by B. T. Lord
“No wonder he looked so thin,” she said more to herself than to Doc.
She slowly let out her breath, grateful for the numbing effect Doc’s words were having on her emotions. When the flood gates opened, she wanted to be anywhere but here. “Jesus. Who would shoot a man who was nearly dead?”
“Someone who was full of rage. Who wasn’t thinking clearly. Who wanted to destroy him.”
Her stomach clenched. Was Jace capable of that kind of rage? Of that kind of blind hatred?
Eli’s behavior the night he died suddenly made sense. He knew he was dying and wanted, needed, to make up for his past behavior. But she wouldn’t listen. She thought it was just one more of his damned head games. She remembered his face in her rearview mirror as she drove away.
A ball of tears formed in her throat. It was all she could do to keep from giving into the raw pain that clawed away at her fortitude.
Her face must have shown her struggles. Doc leaned over and patted her shoulder.
“Don’t you dare feel guilty,” he whispered gently. “You had no way of knowing Eli was dying. After the story you’ve just told me, you treated him better than most people would have.”
“His mother died such a long, lingering horrendous death from cancer. He never would have wanted to suffer the way she did.” She shook her head from side to side, furiously blinking back the tears that were demanding to be shed. She took a long, shuddering breath and dug her nails into her palms in an effort to keep from crying.
“Cammie, listen to me. You can’t beat yourself up. Eli had plenty of opportunities to tell you about his illness. The fact that he didn’t tells me he wanted to spare you.”
But Cammie knew better. She’d seen it in Eli’s eyes. She’d felt it in his kiss. He’d wanted to spend his last hours with her, but she’d spurned him.
How was she going to be able to live with that?
As if reading her mind, Doc replied, “You cannot let this destroy you. You’ve got to keep your wits about you. Regardless of what happened last night, Jason is going to need your expertise, your experience to solve this. Whether he’s innocent or guilty, the sooner this is wrapped up, the better it will be for this town. I’ll prescribe you some sleeping pills to help get you through the next several nights.”
Cammie shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I’m so tired right now, I don’t think I’ll have any trouble falling asleep.”
But she was wrong.
Driving along the silent roads that wound their way through the dense white shrouded forest, her thoughts careened back and forth between Jace and Eli. Yet they always settled on the last memory she had of Eli – of him running out of the house, yelling at her to stop. He’d known what he was going to do. He’d known that by morning he’d be dead. He’d wanted to make it right by her. That was why he’d come back to Twin Ponds. He’d wanted to make amends to the people he cared about – to the woman he’d once loved and still loved. It had taken staring at his own mortality to finally make him change.
Yet, she’d been so wrapped up in the Eli who had once been that she hadn’t been able to see who Eli had become.
What was it going to take to make her finally heal her ghosts? To have the scabs once and for all disappear?
When she pulled into her driveway, she saw Rick’s truck parked next to Jace’s. The lights were out inside the cabin and everything was bathed in murky shadows. She quietly let herself in and found her deputy laid out on the couch fast asleep, tucked up in the old afghan she usually kept on the back of her dad’s recliner. She tiptoed across the floor and peeked into the bedroom to find Jace spread horizontally across the bed. Between the two men, their synchronized snoring was loud and hardly melodious.
“Lovely,” she muttered under her breath. Maybe she should have taken Doc up on the sleeping pills.
The clock over the oven read nearly 2 am and the fire had died down to embers in the wood stove, sending a chill throughout the small room. She thought to wake Rick and send him home to his own bed, but he looked so peaceful, she was loath to disturb him. The next few weeks were going to be difficult. He might as well catch up on whatever sleep he could before all hell broke loose. As for her, her only option was to try and lay down on her father’s beat-up recliner. The arms were worn and there were holes where the ratty brown fabric had torn and unraveled. She’d been meaning to replace the chair for over a year, but somehow she could never bring herself to do it. It was silly to think she’d be throwing a piece of her father away, but she had to admit, that was partly why the threadbare old thing was still in its place of honor near the stove.
