Breathe (34 page)

During his tenure on the Force, unlike Chace, Frank stayed clean through the entirety of it. This didn’t mean he didn’t have to look the other way but he also didn’t hide the fact that he didn’t like it. This made him not Arnie’s favorite person. It also showed he was courageous. He’d approached IA some months after Chace did but he did what he could inside to try to turn boys back to the right side. But when Ty Walker was coming up for probation and it came clear that hell could easily break lose when he got it, Frank decided he had to do what many cops had a great deal of trouble doing.

Turn on his brothers.

Last night they’d had a discussion with the Cap who decided that Frank should stay as primary on the Newcomb case. The kill site being Harker’s Wood, the dump site the access road to Miracle Ranch, too many similarities to Misty’s murder, Cap felt Chace was too close to it. He also felt Frank needed the experience. Last, they all knew Frank would get nowhere. The investigation into Misty’s murder had been purposefully jacked but Chace conducted his own. There were few leads and the ones there were went nowhere.

But the men of the Department knew Chace was still looking so Chace handed over all he had to Frank and Cap told him to take Frank’s back.

Frank, Chace and the Cap had another conversation about Clinton Bonar’s warning and what this move against Newcomb meant. This meant Bonar would get a visit. It also meant other powerful men with motive would be approached too. All strictly protocol. All following standard investigative procedures.

So last, this meant things were going to heat up in Carnal and Frank, the Cap, Chace and a new, inexperienced Force were going to have to do what they could to make sure no one else got burned.

Chace did, however, have to go with Frank to Newcomb’s sister to inform her that her brother was dead. It was her who had called the Station Saturday morning to say he hadn’t come home the night before and she was looking after his kids so she expected him at nine. She waited as long as she could before all out panic ensued. She knew he was into bad business, something that couldn’t be missed because he was fired from CPD for his participation in Arnie’s corruption but had stayed out of jail due to his willingness to testify. CPD knew he was vulnerable. Thus began the search.

Chace had been the one to tell Tonia Payne’s parents their daughter was dead including, at their insistence, how she’d died and her death was uglier than most. He’d also informed Misty’s folks. Throughout his career, not regularly but too fucking often, he’d had bad news to give about car wrecks and arrests.

This was less fun than all of that shit and none of that had been pleasant. This was because Newcomb’s wife had taken off, whereabouts unknown which meant his kids, one of them gravely ill, had lost their last parent.

Newcomb was a moron, racist, wife-beating, asshole pig. He played with fire for understandable reasons but should have been smart enough to know that when he got burned, the ones who would live with the scars were his kids.

He wasn’t that smart.

And now they were fucked.

“How’s it going?” Chace asked a question he knew the answer to.

They had DNA on this guy from his semen. But the samples were deliberately tampered with, the tampering explained away as a “mistake”. In fact, they were so tainted, they couldn’t even run them.

Reports were probably not in yet but it was doubtful they’d find semen on or in Newcomb. Possible but doubtful.

They didn’t even have slugs. Misty was done by a gun stolen by one of Carnal’s own in an effort to frame him. From visuals on Newcomb, he was done close range with a high powered assault rifle. Overkill. But this meant the shots were through and through. It also was a likely reason why Newcomb didn’t fight or attempt to flee. A man carrying an assault rifle undoubtedly struck an imposing figure. If you tried to run, if that rifle had a scope, you’d still be fucked. So this time, the killer collected the bullets and shell casings leaving them with next to nothing.

That was what they had. Next to nothing. No locals to either site reported seeing vehicles in the vicinity. No bullets, shell casings or DNA that could be found unless something came up on tests run at the lab. Nothing except footprints which, from preliminary investigation of both scenes, kill site and dump site, was all they got this time too.

“We know he wears construction boots,” Frank answered. “But since every third guy in this county wears motorcycle boots, cowboy boots or construction boots, that narrows our suspect pool down to about two thousand guys.”

Chace could hear the frustration in Frank’s voice and he understood it. He wanted to get this guy for four reasons. The guy was a murderer likely times two, at the very least, and he needed to be stopped. CPD had a nasty case file open and unsolved that fell on them during a time when it was infested. Frank wanted to make an important bust because it would look good. And he wanted this off Chace’s shoulders and he was one of the few men who knew it was weighing there. Not because Chace had shared. Because he worked side by side with Frank and Frank was observant.

“He’s not local, Frank,” Chace said quietly. “He’s a professional. He could be from anywhere.”

“Yeah,” Frank replied quietly then in a normal voice, “Old Man Harker’d pitch a fit, he knew this shit was goin’ down in his wood.”

Frank was not wrong about that. Old Man Harker died seven years ago, luckily before the major garbage started piling up at the CPD and they found a serial killer lived local. He’d given his wood to the city before that, he was that proud of it and he loved Carnal. Knowing blood had been spilled and mouths had been raped in a spot where Harker and many others in town thought a miracle had occurred, he’d lose his mind.

Luckily in this instance, he no longer had a mind to lose.

“This isn’t why I’m callin’,” Frank went on.

“Yeah?” Chace prompted.

“Like you asked when you called in yesterday, had the interns run the name Malachi. They report nothin’ comes up. No one is lookin’ for this kid. Or at least, if they are, they haven’t reported him missing.”

“Could be a fake name,” Chace muttered.

To which Frank asked incredulously, “Malachi?”

“The kid reads four, five books a week, Frank. So yeah, Malachi.”

At this, he felt Faye’s hand press into his chest and he dipped his chin to look at her to see he had her full attention.

