Garden of Sorrow (Book 4 of Psychic Visions, a paranormal romantic suspense) (31 page)

BOOK: Garden of Sorrow (Book 4 of Psychic Visions, a paranormal romantic suspense)
5.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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    Arnie hesitated. "Once I saw his car parked outside the mayor's house."

    Kevin slammed the door shut again and stormed back to his desk. "Is this man young or old?"

    "Early thirties maybe. Five foot eleven, slim, well dressed."

    "You do know what the mayor looks like?" At Arnie's immediate nod, Kevin eased back a bit, but not much.

    "It wasn't him. I'm sure of that."

    The description Arnie gave twigged something else. He cocked his head as he studied the young policeman. "What about his son? Would you recognize him?"

    Arnie shook his head.

    "That's the first photo we need to show you. Where else have you seen this guy? What's the license plate, and what kind of vehicle does he drive?" The next words burst out in a half bellow. "And why the hell did you not come to me with this information before?"

    The rookie sank deeper into his unforgiving chair. "I thought if I could solve it, then I wouldn't be kicked off the force."

    "Did you ever suspect that the man you gave information to was involved in the recent murder of the young mother?" A muscle twitched in Kevin's cheek as he pinned the younger man to the spot.

    "No, never!" Arnie appeared sincerely horrified at that idea.

    Alexis believed him. And in her mind, it changed his culpability. Arnie continued with his protestations. "I wouldn't do something like that, honest. You have to believe me. I just didn't know what to do."

    "Idiot!"

    Alexis winced at the one word guaranteed to get her back up. "It makes sense, Kevin. Not for you, and maybe not for me, but for someone who feels they've done something wrong. They want to fix it before anyone finds out."

    "Who asked you?" Kevin snapped.

    "I did," she said cheerfully, fully aware of the shocked fascination coming from Arnie as he watched their exchange. "Maybe Arnie was right to be afraid. And right about the other… As long as he didn't give out something major, maybe this can be fixed." She smiled reassuringly at Arnie, presenting a confidence and authority she didn't feel. There would be repercussions from Arnie's actions, but she had no idea how severe they'd be. From the look on his face, Arnie'd already assumed the worse.

    "This
    is
    in your hands right now, Kevin." Alexis smiled gently. "What you do from here on in affects everything."

    Kevin glared at her, his eyes laser hard. "Damn it, Alexis. You can't fix everything."

    She smiled. "But
    you
    can fix some things."

    Arnie gawked at her as she continued.

    "I know
    I
    can't fix everything. But you have authority to minimize the damage, Kevin. Talk to the captain about Arnie first, before anything else." She nodded at the still figure in the chair. "This young man's future doesn't have to be destroyed." At the look of hope on Arnie's face, she held up her hand. "But reparation does have to be made. Otherwise, this can never be left in the past."

    Alexis looked over at the still-pissed Kevin. "Did the department know about Arnie's past when he was picked, trained and then put on the job with this force?"

    At the grudging nod, Alexis turned to face Arnie. "Did you hide something else from the department when you made this career step?"

    "No, nothing. I was shocked they accepted my application. Thought maybe my file hadn't been looked at closely enough or something. I had worked hard to clean up my act, but figured my past would go against me. I thought that maybe they didn't know all of it, when they let me into the training." He shrugged at Kevin.

    "Drugs, alcohol abuse, grand theft auto, prostitution all before twelve. You did three years in juvenile hall, then lived in a halfway house for a year, with rehabilitation and retraining for another year after that." Kevin's cold recital made them both stare in stunned amazement. Kevin shuffled some papers on his desk. "We decided that you'd had enough time and had chosen another way. Our way. We put our faith in you. A small department like ours has the ability to make these kinds of choices, ones that a big city police department can't."

    The look on Arnie's face was as painful to look at as the recital he had just heard.

    "Arnie, what went on in your early family life to send you on this path?" Alexis knew there had to be something that happened back there. And it needed to come out. Now. How she knew, she couldn't say.

    The young man spoke dismissively. "The usual. Broken home, abuse, parents both alcoholics, mother a prostitute. What's to say? It was hell."

