Ty was acting strange. Ever since they had talked to the detective, Ty had been off. One minute he was touching her and smiling and the next he was physically as far away from her as he could be without going outside, and he wouldn’t meet her gaze.
She wanted to ask him what was wrong, but she already knew the answer—she had kept the truth of her and Robert’s past a secret. It would be false to think she hadn’t omitted details on purpose. She had certainly not intended on telling him everything—she had been afraid that if she told him everything, he would turn away from her and think that she had more with Robert than what had been there.
By not telling him, it had compounded the effects of her fears and made everything a thousand times worse. She should have told him the truth from the very beginning. If he hadn’t liked her, or if he had judged her for the mistakes in her past, then he wasn’t the man who was supposed to come into her life and remain. She just hadn’t trusted that he would see past her faults.
Now, her faults were all he could see.
At one point, she had assumed that when she became an adult, life would get easier and simpler. Unfortunately, here she was trying to find love with the right man while also trying to escape the ravaging effects of love inflicted upon her by the wrong one.
She thought she’d handled things well, that she had done what was best to keep anyone from getting hurt—and yet, everyone in her life had either ended up dead or figuratively bloodied.
She didn’t know what to do, or how to fix her mistakes. All she knew with any certainty was that she couldn’t bring Robert or Moose back.
Maybe there was something about how Ty kept running away—not that he would call it that. However, when things got tough or they were growing closer, he had a way of just disappearing.
It seemed to have worked for him, maybe it would work for her, as well?
She glanced toward the kitchen and the back door that led out to the garage—the same place where Ty had disappeared when they’d been about to take things between them to the next physical level.
She’d forgiven him—heck, she’d even understood it. Why couldn’t he come her way on this?
“Ty...” she started.
He twitched like she was striking him.
She hated the response and instantly wished she hadn’t spoken his name.
“Yes?” he countered, but his feet were pointed directly at the front door like he was ready to run.
“I swear I was never interested in Robert and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything from the beginning. I know you’re mad, but I don’t think it’s okay for you to punish me.”
He looked at her, his expression confused. “What?”
Is that not what he is upset with? she wondered, slightly taken aback.
She didn’t want to repeat her statement if he didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t want to compound whatever problem they were having by adding more weight.
“You’re obviously upset. What did I do?” she asked, earnestly.
His gaze flashed to the kitchen, but then he looked at her. He let out a long sigh. “I... Nothing. Don’t worry about whatever happened between you and Robert—that guy was a real piece of work and I understand how you got in trouble with him.” He walked toward the door.
She didn’t know what he was doing, or where he was going, but it looked like he was once again running away. This time she wouldn’t let him. Grabbing her coat, she followed in step behind him.
“What are you doing?” he asked, opening the door and moving to walk outside.
“I’m going with you. We started this investigation together, we are going to finish it together.” She stood tall in her resolve. “After we are done, if you don’t want to talk to me ever again then that’s up to you.”
He looked out at his pickup and then back at her. “Fine. Whatever.”
THERE WERE ANY number of reasons that the butcher knife would have been missing from the knife block in Holly’s kitchen. Ty wasn’t entirely unreasonable. Yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about the knife and what it could have meant. He thought about asking her about it and its absence, but he didn’t want her to think that he was looking at her as a potential suspect or that she was complicit with the murder in any way—she was already struggling.
Holly wasn’t a killer. She hadn’t called in her own disappearance, and nothing pointed at her being involved in Moose’s death—other than being the reason Moose had been on the mountain.
He had to be realistic, even if he was still freaked out.
His intuition told him something was very wrong and that the missing knife meant something. However, everything was just coincidental at this point. Everyone had those types of knives in their home, or at least most people did, and it’s very possible that it had just been simply mislaid or put away in a drawer and he hadn’t seen it. But there was just something in his gut that told him he needed to look deeper.
Then again, from the very moment he had brought Holly back into his life he’d been looking for reasons not to fall for her again. He’d been keeping her at arm’s length, and now he was keeping her at blade length, as well.
As he drove toward the sheriff’s department and his office, he made sure to keep his eyes on the road. He didn’t want to give away his myriad of feelings and questions to Holly. It could hold. Maybe the knife would just show back up, too.
