In the Air Tonight (29 page)

Her stomach turned. The idea of Jeffrey hanging out at the mall and the movie theater, the local diner she’d frequented with her friends—no wonder she’d always felt followed. Haunted.

But where else?

She looked at him and he held her gaze, his eyes managing an innocence she knew he’d been born without and then she knew where he’d hidden the bodies. It was a place he’d continued to visit long after the twins had disappeared, a place they all had at one time or another growing up, a local spot where kids would hang out to kiss in secret, drink a little, smoke cigarettes.

She tried not to shudder outwardly. “Why?” was all she could manage.

“Why tell you? That’s easy. Because you know,” he said. “You’ve always known.”

She had to leave immediately. “Don’t contact me again. Ever.”

“You should’ve known I would,” he said, and then hung up the phone, ultimately getting the last word in.

J
effrey strolled back out with the guard while Paige sat in the chair, still clutching the phone and trying not to crumple.

She turned to look at the guard who’d been behind the glass wall. He was staring straight ahead, trying
to give her privacy as she put the phone in its cradle and pushed out of the chair. “I’m ready to go,” she told him, and he nodded and opened the door for her. She stared at Mace for a split second before telling the guard, “What he said, about where the bodies would be—he’s talking about the old golf course, thirteenth hole, where the creek runs along the backside of the course,” she said, and told them the town even though she was sure the authorities knew where Jeffrey had grown up.

“Thank you. We recorded his confession as well, Ms. Grayson. Local law enforcement will be notified.”

All she could do was nod, and hope it would bring some sense of peace to the Kettering family like the warden had mentioned earlier. The guard led her down a corridor, with Mace following, wisely not saying a word. She passed through a set of doors, and heard, “Ma’am?”

She looked up to see the same guard who’d regarded her with such sympathy earlier, ready to escort her the rest of the way. “Yes?”

He glanced at Mace before handing her a fat manila envelope. “The warden said to give you this before you left. It’s your brother’s list of visitors over the past year. You’ll see many female names on there. He’s got a lot of women who visit. Prison groupies. They want to be his girlfriend. If you need us to go further back, let the warden know.”

“This should be fine. Thanks.”

“Also …” He looked around and lowered his voice. “There was a camera crew here recently. For Jeffrey. His lawyer set up some kind of interview.”

Her stomach dropped. “He’s going to be on TV?”

“Yes. Soon, I think. I wasn’t sure if you knew. If you’d want to know even. But I didn’t want you to be surprised.”

She was grateful for the heads-up. She was also confused as to why the warden had conveniently left this out when he’d spoken with Dylan.

“Thank you,” she said, held out her naked hand purposely to shake this guard’s hand. Since he knew who she was, he could’ve been the one to tip off Jeffrey about her arriving with Mace.

As his slightly moist palm came in contact with hers, she fought the urge to panic and pull back and instead let herself feel it all—the complete horror show that went on behind these walls, and the way the man who’d helped her suffered because of it.

He wasn’t helping Jeffrey, he was for real. His thoughts rang through her mind clear as day—it was rare for that to happen, but it was almost as if this man was trying to transfer his thoughts to her. Not knowing she was psychic, he was actually trying to get his meaning across as hard as he could without saying anything inappropriate and risking his job.

Poor girl—doesn’t deserve a bastard brother ruining her life like that. Has a lot of them fooled, but not me. Has them eating out of his scum-sucking hand
.

“Ma’am, are you okay? You look … pale.”

Tell me the bastard did something so I can put him in solitary and make him never come out
.

“It’s been a long day. Thanks. For everything,” she said, took her hand away, but the feelings of despair didn’t go away as effortlessly. They covered her like a thick blanket, making her steps heavy and her eyes
blur. She wanted to hold her breath until she got outside, settled for wrapping her arms tightly around her body, hands fisted until she got to safety.

At least you’ll be someplace hidden when the interview runs
. But the question was, how long could she remain there?

No, the question is, how long do you want to stay there—and why?

