“Ladies, did you know the victim?” She didn’t bother waiting for an answer. “Do you feel safe being out here at night?” She shoved her microphone towards them, waiting for an answer.
Ignoring it, Belle turned and walked away quickly. Blade had spent so long drumming it into her that she must avoid her picture being taken that now it was second nature. The last thing she wanted was for anyone to see her and to be arrested for murder. She’d seen enough; she was done for tonight and if Blade didn’t like it, well, it was just tough. Business would be quiet now anyway, most of the customers scared off by the police presence. She might as well make the most of it and get an early night.
24
Beth hadn’t slept very well, tossing and turning most of the night. She’d had vivid dreams in which Finn had featured quite heavily and not always fully clothed. She felt the heat fill her cheeks again as she remembered them.
Your sister is dead and your niece is missing and you’re having sexy dreams? She was chiding herself as his shadow fell across the table. Feeling as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t, she felt her cheeks get even brighter as she looked up and found Finn standing there. The smirk he gave her told her that he had noticed her discomfort and seemed to find it amusing.
“We meet again,” he drawled at her as he took a seat.
“Hardly surprising, since we agreed we’d meet here,” she snapped, cross with herself for letting him get to her.
“Yes, but you’re hardly known for doing what you agree to, are you?” he responded, reminding her again of their shared past.
Taking a deep breath, she ignored the comment and pulled a notebook and pencil out of her purse. “Okay, I was thinking last night that the best thing to do would probably be to go over things from the beginning. I wasn’t here so I don’t know what steps the locals took. That way, we can see if they missed anything or if there’s anything worth going over again.”
“Hold your horses. I haven’t had any breakfast yet and, if we’re going to do this, I’m not doing it on an empty stomach or in a public place.” He signaled to the waitress. “We’ll have something to eat and then I’ll take you over to the impound yard. We still have the car over there and I thought you might want to take a look.”
He was right, of course. There was no point going off half-cocked. It was probably best to get a picture of the crime scene in her mind before going into too much detail. “Okay, that makes sense.” Though for some reason, it pained her to admit he was right. “I’ll have what you’re having.”
She put the pad back in her purse and sat back, looking at him as he ordered. He hadn’t changed much. His face was still ruggedly handsome with the strong, square jaw that she remembered. There were a few more lines on his face than there had been then, but the same could be said of her. He was keeping his hair shorter, too, though it was still dark and thick.
“So what happened to college? I thought you were going to become a lawyer and lock up all the bad guys?” That had been part of the reason she had left, so that she didn’t destroy his dream. She’d been surprised when her sister had told her that he’d never left town.
“Things don’t always turn out the way you expect them to, do they?” He seemed to realize he spoken harshly and immediately apologized. “Look, I’m sorry, but you asked for my help and you’ve got it, but I’m not here to reminisce, okay?”
Hurt, Beth just nodded and concentrated on eating her food. He was right; she had no right to expect that they could be friends.
They finished their breakfast in silence before heading over to the impound lot. It was really not much more than a fenced in yard around the back of the police station and her niece’s car was the only occupant. She was surprised to see that it wasn’t being kept under cover and had been left out in the elements. “Why hasn’t it been preserved as a crime scene?”
“CSI went over every inch of it. There was nothing more they could do.”
She wasn’t at all happy with that. If they had missed anything, it was likely lost now. “We wouldn’t have done that in L.A.. It would have been kept preserved as evidence until the case was solved.”
“You’re not in L.A., though, are you? You’re in Hicksville,” he snapped as he turned and walked out of the lot.
Walking fast to catch up with him, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to come out the way it did.” She took a deep breath. “I just need to find her. She and Neil are the only family I’ve got left.”
He nodded. “Come on, then. I’ll take you to where we found the car.”
She resolved to actually think about what she was saying before opening her mouth in the future and followed him to his car.
The location had been disappointing. It was in the middle of nowhere and there was absolutely nothing to see. It didn’t help that Finn had hardly said two words to her since they had left the diner. She was feeling quite down as they drove back towards town and she rested her head against the glass of the passenger window, watching the fields as they sped past. She had been sitting like that for a few miles and had given up on the idea of conversation when he did actually speak.
“My dad lost his job.”
She looked at him quizzically, confused by what he had said.
“You asked why I didn’t go to college. Well, Dad lost his job and we couldn’t afford the tuition and there was no chance of me getting a scholarship.” He kept his eyes on the road as he said this, not giving anything away.
“I’m so sorry. I know how much it meant to you.”
“You’d be surprised how little anything meant to me after you left,” he said, the bitterness plain in his voice.
She didn’t know how to respond. Part of her heart was flying to hear that he’d cared so much, but a bigger part was breaking to know that she’d done that to him.
