6

Anissa drove them back to her house, braced for the moment when Gabe would ask about Carly. And sweet Jillian.

But he didn’t ask.

He stared out the window, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get a read on his mood. Was he angry? Upset? Annoyed?

She should tell him everything.

But she dreaded the look he would give her. The subtle way their relationship would shift after she’d laid her heart bare.

It had happened before. Years ago. The guy had been everything she thought she could ever want, and early in their relationship—too soon or not soon enough, she’d never been sure—she’d told him. And he’d looked at her like the piece of garbage she knew herself to be.

The relationship ended within the week and left her feeling not only heartbroken but also exposed and taken advantage of. Two feelings she’d spent the past decade trying to avoid.

But she’d avoided this long enough.

She pulled into her driveway and put the car in park. “Do you want to come in?”

Gabe rolled his head from one side to the other. “Sure.”

He followed her inside and stood by the door as she tossed her keys in the shell and removed her weapon. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.” He shifted from one foot to the other. Very uncharacteristic of him.

“Look—” Anissa began.

“Listen—” Gabe said at the same time.

They stared at each other. “You first,” Gabe said.

Here goes nothing. “I know you want to know about Carly.”

“You don’t owe me an explanation, but if you’re in some kind of trouble or there’s something you want to talk about, you know I’ll listen.”

“I know. Please, have a seat.”

He sat on the sofa. She paced the room. “My freshman and sophomore years of college, I mostly stuck to a small group of friends. I hadn’t lived in the States since I was fourteen. I was still trying to figure out a lot of cultural stuff and I desperately wanted to be one of the cool kids. But I was the weird little missionary kid who liked to work out and dive.”

She didn’t dare look at Gabe. “My junior year, there was a guy in my public speaking class. Theo Kavanaugh. He was . . .” She could picture him. Tall, thin, blond, blue-gray eyes, perpetual tan, quick smile. “He was one of the cool kids. It was like a party erupted wherever he was. And I was . . .”

This was turning out to be more embarrassing than she’d expected it to be. She plunged ahead. “I was completely infatuated with him. I knew everything about him, or at least I thought I did. But I didn’t think he had any idea who I was. And I never imagined he would want to spend any time with me.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” Gabe said with a grim tone.

“You have nothing to base that on,” she said.

“Don’t I? I’m not blind. You’re beautiful now. My guess is you were one of the cutest girls on campus.”

Beautiful? Gabe—admittedly the best-looking guy she’d ever had an opportunity to spend time with—thought she was beautiful? “I think your sleep deprivation is making you delusional.”

“I call it like I see it.”

“Whatever. Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry at all. “I won’t interrupt again.”

She resumed her pacing. “One day Theo started talking to me. He made me feel special. I know how stupid that sounds, but I was used to people ignoring me or teasing me. I wasn’t sure what to do with a guy who seemed to really like me. He claimed that he thought my family was cool. He asked me about Yap and the culture there. We talked about diving. I thought we had a lot in common. And then he invited me to a party.”

The muscles in Gabe’s jaw tightened, but he didn’t speak.

“My best friend’s name was Carly Nichols. She was the real version of everything I pretended to be. Her faith was genuine. Her joy found in loving Jesus. She didn’t care about popularity or status. And she didn’t like Theo.”

When Anissa closed her eyes, she could see Carly standing in their dorm room asking her why she cared about this guy in the first place.

“I know now that Carly was picking up on things that should have been obvious. But I was so infatuated with Theo I didn’t notice. Or maybe I noticed but ignored them. I was twenty years old. It’s hard to know. Regardless, she was furious with me for wanting to go to the party.”

“But you went anyway.”

“Yeah. I went. And when I got there, someone shoved a red cup in my hand.”

Gabe closed his eyes and pulled in a shuddering breath.

“This isn’t going the way you think it’s going, Gabe. He never laid a hand on me.”

Gabe’s relief was palpable. “What was in the cup?”

“I don’t know. It was fruity and didn’t taste of alcohol. Not that I would have known the difference. I’d never had any alcohol before.” Or since. “I knew I should say no, thank you, but I justified it to myself. I figured I would hold the cup and take a few sips and no one would realize I wasn’t getting as drunk as everyone else.”