He pulled into his parking space in front of the department.
Holly hadn’t said a word since they had gotten into the pickup. He appreciated it.
He got out and opened her door for her.
She looked at him with questions in her eyes, but he tried to ignore them. “Are you going to tell me why you’re upset before we go inside? Or am I gonna have to play the guessing game until I figure it out for myself?” Holly asked.
He shut her door and locked his pickup. “I’ll get over it. Don’t worry about it.”
Darkness took over her features. “I don’t like this, Ty. I don’t like not knowing what is going on inside you. At least give me a clue as to if I am in trouble with you or not. Is there something I can do to make things better between us? Did I say something?”
Her questions made him actually feel bad. Of course she would be questioning herself and all the things that she had done. To her, his coldness had to be strange.
“Seriously, I’ll be fine. I just have a lot on my mind.”
She frowned, clearly not believing him.
Before she could grill him further, he made his way to the doors leading to his office and went inside. She followed behind him in close step. As he used his badge to gain access to the authorized area, several of the office ladies took interest and stared in their direction. Of course, they would be curious. Since Holly had last been in here, the women of the office had probably learned exactly who she was, and thanks to the small-town gossip mill, they probably also knew about his and Holly’s past relationship.
Nothing stayed a secret very long—especially when it came to the office drama.
He gave the ladies a small tip of the head in acknowledgment as he made his way back to his office and his waiting stack of papers.
They could think whatever they wanted. Holly was a blast from his past and now a possible suspect. If they wanted to think anything besides that, it was on them.
He closed his office door behind them and motioned for Holly to take a seat across from him at his desk. “I’m going to go over everyone who was on scene the day of Moose’s death. Most people work in and around here, but it may take a few hours to go through everyone.”
She nodded in understanding. “What can I do to help?”
In truth, he wanted to see her reaction so he could tell if there was anything to the knot in his stomach.
“Listen... Maybe you can find something I’m missing.” Or, something you are, he thought, but he quickly rebuked himself.
He pulled up the list of SAR members and the report his boss, Cindy, had written about their callout. All the names on the list were familiar and he knew all the people so well that it felt obtrusive and a touch like madness as he started with the first name on his list—Cindy herself.
As he moved to call her, he looked over at Holly. “I know it’s a big ask, but would you run down the hall and grab me a drink?”
He was fine, but he needed a minute of privacy.
As though Holly saw right through his ask, she nodded. “I’ll give you some time.” She motioned to the hall. “I’ll be right outside when you’re done.”
He wanted to tell her that she was wrong, but he couldn’t lie. “Thanks,” he said with a weak smile. “It won’t take me long on the phone here.”
She stood up and gave him a terse nod before stepping out of his office and closing the door.
Cindy answered her phone on the first ring. Probably recognizing his office number, she bypassed the niceties. “Did you figure out what happened to Moose?” she asked the second she came on the line.
He huffed. “I was hoping you had,” he joked, trying to ease the tension between them and make light of what had happened as much as possible.
“I’ve been going through everything that happened out there. It just doesn’t make sense.” There was the sound of cars, like Cindy was driving while she was on the phone.
“I hear you. It’s a strange ordeal, the whole thing.” He paused. “I read over your report of the callout. You did a nice job. Thorough. Detective Stowe is using it to help conduct his investigation into the death, as well.”
“You aren’t handling this in-house?” she asked.
“No, too many problems if we did.” That was an understatement. If he conducted the investigation, it would be a conflict of interest. And, if this thing was never solved, then he would have to bear the weight of their not knowing what had actually happened to his friend for the rest of his life.
Moose’s mother, Rebecca, would never forgive him.
“So, I did a little digging around, about our friend Moose. According to the people at the grange, Moose had been frequenting the bar with a few different women. One of them was none other than our Miss Valerie.”
The news didn’t surprise him. Valerie was a member of the SAR team, but she had made a point of always saying she was never interested in dating Moose. It wasn’t a secret that most of the time she and Moose barely tolerated each other. But maybe that was why they had gone out drinking together, maybe they had some kind of love-hate relationship. He didn’t think they were sleeping together but he hadn’t talked to Valerie directly about it.
