Killer Love (39 page)

I’d given Hutch my statement earlier and told him Liza was my sister. I had nothing to back it up, but I knew it was true. “Yes, I’m sure of it. Carmen will be blown away.” I hadn’t called her yet. I needed some time to process it all. Time to wind down. “So, what, exactly, made you figure out Liza was the one behind all this?”

“There were several little clues, and when they all added up, and when Deanna came to see me, it was suddenly crystal clear. The night of the fire, one of Liza’s neighbors called 911 a couple of minutes before Liza’s call came in. The woman said she looked outside and saw Liza standing in the yard, watching the house burn. She thought it strange that Liza was standing so close, and she figured Liza had already called herself, but just to be sure, she also called. Listening to Liza’s 911 call, you can easily tell she’s outside. But, she claimed to be just waking up in the smoke-filled house when she phoned it in. Deanna told me she found a package of thimbles, with one missing, in Liza’s house. She didn’t think much of it, even though Liza didn’t sew, but later she heard about the thimble being found near where the fire started and it made her suspicious.”

“Good God, to think she went so far as to burn down her own house.” I couldn’t wrap my mind around the depths of Liza’s—my sister’s—insanity.

Hutch reached out and took my free hand in both of his. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, looking not at me but at our linked hands. He raised his head and I nearly gasped at the tortured look in his eyes. “I’m sorry you almost died, sorry I wasn’t here for you, and so very sorry I doubted you, even for a second.”

“Is that all?” I asked, my throat clogged with emotion, with loving him.

“Should there be more?” he asked warily.

“What about for waiting so long to tell me you love me? For waiting until I’m a
murder
suspect before telling me?”

“I told you years ago.”

“We were kids. I didn’t know...”

He leaned forward and kissed me, quickly, sweetly, tenderly. “You know it now. I love you.”

I smiled, tears burning my eyes, but this time, they were tears of happiness. “I love you, too.”

He let out a breath, as if he’d been waiting to hear those words. Waiting a lifetime.

He stared at me for a moment, then took the coffee cup out of my hand and placed it on the counter. Pulling me against him, he bent his head and claimed my lips in a fierce, consuming kiss. My head spun as I clung to him, returning the kiss, yearning, wanting him. Now.

“Wow,” I said breathlessly when he lifted his mouth away from mine. My heart pounded and heat tingled through me.

“We’ve wasted too many years,” he growled, still holding me against his hard body. “Marry me.”

A passion-filled daze had me in its grip, but his words penetrated the fog and I stepped back, shaking my head. “You can’t. You’re the sheriff. You can’t marry a woman the whole town hates.”

“When all of this comes out, when Deanna sets them straight, they won’t hate you. If they do, we’ll move away. We’ll start a new life somewhere else.”

“You would do that for me? Move away from here?”

“There’s nothing—short of murder,” he amended with a grin, “that I wouldn’t do for you.”

His words, his eyes, seared into me, into my heart and soul.

“But, the...” I almost couldn’t get the words out, but they had to be said. “My family. The insanity. What if that happens to me?”

“It won’t,” he said firmly. “You know it won’t. You would have seen signs of it by now. And if it does, we’ll deal with it. We’ll get you help, whatever it takes.” His gaze was tormented, longing. “I can’t lose you again. If I do,
I’ll
go crazy.”

I saw the depth of Hutch’s feelings, the love shining in his beautiful, silver-grey eyes and I stepped back into his arms, placing my hands around his neck and pulling him into a kiss to seal the deal.

Now I knew why I’d stayed.

Tears of the Wounded

by

Alicia Dean

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

Tears of the Wounded

COPYRIGHT

2008 by Alicia Dean

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [email protected]

Cover Art by
Kim Mendoza

The Wild Rose Press

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Crimson Rose Edition, 2008

Print ISBN 1-60154-286-0

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

For Mike

Chapter One

His hands, slick with perspiration, trembled as he reached for the ammonium nitrate. Sweat beaded his forehead and trickled into his eyes.

