Safeword (31 page)

I nodded numbly, watching in despair. Ben’s beautiful house had slashes of soot crawling up the brick above shattered windows, a stain that blackened my heart as well.

A gasp beside me snagged my attention, and Ben’s pale profile cut through my stupor like nothing else did. The abject horror oozed from every pore as his hands rose to his hair in a punishing grip. I stepped into his side, beneath his arm and grabbed him around the waist. There were no words, but when he leaned into me, I bore his weight, a silent reassurance.

My firefighter returned. “Are you the homeowner?” he asked. Ben nodded. “Name?” Ben gave it in a robotic voice. “I’m Lieutenant Saunders. Was anyone inside?” I bit my lip to keep from snapping. They had to make sure.

“No. No one was home.”

“Are there any incendiary items such as ammunition we should be aware of?”

“Um.” My slow brain took a while to cough up the answer. “I have a gun safe in the bedroom closet with a couple boxes of bullets and a spare clip for my service weapon, but it’s locked up and fireproof.”

“Paint thinner or gasoline, anything like that?”

“In the garage.” Ben pointed to the detached building a couple firemen were hosing down to keep floating embers from catching on the roof.

Saunders moved off again. Shouts could be heard through the gaping windows just as a groan rattled through the trees, which swayed in the fire’s unnatural wind. Then a hole opened up as a portion of the roof caved. It was only a small hole, but a tornado of flames tongued several feet in the air, spraying sparks.

Ben coughed, cleared his throat, and resolutely turned away, burying his face in my neck. I held him tightly, rubbing up and down his back.

“Babe, neither of us got hurt. We’re together and alive.” It felt thin as I said it, but really, it was everything.

“Gavin’s right, Ben,” Myah said, wrapping her arms around us both from Ben’s other side. “You’re still with us.” Ben nodded into my shoulder. She and I exchanged a look.

“So fast,” I said, voice cracking. “It got big so fast.”

“I’ll be right back,” Myah assured us. She stepped over to Saunders, and they bowed their heads for a moment before she looked up at him and frowned. I closed my eyes to shut out everything but Ben’s solid, shaking,
alive
form. He’d been working from home today. If Myah hadn’t told me to have him get us a hotel.... I couldn’t finish the thought, my knees threatening to give out and spill Ben and me to the ground.

She cleared her throat as she came back, face drawn but determined. “Gavin, they think it’s arson,” she said carefully. I didn’t think it was possible to get more upset, but my stomach bottomed out, sinking to my feet.

“Dennan,” I hissed.

She nodded. “I informed them of the stalking situation. They’ll follow it up.”

Ben raised his head. “Weren’t there supposed to be officers watching the house?”

Myah’s expression hardened and she looked around for the two yahoos who’d dropped the ball on this clusterfuck. I was moving before I could think, spying the blithering idiots before Myah or Ben did.

“You!” They were holding curious onlookers at bay, but looked at me when I spoke. My strides lengthened, carrying me to them before anyone could restrain me. I spun the first one around and pulled him to my chest with fistfuls of uniform. “Where the fuck were you?” Spittle flecked his shocked, gape-mouthed face. “Taking a leak while my crazy stalker just moseyed up and torched my home?” His partner clamped strong hands down on my shoulders, but I barely budged. Myah shouted my name, wedging an arm between my chest and the inept excuse for a cop, trying to pry us apart. “Where were you?” I screamed in his face.

“We were called off,” he stuttered. “You were pulled off the Stevenson case, so the danger was over. I swear, we were following orders!”

“Whose?” Myah growled. She managed to get a few inches between us, but my fists were iron.

“Louderback,” the partner I wasn’t manhandling answered, finally getting a hip in. I loosened my hold and stopped fighting them, letting myself be pulled off. “Louderback canceled our surveillance after your suspension. We were going in when the call came. We turned right around, but no one was here when we got back. We checked.”

“Suspension?” Ben asked from somewhere behind me. I ignored him.

“You checked, huh?” I sneered at them both. They nodded fiercely, determined to convince me. But they weren’t the problem. Louderback was. The fucking fire was.

Alex Dennan was.

I glanced at Myah, who was already on her phone, asking for Kittridge to update him on the source of the leaks, the fire, and Louderback’s involvement in both. I turned away from the patrolmen in disgust, only to run smack into Ben, listening raptly to Myah’s diatribe to Kittridge. When his eyes shifted to me, they were full of hurt and fury.