She quietly opened the stove and shoved another log into it. In a few moments, she had a toasty fire going. She washed her face in the sink, then turned back to the chair. Without the blanket, she had no choice but to throw her parka over herself as she settled down and waited for sleep for overtake her. But it was no use. Now that the nightmarish day was over, she found she couldn’t relax her mind.
Determined not to torture herself any further over Eli, she instead concentrated on the crime scene, trying to put pieces together that would make sense. Could Carolyn have set Jace up? Did something happen between her and Eli that would push her to do something so horrible as to shoot a man who was near death? Could Jace, drunk and angry as he was, have taken out his rage on a man who could not defend himself? Had the physical altercation with Eli pushed him beyond his limits?
What about the oxycodone bottle? Who would care if the bottle was found? The only reason for it to be missing was to cover up the fact that he’d been murdered. But that was ridiculous. Anyone with half a brain would conclude that the gunshot to the chest was proof enough that he’d been killed. She could make a plausible argument that Carolyn might have taken the bottle. Maybe she’d touched it and was anxious to hide possible fingerprints. Or maybe she’d shown up, found him already close to death, and in a pique of anger, grabbed the bottle, threw it away, then taken out her continued fury by shooting him. It was also entirely possible that she took the picture of Eli and Cammie. She’s always been jealous of Cammie and that would fit with her vindictive personality. But the trophy? Why would Carolyn care about a hockey trophy of all things? As far as Cammie knew, Carolyn hated hockey. Nor would she have known how much that trophy had once meant to Cammie. She’d never voiced her opinion that she deserved it more than Eli.
What of Jace? If he was going to cover his tracks, it wasn’t very bright to collapse in the room with his victim with the possible murder weapon under his body. In his drunken state, it was a miracle he’d been able to get there in the first place, much less have the presence of mind to hide an empty pill bottle, or discard a photo and a hockey trophy. Despite the overwhelming evidence, she just couldn’t see Jace pulling the trigger.
Then again, was she letting her feelings for Jace cloud her judgment, causing her to grasp at anybody, as long as it wasn’t him?
In frustration, she stood up from the chair and crossed into the kitchen, which in her tiny cabin was literally two steps away. Maybe a cup of tea would make her sleepy. She tried her best to keep silent, but one look at Rick and she realized she didn’t have to bother. By the sounds of his snoring, he was out cold and would be for quite a while.
Searching through the cabinets, she found a nice soothing chamomile tea. She grabbed a mug, popped water and the teabag in it and started to put it in the microwave when she heard a light footfall behind her.
“You’re home late.”
Despite herself, she stiffened. “Yeah, there were some things I had to do.”
“It doesn’t look good for me, does it?”
She slowly turned around to face Jace and her heart crumbled into a thousand infinitesimal pieces. His stubbled face was haggard and his beautiful voice was hoarse and ragged. His eyes were hollowed out, making the bruises on his face appear more obscene. She wanted to go to him, to take him in her arms, but she didn’t move. She couldn’t. Somewhere deep inside, her position
as sheriff reasserted itself. All she could do was stand there and watch as he ran his hand through his hair.
“Rick filled me in on the details,” he continued. He slowly raised his deep blue eyes, now bloodshot with exhaustion and pain until they met hers. “I know it doesn’t mean anything, but I swear to you, I didn’t kill Eli. And I didn’t sleep with Carolyn.”
“You went to her house,” Cammie blurted out before she could stop herself.
“I was furious. I hated the idea of you going over to Kelley’s.”
“So you decided to get revenge. Of all people, did it have to be Carolyn you picked to get back at me with?”
“Shit, Cammie, I didn’t pick--” He stopped himself abruptly, then heaved a heavy sigh. “Okay, I admit. It wasn’t my greatest hour. But you have to understand, it wasn’t you I didn’t trust. It was him. I could feel it in my gut that he had an ulterior motive for getting you out there.”
