Shock filled the man’s dark eyes the second before he stumbled. His hands went to his throat as his fingers wrapped around the wound. He choked and gagged, trying to speak, but no words came out.
His body sagged against the sink as he threw a hand out for balance. Slick with the blood, he slipped and fell. His body bucked. He grabbed for Kurt’s pants but missed.
Kurt took it all in. A dark blankness filled him as he watched the life drain out of the agent. He knew he should feel remorse, but this wasn’t his fault. Courtney put this man in his path. Courtney refused to move on.
She caused this and she would be sorry.
* * *
C
OURTNEY SAT DOWN
in the hard wooden chair across from Jonas’s desk. She’d had her duffel bag and folder in hand, and they’d made it as far as his office again. He’d locked her precious cargo in the closet and promised to shoot anything that came in or out. Still, she stole a glance at the door every few minutes just to make sure.
She’d never been inside a police station willingly before. Her police phobia saw to that. Now she’d been in one twice in a few hours.
The one-story beige building stood in the middle of town, next to the mom-and-pop hardware store and across from the former movie theater currently being renovated to reopen as a restaurant. She knew about the new place because she’d been commissioned to design a graphic for the sign and the wall behind the bar.
She stared out the window at the construction truck in front of the building and let her mind wander. Jonas hadn’t asked a single question about her family or her name change since they left her house. He sat behind his desk, and his fingers clicked away with impressive speed across his keyboard.
The silence wore her down. “You can say it, you know.”
He didn’t look up. “What?”
“Can we not pretend?” She’d spent so many years burying it. Maybe it was time to drag it into the light. “Please.”
His fingers hovered over the keys. “You think I don’t want to know every detail of what happened?”
“If you do you’re hiding it well.”
His gaze moved to hers. His body relaxed back into the chair cushion, but awareness shimmered off of him. “I was trying to be considerate of your feelings.”
“Is that your usual style?”
He barked out a laugh. “No. I’ve become the rush-in type during recent years.”
“What were you before?”
The smile left his face. “Too careful. Too willing to follow the rules even when I knew they were wrong.”
The easy conversation calmed the spinning in her head. With each husky word he said, the tension seeped from her muscles. “That sounds like experience talking.”
“Years working in Los Angeles, so I earned it the hard way.”
“Want to tell me about it?”
“No.”
“But I should spill, just tell you everything about my awful past?”
“I’m guessing we can only handle one personal history at a time.”
“Any chance we can start with you?”
“Well.” He sat forward, leaning on his elbows. “We could, but no one is trying to kill me.”
“I find that hard to believe.” After a stark beat of quiet, the rich sound of his laughter washed over her. Any last worries about being safe with him fled. “Admit it. You can be difficult.”
“Bossy, demanding, controlling. Not the first time I’ve heard any of those.” He shrugged those wide shoulders. “I’d blame the job, but it’s probably the personality type.”
“I can think of a few other words to describe you.”
His gaze roamed over her face. “Where are your glasses?”
“I put the contacts in.” And her left eye had been watering ever since.
He made a tsk-tsk sound with his tongue. “Stubborn.”
“You’re right. I am. Feel free to gloat.”
The smile left his face. “I’d rather hear the story.”
Icy-cold fingers reached into her chest and grabbed her heart. She had no one else to blame. She’d opened a door and he’d jogged right through it. Sharing terrified her…until she stared into those eyes, the color of the cloudy sky right before a storm, and the powerful tug of unburdening hit her.
“It’s taking every ounce of control I possess not to go online and search for myself. With a few calls, I’d likely have the official version,” he said.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I want to hear it from you.” His expression remained unreadable as he laced his fingers together on top of his desk blotter. “I think maybe you need to say it.”
The gate burst open before she could figure out a way to hold the words back. “Allen Peters.”
“Your father, I’m guessing.”
She nodded. “He was the type of guy who heard about a girl getting pregnant at the high school and grounded me to teach me a lesson.”
Jonas’s eyebrow lifted. “A tough guy.”
