Facing It (21 page)

Troy Lee lifted a soda can to his mouth. “Slow night, huh?”

Chris cringed. There existed no better way to jinx a cop’s night than to refer to it as “slow”. “Man, now why did you have to go and say that—”

The radio squawk cut him off. “Chandler to C-5.”

With a rough sigh, Chris reached for his mike. “Go ahead, Chandler.”

“10-16, 1112 Boll Weevil Road.”

On a groan, he rested his brow on the wheel. A domestic dispute at the Stinsons’. Why wasn’t he surprised?

“10-4, Chandler, 10-76.” He replaced the microphone and scowled at Troy Lee, who appeared completely unrepentant. “You had to say it, didn’t you?”

Troy Lee gunned his motor and grabbed his mike to call himself in as also en route. “Let’s go.”

They went sans blue lights and sirens, late-night traffic almost nonexistent on the back-country roads, the drive to the Stinsons’ rural home taking less than ten minutes. The house sat away from the highway, surrounded by pecan trees. The Stinsons were well known within the sheriff’s department; in the nearly four years Stanton Reed had been sheriff, there’d been no less than twelve domestic calls involving the couple at one location or another. Maggie Stinson had gone so far as to leave her husband once the year before, but she’d returned within months, swayed by Jed’s sworn promises that he’d never harm her again.

Those promises had held good for maybe a month.

Pulling into the long rutted driveway, Chris had no doubt if they arrested Jed Stinson tonight, Maggie would bail him out before morning.

A bare yellow light bulb illuminated the sagging front porch. Vines climbed up the posts and along the fascia board beneath the roof. Chris killed the engine and headlights, sliding to a silent stop before the porch. Troy Lee’s brakes squealed as he pulled in behind him, headlights glaring, and Chris swallowed a groan. He knew better. The kid was too freaking smart not to.

He met Troy Lee at the rear of his own unit, eyeing the front of the house. The front door stood open, the empty living room visible through the torn screen door. No sounds other than loud music emanated from the decrepit home.

Somehow, the silence unnerved him more than the yelling and screaming that usually accompanied a visit to the Stinsons. He reached for his holster and unsnapped it before signaling for Troy Lee to follow him.

They moved quietly up the steps, but the porch boards creaked under their feet and Chris grimaced. He eased the screen door open. The living room looked like it always had when he’d been here before—threadbare furniture, a newspaper slung haphazardly on the floor, a few toys spread over the outdated carpet. The television blared with rock videos.

The smell hit him when he crossed the threshold, filling his senses with the nauseatingly familiar metallic scent, so strong he felt he could bite down and taste it.

Jesus.

“Is that…?” Troy Lee’s whisper trailed off behind him.

“Yeah.” Too many crime scenes, too many altercations with Kimberly for him to mistake that smell. His gaze darted up the dark stairwell, down the dim hallway that ran the length of the house from the living room. Lights blazed in the kitchen and the remains of a broken mixing bowl littered the cracked linoleum floor.

He slid his gun free, the soft
slick
of Troy Lee doing the same too loud in his ears. Turning his head, he caught Troy Lee’s eye and nodded toward the hallway. Troy Lee’s blue eyes were big and dark in his pale face. As long as he didn’t get nervous and trigger-happy and shoot Chris in the back, they were good.

The sickening smell of blood and body fluids grew stronger as they drew near the kitchen, easing, covering one another as they passed a couple of doors. His gut clenched with each footstep.

At the kitchen doorway, his stomach fell to his feet. Maggie Stinson sat at the cheap dinette, hands folded before her, staring into space. Flour and congealing eggs smeared the floor, mixing with the blood spattered everywhere.

Everywhere.
The floor, the cabinets, the countertops, even the ceiling.

Troy Lee gagged.

Damn it, if he threw up, Chris would throttle him.

At this first glimpse of Jed Stinson’s corpse, bile crowded Chris’s throat.

