Jayden got nothing. Neither of the guys who lived in Bill’s old neighborhood and used him as their mechanic knew anything about a teenager who’d maybe mowed Bill’s grass four years ago or been friendly with the family in any way. Neither of them had ever seen any man at Suzie’s house other than Bill.
He knew what Emma would say. They were Bill’s clients. They could be lying for him, if he was giving them a good deal on their classic auto work—or just because they were friends and maybe thought what happened between a husband and wife was their business. Not Jayden’s.
Jayden didn’t think Bill was the man who’d abused Suzie. He just didn’t.
But then he never would have thought Ms. White would invite him to please come see her again—but she had as she’d hugged him goodbye. As often as he’d like. He’d never ever foreseen that his presence could bring her a piece of her son back. Or bring her peace of any kind.
He wasn’t off his personal hook. If he’d had half an awareness about himself back then, he should have figured that Emory couldn’t swim across that lake. He was the one who’d suggested the kid be a kicker because he knew he’d be made into meat out on the football field otherwise—because he was small. Emory could kick like no one Jayden had ever seen, but that hadn’t meant he had stamina or upper body strength.
Figuring he’d head back to his place and change and then tackle the ocean for a while, he was headed in that direction when his car dash signaled a call from Chantel.
“Powell,” he answered immediately.
“It’s Bill Heber.” Chantel didn’t explain. Didn’t need to. “We finally got the warrant for any surveillance cameras outside stores that sell lipstick between Santa Raquel and Bill’s place. It was a long shot, but we’ve spent the week following every long shot we had. They were all we had.”
“You’ve got him on tape? Buying lipstick?” Jayden found that hard to believe. Wanted the culprit found and punished, but he wanted it done right.
He wanted the right man.
Arresting someone would make everyone feel better, the department, the courts, could relax. But only if the guy they arrested was the one who’d made the threats. Bill had been in group Tuesday night when Emma had been forced off the road. His thoughts flew...
“We’ve got him on camera leaving a drugstore not far from his work,” Chantel reported. “A clerk there made a positive ID. She remembered him because the one tube of lipstick was all he bought. She told us what kind and it was a match to what the lab had come up with. He paid cash. Officers are on their way to pick him up now.”
A lot of work for a tube of lipstick, he thought. And a battery charge. But Suzie—a woman who refused to help law enforcement and the justice system keep her safe—wasn’t the only reason why everyone in the system was working overtime on this one. When Bill had threatened a prosecutor, he’d upped his ante considerably.
Pulling over, he called up the location app on his phone. “He’s at work,” he told her, feeling sick. To his stomach—and at heart. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t fail again, not in a big way. And he’d failed Emma. A woman who...
“Yeah, I already called to verify that,” Chantel, continuing their conversation, interrupted his thoughts. But not the weight, settling heavier and heavier on him.
“Let me know when you have him in custody.”
“Will do. You want to let Emma know or should I?”
Jayden was the one staying with her at night. “I will, and thanks, Detective.”
“I’m just sorry it didn’t turn out differently. I know you were really pulling for this one.”
“You going to try to get him on the abuse, too?”
“Yep.”
“You mind if Emma and I head over to Suzie’s to let her know an arrest has been made?” He was thinking of Emma. “I think she’d like to talk to her before anyone else gets to her, to try to get a statement out of her now that Bill’s been caught with hard evidence of harassment at least. When she talked to her on Monday, Emma said she thought Suzie wanted to tell her more than she had.”
Emma could have called the detective herself, but since he already had Chantel on the line...
“If Emma wants to go, I’m all for it. If not, let me know and I’ll send someone over to notify Suzie when we’ve got him in custody.”
Not normal protocol—but not a lot about this case was normal. On any level.
Someone was in the outer office. Emma heard her deputy talking, and then recognized the answering male voice with a familiar slide of warmth in her belly.
Jayden was there?
Rising, straightening her Lycra, calf-length brown skirt and white top, she ran a hand through her curls. They’d opened the door to becoming something.
Everything mattered more now.
Would he greet her with a kiss? It was after hours. They were virtually alone. Couples did that...
It took her a full thirty seconds to wonder why he’d come to her work at all. Why he hadn’t called beforehand. She was already reaching for her satchel before he’d even told her why he was there.
He’d explained what had happened by the time they were in his car and Chantel called to say that Bill was officially in custody. And that they’d found a dark blue baseball cap in his truck. His tire tracks didn’t match the tires found at Tuesday night’s scene, but he had an entire garage of vehicles he could have had access to. He evidently wasn’t dumb enough to use his own.
“Thank God,” Emma said after they told the detective they were on their way to Suzie’s and hung up. “I can’t believe it’s over!” She was free! Safe! Suzie was safe!
