For You (The 'Burg Series) (66 page)

Across the glass written in black marker were the words,
For you
.

Colt felt his stomach roil and his blood heat as he turned it upside down and put it on the counter.

When he looked at her, Feb was staring at it.

“You don’t need to see that, baby,” he said softly.

She shook her head but said, “I know what it is, Butch kept that frame on his nightstand. It was there before I moved in and I left it there when I hauled ass.”

“February –”

Her eyes never moved when she cut him off, whispering, “He kept it.”

“Feb –”

“He kept it,” she repeated.

Colt slid his hand under her hair and wrapped it around the back of her neck, giving her a squeeze and her eyes lifted to his. Her face was bleak with pain and confusion.

“Baby,” he muttered.

“Why’d he cheat on me if he’d keep it?”

“I don’t know.” And Colt didn’t. The man in that photo was holding Feb like he’d fight to the death before he let her go. Some men were weak, like Cory, Colt knew it, he’d seen it time and again. They loved their wives, their partners, but they still played around. Maybe they wondered if the grass was greener. Maybe they preferred the thrill of the chase or liked the excitement when a fuck was fresh and new. Maybe they wanted something their partner refused to give. Maybe they were just assholes. Though, the likes of Cory’s wife Bethany were no Feb, still, maybe Butch was one of those but Colt sure as fuck wasn’t going to point that out to Feb.

She closed her eyes and turned her face away.

“This needs to go to the Station, get processed,” he told her.

She didn’t open her eyes or turn to him when she said, “Okay.”

He gave her neck a squeeze but she still didn’t give him her attention.

“You want, baby, once it’s processed, I’ll get a copy made for you before it goes into evidence.”

Her eyes came to him, her lips were parted and she just stared.

“You loved him,” Colt said, it took a fuckuva lot out of him but he said it.

“Yes,” she whispered and he knew that word took a fuckuva lot out of her too.

“You have that photo?” he asked.

“No.”

“You want it?”

“Colt –”

He squeezed her neck again and repeated, “Do you want it?”

Those dents formed above her nose, by her brows, before she asked, “You don’t mind?”

“Baby, he’s a dead man.” Her eyes closed again but she opened them when he used his hand at her neck to pull her closer. “I’m sorry, honey, that was harsh. The point is, he was dead to you long before Denny killed him.
 
He’s no threat to me but he meant somethin’ to you. You want the memory in that photo, you should have it.”

Feb stared at him for what seemed a long time before she whispered, “I want it.”

“Then you’ll have it.”

She nodded and swallowed, her eyes flicking down to the counter before coming back to his.

“Can you…” she started and stopped, sucked in breath and said, “will you go through the rest of my mail? Open anything you want. I need to get out of these clothes and my feet are killin’ me.”

“You got it.”

She pulled in another breath then fell forward, the top of her head hitting his chest and her hands coming to his waist. He felt her bunch his shirt there and listened to her take in more breaths, each one deeper than the last. He kept his hand at her neck while she fought for control. Then she pushed away and tipped her head back to look at him again.

“See, ‘Dreams’,” she whispered the name of the song playing. “Soothing,” she finished and then tilted her head back further, got close and kissed the underside of his jaw, like he saw her do to the man in the photo except without the smile.

She pushed away, walked away and Colt watched, doing a scan of his feelings after she kissed him like that, put her mouth on him the same way she’d done to another man.

He found he didn’t feel jealous, resentful or angry.

He felt lucky.

* * * * *

“The picture came up clean,” Sully said to Colt, sliding into his chair at his desk across from Colt’s.

“No prints?”

“Wiped clean, nothin’.”

Colt sat back in his chair and gave Sully his full attention.

“This shit gonna end soon, Sul?”

“It’s all wrappin’ up in neat package tied with a bow, all we gotta do his catch this fucker,” Sully told Colt. “You were right. Got the bank records and Marie made some withdrawals from her trust fund in Chicago. Total, twenty Gs since last February when Denny took on Cheryl. Talked to Carly, the neighbor, she said Marie told her Denny was askin’ for money, Carly didn’t know why because Marie didn’t know why. Likely, this was part of Marie gettin’ fed up and psyching herself up for the confrontation.”

Colt nodded and Sully continued.

“Money adds up to what Ryan and Cheryl said he gave them, includin’ equipment, gifts, shit like that. Incidental withdrawals from their joint account increased along the way. Nothin’ big, a few hundred dollars here and there but he was yanking money more often, ‘specially the last six months.”

“He pay Ryan and Cheryl in cash?”

“Always.”

“The fifteen K?” Colt asked.

“Gave Cheryl five of it before he left to cover her Fed Ex deliveries and emergency expenses, Cheryl said.”

“Five large is a lot for Fed Ex deliveries,” Colt remarked.

“Big spender,” Sully replied. “Cheryl said he was always generous.”

Colt figured Cheryl wouldn’t miss Denny but, the life she led, she couldn’t help but miss his money.

“He couldn’t have been plannin’ a spree when he withdrew that money,” Colt noted.

“No tellin’ what he was plannin’.”

This made Colt’s blood run cold but he ignored it and carried on.

“He’s in New Mexico, got a package there. Anything?”

“Zip. Guy’s a ghost.”

 
“We got the car he’s drivin’, photos of him out on the wire, we know where he is and who he’s after. How the fuck can he be a ghost?”