Goddamn. Talk about overkill. He’d heard other cops use the term, but had never witnessed it himself. But this…no other description applied.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Maggie said, her voice a dull monotone. She didn’t move, didn’t look at them, didn’t touch the gore-splashed knife on the table before her. “I did it. I killed him.”

Chris stood in the kitchen doorway and watched the crime scene technicians photograph Jed Stinson’s body. God, she’d butchered him. Not one or two stab wounds, but enough that the guy’s entrails spilled from the slashes in his gut, his liver protruding. His chest lay open, ribs and lungs and God only knew what else visible.

Damn, would he have looked like that if he hadn’t managed to twist sideways in the truck cab that night, kicking Kimberly out of the way and yanking the door closed? She’d had that kind of murder in her eyes, that kind of knife in her hand when she’d come after him.

He fingered the raised puckered line of the scar on his biceps, just under his shirtsleeve. A matching wound trailed down the side of his calf, hidden like the ragged slash on his shoulder blade.

Or the burn on his ribcage, where she’d nailed him with her curling iron.

Or maybe the wound nobody could see, the thin fracture line in his forearm where she’d slammed the iron skillet into it as he’d tried to keep her from bashing his skull in.

Behind him, voices drifted from the living room, Maggie’s hitching sobs and Tori Calvert’s soothing tones, punctuated by Tick and Cookie’s voices, questions and clarifications. What the hell was Maggie crying about anyway? She was still alive. Jed was the one with his fucking organs spilled all over the linoleum.

Footsteps creaked on the hall floorboards.

“Hey.” Tick tapped his shoulder. “I need you to take Cookie’s unit and run Maggie and Tori to the station, process Maggie in.”

Chris didn’t turn. “Let Troy Lee do it.”

“He’s busy puking his guts out.”

“Then you or Cookie can take her. Damn if I’m gonna.”

He felt, rather than saw, Tick’s startled surprise.

“Chris.” His voice deepened, taking on greater authority. Chris bristled.

“Threaten me with whatever, Tick. Midnights, suspension, whatever. I ain’t doing it.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing.” He clenched his teeth so hard his face hurt. “But I am not getting in a vehicle with that woman. I’ll give you my badge first.”

“Come on.” Tick tagged his arm. “Let’s go outside and talk.”

Like talking was going to change anything. Chris shrugged and followed the older man down the hall, through the living room and out the door into the damp night air. He didn’t spare Maggie Stinson a single glance.

They stopped beside his unit. Chris leaned on the passenger door and folded his arms over his chest, staring into the dark behind the Stinson place.

Tick rested his hands at his gun belt. “Chris, talk to me. You’re wound tighter than a two-dollar watch. What’s going on?”

Jaw tight, Chris shook his head.

“Chris—”

“Fuck off, Calvert, and just leave me the hell alone, all right?” The pushing pissed him off, making his chest tight and angry, his skin itchy. In the car, Hound whined and pawed at the cage.

Anger flushed Tick’s cheekbones with dull red. “Maybe you need to go home, Parker.”

“Fine by me.” He pulled his keys from his pocket.

The screen door screeched open, and Cookie and Tori walked onto the porch. Over Cookie’s shoulder, Chris could see Troy Lee standing in the living room, watching over a still-crying Maggie. Cookie laid a hand at the small of Tori’s back as they came down the rickety steps. Chris looked away. Shit, just what he needed—more participants in the freakin’ circus of his life tonight. His skin literally crawled, a skittering of tiny bug legs along his nerves.

The pair stopped next to Tick, Tori between her brother and fiancé. The patrol car at Chris’s back and the three of them before him, between him and the house, created a box, a nice little corner for him. The jittery feeling running beneath his skin worsened.

He shouldn’t have put his back against the car. Damn it, he knew a guy always left himself an out, an exit, and he’d failed to do that this time. Just like the night Kim had come after him. The memories pulsed in his head, the screaming, the invectives she’d hurled at him as he carried his shit to the truck. The jingling of the silverware drawer when she’d pulled it open. He’d known what she was up to as soon as he heard the knives rattle.

She’d nailed him once in the shoulder as he made a break for the door and his truck.

