Half Truths (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) (22 page)

‘No. I’m coming
with you,’ she replied, unbuckling her belt and pushing out of the car. Vaile
studied her face, but said nothing. Slamming his door behind him, he hit the
immobiliser on his key chain.

‘Briggs,’ Vaile
barked. Briggs jumped a little and dropped his keys.

‘Detective Wolfe,’
he stammered, picking up his keys from a slush puddle. ‘Something must be very
important.’

‘It is,’ he
replied roughly. ‘Can we just get in there?’

Briggs nodded,
fumbling with the keys to find the right one for the front door. He pushed
inside the glass doors, scurrying around to the other side of the
receptionist’s desk to reach the alarm which was beeping in warning. Vaile
marched down the darkened hallway avoiding obstacles that Larissa banged into.

A door opened and
artificial light streamed into the hallway. Vaile’s shadow cast an imposing
figure onto the wall in the hallway before he blocked the light completely with
his body. Larissa hurried to catch up with him even though her stomach and her
mind were screaming at her to stop.

Vaile was pulling
open morgue drawers when she made it into the room, Briggs lurching after them.

‘If you would
tell me who you’re looking for, I’d gladly locate their body for you,’ Briggs
said breathlessly, mopping his forehead with his tie.

‘I need Mills
and Baker,’ Vaile barked, unzipping the black body bag and peeking inside.
Larissa’s stomach churned; sweat breaking out on her brow.
Just stop it
she told herself. She was a cop. She could do this.

‘Mr Mills and Mr
Baker,’ Briggs announced, flourishing his hands at the two drawers he’d just
pulled open.

Vaile looked
down at the bodies, his body taut. ‘Get out,’ he growled at the ME assistant.
Larissa’s eyes widened. Vaile was acting like a crazed man.

‘I can’t—’
Briggs began, but Vaile cut him off.

‘Now.’

Briggs licked
his lips. ‘I’ll give you five minutes.’

‘Ten.’

He nodded
reluctantly. ‘Ten. Then you leave or I’ll call your boss and make a formal
complaint.’

Vaile’s lips
peeled away from his teeth; an almost smile, but more like a threat. Briggs
retreated from the room quickly, shutting the heavy door behind him.

‘I’m sorry,’
Vaile said to her.

‘What’s so
important that you had to get in here tonight?’ He ignored her question,
looking over Aaron’s body first then Luke’s. She marched over to him, Aaron
lying cold and lifeless in the middle of them. She reached for Vaile’s arm,
stopping him instantly. He peered down at her with eyes that twisted colours.
‘Tell me what’s going on.’

He groaned
loudly. ‘I didn’t want to drag you into this.’

‘Into what?’

Scrubbing his hand
over his face, he said, ‘This isn’t a normal case, Grey. Something strange is
happening here, and I need to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible.’

‘You mean
we
need to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible,’ she corrected.

He shook his
head. ‘No. This doesn’t concern you.’

‘The hell it
doesn’t!’ she yelled back without meaning to. She’d asked to work with him
because he was a good cop, and she wanted to learn from him. She looked up to
him. She wanted his strength, but he could never know that. A blush fanned out
on her cheeks, but she didn’t stop. ‘What’s with all the secrecy?’

His eyes were
shifting colours quickly now—so much so that she started feeling a little ill.
Closing her eyes, she dropped her head and waited for the nausea to pass. A few
moments later, she looked up to see Vaile staring down at her with his normal
blue-flecked grey eyes. He reached to take her hands, shocking her. His hands
were so incredibly warm.

‘Grey, I can’t
tell you what’s going on. It goes beyond your experience as a cop. Just trust
me when I say that I need to figure this out so we can solve the case.’

‘So, it’s ‘we’
now? Which one is it, Vaile? Just you, or do you consider me your partner now
too?’ She could feel her rage bubbling, but Vaile was just so
frustrating
.
He dropped her hands; the cold sweeping in much faster than she expected—her
hands aching to be held by his again. He muttered something under his breath
that sounded like “she’s only human.”

‘I’m going to
wait out there with Briggs,’ she spat, turning on her heel and marching out the
door. She slammed it shut behind her, collapsing against the wall, but refusing
the tears to fall. Briggs appeared at the end of the hall, but his face fell
when he saw her alone.

‘Is he still in
there?’