Thus he muttered into the phone, “If you don’t have any more, Frank, appreciate the call but gotta go.”

To this, Frank asked searchingly, “Faye still there?”

Jon had opened his big fucking mouth.

Not a surprise but damned annoying.

“Gotta go,” Chace repeated.

“Right,” Frank murmured, a smile in his voice and Chace couldn’t see it but he bet it was knowing.

Jesus.

“Thanks for the call,” Chace told him.

“Not a problem. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday with Faye,” Frank replied.

He definitely would.

And yeah, Frank’s smile had been knowing.

“Later,” Chace gave his farewell.

“Later, buddy,” Frank gave his and Chace disconnected.

“Malachi? A professional?”

She didn’t even wait for him to toss his phone on the table which was what he did before answering.

Once he’d shifted into her, did that and brought them back, he told her, “Asked the interns to run the name Malachi, see if anyone reported him missing. They did. Nothing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It could mean a lot of things, honey. What it means most is that we gotta talk to this kid. He’s not registered in school. He’s not reported missing. He’s like a ghost and kids aren’t ghosts unless serious bad shit is going down. We gotta push the breakthrough tomorrow and get him talkin’. You gonna be up for that?”

She nodded immediately and Chace ran his hand up her back, pulling her closer as he did and dipping his face to hers.

“You gotta go gentle but you gotta get a good result. If you don’t, I’m steppin’ this shit up another way. We need him safe. We need him fed. So, it sucks, baby, but we need him in the system.”

She slid her bottom lip to the side and bit it. She often bit her lip. She often licked her lips. He’d learned to read why she did both. He didn’t see the slide and bite often but it usually meant she was either very nervous, feeling more than her normal shy or a little bit scared.

“He’ll be okay,” Chace assured gently.

She let her lip go and asked quietly, “What does stepping stuff up mean?”

What it meant was setting Deck on the kid. Deck would find him. Deck wouldn’t be outrun because he wouldn’t give up. And Deck would likely scare the shit out of the kid.

He didn’t tell her that.

Instead he said, “I’m still figurin’ that out. But we’ll hope we break through tomorrow. Yeah?”

She nodded.

Then she changed the subject.

“A professional?”

He shook his head and told her softly, “Police business, honey. Can’t talk about that.”

“The murder last night,” she guessed.

“Yeah,” he answered and she pressed in closer as her eyes went from holding his to studying him.

“That was unfun,” she whispered.

“It was but it’s also something I can’t talk about,” he replied.

“It brings up Misty,” she pushed and Chace sighed.

“Yeah, baby, it does.”

“You should –”

“No,” he cut her off.

She pressed in closer, opened those bubblegum lips of hers to say something and serious as fuck, she got closer, in his tee, with him on his couch, she pushed it, he’d give her anything she wanted.

So he had to shut this down.

“Give me this,” he said quietly and quickly she shut her mouth. “This day, with you after what you gave me last night. This one day, you and me and food and TV and champagne with the hamburgers I’m makin’ tonight and all of it good. All clean. All normal. All right. No Misty. No murder. No history. None of that garbage. Just us. You had what you had to give me last night to give once and I had it to get once. We shared that and it was beautiful. So let’s keep it beautiful, just us for a day. Tomorrow we can try to talk to abused kids and let the world back in. Today, tonight, give me,” he tightened his arm around her and finished, “
this
.”

“Okay,” she whispered immediately and he hadn’t even had to use the word “baby”.

Chace stared down into those blue eyes in that pretty face with those extraordinary cheekbones all of it surrounded by her fantastic hair looking up at him with warmth and understanding in her eyes and he knew in that instant he was falling in love.

Christ, he could have none of the beauty that met his eyes, her heart-shaped ass in his bed, the gift of her virginity and only have her giving in last night and just now when he needed her to and calling her folks to ream their asses about hassling him and it would have started happening.

But he had all of that and her being a geek, her imagination, her humor, her immense care for a kid she didn’t know and fuck him, he wasn’t teetering. He was halfway gone.

Ty and Tate had this. One was a brunette. One was a blonde. Neither of them were shy.

Both of them gave this.

Jesus. He got it.

And he had it in the curve of his arm.

Fuck, he wanted to make love to her.

Fuck.

He couldn’t without maybe causing her pain.

So he did what he could. He kissed her. He did it soft, he did it long, he got his hands up her shirt and she got her hands up his.

When he broke the kiss, he asked her softly if she wanted popcorn and to watch another episode of
Psych.
She grinned at him huge because she did.

Before they settled back in the couch with a bowl of microwave popcorn and cans of soda, he informed her she was again spending the night.

Not that it was a question.

But her answer?

She directed another huge-ass smile at him.

Then she whispered, “Okay.”

Chapter Eleven

Round Two

Six oh three the next morning

“Baby, wake up.”

I drifted out of sleep, my eyes opening and at what I saw, I was certain I was still dreaming.

Chace, sitting on the edge of the bed in a pair of those long, loose running shorts and one of those skintight running shirts that had the awesome stitching and a collar that went halfway up his neck, both navy blue.

How had I never seen
this?
I’d been avidly watching him for
years.
I’d even seen him run and this was on numerous occasions. He was usually wearing track pants and one of those tops with the half-zip at the throat (an outfit that was also awesome but not near as awesome as this one) or loose running shorts and a tee. Granted, if I got a look at him somewhere mid- to end of run, his shirt was plastered to him with sweat. Which, for Chace, was a good look.