    "No, there's something else," she prodded. Pain oozed from a hidden cavity in Arnie's soul. Alexis couldn't stand it. "Something hurt you badly, and eventually sent you on this pathway to become a cop. Something inside of you needed to pay retribution or maybe…" Alexis paused, feeling her way, yet knowing the storm inside of Arnie could break with her next words. "Or maybe because you needed revenge?"

    Kevin looked at her in shock. "What are you getting at, Alex?"

    Needing to see something, anything else but the torment being released from his soul, she walked over to the window overlooking the sleepy street outside. Behind her, she could hear the young officer's gulps and sobs of a long held agony.

    "Jesus." Kevin's ire had quickly been replaced with understanding. Alexis sensed when Arnie dropped the barrier hiding a lifetime of betrayal and pain, leaving his past wide open, exposed. She didn't want to look and Kevin could easily see the details for himself. Hell, psychics anywhere in the world could have accessed the information with Arnie transmitting so loudly.

    Then he told them in words. Arnie said he had a younger brother he'd doted on until he'd died. Arnie explained he had been looking after him. They'd gone into a large mall. Arnie wanted to pilfer some candy, and left his little brother to sit on a bench just inside the store. When he came out, the younger boy was gone. He'd gone through the automatic doors to pet a puppy waiting outside. When the puppy had run, he'd followed, directly into the path of the oncoming car.

    "Oh, hell." Weariness marred Kevin's features as he slumped into his chair. He walked over to Alexis. The two stood, not touching physically, but wrapped in the comforting energy of the other, while giving the other man time to adjust to his disclosure.

    "Sorry." Humiliation and embarrassment colored Arnie's voice.

    Alexis sighed at the sad story. "Don't apologize. We each have times when the pain is so bad, there's nothing else we can do but let it pour."

    "But you need to tell us the details." Kevin's voice was still cold but now had a thread of compassion running through it.

    Broken, but still willing, Arnie explained again, in detail.

    Alexis waited a few minutes after he fell silent to allow him to recover a stronger grip on his self-control. "I suppose you thought if this came out, no one would let you stay here?"

    "I was supposed to look after him. Keep him safe. It's all my fault."

    His confession confirmed her guess. That was the problem with old abiding guilt; it ruled your actions forever. "Well, it won't. We all have demons, Arnie. Yours are more difficult than some, but no one here would judge you for it."

    "He did."

    Kevin spun away from the window to glare at him. "He knew?" Two quick steps took him to the front of his desk. "How could he know? Did you tell him?"

    Arnie reared back away from Kevin's intensity. "Uh, no. I didn't tell him. He already knew. He scared the hell out of me."

    Alexis smiled at the past tense. The young man still looked terrified, only now Kevin was the looming danger.

    "Okay, I want you to start from the beginning and go over every word from every meeting. I want full descriptions with sketches of his face, and details about vehicles and locations where you've met. This guy has a pattern, and I want to know what it is." Standing with his hands on his hips, he added, "And I need someone to find a picture of Charles for him to see. Fast."

    One of the senior officers came and led Arnie into a private room to take his statement. The police artist was on standby but hopefully she wouldn't be needed.

    Kevin called the captain and filled him in. Finally, something had shifted.

    As Alexis waited, she almost nodded off. God, she was tired. She wondered when they'd be heading home.

    "I know you're tired, Alexis." He pondered the problem for a moment. "I can send an officer with you to my place or you can grab a couple of hours sleep here. We have two rooms with cots in them." He grinned at her. "Actually, we have a whole jail full of them."

    "Thanks, but no thanks." Alexis considered the not-so-great options.

    "Or I could have a cot brought into my office," he suggested with a raised brow.

    Right on cue, Alexis yawned again. "Did we eat tonight?"

    "Yeah." He reminded her. "Chinese at the lake, remember?"

    She grimaced. How could she have forgotten? This day had been brutally long. "Maybe I could crash here. Are you sure I won't be in the way?" Even as she said the words, fatigue washed over her.

    "Not at all."

    Kevin quickly ordered a cot brought in, and grabbed up his stuff to take to another desk.

    "You don't have to leave." Alexis hated to move into his space if it meant moving him out.

    "Honey, I have to go talk with Arnie anyway. I need to find out everything I can before I meet with John in the morning." He walked over and tugged her gently into his warm embrace. "Lie down and sleep. This could be an all-nighter. We might need your special skills. Rest while you can."

