  He’d never done it, of course. His sorry ass was still here.

  But the car had promised freedom. Then it was a reminder.

  One he hadn’t been able to let go of.

  The backpack and everything he had tucked in it that night were still secure in the trunk. He’d thrown the keys in the river one night, desperate, half-ready to throw himself into the water as well. But he didn’t need keys to pop open a trunk.

  “Yeah,” he murmured, half lost in the memories. “I would have run. Just like that. I had my car, had the money. Thought of finding a hotel. But Lana was hurt. I was hurt. We needed to find help. Get off the road.”

  “This isn’t coming together for me,” Jensen mused, tapping her pen on the notebook. “Didn’t the judge hear any of that noise?”

  “You’d have to ask him,” David said levelly.

  “He never said anything to you?” She shook her head. “That’s another thing that’s not coming together. I think there’s something between the two of you. Seeing as how you’re here, at his place.”

  Something between the two of you … David narrowed his eyes. The chief hadn’t told her. “Meaning…?”

  “You get my meaning. You and the judge have some sort of connection. What is it? I’ve seen the two of you together. More than once. Seen you out here, in hundred-degree weather even, dealing with those flower beds, cutting the grass. The flower beds are a real puzzle. Both of you do it and then Miss Mary—that poor soul—she’d be out here within a week, whistling up a tune as she pulled up every single flower. Then either you or him would be planting the damn flowers all over again. Sometimes it was almost a race to see who’d do it first. I always passed it off as a kindness on your part, but then … well. If you have a kind bone in you, you hide it. It goes deeper than that. What is it, David?”

  “Maybe I just have a green thumb.” David bared his teeth in a mockery of his old friendly smile.

  “Now you see, I’d like to buy that.
But I can’t. You two have a history and I’m thinking it’s a long one. Like twenty years long.” She ran her tongue across her teeth, her brows drawn low over her eyes. “I think he knew. About that night. About your mother—was she—”

  Her phone rang. She pulled it from the case at her belt and gave it a distracted look, her gaze coming back to him for only a second before it went back. She frowned and took the call.

  As she answered, he heard a phone inside the house ringing. Frowning, he turned his head, looked over his shoulder. Now who in the hell was calling—

  “Sir, what did you say—” She cut the words off abruptly, but her tone sent an icy shiver down David’s spine and he slid his gaze to her. She was staring at him, her expression oddly stiff and her eyes flat.

  Noises, chaos, rose in his head. Climbing to his feet, he turned and headed into the house.

  “A minute, sir,” she said.

  David heard her dimly over that noise, but it was disconnected.

  “David, just a minute, okay? Something has—”

  He reached out a hand, closed it over the handset of the old-fashioned phone, thought about how many times Judge Max—his grandfather, all the decency he’d ever seen in his family—must have picked up this phone. He thought about Miss Mary, that sweet old lady, and how many times he’d wished she had been his family.

  A kindness? Jensen thought he’d been here out of kindness.

  No. It was because it was one of the few connections he was capable of feeling. One of the few he’d allow himself.

  Everything slid into slow motion as he lifted the phone to his ear. He didn’t say anything. He just held it there and waited.

  “Ca—Sorry. David, are you there?” Noah asked, his voice agitated.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  “Max,” Noah said softly.

  David closed his eyes before the red rush of rage descended on him. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t know,” Noah said. “I just heard he was found dead. I … damn it, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s going on, but I didn’t want you to hear it, be unprepared.”

  Slowly, while Noah was still talking, David lowered the phone down in the cradle and lifted his head, staring at the picture in front of him. That picture was the one he’d seen when he’d figured it out. Carefully, he took it down and because he could look at Max and Mary’s face, because he could see that connection, he placed the portrait facedown on the table and then he turned and looked at Jensen.