“Finn…”
He didn’t let her finish. “Don’t. It’s in the past. I moved on, met someone else. It’s all history now.”
They didn’t speak again until he dropped her back at her car. “I think we’ve done enough for today. I’ve got some errands to run this afternoon so I’ll pick up the case files from the station and we can get together again tomorrow to go through them.”
“Shall we meet at the coffee shop again?”
“No, the files are confidential. We can’t go over them in public. Come to my place just after lunch.” He wrote his address down on a piece of paper and handed it to her through the window.
“Ok, see you then.”
With the rest of the afternoon free, Beth decided it was probably about time she visited the office. The business had been in their family for generations and she used to go to there sometimes with her mother when they were small to visit her father.
It was hard to think of her parents. When she’d left, the only way she’d been able to cope was to not think about them. If she did, her grief overwhelmed her. Because that’s what it had felt like, grief. They’d still been alive, but they’d made it clear that she was no longer their daughter. She had kept in touch with her sister without their knowledge and she knew that her mother had asked about her, but her father never spoke her name again.
The plant was about ten miles out of town and spread over several acres in several distinct buildings. The business used to exclusively supply parts for the automotive industry but with that industry’s general decline, it had expanded and now had several arms. Not only did they still supply car manufacturers, but now they also supplied parts to the maritime industry and married out defense contract work, some of it highly classified. It was the single biggest local employer, with most of the population of Brecon point either working there or having a family member who did.
Neil had been in charge since his father was killed and she had no intention of interfering with that. She’d have no idea where to start anyway, but she did need to familiarize herself with the day-to-day runni
ng if she was to take her new responsibilities seriously.
She spent the rest of the afternoon sifting through mountains of paperwork in the office space Neil had made available for her, close to his. She was pleased that he did not seem resentful at all of her presence; it could so easily have been a difficult situation.
By the time the sun went down, she was exhausted and her eyeballs hurt from too much reading. No arguments tonight! She was just too tired to get caught in the middle of another row between Neil and Marrie and resolved to go straight home, take a long hot bath, read a book and get an early night.
25
The morning was spent catching up on phone calls and paperwork. Her first call had been to her captain back in L.A., asking for a bit more time off. She’d worked incredibly hard to regain his trust after disappearing to London and hadn’t taken a day off until it had been forced on her. This meant that she had a lot of holiday time owed to her and he was happy for her to take as long as she needed, which was a relief. She didn’t want to have to be worrying about whether she had a job to go back to, as well as everything else.
The next call had been to Kyle and Tara. Kyle was her old partner, and it was for him that she’d dropped everything and jetted off to London two years ago. He’d gone to rescue Tara from the clutches of her boss, who’d used her as a prize in his underground poker games. She’d refused to let him go alone and they’d managed to track her down and bring her and her long-lost daughter home.
She’d promised them that she’d keep them up to date with what was happening, so she’d filled them in on the contents of the will. She hadn’t told them that she was planning on looking for Andrew herself as she knew full well that they’d be on the first plane down here to help and she didn’t want to drag them away from L.A. Besides, their P.I. company had taken off and they were far too busy to take the time away. They’d come anyway, she knew that, but she wasn’t prepared to put them in that position. They had a spare key to her place and they’d promised to go in periodically, just to check everything was all right.
Getting up from the kitchen table, Beth went to the counter to make herself another cup of coffee. It really was a sad reflection on her life that she could drop everything and walk away so easily. There was no one who needed her, who would even miss her. Not even a cat. The thought did nothing for her mood, which was low that morning anyway.
For years she’d held the fact that she’d done the right thing all those years ago close to her heart. It had helped her get past the nights when she’d cried herself to sleep, when the ache within her had almost been too much to bear. Since she’d been back, though, she’d started to see things through different eyes. Would it have been so awful if she’d stayed? Seeing that Finn was happy despite not pursuing his dream threw a shadow of doubt over her that hadn’t been there before, and she didn’t like it.
Realizing that she’d been staring into her coffee until it had gone cold, she checked the clock on the wall. Past one. Feeling selfish for wallowing in thoughts of herself, she pushed them aside and brought her attention back to what she had to do today.
She was hoping that going through the files might throw up something, anything, that may give them a clue. She’d seen it happen many times; a case gone completely cold until looked at with a pair of fresh eyes. Something looked at so many times that it didn’t stand out and got missed.
Neil and Marrie were both out, so she locked the door behind her as she left and climbed into her car. She had to go through town to get to the address Finn had given her so she stopped at the coffee shop and got them both a coffee on the way.
She could see as soon as she pulled up outside the address Finn had given her that the house was well cared for. It wasn’t large, a typical two bed, two bath with a small yard out front and larger yard out back. The grass was neatly mowed and it looked as if the house had not long ago had a new coat of paint.
