Two weeks later...
“I can’t believe you quit your job, Eden.” Simone straightened the platter of turkey-and-Swiss pinwheel sandwiches for the fifth time in as many minutes, before moving on to rearrange the napkins and plastic forks. The Major Crimes squad room had been transformed into party central with balloons and streamers in an effort to celebrate Agent Simmons’s release from the hospital.
“I can,” Allie piped in as she entered with a pink bakery box overflowing with doughnuts, a line of officers trailing behind her as if in a trance. “What choice did she have when the Sac PD offered her a consulting gig?”
“It’s not official yet.” Eden didn’t want to get ahead of herself. The chief still had to sign off on it, but with Cole, Jack and their lieutenant joining forces to recommend she work with the group of detectives overseeing cold cases, it was a sure thing. The only caveat? The blog had to go. But she’d be given a new one, an official one, sanctioned by the police department.
She thought it’d be harder to let her blog go, but when she thought about it, what she’d be able to do in return made the loss worth it. “If it happens, they’re going to give me rules.”
“In writing,” Cole said as he strode in. “Preferably in triplicate. It’s all part of my evil plan to be able to use her brain at a moment’s notice.”
“That’s why he’s marrying me,” Eden joked and rolled her eyes in mock contempt. “For my brain.”
“So it’s marriage, is it?” Allie glanced over as the officers and detectives began flooding in to sign the oversize card for Agent Simmons.
“That depends.” Cole wrapped his arms around Eden from behind and rested his chin on top of her head, asking, “What are you doing next weekend?”
“Next weekend?” Simone angled a look at him. “You didn’t get her pregnant, did you?”
“No, he did not,” Eden replied, although an odd hitch caught in her chest. “But we did make plans to get married in Tahoe. I need bridesmaids.”
“Us?” Allie gasped.
“Who else would she ask?” Simone knocked her hip into Allie’s. “Of course we’ll be there. Cole, you have groomsmen, I assume?”
“I’ve got Jack, the best man, who’s already planning the bachelor party, right?” He looked over his shoulder as Jack joined them.
“I was thinking about renting a party bus with a stripper pole.” Jack grinned. “What do you think, Eden?”
Eden smacked his hand when he reached for a sandwich. “I think it depends on how comfortable you are in a G-string.”
That earned a round of guffaws from his fellow officers.
Cole and Jack went to greet their guest of honor, Agent Simmons, who was in a wheelchair for the next few weeks and accompanied by his beautiful wife, Suzanna. She and Eden had become friends.
Eden had decided she wasn’t betraying a confidence by telling Suzanna about her conversation with Agent Simmons before he’d been attacked. Besides, she wasn’t about to give him an out when happiness was closer than he realized.
Eden drew Allie and Simone into the far corner. “What’s going on with you?” she asked Simone. “You’ve been jumpy lately.”
Simone shrugged and folded her arms across her chest, a gesture that spoke of uncharacteristic uncertainty. “You mean other than the fact that our friend’s murderer seems to have gone back into hibernation?”
“He’ll pop up.” Eden kept her voice low. “All the more reason to have an entire police department at my disposal.” Making light of Simone’s point was the only way she could cope for the time being. “When Chloe’s killer comes forward again, we’ll be ready for him.”
The doubt in Simone’s eyes had her shifting uneasily on her feet. “You didn’t think I’d forgotten about it, did you?”
“Absolutely not.” Ever the peacemaker, Allie rested her hands on theirs. “But Eden’s right, Simone. You’ve been acting strangely for a while now and it’s not as if we don’t have a lot to be grateful for.”
Last Eden had heard, the Batsakis siblings had been locked away for good. However, it was doubtful Jenna would live to see a trial. Her condition had taken a serious downturn and she was currently under twenty-four-hour guard in the state’s leading mental hospital. Personally, Eden had been hoping for a long, painful death. Yeah, she was still working on that becoming-a-nicer-person thing, but at least the victims’ families finally had their answers. “And you’ve got the Denton case coming up...”
“Bingo,” Allie said, when Simone’s eyes narrowed. “You’re having problems with the case?”
“You could say that.” Simone shook her head and her blond hair cascaded around her shoulders. “Our main witness is getting nervous. It’ll be a miracle if she holds it together until the trial starts. But listen, today’s about celebrating life.” She gripped Eden’s chin in her hand and squeezed. “You’re happy. It looks good on you.”
“Are you talking about the fact that she doesn’t get that deer-in-the-headlight look anymore whenever Cole mentions the M word?” Allie smiled.
“There is that,” Simone agreed. “Maybe you’ve finally put some ghosts to rest.”
“Maybe,” Eden said. The anger, the grief, all the emotions she’d never been able to process about her parents, about Logan, even Chloe, had settled down, along with that monster inside her. “Some, anyway. There are big changes coming. For all of us.”
“Speaking of changes, where are you and Cole going to live?” Allie asked.
“On the boat, for now,” she told them. Allie almost choked.
“You’re going to live on a boat?” Simone stared. “Well, if that doesn’t prove life’s completely unpredictable, I don’t know what does.”
Eden caught Lieutenant Santos gesturing at her through the window. She nodded, and he motioned for Allie and Simone to join him.
Cole caught up to her as she was walking. “Where are you going?”
“Delaney, you, too.” Lieutenant Santos waved all of them into his office and closed the door behind him. “I know this isn’t the time or place, but I have the three of you here, and this one—” he pointed to Eden “—is going to find out anyway. Detective Henry Carter’s widow brought this by the chief’s office this morning.” He lifted a large padded envelope off his desk.
Cole moved in behind Eden and rested his hands on her shoulders.
Lieutenant Santos continued. “The envelope was addressed to her husband, and when she opened it, she realized what it was.”
“And what is it?” Eden asked. Icy dread, unwelcome and all too familiar, overtook her. This time, however, she had Cole to deflect the chill.
Lieutenant Santos tilted the envelope. A child’s tennis shoe dropped onto his desk. Turquoise. With pink flower laces.
“Chloe’s missing shoe,” Simone whispered.
“The one they never found.” Allie’s voice trembled before she cleared her throat.
“Given the other deliveries that have been made, and the fact that very few people were privy to certain aspects of the case, the chief, the DA and I are all in agreement.” Lieutenant Santos looked at each of them before he went on. “We’re reopening the Chloe Evans murder investigation.”
Eden didn’t know whether to scream or cry. She stared at her friend’s shoe as memories of that night, of the mistakes she’d made, the things she couldn’t change, flooded back. She wouldn’t wallow in them anymore. She wouldn’t use them as excuses or walls to hide behind.
“You were right, Eden,” Allie said in a low voice. “He’s back.”
“He is.” Eden reached up to her shoulder and gripped Cole’s fingers in hers. “Only this time we’re going to bury him.”
* * * * *
The next gripping installment of
HONOR BOUND will be available May 2017
from Harlequin Romantic Suspense and
USA TODAY bestselling author Anna J. Stewart!
Don’t miss Simone’s story!
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