Cammie lowered her eyes. She didn’t want Jace to see how right he was. There had been an ulterior motive. One that felt sour in her mouth every time she thought about it.
“I’ve been trying to remember what happened after I left Zee’s, but it’s all jumbled. I can’t make sense of it.” He forced himself to look at her. “You believe me, don’t you? Despite how I felt about Kelley, you know I could never…would never…” He drew closer and placed his hands on her arms. “I said some hateful things to you earlier today. I’m sorry, Cammie. I was upset and distraught. I love you. More than you can ever know. I also know you have to do your job. But somewhere inside, you’ve got to know that I’m not capable of doing something like this, despite what you found at Eli’s house. You’ve got to believe that. You’ve got to believe me.”
The question hung in the air between them. She couldn’t answer. There were no words. She couldn’t meet his eyes. In her heart, she wanted to believe he was innocent. But she honestly didn’t know. And it killed her.
Finally Jace let his hands fall to his side. “You’re going to arrest me, aren’t you?” he said flatly.
“Not until I get the results back from forensics.”
“Jesus,” he muttered, his voice cracking, which only made her own heart shatter further. He thrust his wrists out towards her.
“You might as well get it over with,” he replied sharply.
“Jace, it’s late. We don’t need to do this now—“
“Fucking do it now!” he shouted.
Cammie blinked in stunned surprise. He’d never raised his voice to her before. It brought back a powerful memory – of Harlan bellowing and coming at her – that her knees suddenly felt weak. “We already have bars up between us,” Jace continued savagely. “Let’s just make it official.”
“Jace—“
“If you don’t arrest me right now, I’ll wake up Rick and have him do it.” He narrowed his eyes at her as she continued to hesitate. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to spend another minute in this cabin with you. I don’t want to see you looking at me, judging me, trying to figure out how I murdered Kelley. So my choice comes down to getting the fuck out of here, which would make me a fugitive, or have you do your job. And we know how much you need to prove how well you do your job.”
So much for his apology. His words, dripping with anger and sarcasm were razor sharp and aimed at her throat. Cammie took a deep breath, debated her options, then reached around for her cuffs.
“Alright Jace. You’re under arrest for the murder of Eli Kelley. You have the right to remain silent…”
CHAPTER TWENTY
For a moment Cammie didn’t know where she was. The low hum of the heat kicking on and the dim lights told her she wasn’t home. She slowly sat up and realized she was lying on the small couch in her office. It took her another moment to realize her hand was wrapped tightly around the small moon pendant Jace had given her. It seemed like centuries ago that he’d given her the black velvet box, his eyes wide with love and tenderness. The memory of his arrest fell on her like a ton of bricks and she had to force herself to breath past the pain welling up in her chest.
She let go of the pendant and felt the warm metal dangle down between her breasts. Her body still felt tired, but her mind was racing. The burden of what lay ahead crashed down all around her. Was she up to it? Could she conduct an objective, thorough investigation? Could she prove Jace didn’t kill Eli?
A tiny voice echoed in the back of her mind. What if he was guilty? What if he was so drunk, he’d blindly struck out, not realizing he was killing a man who was already half dead? What if the alcohol he’d consumed aggravated his jealousy? Fueled the anger he must be feeling that Eli had so easily beaten him up, causing him to act irrationally? He wouldn’t be the first human being who’d succumbed to his darker side while under the influence.
She ran her hands through her tangled mess of curls and slid her legs over the side of the couch. Looking at her watch, she saw it was just about five in the morning. Through her office door and down the corridor Jace was locked up in one of the two cells. The drive over had been silent and uncomfortable, and it had taken all of Cammie’s fortitude to get through the booking process without screaming in frustration. Jace remained quietly hostile as he allowed Cammie to fingerprint and photograph him. When she said good-night to him, he’d turned his back to her.