It occurred to her as she walked up the path to the front door that she hadn’t asked if he lived here alone. Suddenly feeling awkward, she knocked on the door. There was nothing but silence from the other side, so she knocked again. Still nothing. He wouldn’t have forgotten would he?
Walking back down the path she noticed the garage at the side of the house and walked towards it. As she drew closer, she could hear the unmistakable sound of country and western coming from behind the garage door.
Knocking on it loudly so she could be heard above the music, she heard it stop before the garage door was pushed open. Finn stood there, covered in oil with a wrench in his hand. Behind him was one of the most beautiful cars she’d ever seen.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asked, walking towards the car. “A 1967 Pontiac GTO?” She walked around it admiringly. “Didn’t you have a poster of one of these on your bedroom wall in high school?” She remembered it; it had had the prized place above his bed.
“You remember that?” he asked, wiping his oily hands on a rag before taking the coffee she was holding out to him. “Thanks.”
She just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. There were many things she remembered about his bedroom back then.
“Come on in the house.” He closed the garage door and led her through a side door into the kitchen. “I’ll go wash up. Make yourself at home. The living room is through there.” He pointed to a door just down the hall before disappearing upstairs and leaving her alone.
The house was nicely decorated in neutral colors, but it still managed to feel warm and welcoming, partly due to the clever use of accent colors but also because of the many pictures adorning the walls. They were all along the walls in the hall, and when she went into the living room, she saw that they were on the walls there, too. Taking a closer look she could see that they were pictures of family and friends in various settings. On vacation, rock climbing, by the beach, even one of Finn sitting astride a surfboard, smiling for the camera.
She couldn’t help but wonder who had taken that picture. A girlfriend? There were no obvious signs that anyone else lived in the house though. Beth wasn’t entirely sure why, but that made her feel better.
She didn’t have long to dwell on the question as she heard Finn coming down the stairs, and a moment later he appeared in the doorway. Gone were the overalls, replaced by jeans and a clean t-shirt and his hair was still damp from the shower.
“Right. I’m all yours.” He smiled. “I’ve put all the files in the dining room so we can use the table to spread out.”
Following him, she saw a single cardboard box on the dining room table. She was pleased to see that it was full, telling her that a lot of work had been put into the case. Taking seats on opposite sides of the table, they split the contents of the box between them and got to work.
Over the next few hours, they pored over every single piece of paper that the investigation had generated so far. They painstakingly went over all the statements that had been taken, all the forensic reports and all the interview transcripts from people they’d questioned about her disappearance and found nothing.
“Someone must have seen something!” Beth cried, throwing the document she was reading down on the table.
Looking up from his own reading, Finn could see that the frustration was getting to her. “Look, why don’t we take a break?” he stood up from the table. “We’ve been at this for hours, we’ve earned it. There’s a deck out back, I’ll grab us a beer.”
He’d pretty much expected that they wouldn’t find anything in the files. He’d gone through them enough times himself, and though he was no high and mighty L.A. detective, he was a good cop and he was sure he would have spotted anything they’d missed. She needed to see that for herself, though, and he understood that. She’d never be able to move on until she’d done everything she could.
Taking two cold beers from the fridge, he married them out to the deck where Beth was already sitting. It was just after five, and though the sun was going down, it was still warm in the late
afternoon sun. Handing her one of the beers, he lowered himself into the unoccupied deck chair. Neither of them spoke for a few minutes, sitting in companionable silence, sipping their beers.
“What do you think happened to her?”
He looked over at her but she wasn’t looking at him; she was looking into the distance. “I don’t know, I really don’t.”
“You must have some ideas, though? What does your gut tell you?” She turned and looked at him now and he could see the need for answers in her eyes.
He wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer to that question, but he needed to be honest. “I think she walked away.”
“What?” She turned to face him, her voice betraying her anger. “You really believe that? So what’s all this, then? Going through the files, showing me the car. Humoring me?”
“Beth, calm down and hear me out, will you?” He’d known his opinion wouldn’t be popular. “Look, everything points to it. Her fiancé had not long before been murdered, there was absolutely no sign of a struggle and according to just about everyone we spoke to, she didn’t have any enemies.”
Beth was shaking her head. “No. No way. She wasn’t that kind of girl. She would never have just walked away from her life and not let her folks know she was okay, never.”
“You did.” He regretted it the moment the words left his lips and he saw the flash of anger in her eyes.
“What? How dare you?” She was breathing hard now. “I walked away, yes, for a damned good reason. And my family knew exactly where I was. It’s not the same thing at all.” She stood up. “This hasn’t been about helping me find Andrew at all has it? It’s been about you getting your kicks because your macho pride is still hurt because I walked out on you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If you’d just calm down, you’d see what I’m saying makes sense.”
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