Mace kept his eyes straight ahead, a hand on the small of her back, marching both of them forward.

“Why would you do that? You let him see you.”

“Because I’m not afraid of the bastard.” Mace stood ramrod straight as he spoke. “I also don’t take orders from you. I know how to keep you safe.”

This meant a chance at redemption—he hadn’t been able to save Gray, any of his teammates, from danger, and none of them would ever be the same.

But if he and Cael could save her from her demons, they had a small chance at redemption. A way back.

She was their chance, but still, “He takes everything from me.”

“He didn’t take Gray.”

“And neither did you,” she said fiercely. “That wasn’t your fault.”

Mace didn’t answer. Wouldn’t. And so she embraced him, winding her arms around his waist in the familiar hands-fisted hug. Buried her face against his chest, and he carried her out of the main doors and into the fresh air.

It was only then he put her down, but he still didn’t let her go.

“I had to see him. But never again,” she said as he cradled her in his arms.

“Never,” he repeated.

To her horror, the tears she’d been successfully holding back began to roll down her cheeks and Mace pulled her to him again, holding her tightly until the sobs subsided.

He continued to rub her back with one hand, told her, “You bring all the trouble you want to me—I’ll handle it all for you.”

V
ivi woke to actual sunlight streaming through the window. She pushed up, confused to find herself on a cot in the corner of the office. Last she remembered, she’d been at the keyboard, eyes heavy, hands aching, and thinking,
Just a few more minutes
.

She’d been intent on helping Paige—on helping all of them—and that had been all that mattered.

Caleb was already awake, looking down on her from where he was seated at the desk, sketching. He’d no doubt carried her from the desk to the cot and she should be grateful, because her neck and shoulders would’ve ached far more than they did now if she’d slept facedown on the desk.

“You should’ve woken me up.” She sat on the edge of the cot, mouth feeling like cotton.

“What for?” Caleb set the notebook aside and went to pour her a cup of coffee from the coffeemaker behind the desk. He handed it to her, cream only, just the way she took it, and she fought a smile—he remembered—as he said, “Everything’s under control, for now. Reid’s setting up surveillance at the cabin. And Mace called in and gave me a list of Jeffrey’s visitors for you to check.”

“That’s why you should’ve woken me up.”

“You’ve been out for an hour, Vivi. I wouldn’t have let much more time pass.”

“How did the visit with Jeffrey go?” she asked.

“Paige got the information on the twins—the local police in her hometown are searching for the bodies now,” Caleb said quietly and Vivi let the weight of that news sink in.

She checked Paige’s cell phone as she drank her coffee—no new calls, which was good—and then she glanced at the list Caleb passed her, started with the first name, Arthur Somberg, because it was a little familiar. When she pulled his website up, she knew why. The true-crime author had been turning the lives of killers into bestsellers for years now—her father had read just about everything the man had written.

She’d avoided those books—the covers alone creeped her out. But there was something about this place, especially when all the men were around, that kept her from being scared. The dark paneling, the pictures … it was warm. Comforting. She didn’t often feel at home immediately in a new place. She’d been in the apartment in Washington for two months and it still looked new and stark. Impersonal.

Next, she went to a recent article written on Arthur. Scanned it, found out that the author wasn’t exactly well liked. Originally a tabloid reporter, he’d gone the true-crime route. And while there were many other true-crime writers out there who were well respected, this one made his living by sensationalizing cases that were already far too sensationalized to begin with. Often blaming the victims, he tended to side with the criminals he interviewed.

What a pig. “It says Arthur Somberg was in the Marines,” she offered, and Caleb rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “What?”

“Nothing, maybe. But he’s trained.”

“You think he’s in on this?”

“It would make for some great chapters in his book, for sure, but probably not. I still don’t trust him.” Caleb leaned in to look at the monitor and she rotated it so he could see more easily. “He actually doesn’t live too far from here. Well, his second home. I guess this author shit pays pretty well.”

