Truth & Tenderness (12 page)

If it was strange and out of character, Griffin just tried not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

T
HE
TRIP
to Toronto made him worry. A little bit.

J
IM
SWORE
he would just listen to Tracey, see what she had to say, but he couldn’t sleep in the days leading up to his trip. He found himself spending more and more time with the files, with his research, searching for a pattern or a clue. Something he’d missed. Because if he had this time with Tracey, he needed to ask the right questions or it would all be for nothing.

Putting pressure on his relationship for nothing at all.

The day before he left to meet Tracey, Jim found himself on a forum for retired detectives. There was a shit ton of bitching about pensions and waxing poetic about “the good ol’ days,” so Jim was in full skim mode.

Until he found the section on unsolved cases.

This was what he needed for validation: more ex-cops like him still tangling with a piece of human garbage they wished they’d put away. Maybe he wanted reassurance he wasn’t crazy.

It was a detective from a small town on the California-Oregon border called Ashland that caught his eye. Ashland, home of Southern Oregon University.

Jim blinked. Why did that sound so familiar?

Because Tracey Baldwin went there, he realized a second later, and then the rabbit hole opened up and swallowed him.

The first murder was a coed found in a bar parking lot a few miles away from campus. The detective on the case noted another girl under similar circumstances in a university town about fifty miles away.

He knew it in his bones, in the marrow that made him a good detective—he knew he’d found it, and all hell broke loose.

Jim started pulling up names and pictures and newspaper accounts. Six hours later, as dawn peeked in through the blinds, Jim had five murders in five cities, an almost straight line from Northern California to Seattle. A spree that started in Tracey Baldwin Ingersoll’s college town and ended in Jim’s backyard.

His hands shook slightly as he dove into Tripp Ingersoll’s college years. He had everything publicly available, from newspaper clippings to four yearbooks, hidden in the back of a filing cabinet.

Nothing matched up.

Jim pushed away the frustration and stared at the five dead girls on his desktop.

He thought about Tracey.

Then he found her yearbook.

T
RACEY
B
ALDWIN
,
women’s lacrosse, four years.

Their team’s schedule the year of the murders.

He sat back in his chair and breathed through the heart attack he was sure he was having. How did he miss this the first time around?

Right. Jim and Terry were hell-bent on getting Tripp for Carmen Kelly’s murder. They had tunnel vision.

Now?

Now Jim had a pattern of murders, strangulations like Carmen’s, matching the travel of Tracey Baldwin’s lacrosse career during college. If he could prove that Tripp was with her…

If he could get these cold cases reopened…

If.

M
ATT
DROVE
him to the airport. The atmosphere was so tense, the air so thick, that Jim kept the window rolled down just so he could breathe.

“I’m going to take everything you have and lay it out,” Matt said as he pulled into the departures lane for LaGuardia Airport. “Time line, case files.”

“We need his schedule,” Jim murmured, rubbing damp hands on his pants. “His class schedule, attendance if we can get it.”

“I’ll get it.” Matt eased to the curb and put the SUV in park. He glanced over at Jim, who nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Remember what Liz said about talking to Tracey.”

A phone consultation with Matt’s dear friend Liz the shrink had produced an outline of information for talking to an abused woman. Whether or not Tripp ever used his fists, he’d most definitely used fear to keep Tracey in line—for who knew how long. Jim’s handling of Tracey’s trauma might be the difference between getting what he needed and leaving empty handed.

Start slow and easy.

Ask open-ended questions.

Let her tell the story in her own way.

Explore her options for getting her life back.

Most of all? Jim had to stay calm.

“You go, you talk to her, we give everything to the police in the first town where that girl died.” Matt’s jaw was tense as he laid out their agreement. Again. “Then this is done.”

Jim put his hand on the door handle. “We have to give them as much evidence as we can,” he argued quietly. “This has to stick.”

“You have no jurisdiction and this guy is fucking suing you. If this gets out, that lawsuit might not go away any time soon.”