“You mean they dumped you just like that on
suspicion
of being the leak, when you’ve given them
everything
you had the last couple months?” Raw incredulity seeped from his words to spread over my skin, coating me in an inexplicable film of guilt. I nodded. His voice rose. “You put yourself in front of a serial cop killing stalker, and they accuse
you
of sabotaging the case?” He flung his arm in the direction of our fully engulfed house. “Is this your pension, Gavin? ‘Oh, we’re sorry you’ve been
nearly murdered
once and had your
house torched
in repayment for your service,’” he mocked nastily. “Is someone going to someday knock on my door—when I actually
have
a door—and tell me, ‘We’re so sorry for your loss, Dr. Haverson. We can give you only our condolences when Gavin gave his all?’ What the
hell
do you get out of this besides a neurotic husband terrified for you when you leave for work
every fucking day
and a fucking suspension?”

I bent beneath the tirade, letting the pain of his words rain over my head, flinching at their accuracy. Except for the word “husband.” That made my skin break out in goose bumps. The good kind.

I watched in horror as Ben knelt in front of me, one side of his face in shadow, the other in flickering firelight.

“Thunder.”

I BROKE. The crack of Ben’s voice, his distraught expression, the dejected set of his shoulders—it broke me. I wasn’t conscious of sinking to my knees. The air went out of my lungs and then seemingly forgot to replenish itself. I stared at him, lost and flailing. How had we come to this again? The whole world could have been burning down around us, and it wouldn’t have hurt as much as the echo of Ben’s voice in my mind saying that one word.

“No.” I sounded desperate, but I didn’t care. “Don’t do this.” Flashes of Victoria demanding I take a promotion to get out of field work so I could spend more time with her played on the silver screen of my memories. The ghost of irritation I’d always felt with her never surfaced, and Ben was demanding a hell of a lot more than a desk job. There was a lot more on the line here. Him or the shield.

It was no question. I reached for him tentatively, afraid he’d turn away and be lost to me forever, but he didn’t torture me. He immediately came into my arms. My legs gave the rest of the way, and I fell sideways to land on my hip, awkwardly pulling Ben into my lap.

“Whatever you need, I’ll do it. Just don’t go. I need you.”

He studied my face, possibly looking for a hint of deceit. There was none to be found, and he swallowed heavily and blew out a relieved breath. I covered his face with kisses, my perspective of the day completely shifting with one word from him. Nothing mattered but him in my arms. The job, the house, none of it. It was stuff.
He
was my everything.

He pulled back to meet my eyes. “You mean it? You’ll resign?”

“First thing tomorrow,” I agreed. “I’ll do anything. Just stay with me.” A flutter of desperation in my chest beat at my ribs until he spoke the words I needed to hear.

“I only want us to be together, to be safe. I only want you, Gavin. But I can’t compete with your job anymore. New limit. I love you too much to lose you.”

A choked sob worked from my throat, and I buried my face in his shoulder. Unfortunately, Myah chose that moment to interrupt, her hand clamped around her cell phone.

““Uh, Gavin, maybe you don’t want to know this right now, given the circumstances and everything.” She gestured to us, tangled in a heap in the middle of the street while fire slowly tightened its hold on our house, firefighters scurrying around us, battling the blaze for all they were worth. “But Cole just called.”

What now?
I thought resignedly, my wherewithal massively depleted.

“He finished up at the Paradise Inn and went to pick up Marshall to take him to the station. The Schofields just arrived. But when Cole got to our apartment, Marshall wasn’t there.”

“Okay,” I said, drawing the word out impatiently, still not seeing why this was a problem. I’d had enough of this day and wanted it to be over. Maybe it was selfish of me, but I’d just promised Ben I was done. As much as I loved Myah, I’d meant it about resigning, and given the day’s events, I felt entitled to leave with my man and shut out the world. I had nothing left to give.

“It gets worse. Marshall left a note saying he was going to Jan Aldrich’s house to see if he could get her to back off after this morning’s story.”

“Good. Maybe he’ll get further with her than we did,” I groused.

“It’s, ah... not a problem anymore.” She shook her head, disbelief and regret mixing on her face in a strange new expression. “When Cole got there, Marshall was gone.”

“Get to the point, Myah. Where is he? We’ll just go get him, take him to his parents, and that’s it.” She wouldn’t look at me, her face ashen. I wasn’t making some connection, apparently.

“Are you saying Marshall’s missing?” Ben asked, concern on his brow and in the lines around his mouth.

My heart triphammered into action. Just when I’d thought all my reserves had been exhausted, something happened to pull a pinch more grief from my soul. I waited for her answer, bile rising in my throat.
Not again.

“He’s missing. And The Walking Mouth is dead.”