He stopped and took a deep, calming breath, trying to get his nerves under control.

Why should
he
be nervous? Teddy was the one who should be nervous.

Theodore William Garrett.

He knew a lot about Theodore. He’d studied him long enough. Theodore’s father had given him the name because he was a baseball fanatic and Ted Williams was his favorite player of all time. Theodore’s parents were both dead now, his mother from cancer and his father, a year later, from a heart attack.

Theodore married his high school sweetheart, Tara, and they had a child, Lindsey. Lindsey was now a motherless fourteen-year old. Theodore currently had a beautiful girlfriend, even prettier than his lovely, deceased wife.

Theodore always seemed to come out on top. But that was about to change.

He’d waited a long time to make Theodore pay.

Well, it wasn’t like he’d been totally idle. He’d kind of screwed with him already. Like, that shit with his wife. Talk about fucking up somebody’s day.

But, he’d more or less been picking on Theodore. Kind of like a bully on a playground who takes a smaller kid’s lunch money. In truth, Theodore was the bully. Theodore had stolen much more than his lunch money.

He could have taken Theodore out years ago. But what do they say? Revenge is a dish best served cold?

Death would have been too quick, too easy. Almost merciful.

No, he had something much worse in mind for Mr. Theodore William Garrett. The woman and the child were the keys. They were pawns. Instruments. Spoils of war.

He would make Theodore sorry he’d ever been born and he wouldn’t rest until he’d avenged her death.

Yes, that’s it.
The Avenger.
He was The Avenger.

He bent over the tiny plastic case. The work was very tedious, very precise. But the object had to be small.

Another cliché came to mind.

Dynamite comes in small packages.

He laughed, his sweat drying in the cool air of the dimly lit room.

He was no longer nervous.

Chapter Two

Abby Bishop lifted her face to the sky, reveling in the taste of salt water on her lips, the cool sea air blowing through her hair, and the warm sun caressing her skin.

“Male dolphins are called
bulls
and female dolphins are called
cows
,” Abby told the six passengers of her Blue Harbor, Florida dolphin-watching excursion.

Abby’s gaze drifted to the girl who sat in the seat next to her in the cockpit. Lindsey Garrett was pretty, with wide, hazel eyes and perfect skin, only slightly marred by adolescent acne. The teenager’s long, dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, but beyond that, Lindsey made no attempt to look fourteen. She wore a nose ring and flip flops, a tight pink spaghetti strap shirt, and booty shorts that showed her butt cheeks.

If she’d been Lindsey’s mother, Abby never would have let her out of the house dressed like that. Abby knew Wil didn’t like it, but he sometimes let it slide, and Abby was in no position to tell him how to dress his daughter.

Abby had been dating Wil for over a year but had only recently met Lindsey. The girl didn’t seem to like her much, so Abby was pleasantly surprised this morning when Wil called to say Lindsey wanted to come along on one of her tourist trips.

So far, the girl hadn’t said a word and her expression hadn’t changed from one of abject boredom.

Maybe it was because they hadn’t spotted any dolphins yet. They didn’t always, but Abby had about a ninety percent success rate and prayed this would be one of those times. She didn’t want to acknowledge it, but she was trying to impress Wil’s daughter. Trying to win Lindsey over.

“Dolphins can’t live long out of water because their bodies overheat. They communicate via a series of—” Abby stopped, her breath stalling as she spotted them, about a hundred yards off the port side.

She did this for a living and had seen dolphins hundreds of times, but the sight never failed to leave her momentarily speechless. In a breathy voice, Abby said, “There.” And pointed toward the beautiful creatures. Two of them broke the surface at that precise moment, perfectly in sync.

Oohs and aahs arose from the passengers, a couple with a ten-year-old son, and three young men who looked to be in their early twenties. But Lindsey didn’t move, didn’t respond. Her gaze flicked to the dolphins, then back to Abby.

