Black Heart (20 page)

“Do I look like I have a fucking anger problem?”

As one they shook their heads.

“That’s what I thought.”

Chapter
15

“Are you coming in?” Hank asked as he threw the cruiser in park.

Marty held up a finger to let him know that she’d be in there in a minute. In the

meantime she was on hold with her cell phone provider. Thanks to Tristan’s little antics

yesterday, she was forced to change her phone number or continue to deal with phone calls

every other minute from people that she didn't know asking questions about her and Tristan

or guys that wanted a chance at getting between her legs.

So, now she was forced to pay forty dollars to change her number. Forty bucks she was

determined to make Tristan pay. This was his fault after all. If she’d known this was how he

was going to treat her after all those years of friendship, she would have stuck with ignoring

him. That orgasm was so not worth this bullshit or those damn dreams that she’d been

having since Friday. Well, maybe a little of it. She closed her eyes and groaned.

She needed to get her act together and get over the jerk. One would think that after all

these years she’d be over him, but no of course not. If anything she loved the bastard more

now. Love just plain sucked and was so not worth it. She’d just stick with Bob and

chocolate from now on.

Ten minutes later and forty bucks poorer, she walked into Betty Lou’s Coffee and Pastry

shop and stepped in line. Her father was already seated at one of the small booths on the

other side of the large coffee shop and was talking with the “boys”. Hopefully he was still

unaware of her weekend activities.

She was not looking forward to his temper when he found out about her involvement in

Tristan’s internet debut. It had been stupid and childish, but something in her had snapped

after Tristan had toyed with her. After years of being ignored only to be used and treated

like crap when he finally deigned to acknowledge her existence had set her off. She'd finally

had enough and did something she’d regretted almost immediately, but it was either follow

through with her rash decision or take a chance on a man that would probably shove her

away once he was done with her.

She forced herself to calm down and focus on buying an apple fritter and a hot

chocolate. That would make her morning better. She just needed her apple fritter and cocoa

and everything would be okay. A few minutes later she was waiting for a rather chatty

woman to grab her coffee and get the hell out of her way. There was only one fritter left

and it was hers!

Just as she was opening her mouth to ask the woman in front of her to move aside so

that she could place her order, a large man wearing a dark suit stepped in front of her.

What the hell?

“Hey, there’s a line, buddy!” she snapped, not even caring enough to be polite about it.

She needed her delicious fritter or she was pretty sure that she would kill someone.

“Don’t get your panties in a twist, sweetheart,” a familiar voice said. It didn’t take her

long to figure out who the bastard that had cut in front of her was.

“Tristan Black,” she bit out through clenched teeth, “move your ass!”

He looked over his shoulder and snorted, but didn’t say anything else as he returned his

attention back to the cashier.

“I’ll take a hot chocolate and a coffee roll-“

“It’s our last one, Detective. I know that you usually get two,” the woman said in a flirty

tone that had Marty’s teeth grinding together.

“Okay, then I’ll also take the last apple fritter, Jen,” Tristan said, earning a gasp from

Marty.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” Marty bit out.

Tristan turned around and crossed his arms over his chest while he leaned back against

the counter. “I’m sorry, did you want that?” he asked with mock innocence.

She narrowed her eyes on him. The bastard knew that anything with apples was her

weakness.

“
Yes
,” she practically hissed.

He nodded, looking thoughtful before he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Too. Bad.” He

pressed a kiss to her cheek before pulling away, leaving her shocked and ready to kick his

ass.

“Thanks, Jen,” Tristan said as he dropped a five dollar bill on the counter. He grabbed

the two small bags and large hot chocolate and headed for the door.

She closed her eyes and counted to ten. She would not go after him and kick his ass. She

would not go out there and jump on his back and take him down with a chokehold. She

would not go out there and kick him in the balls and take his fritter and run off laughing.

She would not-

“Can I help you?”

Marty’s eyes flew open in time to catch the nervous expression on the cashier’s face. She

took a cleansing breath and then another.

“Yes, can I have a hot chocolate and do you have any fritters left in back?” she asked,

sounding pathetically hopeful.

“Sorry, the only thing we have left are bran muffins and I think we just ran out of hot

cocoa.”

Marty sighed miserably. “Of course you did.”

-
-
-

“Ye really shouldn’t have done that, lad,” Shayne said as Tristan finished off the last bite

of that unbelievably delicious apple fritter. Something about Marty wanting it made it ten

times more delicious. He took a healthy sip of his cocoa as he looked over the notes he’d

made over the weekend.

“She had it coming,” he simply said.

“Tristan, ye need to either stop being an ass and man up and be with the lass or leave her

the hell alone. Stop torturing her. It’s not fair.”

His eyes snapped up at that. “It’s not fair, is it?” he bit out coldly. “It’s not fair? What the

fuck do you know about fair?” he demanded as he stood up, sending his chair slamming

back into the wall. “This isn’t my ideal situation. Do you think this is easy on me? I’m the

one that can’t be with her. I’m-“

“No one said that ye couldn’t be with her, lad. Ye made that foolish decision on yer own

years ago,” Shayne said softly.

Tristan glared at Shayne as he said, “Foolish?”