    She sent him a look of disbelief that made him laugh. "Like I can help."

    "I mean it."

    Even as he spoke, the door opened to admit two men carrying a small folding cot.

    After the men left, she moved over to the makeshift bed and lay down. There were no blankets or pillows, but she didn't care.

    "I'll rustle up a blanket or two for you. Go ahead and get some rest." He left the room.

    Alexis stretched out. She did the exercises Stefan had taught her, though she was tempted to just fall asleep. It felt so damn good to be able to shut her mind off. To know that for now, she could leave everything in Kevin's capable hands.

    Within minutes, she'd fallen asleep.

    CHAPTER 23

    A
    lexis slept soundly. She didn't wake up until the light crept through the blinds on the windows. Had she closed those? She couldn't remember. Another few minutes went by. She didn't want to get up, but Kevin had to be around somewhere.

    "Good morning, sleepyhead. How are you feeling now?"

    Kevin sat quietly at his desk. From the look of him, he'd been there all night.

    "Did you get any rest last night?" Alexis rubbed her eyes, noticing she now had a blanket and a pillow. Interesting. A shower would be wonderful…but coffee would be better.

    "I caught a few minutes of shut-eye in my chair somewhere between three and four. Not enough, but it will have to do for now."

    Alexis shook her head. He couldn't function efficiently this way.

    "Don't say it, I already know. But there have been a lot of surprises overnight, and things are starting to move very quickly."

    Startled, she could only look at him. "Coffee," she pleaded in a croaking voice. "First coffee, then information."

    After several slugs of dark-and-deadly harsh cop coffee, she smiled. The caffeine hadn't had a chance to hit her bloodstream, but just knowing it was on the way made her mental faculties cooperate enough to ask. "Now, what did you find out?"

    "Charles is the blackmailer." He waited for her reaction.

    "What? That slimy-toad-of-a-birthday-boy blackmailed Arnie?" She just couldn't get her mind wrapped around the idea. "It's not that I don't believe you, it's just hard to imagine. Does he really have the brains to pull off something like this?"

    Kevin watched her, a big smirk on his face. "I thought you'd say something along those lines. You really didn't like him, did you?"

    Alexis looked at him and shuddered. "What's to like?"

    "Most ladies don't appear to have a problem with him."

    She thought about it. "I'm not so sure about that. He mentioned something when I walked with him. He made it sound like the house, money and prestige, all belonged to him, and if I was nice to him, he might share."

    Alexis became the target of his narrowed eyed glare. "He said
    what?"

    From the overriding disbelief in his voice, she couldn't tell if she should feel insulted or complimented. "He said something else that was odd. Something about no other family that counts." She looked over at Kevin.

    "His uncle is in a long-term care facility on life support. John keeps paying the bills because he can't stand the thought of letting his brother die." Kevin looked down at the stack of papers on his desk. "Although, from what he's said lately, he's getting ready to sign the papers to pull the plug. Something about it being time to let his brother go."

    "How sad. But like I said, Charles is a toad." Imagine feeling that way about a family member? "Would Charles get any money then?" Alexis visibly shuddered at the next thought. "If he is the blackmailer, does it change the direction of your meeting with John this morning?"

    He looked startled.

    "Sorry." She blushed. "I didn't try to listen in on your phone conversations, but I
    was
    here in the office."

    "I'd forgotten. There's a good chance Charles has been leaving the threatening notes for his own father."

    She sat back and stared at Kevin. "Does he hate his father so much?" Alexis couldn't image a family willingly doing such damage to each other.

    "That's something I need to discuss with John this morning." At her look of interest, he quickly interjected, "In private."

    That was only fair, even if she didn't like it.

    He grinned.

    She shrugged dismissively. What could she say? "What's happening with Arnie now?"

    That wiped the smile off Kevin's face. "He's in with the captain now. They're questioning his every move since he started here. His future is up in the air."

    "That will be tough on him." Alexis stood stalwart in her defense of the young man. She knew he deserved another chance. But would he get it?

BOOK: Garden of Sorrow (Book 4 of Psychic Visions, a paranormal romantic suspense)
5.15Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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