‘Yes. He won’t
be long,’ she replied, covering for Vaile when she really shouldn’t have. He
wasn’t willing to let her help him, but there was a part of her that still
recognised that he was her partner, and that was what partners did for each
other. They had each other’s backs. She sighed. Loyalty was a bitch sometimes.

‘What’s he
looking for anyway?’ Briggs asked, nervously playing with the end of his tie.

‘We’re looking
to see if we missed anything the first time round.’

The door next to
her opened, and Grey spun around. Vaile was running his hands through his short
hair roughly. ‘Let’s go. Thanks Briggs.’

‘So, did you
find what you were looking for?’ she asked, staring out the passenger window as
they drove away from the coroner’s offices. Vaile was driving about twenty-five
over the speed limit—no doubt in a hurry to get her out of his car as fast as
he could.

‘No,’ he
growled. He took the exit for her apartment, pulling up in front of the
building in half the time it normally took.

‘I’ll see you on
Monday,’ she said, sliding out of the car and slamming the door. She’d turned
to walk away when the window wound down.

‘Grey,’ Vaile
called softly. She turned, huddling into the top of her jacket, waiting for him
to apologise for being such an ass. ‘I’ll see you on Monday.’

Indi woke up with a start, sitting
up suddenly in a bed double the size she was used to. Light streamed through
the huge window looking over the tops of snow-covered trees. She looked around,
taking in the room again. With a jolt, she realised she wasn’t in the same room
as she’d been taken to before. This must have been Rhett’s room. Turning, she
saw him sleeping on his side.

Her heart
settled down. She lay back down next to him, turning so she was looking at him.
His dark lashes slashed shadows on his cheeks, his equally dark hair shaggy on
his forehead. His forehead suddenly wrinkled, his eyes working furiously
beneath closed lids. She touched his face to calm him. With a sigh, the frown
lines lapsed again and his mouth curved up into a small smile.

‘What are you
smiling at?’ she asked herself, tracing the curve of his bottom lip with her
finger.

‘You,’ he
murmured. Indi pulled her hand away, scared that he’d woken up and found her
staring at him like a psycho. But then she realised he was still sound sleep.
She looked at his mouth again, wanting to taste his lips. She’d been craving
him ever since he kissed her last time, but her pride was stopping her from
telling him that. To be rejected by Rhett would be unbearable, and she was not
going to ruin what they had now, not when he was finally being honest with her.
She looked over his shoulder at the clock radio on his bedside table. Shit.
They’d be late if they weren’t careful. Gently, she shook Rhett by the
shoulder, pulling him out of sleep slowly.

‘Rhett? I need
to go see Beth this morning. Wake up.’

‘Hmmm?’ he
mumbled back, throwing his arm across her waist, pinning her to the bed.

‘Rhett,’ she
removed his arm and sat up again. ‘Get up, or I’m taking the Jetta.’

Rhett’s eyes
peeled open suddenly. ‘Nobody drives my Jetta,’ he said, scrubbing his hands
over his face and yawning. ‘What’s the rush?’

‘Visiting hours
on Sundays are shorter than the other days. I promised Beth I’d go see her
again.’

Forty-five minutes later they were
standing in front of Beth’s hospital room.

‘I’ll wait out
here for you,’ Rhett said gently, squeezing her hand. She let him have her
hand, allowing herself to enjoy the heat of his touch. Turning towards the
door, she pulled down the handle and walked in. Beth’s head rolled towards the
sound. She simply looked at Indi then rolled her head back to the side; her
expression unchanging. Indi’s skin prickled; dread bottoming out in her
stomach.

‘Beth? What is
it? What’s happened?’ The scent of fresh tears seeped slowly into the room.
‘Beth,’ Indi urged, sitting in the chair beside her bed and clutching her hand.
‘Tell me.’

Beth looked at
her then; her eyes red and puffy. ‘I keep getting flashbacks about the attack.’

Indi’s tongue
went dry. ‘You do? Can you remember anything else about what happened to you?’

She frowned. ‘I
remember seeing you there, but you didn’t look like you normally do. You were
almost … wild, I guess.’

Indi bit her
tongue. ‘Anything else?’

‘You fought him,
didn’t you?’

Indi sat back in
the chair; the plastic groaning as she did. ‘I told you I chased him off.’