“I wouldn’t want to get paid for exploiting someone’s misery,” she muttered, punched the keys viciously. “It looks like he’s been sued a few times by families of the victims—they claim he’s sensationalizing murder. He was even tried criminally, because someone used one of his true-crime books to do a copycat killing, although he was found not guilty.”

“Reading about a crime doesn’t make someone a psychotic killer,” Caleb said. “You have to have that in you already.”

“True,” she said softly. “You don’t have anything bad inside of you, Caleb. You have to know that.”

“I’m trying.”

“Things weren’t exactly easy with us,” she said suddenly. There had never been baggage between them. When Caleb left, she was still in danger, but they’d been in the early stages of falling in love.

She wished she could force the old memories back into his brain, but as she had recalled last night, those early memories were fraught with land mines too. There had been mistrust and accusations on both sides.

“When it’s right, it’s probably not supposed to be.” Caleb reached for her hands—she’d been massaging them and he took up the job, the way he had before, months earlier, and she let the warmth of the memory wash over her as he worked.

Reid entered the room then. “Any news?”

“The author of the book that’s being written about Jeffrey—we have his address,” Vivi answered. “He doesn’t live far from here.”

“I can take a run to his house and see if there are any copies of the manuscript laying around,” Reid offered casually.

Vivi glanced up at him and frowned and Caleb explained, “In his past life, Reid was something of a …”

“Thief,” Reid finished bluntly. “Damned good at it too. Still am.”

“Let’s not get into any more trouble than we’re already in,” Caleb told him, and Reid shrugged, said, “Have it your way,” and left Vivi and Caleb alone in the office as he stomped outside into the snow.

P
aige looked like she’d seen a ghost—and in many ways, she had. This trip had taken a toll on her mentally and physically, and Mace wanted to hold her for longer—the fact that he could actually give her a small measure of comfort made him feel far less useless than he had when he let her walk into the room with Jeffrey alone.

Still, he understood that sometimes you had to take that trip alone in order to finally be free. She wasn’t,
not completely, but she was a hell of a lot closer than she’d been.

Earlier, when he’d led her past the guard on the way out who looked to be part stone, part sympathetic—man, that must be a tough fucking job. He couldn’t imagine dealing with the men held behind these bars on a daily basis.

He’d been young when he visited his father—but old enough to remember that it felt like hell. Like he couldn’t breathe, and how he couldn’t wait to get the hell out of there.

And even though this prison was well above-ground, sometimes just looking at bars could bring back the mind-numbing, sickening feeling he’d had for those weeks he was trapped.

He’d never had a problem with small spaces—still didn’t, really … but the fucking bars.

He shifted so he could stare out at the rolling field beyond the high walls, breathed and told himself to calm the fuck down.

“Come on, get in.” He kept one arm firmly around Paige as he steered her into the relative safety of the tinted-windowed SUV. As he walked to his side, he got the list out of the envelope and studied it as he slid behind the wheel and started the car.

“Lots of female names,” he said. “Probably the girlfriends that guard was talking about.”

She glanced at it, pointed to the name
Arthur Somberg
.

The only other male name was the attorney Jeffrey had retained a couple of years back—Mace had done some digging on him. An up-and-coming criminal lawyer specializing in high-profile cases, he used Jeffrey
and other killers like him to up his profile in the media.

The drive back to New York was tense and quiet, although the tension wasn’t between him and Paige. No, everything they’d learned today, and the days before, were a big jumbled mess and both of them were trying to sort it out and process it in their own way.

By the time he pulled into the long driveway that led to the bar, Mace had no more answers than when they’d started the trip.

But he had a hell of a lot more questions.

The night was in full swing, the lot crowded, music blaring. Paige had worn her knit gloves the entire ride back, even though she claimed she wasn’t cold. She was in full-on self-protection mode, shutting him out so hard he could practically hear the doors slamming, whether she meant to or not.

If he wanted them back open, he’d have to kick them down. He also had to make sure he was ready to deal with the consequences of that action.

He wanted to ask her if she was with him now because she had nowhere else to go, but he bit it back. She didn’t need any more of his shit now. “Come on, let’s get inside.”