She almost laughed at the understatement. “He could yell for hours, or so it seemed. Everything is exaggerated when you’re a teenager, but I remember the house being loud.” She hated how the laughter faded but the angry words remained.
“Where was your mother during all of this?”
“She would coax him into the bedroom and shut the door, but the thick wood didn’t blunt the sound. He’d spew and judge, curse and berate.”
Jonas’s eyes narrowed for a second before his blank stare returned. “That had to be hard to handle.”
“He judged everyone and held us to a high standard.”
“Maybe an unreasonable one?”
Being the only one sharing made her want to squirm right out of her chair. As it was, she had to sit on her hands to keep from fidgeting. “What was your dad like?”
“Tough but fair.” Jonas launched right into a description, this time not evading the personal question. “A lifetime navy man. Mom died of breast cancer when I was in junior high, so it was just me and Dad.”
She heard the pride laced through the minimum of words. Jonas didn’t talk about the mutual love and respect because he didn’t have to. She could see it. At the mention of his father, Jonas’s face lit up, and the exhaustion that had been tugging at his mouth and eyes for the past hour disappeared.
He’d known loss but it didn’t define him. Not like it did with her.
The kick of envy stole her breath. And his honest explanation kept her talking. “Mine came to my volleyball games and would shout and swear at the coaches from the stands.”
Jonas nodded. “He was that guy.”
“Totally.”
“Abusive?”
Courtney turned the label over in her mind. It didn’t fit. Nothing about her family, the situation, fell neatly into any category. “I never thought of him that way, but by most standards he’d be considered a jerk. He never hit but his words could knock you back.”
How many times had she wondered if her parents would have made it had they lived? Too many to count. Not that the answer really mattered or solved the questions surrounding their murders, but for some reason the idea of their eventual divorce plagued her.
“That day I’d been grounded for a bad grade—a B, by the way—and ordered to come straight home. Furious and dramatic, in pure teen mode, I disobeyed. I didn’t go home after school or call. I stayed with my boyfriend until past dark then went home, ready for a showdown.”
She’d replayed that last week in her mind so many times. Her father spent almost every hour at home, locked in his office while he pored over paperwork. The man normally worked twelve-hour days at the office, going in before six so he would be home for the mandatory weekday family dinner, but that week he broke with his normal schedule.
“Courtney?” Jonas slipped a hand across the desk toward her. “We don’t have to do this now.”
She closed her eyes, grateful for his ticket out. The temptation proved great, but she forced her eyes open again. “I have to do it sometime. You need the information, right?”
“So I can help you, yes.”
He was a man who wore every rough moment on his face. Handsome but not in a pretty way. Real, with scars and stubble and strength etched in every line. But when he looked at her just now the sharp angles of his face smoothed.
“The police officer met me in the driveway.” Even with her eyes open and her life safe in a secure building, the flashing police lights twirled red and blue in her head. “My dad’s business partner was there. Neighbors stood on the sidewalk, huddled together and whispering as I walked by.”
“That’s what neighbors do.”
“No one approached me except the cop. He put his arm around my shoulders and told me everything would be fine. I had no idea who he was and I tried to listen, but the radio on his shoulder kept chirping.” She tugged on the bottom of her ear. “Four dead. The refrain repeated until I couldn’t hear anything else.”
The night came back to her in a rush. The choking smell of exhaust from the fire truck by the curb. The police officers stretching yellow tape across her lawn. The front door standing open as people with blue windbreakers and small cases walked in and out.
“I remember thinking my dad would be pissed if he saw all of these people walking through the flower beds and going inside without taking off their shoes.” She shook the remainder of the night out of her head and forced her mind to join her body back in today’s world. “Weird, right?”
“Human. You remember him with a teenager’s eye. That colors everything.”
“I thought he’d called in all the police to scare me for staying out in violation of his orders.”
Four dead.