“I’m guessing that plan didn’t work out?”

“No. It didn’t. We mingled around the room and he introduced me to people I had only seen on campus or had a few classes with but had never spoken to. It was . . . nice.” How it burned to admit it. “I was with one of the most popular guys on campus and he thought I was interesting. I realize how incredibly shallow it was of me. I knew it was even in the moment, but it was nice to be wanted. Maybe even to be envied a little. There were some girls there who were obviously jealous. And I was glad.”

“Those are normal responses, Anissa.” Gabe spoke in a soft murmur. “Most twenty-year-olds would have done the same. Most thirty-year-olds would.”

“Well, I wasn’t most twenty-year-olds. I knew better. I was raised better. I didn’t know exactly what was going on around me, but I was pretty sure some of it was illegal and most of it was immoral. I should have left. I should have realized that there was no way this guy was someone I needed to be spending time with.”

“But you stayed.”

“I did. I had opportunities to leave, but I ignored them. I kept telling myself that one party wouldn’t be the end of the world.”

How wrong she had been on that score.

“He introduced me to a guy from Japan, who introduced me to a group of international students. I was enjoying our conversation—I often get along well with people who grew up outside the States the way I did. It was almost two in the morning before I realized that the cup I was holding wasn’t the same one I’d started out with. And that my date was nowhere to be found.”

“He left you?” Gabe’s protective response might have warmed her heart if she hadn’t known where this story was headed.

“In a manner of speaking. I excused myself from the group I’d been talking to and went to look for him. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t realized he was gone. I thought I’d been rude. Until I found him.”

Gabe looked toward the ceiling. “I’m going to guess he wasn’t alone.”

“Nope.”

“I’m sorry.”

“The crazy thing is, I wasn’t. I was embarrassed, but in a weird way I was relieved. I didn’t feel any obligation to stay, so I walked back to my dorm. I got home around three in the morning and crashed.”

She walked to the window and stared out into her yard. “Carly woke me up at six. I was supposed to babysit for the youth pastor in our church, but I was so hungover I couldn’t do it. I tried to get ready, but I couldn’t get out of the bathroom. Carly came to my rescue. She was angry and hurt and disappointed, but she volunteered to babysit for me. She said she would tell them I was throwing up, which was a hundred percent true, and that she was coming instead. Her car was in the shop, so she took mine—”

Anissa could still picture it. While she had her arms wrapped around the toilet, Carly had pulled her hair back from her face, told her they would talk when she got home. Then she’d closed the bathroom door gently, even though she was furious.

“Anissa?” Gabe was standing right behind her. “What happened to Carly?”

She couldn’t stop the tear that broke free and trailed down her cheek. “I don’t know. They found her body in a Dumpster four days later. And the little girl—Jillian—was never found.”

Gabe put his arms around her. With her back against his chest, his lips tickled her ear as he spoke. “You didn’t kill Carly, Anissa. It wasn’t your fault. You must know that.”

“It should have been me,” she whispered. “I should have been with Jillian. I should have died in a Dumpster. I deserved it. Carly didn’t. She died for me.” The lone tear couldn’t contain her agony, and a torrent of sobs shook her body.

Gabe held her and wished he could take away the pain.

He’d had no idea she carried this kind of guilt around. And her despair about Brooke and Jeremy made so much sense now. She’d seen herself in Brooke—a girl who had made a stupid decision and gotten her best friend killed because of it.

Had Anissa also tried to kill herself in the aftermath of Carly’s death?

Was Carly the reason she’d become a cop?

He put his hands on Anissa’s shoulders and turned her around so he could see her face. For a brief moment she looked at him and her eyes held an ocean of pain. He pulled her against him. This time her arms slid around his waist and she rested her head against his chest until her sobbing calmed to the occasional tremor.

When had he started stroking her hair? And when had he rested his cheek on her head? He’d like to believe he would do the same thing for any friend who needed comforting, but . . .

Anissa shifted in his arms. Was it his imagination, or had she snuggled closer? Head in the game, Chavez. “I’m so very sorry about Carly. And Jillian.”

“I had to identify her body.”

A fresh wave of horror washed over him.