“Aye, foolish! Ye love that lass!” Shayne yelled, which was surprising, because Shayne

never raised his voice to him. He’d always handled Tristan with a patient smile and a calm

tone. “Yer a fucking fool to turn yer back on her! All ye care about is her rejecting yer

dumb ass when she discovers what ye are instead of giving her a chance. Why don’t ye

think about her for once-“

“She’s all I ever think of!”

“Yer putting her through hell! She loves ye and ye know it! Stop playing these games and

grow some balls!”

“Fuck you!” Tristan roared as he kicked the chair across the room, slamming it into the

side of a metal filing cabinet and putting a very noticeable dent into it.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

Tristan’s gaze flew to the door. Marty walked in and dropped her purse on the desk. She

gave his hot chocolate a dirty look before sitting down at her desk.

“Tell her!”

He shook his head.

"Fine! Have it yer way then, lad," Shayne said before he disappeared.

“What?” Marty asked.

“Nothing,” he snapped.

She shook her head in disgust as she placed her purse in the bottom desk drawer and

placed her jacket on the back of her chair before sitting down. Without another word to

him, she logged onto her computer.

With a tired sigh, he pulled his chair back to his desk and sat down. He grabbed the small

pile of folders in his inbox that required his attention. These were the arrests made over the

weekend. The ones on top were the arrests made the night before and the ones that required

his immediate attention.

He grabbed the top one as he took a sip of his hot cocoa.

"You're such a bitch!" a woman's shrill voice suddenly announced, making him jump and

spill some of the hot chocolate on his leg.

"Shit," he gasped as the hot liquid seeped through his pants and onto his leg. He quickly

placed his drink back on top of his desk. He grabbed a handful of napkins and pressed them

against his leg.

Marty muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, "Serves you right," but

otherwise didn't acknowledge him in any way.

"Me? You're the bitch!" another woman screamed.

Tristan was just about to get up and see what the hell was going on out in the pit when

two young women literally stumbled into his office through the wall. He barely bit back a

groan. He did not need this today, especially with Shayne off somewhere pouting.

He wasn't about to summon Shayne to deal with these two, knowing that it would just

invite another lecture about Marty. That subject was closed. Any possibility of him taking a

chance with her had been squashed when she’d shoved his naked ass out of his own house.

"You got us killed, you ho bag!" the peroxide blonde said as she shoved the brunette

back. The brunette stumbled back several feet before coming to a stop in the middle of

Tristan's desk.

"I'm the ho? You're the one that slept with that creepy security guy!" the brunette

announced with her hands firmly planted on her, torn pink leather covered, hips.

"I thought he was part of the band!" the blonde shrieked as she threw herself at the

brunette. They both went flying through his computer and onto the ground where they

proceeded with the saddest and loudest catfight he'd ever witnessed.

Tristan sat back in his chair, rubbing his hands over his face and sighed. This was going

to be a long day.

-
-
-

"At least I didn't die ten pounds overweight!"

"I may be ten pounds overweight, but at least it's not all in my ass like in some people

that I won't mention!"

A loud outraged gasp was followed by the sounds of another catfight. Tristan didn't

bother looking away from his computer screen as he reached into his bottom desk drawer

and pulled out a value-sized bottle of fast acting aspirin. He popped three pills into his

mouth and chased them down with the now cold hot chocolate.

He returned his attention to the database that he’d made over the weekend for the

missing girls from the past twenty-two years. Based on the files he’d been able to dismiss

thirty of the missing cases. That left over fifty cases that fell into a pattern that, at first

looked like nothing more than coincidences, but after putting them into the database and

mapping them they looked anything but coincidental.

All the women on his list were grabbed within two miles of a restaurant or a restaurant

supply company. It wasn't until a month ago that these cases had caught his eye. At first he

hadn't thought much about them since all the kidnappings occurred in the busy sections of

each town or city where most restaurants were located.

The fact that not all of the kidnap victims were associated with any of the restaurants

either as employees or customers was another problem for his theory as well as the fact that

none of the women fit any type of pattern. They were all different ages, body shapes, ethnic

backgrounds and came from different financial backgrounds. Any other investigator would

have just looked at the cases and said that they had nothing in common. He almost had, as

well, if it hadn't been for one little detail.

The restaurants and supply stores were all high-class establishments. The kidnappings all

occurred well away from fast food joints or Mom and Pop establishments. All the

kidnappings also occurred on the back roads leading to or away from the restaurants and

supply stores.

He knew that it was a long shot and he could very well be wrong, but he had a nagging

feeling about these cases that he couldn't let go. Until he had some kind of physical

evidence like a video, prints, witnesses or even a body, he couldn't push for a task force or

even issue a warning. All he had right now was a database and a hunch. Hell, there wasn't

even a pattern to help him figure out where the kidnapper would strike next.

What he wouldn't give for a spirit to come harass him at two in the morning over this

case. For a month now he'd been waiting for just that, but so far nothing. It wasn't

surprising, but it definitely wasn't good news. Since he doubted that all these women had

run away like some of the investigators claimed or were being held somewhere still alive,

some for several years, he was left with only one conclusion.

They'd all suffered greatly before they’d died and welcomed the peaceful release from

their bodies. On one hand, he was happy that their spirits didn't suffer further torment by