“I’ll look into that. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Do you think that Stowe can handle this? Or are you gonna run with the ball?”
“Like I said, Stowe is running with it, but I’ve definitely been putting in some legwork. Unfortunately, I have another new case. With everything happening, we need all hands on deck.”
“I get it. If you find that you need anything else from me don’t hesitate.” Cindy hung up the phone.
He really did like her. She was definitely a person with no fluff or falseness.
According to the department’s schedule, Valerie should be in the office soon. So, he gave her a quick call, but it went straight to her cell phone’s voice mail. He left a quick message asking her just to call him back.
Though it was an interesting lead, he really did have a tough time thinking that Valerie would have let Moose into her bed. Then again, proximity, availability and the number of drinks they both had could have overridden both of their better judgments. It was something he had seen before, and as he thought about Holly, he could understand a person acting against their better judgment.
If Valerie and Moose had been a thing, it still wouldn’t explain his death. Valerie didn’t seem like the jealous type, and if she had hurt Moose, he was surprised that she would have done it in such an ill-conceived manner. She worked in law enforcement as an evidence tech, if she had done something like commit homicide, she would have been clean about it.
He followed up his call to Valerie by calling the rest of the team. Everyone else was helpful and Smash had even reminded him that he could pull the GAIA, their team’s GPS mapping system, that each of them had used to follow their movements while on their callout that night.
To garner the information, he didn’t even need a subpoena. All he had to do was reach out to their mapping expert. It would be simple to clear everyone.
He felt like an idiot for not thinking about it earlier. Yet, it wasn’t something he had dealt with before. Typically, on a mission, tracking was just a matter of policy in case something went to court. It wasn’t until after the fact, and in the hands of armchair quarterbacks, that it was frequently used.
He decided to give himself grace on this one. He had been dealing with a lot of events, which led to even more directions. None of them simple.
He called their mapping expert who aggregated the data, Sharon Cleaver.
“Heya, Ty, how’s it going?” she chirped.
She was in her forties but when she answered his call, she sounded like an overly excited twentysomething.
“Doing fine, Sharon, but I was calling to see if you could help me out.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s in it for me?” she teased, but the way she spoke made him wonder if she was actually trying to flirt.
He couldn’t remember if she was in a relationship or not, but even if she wasn’t, it didn’t matter to him.
He cast his gaze toward Holly. Out the window of his office, he could see Holly was speaking with Valerie in the hall—it was no wonder she hadn’t answered her phone. Val was being chatty, and her hands were moving wildly as she spoke. She seemed to like Holly; he recalled her chatting with her the last time they had been in the office, as well.
“I’ll have to send you and your team some lunch, Sharon,” he said, careful not to put himself at risk for anything that was less than professional.
“Oh, okay.” Sharon sounded disappointed. “I guess that would be nice.”
“Perfect.” He tried not to take any pride in his gentle letdown of the woman, but in his younger years he would have fed right into her advance. “In the meantime, I need to get all the data from GAIA on the other night’s SAR mission involving the missing skier.”
“Okay,” she said, but there was a question in her voice. “Anything you’re looking for specifically?”
“I just need to see the areas our teams went and get a little more data on Moose’s last location.”
“Oh,” Sharon said, as if she had suddenly remembered she was flirting with the dead man’s best friend. “I’m so sorry about what happened.”
“I appreciate that.” He cut her off from going any further down that rabbit hole. He didn’t want to talk to her about it. “I’ll be in the office for a few more minutes, so if you need anything call, but I’ll look forward to getting an email with the information.”
“Absolutely,” she said. “I’m here to help, Ty—in any way I can.”
She couldn’t help herself.
“Thanks.” He hung up the phone and stood up from his desk.
He needed out of this dungeon.
For the first time since Moose’s death, he finally started to feel like he was getting closer to answers—even if the answers weren’t what he wanted them to be.
He had to hope Valerie wasn’t complicit in his death and one of their own wouldn’t have acted in such a way. But there were any number of reasons that something could have gone awry and led to this outcome; especially if they had spent time together between the sheets.
And there. Right there...was another reason he couldn’t fall for Holly. Relationships only brought disaster.