“But when I didn’t see my dad on the porch, I knew what the voice on the speaker meant.” She forced the words up her throat. “Deb, Susie, Mom and Dad. All gone while I was kissing my boyfriend and giggling about how I was drinking a beer behind my dad’s back.”
She swallowed, unable to say anything. Closed her mind so the memories couldn’t sneak back in.
Jonas flipped his hand over and let it lay palm up. “How old were you?”
With her finger she traced his from base to tip, each one turn after turn. Long and lean, strong and surprisingly soft. When she placed her hand in his, the warmth of his skin closed around her.
“Seventeen. One month from graduation.”
When her eyes met his again she expected to see pity like she had with every social worker and lawyer, every cop and every teacher at school. While some people whispered behind her back wondering why she’d survived, others drowned her in sympathy. She preferred those bold enough to question why her dad would spare her—when he obviously preferred Susie—over those who wanted her to stay helpless and needy so they could save her and wash away the guilt of not seeing the tragedy before it happened.
The extended family split, her mother’s relatives clamoring with stories about her dad’s terrible behavior and her mother’s desire to leave him. Her father’s family sainted him. She got pulled and tugged from one end to the other until she walked away.
A name change and relocation later and she woke up without a past. Or she thought it would work that way.
“The police determined my father killed my mother in a moment of uncontrollable rage. That financial problems at work had piled up to push an already volatile man to the edge.” She inhaled deep enough to flush her brain with a burst of fresh oxygen. “So he took out his family, thinking we were all home and that he could save us from the horrible life of poverty that lay ahead.”
Jonas turned her hand over and slid it between both of his. “You lived.”
“He didn’t know I was gone.”
Jonas lifted her hand to his mouth and pressed a soft kiss against her skin. “You don’t believe the story.”
It was about more than a belief. She knew down to those dark places in her soul that the police took a shortcut and got this one wrong. “Dad was imperfect but not a killer.”
Jonas didn’t debate or try to talk her out of it. “What’s your theory?”
Her eyes searched his. So many people had asked the question then not listened to her answer. They wanted her to talk so they could analyze her or use her to close a case. Not Jonas. He sat there, his attention focused on her and his hand wrapped around hers, and waited for her to speak.
She didn’t have to come up with an elaborate scheme. She’d studied every angle. She had the entrances and exits mapped out and the details outlined. After begging the police to listen and offering theories no one would act on, she tucked the knowledge deep inside and vowed to step back into the light only after she had the evidence to end it all.
But sharing her findings proved easier with Jonas than she ever anticipated. He hit on the truth when he said she needed to tell. It was time and he was the right person.
“The landscape guy attacked my sister, Mom walked in and she was killed. The man then killed everyone, each as they came home, to hide his tracks.”
“Do you know anything about the forensics—”
She dropped Jonas’s hand and started to stand up. “I have it in my folder.”
“Sit.” The deputy part of him roared back to life.
“Jonas, I can prove it all to you.”
“I believe you.”
“I…” She had no idea what to say or how to handle the rumble of hope inside of her.
“We’ll go through it.” His gaze grew in intensity. “I will look at every document and test result. I’ll call in every favor until I see all the information that exists on the case.”
The rumble turned to a thundering wave. “You will?”
“I promise.” He nodded back to the seat she just left and didn’t continue until she dropped into it. “But right now I want you to tell me who you think is after you. This landscape guy? Is that like a gardener?”
“He’s dead. Shot himself a few months after…they died. News stories circulated about his possible involvement and he put a gun in his mouth.” And she hadn’t spent one minute feeling sorry for the guy. No, she hated him for leaving before he could clear her father’s name.
Jonas swore as he shook his head. “I’m not sure if that’s ironic or just tragic.”
“It’s proof he couldn’t take the guilt of what he’d done.”
Jonas didn’t say anything for a second. “So, you think the guy in the forest was financed by someone else? Couldn’t be the gardener if he’s out of the picture.”
She knew exactly who sicced the attacker on her. They’d been circling each other for years. “His son. He’s as desperate to clear his father’s name as I am to clear mine.”