‘But all that
blood that was on me. That didn’t come from my head wound,’ her hand went to
her forehead where some stitches were covered with a small bandage. ‘It came
from him, didn’t it? You hurt him. That’s why there was so much blood. Did you
cut him with your knife?’

Indi didn’t let
the relief she was feeling escape to her face. If Beth thought she just cut the
guy up a little that was fine by her. ‘Yeah. I did, but he must have run off
after I got you out of there.’

Beth looked the
other way for a minute, her lower lip trembling. ‘You saved me from him.’

‘Of course I did
Beth. Nobody hurts my best friend.’ Indi smiled, hoping to see Beth return the
favour. But she didn’t. Fresh tears formed in her eyes and she refused to look
at Indi anymore. Indi didn’t push her. She’d speak when she was ready.

‘Maybe I
deserved this. Maybe all my involvement with Jason was God’s way of punishing
me for not listening to my mother in the first place.’

‘What?’ Indi
asked; her voice crawling and angry.

‘I deserved
this,’ Beth repeated.

‘You actually
believe that?’ Indi asked in a hiss. ‘You
actually
believe that God let
you get raped because he was punishing you for having hormones and liking a
guy?’

Beth nodded. ‘I
wasn’t respecting my parents’ wishes. I lied to them. I went behind their
backs. And look where it got me.’ She winced when she breathed in too deeply.
‘I’ve brought this on myself. I deserved to get raped.’

Indi’s voice was
like ice when she spoke. ‘Nobody deserves to get raped, Beth. If you believe
that then you’re saying I deserved it. I deserved to get gang-raped when I was
thirteen, and sexually abused by foster fathers ever since I was old enough to
remember. That’s bullshit, and you know it.’

Beth didn’t
respond. Her face was impassive—but not from not caring. It was impassive
because she had no other way to deal with the shit storm she suddenly found
herself in. ‘That’s different. Those men couldn’t help themselves,’ Beth
eventually said.

Indi pushed out
from the chair and paced. Her anger had surfaced with a vengeance. Every inch
of her skin was prickling, feeling like it was stretched too tight over her
bones. ‘And the guy who attacked you couldn’t help himself. You
didn’t
deserve this Beth.’

A tear rolled
from the corner of Beth’s eye. ‘I deserved this. I’m not a good Christian. I’m
being punished for my actions.’

Indi’s eyes
narrowed. ‘What’s this really about?’

Silence filled the
space where Beth was supposed to speak. ‘I’m a bad person. That’s all there is
to it.’

‘Bullshit.’

Beth glared at
Indi. Finally a feeling other than guilt. ‘I am a bad person, Indi.’

‘Says who?’

‘Says me!’ she
screamed, wincing from the movement. ‘I … enjoyed it.’ A blush coloured her
cheeks.

‘You enjoyed
what
?’

‘
It
. I
enjoyed it when he r-r-raped me.’

‘You can’t mean
that, Beth.’

‘I do. My body …
reacted to him.’

Indi bit back a
nasty curse. ‘That wasn’t you consenting to being raped Beth. That was just a
natural reaction to the situation. It was your body trying to protect you the
best it could from that fucked up situation.’

Tears were
rolling freely down her cheeks now. Beth shook her head furiously, not wanting
to believe Indi, not wanting to believe the truth.

 Indi couldn’t
stand the self-loathing, the blame. Sure, she’d been through it too, but she’d
gotten over it. Life goes on whether you want it to or not. ‘I’ll let you get
some rest then,’ she murmured, leaving the room without giving her best friend
a hug because truthfully, Indi was angry with her for even thinking what she
was.

‘How is she
today?’ Rhett asked when she closed the door behind her.

‘Shit. Can we
go?’ Indi replied too quickly. Rhett frowned.

‘Hey. What’s
going on?’ he asked, absently running his thumb across her cheek bone as he
cradled her head in his hands.

Indi squeezed
the bridge of her nose. ‘Can we talk about this at the farmhouse please? I just
need time to digest everything first. I need to get away from here.’

‘Of course.’

The drive back
to the farmhouse was tedious. Rhett stopped at every single traffic light, and
Indi was getting edgier and edgier by the second. She didn’t know the reason
why, just that she felt like she wanted to claw herself out of her skin.
Finally, the Jetta eased onto the gravel driveway that led to the farmhouse.