“The sounds are a series of whistles and clicks called phonations,” Abby went on, keeping the twenty-six foot Bayliner even with the dolphins without getting any closer. One of the most important aspects of her excursions was not disturbing or harming the creatures. “Dolphins use their flippers to make sharp turns and sudden stops.”

Lindsey spoke up. “What about the mating rituals of the dolphin?”

Momentarily disconcerted, Abby cleared her throat, then said, “Well, their courtship sometimes involves bumping heads. Most of them mate in spring and early summer and—”

“My dad, like, has so many girlfriends it’s insane,” Lindsey interrupted. “I just wondered if dolphins were man whores, too.”

Abby nearly gasped. Not so much at her words, but at the malevolence in the girl’s eyes. Abby’s face heated and she purposely avoided meeting the gazes of her other passengers.

“If you’ll watch, the dolphins will periodically leap from the water, normally in twos, while those behind them swim just under the surface, then take their turns cresting the water,” Abby continued, not responding to Lindsey. She wasn’t sure what to say next. It was a good thing she had her spiel down pat, and an even better thing that Lindsey didn’t speak again.

Abby didn’t really think Wil had other girlfriends. He didn’t seem the type to cheat and the two of them spent a great deal of time together. Even if he did date other women, it wouldn’t be a big deal. She cared about him, but they weren’t necessarily in a committed relationship.

What bothered Abby about Lindsey’s comments was that the girl felt the need to make them, in front of others who might or might not guess Lindsey was talking about the man Abby was dating.

The intentional attempt to inflict pain, to cause conflict, was what troubled Abby. She’d seen enough conflict in her life, encountered all the trouble, all the violence and mayhem she cared to. She also didn’t want to cause Lindsey problems. God knew, teenage girls had enough already. Especially Lindsey, having found her mother dead from a suicide four years earlier.

And, selfishly, Abby didn’t want to deal with an angry, resentful daughter fighting for her father’s attention.

The remainder of the cruise was mostly silent with Lindsey casting smug glances at Abby.

When it was over, Abby guided the boat into its slip and helped the passengers disembark. As Lindsey passed by, she smiled at Abby and swiped her hands together, as if brushing off dirt.

To Abby, the gesture seemed to say, ‘My work here is done’.

****

“Got a live one, wanna take it?” Sheriff Ray Roberts asked, stopping next to Wil’s desk, his hands resting on his protruding stomach.

“You know I don’t go out on calls anymore,” Wil said.

“Not even for a gigantic set of silicone hooters?”

“Come again?”

“Marlo Swain called. Seems she was sunbathing and a couple of boys stole her top. I told her to stay like she was so we could recreate the scene.”

Wil laughed and lifted his hands, miming a typing motion. “No longer my job description.”

After his wife died, Wil had given up his job on the bomb squad of the Miami PD so his ten-year-old daughter wouldn’t have to worry about losing another parent. He’d moved here to Blue Harbor and taken a job as a deputy where the worst crimes were—well—stolen bikini tops. When Lindsey’s bad dreams and sleeplessness persisted, Wil switched to a desk job. With her father completely removed from the line of fire, Lindsey had slowly improved.

“Nothing but a desk jockey now?” Ray asked.

“I’m leaving the tough cases to the rest of you.”

Ray snorted. “Don’t remind me. How we gonna handle those big ole fake boobies?”

Marlo Swain was a widow who lived in Blue Harbor during the fall and winter months. Her wealthy husband had passed away a few years ago, leaving her well off and large-breasted.

“You seem pretty sure they’re not real. You have firsthand knowledge?” Wil said, grinning as Ray’s face reddened.

“They’re about as real as Barry Bonds’ home run record.” The sheriff sighed and looked around the room. “Guess I’ll have to send Lesli, since she’s the only female. Ronald would be so embarrassed he’d have a coronary and Prescott would tamper with the evidence.”

“I’m sure whoever you send is up to the challenge.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. The only boobies you’re interested in are Abby’s. Bet those are real, huh?”

“Hey, watch it.”