And, she realized, there was no reason that Jayden had to spend the night with her that night. He’d probably welcome a night in his own home. With his own things. Getting up to take a shower, without having to drive home first.
She wanted to ask him if he wanted to get dinner or something, to celebrate. And it occurred to her that maybe he’d had second thoughts about their talk the night before.
Then she saw Jayden’s expressionless face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just hope they’ve got the right man,” he finally said. “I can’t explain him buying lipstick. I didn’t get a chance to speak with him, obviously, but...”
“It’s okay if you were wrong,” she told him. “The man’s a fool for not appreciating the chance you were giving him.”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t add up to me. The note on your door, I can almost see that one. But trying to drive you off the road? And beating up on his wife the second he gets out of jail? The times he got upset with her in the past—and he admits to doing so, just not hitting her—all stemmed from rational scenarios he’d built in his head. Just showing up at her house out of the blue and beating up on her...it doesn’t fit him. And driving you off the road...it’s irrational. He’s not.”
Emma listened to him. Wanted to be able to help him. But couldn’t.
“I’m sorry.” She’d been right on this one. She was good at her job. Had studied the case far longer than Jayden had. Was a professional doing her job. But she was sorry that the guy he’d been standing up for had turned out to be manipulating him. “I know you thought he was different,” she offered when he said nothing.
As a professional, she could make the rest of the ride across town in perfectly acceptable silence. As Jayden’s...whatever she was going to be...she was finding the silence difficult.
“I hope to God, if you’re right and Bill did this, that Suzie will talk to you as you expected she wanted to do on Monday night. That she’ll give specifics. Something that points irrevocably to Bill.”
She hoped so, too.
He needed the women safe: both Emma and Suzie. If Bill was their man, Jayden would do whatever he could to get the man back in prison as fast as possible. He could have Bill’s parole revoked, which would send him back while he awaited trial on all of the new charges.
Jayden’s problem wasn’t in being wrong... He wasn’t real thrilled that Emma seemingly didn’t pick up on his feelings. But then, when a guy didn’t give anything of himself to anyone, how could he expect them to magically know him? Know what he’d do? Or how he’d feel?
He’d figured his solitary life would preclude such considerations. But now...
Everything was confused. Confusing him.
“I went to see Emory’s mom today.”
Emma had been instrumental in the visit. It seemed okay to fill her in.
“And?”
He told her about the woman’s surprising pleasure in seeing him. And then about Emory’s father’s self-imposed exile. All afternoon Jayden had been kind of seeing himself in that story—wondering if maybe he was wasting a life, and dishonoring Emory by doing so, hurting loved ones who still needed him, as Tom Smith was doing.
Or if he was falling hard for the prosecutor and was grasping at straws as a way to justify breaking his word to himself.
“Everyone makes mistakes,” Emma said when he’d been half holding his breath to see if she also saw similarities between him and Mr. Smith. “Maybe the real challenge is not in being perfect, but in learning to forgive yourself when you aren’t.”
She was looking out the window, not at him. Speaking for herself? For him? Just speaking? Throwing out a platitude? Or wondering on her own behalf? Didn’t seem to matter. He felt like she’d just slapped another defining moment on him. Another possible perspective change for his brain to process.
And wasn’t sure he was ready for that.
Maybe he was a lot more like his father than he’d thought.
Or maybe he was just afraid to give himself a real second chance.
Emma couldn’t believe she was finally going to get the second chance to help Suzie Heber. To free her from the fiend who’d married a sweet young woman and made her life a living hell. Heading up the walk to Suzie’s front door, she stepped slightly in front of Jayden. Leading the way.
Suzie knew her.
She was feeling proprietary. She was trying not to focus on the fact that he’d pretty well given her a warning back there in the car. Telling her about Emory’s father, who couldn’t live any kind of full life, couldn’t engage in an intimate relationship, or be a part of a family. Not even when the daughter and grandkids involved were his own.
It seemed obvious to her that Jayden had found a man who was in the same place he was. Who’d been damaged in the same way. He was telling her there was no hope for the two of them.
She didn’t want to accept any of it.
Knocking on the front door even before Jayden was fully beside her, she pasted a smile on her face in case Suzie glanced through the peephole before pulling open the door.
She was the bearer of good news, not there to badger or pressure a victim into coming forward.
The smile was completely earnest when she heard the door start to open, and then Emma could feel it fade when she saw Suzie standing there. The woman kind of blinked, oddly, but when Emma asked if they could come in, she only paused for a second before nodding and then quickly stepped back.
“He’s in the bath—” Suzie was whispering. Emma thought she’d heard the words right, but couldn’t be sure. She glanced back at Jayden, to see his reaction, and saw him reaching for his gun.