“Colt –”

“Jesus, Sully, this shit’s relentless. We got a boatload of evidence to nail this guy and we fuckin’ know where he is and he’s in the wind?”

“We have more on him, if you’re interested.” Colt didn’t speak so Sully continued. “You asked me to activate the Lorraine gossip tree and we’ll have to make a note to do that in future. Her women were a font of information. One of ‘em, married to a bank officer, knew all about Amy, the baby, the adoption, everything, ‘cept the rape and who the daddy was. Another knows Emily Hope.”

“Emily Hope?”

“Yeah, she was Amy’s best friend back in the day. She lives in Carmel now. She heard about Amy’s death from the Lorraine gossip tree and she heard a helluva lot more from it too. She came in this mornin’ before she went to the funeral.”

Emily Hope. Hearing her name and associating it with Amy’s friend, Colt remembered the name and the girl. He scanned his recent memories of the funeral and he tried to place the girl Amy used to spend time with there. He didn’t know her back then but he had a thing for faces and he didn’t recognize hers at the funeral.

“She’s who I think she is, she wasn’t at the funeral,” Colt told Sully.

“Was she big as a house back in the day?”

Colt called her up and remembered her as being passably pretty and nowhere near fat. In fact, she was flat-chested, slim-hipped and almost had the body of a boy. A skinny boy.

“Nope.”

“Bitch is huge now, Colt.
Huge
.”

“Sully.”

“No, seriously, couldn’t sit in a chair with arms. We had to bring her in one special. Enormous.”

“All right, she’s gained weight, what’d she say?”

“She said she always knew Denny was bad news, he always gave her a crap feelin’. She said she knew Denny raped Amy, told us without us askin’. Apparently, Emily was the only one she told and Amy swore her to secrecy. She said she hates Denny mainly because he raped Amy, obviously, but also because Amy, ‘faded away’, her words, after the incident. They lost touch when Emily moved to Carmel, Amy doin’ it, not returnin’ calls or, if they made plans to meet up, Amy would cancel. Emily eventually quit tryin’ and feels like shit now. She says she remembers the night Amy was drugged ‘like it was yesterday’, her words again and she’s the one who brought it up, I didn’t feed her nothin’. She remembers it because she just knew Denny slipped Amy somethin’. She’s willin’ to testify to the rape or anything we want her to testify to, hell, she’d try to convince a jury she was there when he hacked away at Marie, she’s so ready to testify. She’s pretty pissed Amy’s dead, probably feels some guilt. According to her, she has it figured out and her finger is pointed firmly in Denny’s direction.”

“Hearsay. She won’t help much.”

“Corroborate the note Amy wrote, should we need to use it.”

This was true.

“Also got a hit on the Audi,” Sully went on.

“Yeah?”

“Boys went over it, nothing there, totally clean, ‘cept it was
so
clean they figured he’d had it done professional-like so they did the rounds. Hit on a valet service on the other side of Indianapolis, out of his way, not close to here, not close to Cheryl.”

“Thinks to put us off the scent,” Colt noted.

“Yeah, ‘cept the Feds are persistent, they needed to, they’d check every professional car wash from here to Louisville, up to Chicago, over to Springfield and across to Cincinnati if they had to.”

“So they found something?”

“Yeah, man. He’d done a job on it himself but, as you could imagine, they found blood and not a little of it. They remembered it and were freaked by it but he gave them the same ole with the whole, ‘I’m Lieutenant Colton’ business, flashed a badge and told them he’d been injured in the line of duty or some crap.”

Colt felt his jaw grow tight before he stated, “That shit’s gettin’ old.”

“I can imagine,” Sully muttered, feeling his pain, then went on. “Identified him in a photo. Evidence is washed away but witness who cleaned is willin’ to testify to what he saw, or, more to the point, cleaned.”

“At least it’s somethin’.”

“We got more.”

Colt looked at his friend and Sully continued.

“Feds had some expert compare the note Denny sent to Amy and some writing we found at his house and the writing on the back of the high school note from Angie to Feb. Denny wasn’t bein’ so careful years ago when he sent his threat to Amy after she fell pregnant, he wrote it out long hand. Expert says all the writing matched. They’re sendin’ the glass from the frame to be analyzed.”

“He goes to trial, we’re not tryin’ him for rape, Sully.”

“Just fittin’ the puzzle pieces together and they’re all formin’ one picture.” Colt just stared at him and Sully asked, “You want more?”

“You got it?”

“Yeah, or, Chris got it. He went to Skipp’s, pickin’ up somethin’, who knows what, Chris is always workin’ on his house. He saw that Skipp carries three different kinds of hatchets, two types of axes. One of the hatchets looks real familiar to Chris so he asks Skipp about the hatchets and Denny. Skipp, now, this’ll surprise you, the old fart keeps everything. Every invoice for every nut and bolt he’s sold since 1977 when he opened the shop. All organized, all at hand. Skipp remembers Denny, as you would, a man in expensive clothes buyin’ a bunch of hatchets. He starts sortin’ through his little file drawers and pulls out the invoices. Four different trips, Denny bought all three hatchets and both axes. One of those hatchets, same make as the one found in the alley by Angie’s body. None of the remaining was found in the house.”

“He took ‘em with him.”

“Did Miller with one of ‘em, I reckon.”

“Any way Skipp can trace the hatchet in evidence to his shop?” Colt asked.