Now with only three hours sleep under her belt, she knew she’d never make it through the day without a double dose of coffee. On second thought, a triple dose.
She slowly got to her feet and clicked her tongue in disgust when she looked down at the wrinkled mess that was her uniform. Thank goodness she’d had the foresight to install the couch, a shower in the bathroom and a closet where she and Rick kept an extra change of uniform for those storm driven nights when they manned the front desk.
She went to her desk and withdrew a small bag where she kept her make-up and a change of underwear and made her way to the bathroom where she took a hot refreshing shower.
As the warm water revived her, she mentally ran down a list of to-dos for that day. First on the list was tracking down Eli’s doctor to confirm Doc’s findings regarding the cancer, closely followed by a visit to Carolyn. If anyone held the key to what happened to Eli and Jace’s part in it, it would be her. After that, she would talk to Jace’s friends and pinpoint the time he and Carolyn left Zee’s. She’d then talk to Eli’s neighbors to see if they’d heard or seen anything. She’d assign Emmy the task of trying to track down the owner of the murder weapon. She knew Jace didn’t own a revolver. So whose was it? Rick would handle getting the arrest warrant from Judge Drury.
Once in her unwrinkled uniform, with a dash of make-up and a comb through her unruly hair, she felt almost human again. All she needed was that triple dose of caffeine to get her going.
She quickly peeked into the cell and saw that Jace was fast asleep, a low snoring vibrating throughout the empty corridor. Careful not to wake him, she set about turning on the lights and getting the coffee machine going. While waiting for the coffee to perk, she once again went through her mental to-do list, knowing how crucial it was to try and gather as much information as she could before all hell broke loose in Twin Ponds. She wasn’t under any illusion that this was going to be an easy investigation. She’d be under intense pressure to solve the murder of Eli and, as she listened to the coffee machine gurgle and steam, she knew she’d be under her own pressure to do all she could to prove that Jace wasn’t the murderer. The dilemma lay in the persistent voice of doubt that refused to relinquish its hold.
Dear God, what if Jace was guilty?
She sighed. Until the forensic results came back, she’d operate under the conviction that despite all the evidence to the contrary, there was a possibility Jace was innocent. How, she didn’t know yet. But she’d do all in her power to find out.
Finally, the coffee was done. She reached for the pot and was pouring it when a loud, incessant banging on the front door of headquarters caused her to jump, spilling coffee
all over the counter.
“Damn it,” she muttered as she dithered between cleaning up the mess or opening the door. She glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to six. Who could be bothering them at such an early hour? She looked through the glass door, but whoever was out there was dressed in Twin Ponds’ de rigueur winter outfit - a heavy parka, its fur trimmed hood up over the head and a scarf wrapped around the lower part of the face to keep out the subzero temperatures. It could be any one of a hundred people standing on the threshold.
She raced around the counter and unlocked the door. Before she could open it, the door abruptly swung out, almost knocking her down. She jumped back in time to see Bill Barnes stomp into the foyer.
Bill was mayor of Twin Ponds and, as Cammie firmly believed, had held that position since dinosaurs walked the earth. There wasn’t a time she couldn’t remember when Bill wasn’t mayor. It was Bill who had convinced her to run for sheriff, a feather he wore proudly in his cap because of her past law enforcement experience. This morning however, Bill looked anything but pleased.
He pulled the scarf down and ripped back his hood, leaving his white hair standing in all directions, as if he’d stuck his finger in a light socket. Seeing his round face, already florid by nature, the color of a ripe tomato, made her think he had.
“Are you out of your goddamned mind?” he exploded, sticking a finger in Cammie’s face. “Has the cold finally gotten to you and shriveled your brain cells?”
Cammie calmly stared down at the sausage like finger poised inches from her nose.
“Good morning to you too, Bill. What brings you out so early on this cold, crisp morning?”
Her calm attitude infuriated him more. Against her will, Cammie found herself backing up as Bill came at her, his finger jabbing dangerously close to her eye socket.