“Her family was in Ukraine. She was an MK, a missionary kid too.”

Gabe had seen his share of dead bodies. A four-day-old dead body in a Dumpster would be nightmare inducing even if you didn’t know the victim.

“The cops questioned me for hours, but I didn’t know anything. Carly didn’t have any enemies. She was a saint. And she wasn’t supposed to be there. It was random. It had been raining all week and Jillian had been cooped up in the house, so her parents, the Davidsons, had told Carly she might want to take Jillian to the park to swing. My car was found at the park, but Jillian and Carly were gone.”

He could hear the confusion and frustration in Anissa’s voice. “I’m assuming your parents were in Yap when this happened.”

“Yes. My mom flew home to be with me, but it took her three days to get here. By the time she arrived, the police had determined that it was a random abduction. There were two main theories. Either the killer was after Carly and Jillian got in the way, or they were after Jillian and Carly got in the way.”

“Which one had the most traction?”

“It depended on who you talked to. The local police had been leaning toward the idea that Jillian had gotten in the way. The FBI got involved because of the suspicion of kidnapping. Once the medical examiner was finished and all the toxicology results and tests had come back, it was determined that Carly—”

Anissa paused so long, Gabe wasn’t sure if she was going to finish her thought.

“Carly’s neck was broken. Her hands, knees, and elbows were scraped, like she’d either fallen or been thrown to the ground. But there was no evidence of sexual assault or any form of drugs in her system. Once that information came in, the consensus was that Jillian most likely had been the intended target.”

Gabe was afraid to ask, but he had to. “Did they find out who did it?”

“No. Carly’s killer is still out there.”

Gabe now saw all the times Anissa had worried over the way a family member was being questioned, or commented on how fast a case could go cold, or hassled the forensics team to find every possible scrap of evidence in a whole new light.

Anissa wasn’t being a pain. She was trying to prevent pain. To keep anyone else from going through what she’d been through.

“I’ve studied all the case files.” Her words were muffled against his shirt. “But there’s nothing. Carly had been stripped before she was put in the Dumpster. There was no DNA evidence on her anywhere. Nothing under her fingernails or on her skin. And she’d been dead for four days when she was found. The medical examiner concluded Carly’s time of death was between eleven a.m. and three p.m. on Saturday. A traffic cam showed that Carly had gone to the park around twelve thirty. Probably right after she’d fed Jillian lunch.”

A quick tremor shook Anissa and Gabe tightened his hold. This time he was sure he hadn’t imagined it. She didn’t stiffen or pull back.

She leaned in.

He was not complaining. But this was not the time or place to make a move. Anissa was marriage material, but he was not. And whatever this was that had been going on between them couldn’t be allowed to go any further.

But for the first time in a very long while, he wished it could.

As if she sensed his thoughts, Anissa stiffened and pulled away. He let her go but immediately regretted the decision. Her eyes, which had been open to him, were now flat, shuttered. She had laid herself bare to him and was now in a full-on retreat.

He reached for her arm, but she pulled it away. “I’m sorry for the drama.” She cleared her throat and wiped her cheeks, never making eye contact. “Now you know. And you can hate me for it. I understand. But I would appreciate it if you’d keep this between us.”

Hate her? What was she going on about?

“First off, there’s no way I would ever share this with anyone. You know that.” A quick bob of her head confirmed that she did. “But what in our entire history would make you think I would hate you for something that happened to you in college?”

“It didn’t happen to me, Gabe. I caused it. I was so worried about being accepted and liked that I got my best friend killed and a three-year-old kidnapped. And who knows what happened to Jillian after that.”

“I’m sorry, but did you leave out a major portion of this story? Because you just told me the target was Jillian, not Carly, and you had nothing to do with her kidnapping. If you’d been there, you’d be dead. But you aren’t responsible for this.”

Anissa’s mouth twisted. “Semantics.”

Gabe sat on the edge of the sofa. “Not to make this all about me, but why would you think I would hate you for this?”

“I made a mistake. Someone died because of my mistake. I know how you feel about that kind of stuff. You despise Paisley Wilson for doing the same thing I did.”

How could she think that? “Paisley was an adult—”

“So was I.”