Like an idiot, he’d left the windows down and she’d gotten a piece of his arm as he attempted to jam his keys in the ignition.

She’d sliced into his calf as he tried kicking her away.

A shudder worked over him. Later, he never could remember how he got the window rolled up, the truck started.

Tick continued to regard him like he’d sprouted a third arm, pretty much the way his partner at the Tifton PD had done that night in the emergency room, while the doctor stitched him up—nearly a hundred of them—and Chris lied, again, about what had happened. They’d let him lie too, hadn’t wanted to look too deeply into the mess of his life.

Tori smiled at him, full of concern, the way she looked whenever he’d witnessed her dealings with Jed and Maggie Stinson before. “I think Maggie’s ready to go now.”

Maggie was ready to go? Like she wasn’t the suspect, like she got to call the shots. He turned a fierce glare on Tori. “Why are you treating her like the victim here?”

Tori looked taken aback for all of two seconds, her smile disappearing, her eyes narrowing the way Tick’s did when he was perturbed. “Because she is.”

He looked away. “Fuck.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught the way Cookie’s entire body tightened.

“Chris,” Tick said, his voice calm and quiet but holding a distinct warning. As a red light, it didn’t do a damn thing for the anger pulsing through Chris’s body. “Go home.”

Chris ignored him, all his ire zeroing in on Tori and her absolute naïve belief that of course Maggie hadn’t had another choice. His gaze tangled with hers and she tilted her chin to a stubborn angle. He straightened from the car, needing to at least feel like he wasn’t standing there with his back against a wall.

“You ever think we had it wrong, that maybe there was more to what went on in this house than just Jed beating the shit out of her?”

“I’ve dealt with Maggie a long time, Chris—”

“Yeah, haven’t we all?” He shrugged, tired of feeling like his skin was two sizes too small. “And maybe we were dealing with the situation wrong the whole way around. Women do lie, you know.”

“Not Maggie.”

“Sure.” He snorted. “You know that for real? Did you see what she did to him? No, that’s right. You didn’t go past the living room. You didn’t see how she cut him from asshole to Adam’s apple and spilled his damn guts all over that floor. All you see is her as the fucking victim here.”

His voice held a level of meanness he’d never known he possessed. Cookie’s face and stance tightened with each word, but Chris was beyond caring. Let Cook take a swing at him. Chris could take him and at least that attack would come head on, not at his back.

“Chris.” If possible, Tick’s voice had gone even quieter, softer, and he took a step forward. His relaxed posture held no threat, but Chris stiffened anyway, shaking his head. Damn it, he didn’t like Tick approaching him the way he would a difficult subject, with that hushed voice and bland expression. Obviously, the guy didn’t get the concept of “fuck off”.

Tori held up a quelling hand, her gaze not wavering from Chris’s. He didn’t like that either, the serene, watchful way she looked at him. He itched under that calm regard.

“Chris-boy,” Cookie said, his tone as muted and blank as Tick’s, the friendly nickname grating like it never had before. “Why don’t you let me drive you home?”

“I can drive my damn self.”

Cook nodded. “Go home. Get some sleep. You’ll feel better.”

Feel better. He rolled his shoulders in a tight shrug. Whatever. He just wanted the hell out of here. The problem was, he couldn’t go until they moved, couldn’t turn and walk around the rear of the car to get to the driver’s side.

He didn’t turn his back on anyone. Ever. That lesson he’d learned the hardest way possible.

Tick finally glanced away from his face and reached behind Tori to tag Cookie’s beefy arm. “Let’s go check on the crime scene techs. Tori can help Troy Lee get Maggie’s statement.”

They trailed back inside, Tick holding the screen door and allowing the others to precede him. Chris sagged, his knees weak with what felt like an adrenaline crash. He rubbed a hand over his eyes. Shit, he was tired, like when he’d pulled a shift over in Tifton and then Kimberly had wanted to fight all night, yelling and berating.

Yeah, he was that kind of tired.

Maybe sleep really was what he needed.

“What the hell was that with Chris-boy, anyway?”

