Deeper Than Need (43 page)

Once they got the age, they could narrow it down and the chief would leave Jeb the hell alone, but until then he had to act like he gave a flying fuck. With that in mind, he nodded to the file. “Too much time has passed, sir. Twenty years. The Sutters saw Dr. Pascoe—he remembers them. He retired, sold the practice, but he remembers them. Records that old were all destroyed.”

“Well, shit.” Sorenson leaned back and dragged a hand down his face.

“Yes, sir.” Jeb closed the file and went to stand. “Basically, unless more evidence is uncovered, we wait for any trace evidence that the state might find.” Madison was a small town, too small for them to have the manpower or the equipment they’d need for a case like this. Which meant they had to reach out to the state cops for help. They’d already turned over the body, samples and anything remotely useful—as well as plenty of shit that probably wasn’t. Now they just had to wait. Wait and work the case as much as they could on their end. “The state might find something, but we’re going to be waiting awhile, even on something as simple as the DNA. The body is old; there’s no sign this connected to anything major.”

“Yeah, I know how it works. We’re too small for the state to worry about much. Fuck a duck.” Sorenson started to tap a fist on the arm of his chair, staring past Jeb out into the bull pen. “DNA is gonna be a bitch, too. Any luck finding a family relative for Diane Sutter?”

“No.” Jeb managed to glance at his watch under the pretense of straightening it. Too much time in here already. “She was an only child. Her parents both died. I think there was a brother on the father’s side, but no luck locating him so far.”

“Keep trying. It’s the best we’ve got.” Sorenson shook his head, disgusted.

He had reason, Jeb guessed. If they were hoping for DNA to solve the case, they might be shit out of luck with Diane. It had to be a direct relative, parent, brother, sister, child.

A few seconds of silence passed and the chief thumped a fist on the desk. “The best is shit. Now even the house is a huge wreck. Looking for any more evidence … yeah, good luck with that.”

“There was one useful thing the doc told me.” Maybe if he gave the chief
something,
he’d let him leave. Maybe.

Sorenson lifted a brow. “Yeah?”

“Pascoe didn’t have the Rossi girl in his office much, but he did remember her. Said she had perfect teeth.”

“Perfect teeth?”

“Yeah. I guess it was enough of an oddity that it just stuck out for him, even after all this time. Apparently, Rossi had one of the best sets of teeth he’d ever seen on a kid, never needed a bit of work. No braces, no cavities, nothing.”

“Huh.” The chief leaned forward and snagged a pen, jotting his own notes down. “That is something. Definitely something. Maybe we can get an X-ray of the DB’s teeth, have him take a look and see what he thinks.”

“I’ll make a note of it, see what I can do.”

Sorenson lifted his head and stared at Jeb.

It was a long, eerie sort of look, that kind that left Jeb feeling like a moth pinned to the wall. “Yeah. You do that, son.”

In the next second, Jeb heard the door open behind him. He rose and half-turned, keeping the chief in his line of sight, even as he watched the woman in the door. Bell … and she had two state troopers at her back.

It was the troopers, more than anything else, who sent an alarm screeching through his mind.

“Detective,” Chief Sorenson said, his voice low and steady. “I’ll have to ask for your weapon.”

Jeb dropped his hand to it.

Everybody in there did the same.

“Sir?”

“Your weapon, Sims.” The chief moved out from behind his desk as Bell came inside.

One of the troopers shut the door behind him and the room shrank down to about the size of a coffin and Jeb could feel the sweat collecting at the base of his spine.

“Come on, Jeb. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” Sorenson said, and he had that fucking hangdog
I’m just a tired, hardworking cop
look on his face, the same one he’d used out there in the bull pen to sucker Jeb in.

Son of a bitch
.

Pasting a smile on his face, Jeb pulled his gun free. “Of course. I don’t know what this is about but—” He watched as some of the tension eased.

Then he lifted the gun and placed it under his chin.

Jensen’s shout was the very last sound he heard.