“Doing something she’d already been warned could result in unintended consequences.”

Anissa pointed to her chest. “Same.”

“Which she proceeded to do without regard for how her actions would impact others.”

“Again, I did the same thing.”

“No!” Was she crazy? “It’s not the same at all. There was no way you could have predicted that outcome. When you got home that night, the worst thing you could possibly have been expecting was a hangover. Which you got. But you could not have known what would happen when you agreed to babysit that child, or when you allowed your friend to take your place.”

Anissa didn’t look convinced.

“Paisley . . .” Words failed him as he recalled the frantic message he’d sent to his boss to warn her off. The horror of the moment he saw her in that stupid helicopter, cameras rolling. The realization that his cover was blown forever. The despair when the seventeen-year-old boy who’d been with him at the time was found two days later. Beaten to a pulp, then shot. A life brimming with potential over far too soon. “She had visions of big awards dancing in her head. She thought she’d uncovered corruption in the sheriff’s office when what she’d really done was stumble into an undercover op. She was asked to wait. She was told that moving forward could result in loss of life. But she didn’t believe them, and she flew in knowing full well what might happen.”

Anissa bit her lip.

“So, unless someone called you and told you that if you went to that party your best friend would die the next day, then you cannot—and, frankly, you never, ever should—compare yourself to Paisley.”

Anissa shook her head. “How would you feel if your decisions got someone killed and a little girl kidnapped? You can’t blame me for taking responsibility.”

“I know exactly how it feels. I befriended that boy. He had no idea I was a cop, but I knew there was a chance he would be in danger if my cover was blown. And then it was and he paid for it. So, I know. And I still say you can’t take on this responsibility. You didn’t kill Carly. You didn’t kidnap Jillian. And for what it’s worth, I don’t hate Paisley. I think she’s an idiot. But I don’t hate her. And I certainly don’t hate you. I—”

He what? How could he describe his feelings about Anissa? They were complex and confusing. “I think you are the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met.”

Anissa turned away from him. She seemed relieved but also upset again. This was making no sense.

She laughed a little. “You certainly haven’t always felt that way. About Paisley or me.”

She might have him on that one. “True. My overall thoughts about Paisley have mellowed with time.” His feelings about Anissa had done the exact opposite. Not that he could tell her that. “As for you . . .”

She looked at him, eyes shimmering with unshed tears, and he swallowed back the joke he’d been about to make. “I’ve always admired you. Even when you kicked me off the dive team.” He almost mentioned the night they never spoke of, but he jumped forward in time. “And even when you made me earn back my place on the team. And even when you gave me the worst assignments.”

“I did not.” There was no heat behind her defense.

“Sure you did. But the more I get to know you, the more amazing you are to me. You’re kind and compassionate and tough and smart, and I’ve never met anyone quite like you. And what you just told me, what just happened, only confirms what I already knew to be true about you.”

Her eyes widened. He’d been more honest than he’d intended, but at least he’d stopped himself from saying the stuff he rarely gave himself permission to think. If he told her that he could stare at her for hours and never get bored, she’d probably slap him.

“I’m not sure what to say to that,” she said.

The space between them crinkled with a new kind of energy. Somehow he thought the tentative friendship they’d been building for months now had solidified and also maybe had taken a dive to a deeper place than he’d ever thought they’d reach. Time to swim them back up to a safer spot.

“No need to say anything.” He pasted his usual grin on his face. “Just remember this next time someone needs to clean the boat.”

Something that looked like disappointment, or maybe even hurt, flashed through her eyes but disappeared almost before he caught it. She gave him a smile, but it was a bit forced. “I’ll do that.”

Anissa’s phone buzzed and she grabbed it like it was a lifeline. She looked at it and smiled. “It’s Leigh. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Go ahead.”

Anissa answered, listened for a moment, and then said, “Sure. I have it. Hang on a second.” She held up one finger to Gabe and walked toward her bedroom.

When she disappeared from view, Gabe slid onto the sofa. His eyes closed without his permission, but there was nothing he could do about it. As soon as Anissa got off the phone with Leigh, he would say goodbye and go home. Or maybe he would ask Anissa to drive him home. He probably shouldn’t get behind the wheel.