Sound shorted on me, white noise drowning out everything. Had Marshall killed her? Had he been that angry? Dead how? Was Marshall hurt? The cop in me kicked in, a hundred questions vying for space in my mouth. I swallowed them all, looking miserably at Ben, still on my lap, an arm around my shoulders and his hand flat against my chest. He raised it to brush a thumb across my lower lip, reading me as easily as an open book.

“First thing tomorrow, you resign,” he murmured. I nodded, kissing the pad of his thumb. “But today, we find Marshall. Seventeen-year-old boys don’t get ignored, especially not ones who’ve been through what he has.”

I tightened my arms around his waist so hard, I forced a puff of strained air from his chest. With a fierce kiss, I jostled him to stand up, grabbing the hand he offered to pull myself up after him. Ben couldn’t turn his back on someone like Marshall any more than I could. Not in the middle of the most fucked up case of my career. I’d thought Lane had been the worst, and in many ways, what he’d done was still the most violent, crushing pain I’d ever endured. But this was bad in different ways. None of these boys had asked for this. None of them had done anything but survive, until the last straw of David Strange’s arrest broke one of them. Jesus Christ, would the evil that man had visited upon the world ever begin to heal?

Myah waited for me to speak, not having heard Ben’s agreement to search for the boy. I nodded to her, determination to see him safely into the care of his parents sweeping everything else away, including the devastation to our house. I looked at it one last time, sadness welling in my chest. So many memories, so much promise.... But it was just brick and paint and wood. It could be rebuilt. We could still have our lives together, no matter where we laid our heads at night. Marshall needed a fighting chance to do the same with his life.

“Let’s go get him.”

Myah drove my car, a wise thing, considering how rattled Ben and I were. She didn’t even protest looking like a chauffeur when I crawled into the backseat after Ben so I could keep touching him. I needed his proximity, and he seemed to need mine just as much, holding me tight into his side while I talked to Cole on the phone. My brother was still at Jan Aldrich’s house in Ladue, the ritziest suburb in the entire city. They hadn’t started processing the scene yet, the patrol officers only just beginning to arrive to secure the perimeter. I could hear his exhales through the phone as he dragged sharply on a cigarette and blew out smoke.

“I gotta tell you, brother, this fucking case is killing me.” I hadn’t given him the news about the fire, seeing no reason to further shake him up. “Those photos at the hotel of you have me seriously wanting to throw a black hood over your head, kidnap you, and take you somewhere even you won’t recognize, just to keep you safe.”

“No talk of kidnapping, Cole. Even for you, that’s in poor taste.”

“Fuck off. In one morning, I’ve seen more of you than I ever wanted in pictures on some creepy ass hotel room wall, tricked out to look like a shrine to you; I left to go ferry your witness back to his parents, found him MIA, and then discovered the woman he was meeting tied to a chair and stabbed with her own butcher knife, which was still sticking out of her when I got here. I’d say that qualifies me to tell you to watch your fucking back.”

Nope. Not telling him about the fire.

We pulled onto a street teeming with black and whites, uniformed officers swarming the perimeter and holding camera crews back, and some of the largest houses I’d seen. Aldrich’s humble abode could have held at least ten of the house I grew up in, sprawled as it was across a perfectly green expanse of lawn that had no business being that lush so early in spring. I spotted Cole at the end of the driveway, hunched over and glaring at anyone who came close to him. He’d been the one to find her, so I doubted he’d be allowed to slip around unnoticed, gathering evidence like he usually did at crime scenes. He spotted us and moved so we could pull to the curb in front of the neighbor’s house.

“You look like shit,” he said when we got out, raising his eyebrow at Ben exiting the car. He didn’t comment on what Ben was doing there, nor the fact that we stayed smushed together. Not exactly professional, but then again, I was suspended, wasn’t I?

“I feel like shit,” I agreed. He gave me a piercing look, and then trained his gaze on Myah, who wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“We’re gonna have to talk about our communication skills.” He wagged a finger at the three of us. “Ben’s the only one who doesn’t hide shit from me.” Ben looked away, sniffing resolutely. “O... kaaay, what am I missing?” He leaned forward. “And why do you smell like chimney?”

“Did you see anything inside that would tell us where to find Marshall?” I asked, pointedly changing the subject.

Cole was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah, okay. More pressing things. But this conversation isn’t over.” He pointed in my face, and then brushed ash off my shoulder. I was pretty sure he had me figured out. Turning on his heel, he led us up the drive and to the door, where two officers stood vigilant against anyone of the media who might slip past the tape and get too close. Aldrich being a member of their ranks, we knew, would likely mean a more tenacious pack of dogs to fend off.