He walked out into the hallway and Holly looked up at him with a smile. “How’s it going in there? Do you need my help?”
“Doing fine. Actually, I need to chat with Valerie for a bit.” He nodded in her direction across the bullpen. “What were you guys chatting about?”
Holly shrugged. “Nothing in particular. She was asking how the investigation was going with Robert’s death and if you’d found anything interesting.”
Her asking was interesting. As the evidence tech, she had access to pretty much everything he did—at least, everything that had been documented. In fact, she had likely even been on that crime scene while helping to retrieve evidence and had written the evidentiary report.
“Did she say anything about Moose?”
Holly looked at him with a questioning expression. “No. Why?”
“I’m curious, that’s all.” He tried to sound unconcerned.
He caught Valerie’s eye and waved her over to his office before turning back to Holly. “This shouldn’t take long. Then we can maybe get out of here. It’s going to be a long day.” He let out a long exhale as Valerie strode over toward them, weaving between the desks and the chairs that lined the hallway.
“Good luck,” Holly said with a smile.
He would need more than luck—he would need a crystal ball.
Valerie made her way into his office, closing the door behind her. He sat down and waited for her to get comfortable. This was one conversation he wasn’t looking forward to in the slightest.
“How are you doing with everything, Valerie?” He tented his fingers as he looked at her.
She instinctively looked down at her hands. “I’m not gonna lie, I’ve been better. Moose’s death was really hard on me.”
Though he was aware that this was a great moment for him to ask her questions about the nature of her relationship with him, he didn’t feel the need to push it. She was being honest about her feelings, and he had to respect that. So instead of saying anything, he waited in silence.
“I’m sure you’re not aware, but Moose and I were a lot closer than we let on.” There was a crack in her voice that made him hurt for her.
Though he’d assumed that they had been in a physical relationship, he wondered if she and Moose had fallen in love. Seeing her reaction and hearing her speak, it was clear it could have been nothing else.
“He and I had been dating for about the last six months. We had been keeping it very low-key, we both knew that we were playing with fire by dating within the office.” She picked at her fingernails.
He wanted to tell her that their assumption had been right. And they had been correct in not making their relationship public. Something like that would have been blood in the water. At least when it came to the gossip mill. Additionally, she would have probably been hit with an abundance of cautionary tales about Moose and his penchant for dating around.
No doubt, she knew all the rumors without anyone telling her. The amazing part was that she had still chosen to be with Moose.
He didn’t know if he felt sorry for her, or if he liked her more for her ability to see past Moose’s fun-seeking decisions for the great man he was. He could get how someone would have loved Moose; he’d loved the gregarious guy, as well.
“Did Moose know Holly, at all?”
Valerie looked at him, slightly confused. “No. I don’t think he even saw her in person before.”
The knot in his stomach loosened slightly. At the very least, Holly held no real connection to his friend and as such, no motivation to kill.
“Did you know where Moose was on the mountain on the day he was murdered?” Ty asked.
She shook her head. “I knew he was out there, running the middle line. However, that was about as close as we had come to working together that day. While we had been dating, we had been really careful not to work together in situations that could have later been picked apart by an attorney. It was one of the things that we promised each other, in an effort to avoid any potential conflicts professionally.”
“That was smart.” Ty thought about his burgeoning relationship with Holly. Maybe if they were careful things didn’t have to go poorly.
“We really did try to avoid problems. Had I thought that anything like this would have happened while we were together...” She started to cry.
He avoided looking back at the windows where he knew Holly was watching.
“I can understand how you guys got together. I’m not here to judge you for that. However, I do need to ask you some really important questions about your relationship and your life together. Are you okay with that?”
“Are you asking as a friend, or as a detective?” She looked at him questioningly.
“Unfortunately, it’s going to have to be as both.”
She nodded with understanding. “Then let me clearly state that I had nothing to do with his death.”
“I can appreciate that. Just make sure that you don’t go anywhere without letting me or Detective Stowe know. We don’t wanna create any misunderstandings.”
And just like that his interview with her was over and a whole new world of potential scenarios opened up, but one of his main concerns had subsided—Holly wasn’t Moose’s killer.