Signing off on the typed copy of Maggie Stinson’s statement, Tick shook his head at Cookie’s inquiry. “Damn if I know. Never seen him like that before.”

“You have to admit I did good.” Cookie slid the initial crime scene reports into a folder and tapped it on his desk. “I didn’t whip his ass for turning on Tori.”

Tori, feet tucked under her in the desk chair across from Cookie’s, gave a ladylike snort but didn’t look up from her cell phone, thumbs flying over the keypad. “If you went around handing out ass-whippings to every victim who ever turned on me, you’d be a very busy man, Mark.”

Tick jerked his head up, catching Cookie’s surprised expression before turning to his sister. “What?”

Her thumbs faltered and she frowned. “Damn it, you made me lose.”

“Don’t curse.” Tick and Cookie laid down the correction simultaneously. Their gazes met again, and Tick, seeing his own questions in his partner’s face, waved him on.

Cookie thumped his thumb on the folder he’d laid atop his desk. “What did you mean, victim?”

Tori flipped her phone shut. “What do you want, honey, a dictionary definition?”

Cookie opened his mouth and snapped it closed, frustration jerking his heavy brows together. “Tor.”

She made an aggravated moue. “His entire reaction tonight was textbook-victim PTSD. Geez, Tick, you live with Caitlin and you didn’t recognize those responses?”

He shook his head, not liking to be reminded of the horror his wife had endured. “Nightmares and anxiety attacks, Tori, and I can’t remember the last time she had one of those. I’ve never seen her act like Parker did tonight.” She shot him a disbelieving look and he threw out his hands. “I’m serious. I’ve never seen that behavior in you, either. What makes you think he’s a victim?”

“Instinct and experience.” She shrugged and looped her arms around her knees.

Cookie still frowned. He unwrapped a piece of gum and folded it into his mouth. “A victim of what, exactly?”

She gave him a look. “I’m a psychologist, not a mind-reader. Childhood abuse, maybe, or he grew up seeing violent behavior between his parents. Maybe he’s a victim of domestic violence himself.”

“Chris?” Tick couldn’t help the amused grunt that escaped him and he didn’t miss the matching sound that rumbled in Cookie’s throat. Tori fixed them both with a withering stare.

Cookie tossed the Stinson folder in his working basket. “You’re reaching there, sweetheart.”

“Why? Because he’s a man? Or because he’s a cop?”

“I get that men can be victims of domestic violence, Tor.” Tick propped against the counter and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. Lord, it had been a long night, and that weird stuff with Chris still didn’t sit right. But Tori’s theory seemed way out there, even as odd as Chris’s behavior had been. “But not Chris Parker. No way.”

She rolled her eyes and he could almost hear her calling him an idiot. “Why not?”

“Because.” Cookie picked up the conversation for him. “We’ve seen this boy take down suspects by himself that we wouldn’t have wanted to tackle together. Believe me, he can handle his own. Kinda hard to imagine him getting his ass kicked by a girl.”

Tori held her fiancé’s gaze for a long moment before flicking a finger in Tick’s direction. “And how many times have you said he’s lucky Cait doesn’t decide to kick his when she’s angry?”

Tick groaned. He got so tired of hearing that crap all the time. He glared at his partner. “Yeah. How many times?”

Cookie leaned back. “Oh shit, here we go. Tor, baby, some things are supposed to stay between us.”

Tori eyed him, chin tilted to a challenging angle. “Could she?”

Tick blew out a long breath. Caitlin possessed the same Quantico training he had, kept her body in top physical condition. He might be taller and bigger, but she could outlast him. And she was strong and agile—he knew that from the playful wrestling that often ended up with them naked and sighing in bed. If she really wanted to, she could take him down and keep him down. “Probably.”

“I’m sure you’d broadcast that all over the department if she was.”

Like hell.

“Would you tell anyone?” Tori prodded.

He hooked his thumbs in his belt, glanced at Cookie and shook his head. “No.”

His sister waved her hands like a magician who’d just made a colorful scarf disappear into thin air. “There you go then.”