“Drop it now or she dies.”
Emma’s gaze swung back around to see a man she’d never seen before, pointing a gun directly at her head. She heard Jayden’s gun drop to the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Suzie said tremulously. It was unclear who she was talking to, Emma or the man holding the gun. The woman was holding her arm in front of her, with her hand. Emma realized, too late, that it had an odd twist to it. Had to be broken.
“Just calm down here.” Jayden stepped in front of Emma, holding his arms out wide and angling himself to cover Suzie, too. “You don’t want to do this,” he said. “Lower the gun and let’s talk. See if we can take care of this right here. Right now. No one gets hurt. It just ends.”
“It doesn’t end,” the man said, pointing the gun directly at Jayden’s chest. The guy was taller than Jayden. Six-one or so. His beard made it hard to determine his age. His hair was unremarkable. But the baseball cap on the coffee table—it was dark blue.
Jayden’s phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” the man said. They all listened until the ringing stopped.
Heart pounding, Emma stared at the man. Petrified. Jayden wasn’t wearing his vest. If...
“I’m a prosecutor,” she said. “I can make a deal with you, assuming you give me a chance, a reason, to be able to do so.”
“I know who you are,” the man said, moving his gun toward Jayden’s shoulder almost directly in front of her head. “If you’d been able to convict the bastard the first time around, none of this would have happened. Now. All three of you. Move. Slowly. Right here.” He pointed to the couch with his free hand, without taking his gaze off of them. “Side by side. Sit,” he instructed.
Emma moved first. No way she was going to take a chance on irritating the guy to the point he pulled that trigger. She’d rather be dead herself than lose Jayden.
Or Suzie.
She sat in the middle of the couch. Jayden dropped down on her left, pushing his thigh into hers. Suzie was on her right. Not touching her.
“Please, Kyle,” Suzie begged, not crying but sounding like she was fighting tears. “You know I love you. Deep down, you know.”
“It’s all messed up now,” he said. “If she’d done her job right the first time, he’d never have gotten out. But no, she screwed that one up. And then, when it’s all going to finally be okay, she goes and sticks her nose in things again...”
“It wasn’t okay,” Emma said, not sure why she wasn’t keeping her mouth shut. She just knew she couldn’t stop fighting until he stopped her. “I just got involved two weeks ago and someone beat up on Suzie three months ago.”
Jayden’s nudge was almost imperceptible. Was he telling her to stop? Or that she was on the right track?
“Kyle,” he said, “how old are you?”
“Shut up!” The man roared, swung the gun within a couple of inches of Jayden’s head. Close enough that Emma could see his hand shaking.
And she figured out who he was. The kid they’d all been looking for. Suzie hadn’t lied about his existence. But it seemed she might have been lying about her relationship with him. And about his age, too. This was no sixteen-or eighteen-year-old kid. He was easily in his twenties.
Maybe Bill had been right to question the paternity of his child.
Her entire soul was shaking. She tried to find Ms. Shadow, to hide behind her, but came up empty.
“I know you didn’t hurt Suzie four years ago,” Emma said, just talking. She was going to fall apart if she just sat. She couldn’t think. Couldn’t figure out a plan. She was scared to death. “I know what Bill did to her,” she continued. “It’s why I went for the murder charge. I made a mistake there, though. If I’d gone for battery, I’d have won.”
Kyle, whoever he was, was standing right in front of them, moving the gun back and forth between the three of them. There was no doubt in her mind that if any of them made any kind of move that he construed to be an attempt to help themselves or to get away, he’d shoot that gun. He was ready.
“But I can win this time,” she told him. “Bill’s in custody. That’s what we came here to tell Suzie. That she was safe.”
“You’re lying,” he said, spraying spittle at their feet. The gun jerked a little as he moved it from one to the other of them.
“I’m not lying. I can’t prove it to you without making a phone call, but I can guarantee you that if you turn on the television, it’ll be all over the news soon enough. And we’ve got evidence this time to get a conviction. Hard evidence. They found video surveillance of him buying the lipstick he used to vandalize my back door. Threatening an officer of the court, that’s serious stuff, there.” Her court voice wasn’t in that room. She could hear herself trembling in every word, knew he could hear it, too.
Kyle pointed his gun at Suzie. “Go on,” he said. “Turn on the TV. And then come stand with me.”
This was it. Their chance. Emma realized one second was all they might get. Him distracted, covering Suzie and them, too.
She wanted to make a run for it. If Kyle turned on her, shot her, Jayden would be able to save Suzie. And himself.
All she had to do was to run in the direction opposite from Suzie.
But her limbs wouldn’t move. She was frozen to the couch.
Fairly certain that she was going to die there.