*   *   *

Night had finally fallen. It had to be one of the longest days of his entire life, and there had been some lousy ones.

He stood at the outskirts of the property.

The skeletal remains of the house stabbed into the sky.

It would be torn down.

It was best, he decided. It should have been done ages ago. If only he’d known …

“Where is he?”

Turning his head, he watched as Caine came striding through the fog curling up from the ground. The night had gotten cool and the mist coming off the river made it almost impossible to see much more than twenty or thirty feet in front of them.

Just about perfect for what he had in mind, really.

Pulling a cigar from his pocket, he lit it and eyed Caine over the glow of the flame. “Where is who, son?”

“You know who.” The bigger, younger man leaned in, eyes narrowed with fury and rage all but trembling in his voice. “I spent half the fucking day watching for him. His truck’s not at his house. His wife just called and made a Missing Persons report. Where the fuck is good old Charley at?”

He smiled. “Now, Caine, how am I supposed to know that?”

“Listen, old man. I’m not playing these games with you. That son of a bitch is going to pay.” Caine’s hand fell away, curling into a loose fist at his side. “All of them deserve to pay.”

“Yes.” He nodded, turning to stare out over the river. “Yes, they do.”

He thought of the list he’d tucked away in his home, a list that had grown longer over the day. Four names. That was all Junior had given him. But Junior had lied. The names Junior had given him were men who’d been arrested over the course of the day, but they were just a fraction. All in all, eleven men—an elder, another firefighter, a cop, the CEO of one of the local banks … and the list went on. Men in positions of power, authority. Almost every one of them.

One of them was on a slab in the morgue.

“Jeb Sims is dead,” he said, lifting his cigar to his lips. The tip glowed red in the night and the smoke was a sweet, bitter pleasure. He rarely indulged these days. But there was no point in denying himself anymore.

“I heard. He died too easy.”

“True. But he’s dead. He can’t hurt another child ever again. That’s all I care about … in the end.” He slid a look over to the house. “All I ever wanted was those selfish sons of bitches stopped. It was supposed to stop, wasn’t it? That night. It was all supposed to stop.”

Caine opened his mouth and went to say something, but then he just stopped, a muttered curse escaping him in place of whatever he might have said. A long, taut moment of silence passed between them and then Caine lifted his face to the sky. “We didn’t know there were others.”

“We didn’t. You did the best you could.
I
should have done more.” He clamped his cigar between his teeth and glanced over at the taller man. “But I’ll finish it this time. I have to. Remember, though, what I told you. Once you cross that line, there’s no going back.”

Caine stared out over the water, his face emotionless. That burst of rage Caine had just shown was the first true sign of emotion he had shown in a long, long time. A sigh escaped him and then Caine turned his head, met his gaze. “There’s no going back for me anyway.”

*   *   *

The boys played in their room.

The sound of their laughter was something the two women had to block out as they stood there, watching the news.

Ali started to cry as one of the men was pulled out of a car.

“Just how deep does the perversion in this small community run?…”

The news anchor’s voice was like an ice pick in Trinity’s ear, but she couldn’t walk away from the newscast.

They weren’t outright saying
just
what had happened.

But the biggest headline said enough.

“Rumors of sexual perversion, abuse of authority and child molestation stain a small town in southern Indiana tonight.”

Yeah.

That said enough.

There was a knock at the door.

Turning away from the TV, she moved to answer it, peering through the Judas hole. The sight of Noah standing there was a balm on her soul and she jerked open the door and threw her arms around him. Her aching head screamed at her, but she ignored it.

“Where have you been?” she demanded, her face buried against his neck.

He sighed, curling his arms around her waist. “I can’t tell you.”

Slowly, she lifted her head and stared at him.

The look in his eyes told the story, though. Lifting her hand, she laid it across his cheek. “It was Caleb, wasn’t it?”