They didn’t stop our group, though, and we were on the stoop for long moments to don protective booties and gloves, Ben included. There would be no mucking up this crime scene, even if Cole couldn’t work it without creating a conflict. The foyer was small but opened to a sweeping living room with a large stone fireplace and modern furniture, none of which was disturbed. Disappointment took root in my belly. If the place had been ransacked, perhaps it would have lent me some assurance that Marshall wasn’t responsible for this, as it would have been more likely Dennan’s doing.

Marshall’s voice came through the archway between the living room and kitchen, and I strode through the space with purpose, relief tingling over my skin like warm sunshine blanketing cold skin. One of the crime scene techs stood near the small four-person dining table, a small tape recorder in his hand. My shoulder’s sagged as I realized he wasn’t there.

“... get you to understand, but I guess someone like you doesn’t care what you’re doing to people’s lives, as long as you get to be the one to break the story,” Marshall’s voice emitted angrily from the device.

“Marshall, what I do is make sure people have the whole story so they can live their lives by making good decisions. Do you think people would have looked as closely at the sketch of Alex Dennan if they hadn’t
known
it was Alex Dennan?” Aldrich’s voice made me cringe. “If the police get information from the picture that leads to him being found, it’s because of me. Just like people learning about what happened to you could help other boys avoid the same fate.”

“Are you saying I did something wrong, and it’s my fault I was kidnapped?” Marshall shouted.

“Of course no—” There was a shuffle of sound on the recorder, and a different voice interrupted her.

“Marshall, get away from her.”

“Alex!” Marshall exclaimed.

“You, you fucking bitch.” More scuffling, a scream from Aldrich, and some indistinguishable sounds, followed by a plea from Marshall for Alex to stop. The distinct sound of duct tape ripping from the roll overtook all other sound, and then a satisfied Alex gloated, “There. I’m not going to let you turn Marshall against me, you bitch.”

The sound of a slap was loud in the quiet kitchen as everyone working the scene stopped to listen. The smell of blood was heavy in the room, and I wondered if they’d already removed the body until the tech holding the recorder shifted a step, and I spied the woman duct-taped to a kitchen chair, her last moments apparently recorded. I gasped at the sight.

Blood, still tacky, dripped down her front from what appeared to be multiple chest wounds until I took a closer look. No, the wounds were at her throat, just above the collar of her shirt, a gaping second smile opened in her neck. Trails of blood ran down her one dangling, non-restrained arm, duct tape otherwise holding her lifeless form upright in its chair prison. The sticky drips plinked to the floor in an ever-widening puddle, creeping outward on the ceramic tile.

But what had made me gasp was the final position of the knife, clearly one from her block on the counter behind her. Someone had finally found a way to close Jan Aldrich’s mouth. The blade had been thrust in beneath her chin, up into her skull, and through her mouth, a glint from the lights reflected along the edge of the steel I could see through her slightly parted lips. Her eyes were bugged and sightless. Much as I hated her for her tenacious bulldogging of me for an exclusive about my near-death experience, I hoped the throat and head wounds had been in quick succession, and she hadn’t suffered. She was still a human being.

Ben coughed, turning away decisively to study a blank wall behind us, his shoulder still butted up to mine, and he gripped my hand tightly. The recorder played on, the rasp of the knife being drawn from the block loud, as was the breathing of the three players on the tape.

“Alex, what are you doing?”

“Getting what I came here for. Who told you I was Carter Black?”

Aldrich sobbed. “What?”

Another slap. “Who. Told. You. Who I am?”

More incoherent sounds, and then a scream.

“Alex, stop, oh my god what are you doing!” Marshall sounded terrified. “This isn’t you, man. She didn’t do anything to us!”

“Yes she did, Marsh. She made it so I can’t go anywhere without being seen. And I need to know how she
knew
that picture on the news was me. Now tell me, you fucking cunt, before I do more than break a finger.”

Aldrich was inconsolable, babbling and keening in pain. “Please, just let me go. I won’t tell anyone you were here. I won’t press charges. Just let me go.”

“Wrong answer.”

Another, much more visceral scream, and Marshall’s wailing took on a sobbing quality.

“Alex, Dave did this to us. Not her. Let her go!”

“Not until she gives me the name of the guy telling her about me.” Alex grunted, and there was a gurgling sound. I closed my eyes, trying not to imagine these moments. Ben’s fingers punished my hand, and I gripped him back just as hard. Myah looked ready to puke, and Cole pulled her into his arms, rubbing her back as she rested her forehead on his shoulder. But still, we listened.