Noah turned his cheek and pressed a kiss to her palm. “I can’t say. Just…” His big shoulders moved in a heavy sigh and he dipped his head, burying his face in the curve of her neck. “When can we get that ring, Trinity? I need something right. I need you.”

The ache in his voice ripped at her. Stroking her hand down his back, she murmured, “I called my dad earlier. He’ll be here tomorrow. He dropped everything. Be ready; I think he plans on putting you to the test. As far as I’m concerned, once we tell Micah, once my dad is here … I don’t even care if we have a ring now.”

She rose up on her toes, placed her lips to his.

His hands came up and cupped her face.

The ache in her heart eased back and she whispered against his mouth, “The ring can wait. I have what matters most. Right here.”

Read on for an excerpt from the next book by Shiloh Walker

SWEETER THAN SIN

Coming soon from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

A pulse of hunger hit her square in the middle and rippled through her entire body. Loose, liquid warmth spread through her, turning her limbs to putty, pulsing through her core, while her nipples drew to near painful points. Just from thinking about him. No. Not
him
.
Them
. Together.

This was insane.

She didn’t care. She wanted to grab it, grab
him
and ride that insanity all the way to the end.

One day.

She’d only been back one day and the crazy need was threatening to eat her alive.

But then again, some part of her had always belonged to Adam.

He’d been her first crush.

He’d been her confidant.

He’d been her closest friend, for the longest time.

And when she’d seen him running along the river, some part of her had felt …
safe
.

She didn’t want safety now though. She wanted to stroke away the misery she sensed inside him and she wanted to wrap her arms around him, guide his head to her breasts and promise him that it was going to be okay.

Even if it was a lie.

She wanted to
make
it okay. Not just for her, but for him, as he stood down there, looking like his entire world was falling apart. Then she wanted to do something completely selfish and make him focus on something other than his grief. She wanted him to focus on her.

“You are a selfish little tramp,” she muttered.

Look away,
she told herself. If he was grieving over Rita, she should leave him to it. She should curl back up in the bed and get back to trying to piece through the notes she’d been making, articles she’d been researching online, bits and pieces of what she remembered from years ago.

She’d spent most of the afternoon on it, not that she’d learned anything. David hadn’t been able to really give her any names. They were careful about how the boys were brought in, but he’d mentioned, once, that he thought he knew who a few others were. One of them had been Glenn. Glenn Blue. And that son of bitch had become one of them. Now he had a son of his own.

They had tried to
break
it and then that bastard had just up and remade it. There had to be more. Other connections, other ties that she needed to see, but she couldn’t drag her eyes away from Adam.

All she could think about was him. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. For so many things. For his friend. For the hurt she’d caused him.

Lifting a hand to the window, she watched, wondered, worried. And as she watched, he lifted his hands to his face. Broad shoulders rose and fell in a ragged rhythm.

The sight of it made her ache and the tears he didn’t seem willing to shed rose inside her.

“Adam…” she whispered, lifting a hand to the window.

And it was like he heard her.

*   *   *

Adam didn’t know what drove him.

He didn’t hear anything.

He didn’t see anything.

But awareness rippled through him, his skin prickling as he slowly lowered his hands and lifted his head, staring up through the night at the darkened house before him.

There, at the window of the room he’d given her. He saw nothing, save the ripple of the curtain, the pale material pulled back.

Then, something shifted and she appeared. All he could see was her hand as she lifted it and pressed it to the glass.

The next few seconds were just a haze on his memory. He didn’t remember crossing the sidewalk, unlocking the door. He might have run, raced the entire way and he could believe it, because when he came to a halt in the doorway of her room, it seemed like an eternity later, like an instant later, and his breath came in harsh, ragged pants.

She stared at him.

If she’d looked worried or nervous or startled, he could have turned and walked away.

She just stared at him, the sexy, sleek, horn-rimmed glasses a shield, hiding those luminous gray eyes. In the dim light of the room, he couldn’t clearly make out her face but he didn’t need to. Every feature was etched on his memory. From twenty years, from hours ago. He could recall her in detail.