Jim opened the door, grabbed his bag in his other hand. “It’s not going to get out.” He stepped out, then closed the door behind him. Jim leaned against the window, fully owning up to the anger on Matt’s face. “It’s not. Don’t worry.”

Matt didn’t look convinced, and as Jim walked into the terminal, he felt his friend’s eyes boring into the back of his head.

“A
RE
YOU
sure about this?”

Griffin stood in the foyer of his house, clutching Sadie against his chest. The toddler was currently trying to strip off his glasses, so he was dodging her like a prizefighter. She found this game hilarious.

“It’s a few days. She’ll be fine,” Griffin said soothingly. “You need this—you both do.”

Daisy looked like hell, a condition that Griffin couldn’t sit idly by for. Whatever rough spots in their past, Daisy was his friend, his sister, his family—and if he had to be a busybody to help her, so fucking what.

Which was exactly what he was going to say when everyone got on his case about it.

“I don’t know what’s wrong. He’s acting so weird,” Daisy said, rubbing her eyes. Nothing about this picture gave him any comfort. Daisy looked like hell in jeans and a T-shirt he suspected was Bennett’s. She’d driven up by herself with Sadie in the backseat—almost unheard-of behavior given Bennett’s overprotectiveness. The overnight bag she had carried in—well, Griffin was fighting to keep a calm face.

“And you are going to deal with it, whatever it is,” Griffin said softly. He let Sadie win the game and have his glasses; it gave him a chance to walk over to Daisy and pull her against his free side.

“Momma,” Sadie said, petting her head.

“Yes, Momma needs to go talk to Daddy, and we’re going to have so much fun,” Griffin said brightly, even as he felt Daisy’s tears against his shirt. “Can you say ‘bye, Momma! Love you!’”

Sadie didn’t quite get the game, but she smothered Daisy’s face with kisses and waved at her a few minutes later as Daisy pulled herself together at the open door.

“I love you,” Griffin said, and Daisy gave him her best brave smile. “Bennett loves you—remember that.”

“I know.” Daisy blew kisses to Sadie, who was now wearing Griffin’s glasses, and then she was gone.

Griffin looked at the—blurry—closed door, then at Sadie, who was blinking at him behind his round glasses.

“Oh Sadie girl, what are we going to do with these people?”

J
IM
STOOD
in the posh lobby of the Trump Hotel, hands in the pocket of his suit pants. A small overnight bag sat next to the sleek tan leather chair he’d claimed. He’d spent two hours of coffee and texting with Matt, going over the specific dates and times they needed Tracey to confirm.

He had to get something from her, something that would compel the Ashland detectives to act.

And now it was going to happen.

Tracey had sent him a message from another unknown cell number, and in a few minutes, they would meet.

It didn’t take long to spot her. She walked out of the elevators a few feet from where he was waiting, dressed in a smart black pantsuit, her hair tucked up in a simple twist.

Jim blinked. Liz had him prepared for a broken woman, a woman overwhelmed by her fear as she hid from her husband.

Tracey looked like a model.

Her smile was meek, though, as she spotted him. They met in the middle of the elaborate gold-and-mirror lobby. He extended his hand like this was a casual meet-up with an acquaintance.

“Detective,” she murmured, her hand cold and small in his.

“You can call me Jim.”

T
HEY
SETTLED
into the seat grouping farthest away from the check-in desk. Tracey’s back was ramrod straight, hands folded in her lap. Jim settled across from the couch. He smiled tightly, trying to remain calm and focused on the young woman before him.

“I appreciate this, Tracey. I want you to know, before we start, that if you need assistance—if I can help put you in touch with people.”

Tracey nodded, twisting a slim gold bracelet on her wrist. “Thank you. I’m all right for now. My parents have been helping me with some money and uh—once the lawsuit is done….” She trailed off as Jim shifted in his seat.

Money for the divorce, Jim assumed. He didn’t bother to comment.

Silence settled between them as the murmur of guests arriving and departing around them swarmed.

He cleared his throat and began.

“I don’t want to talk about that girl in Los Angeles,” Tracey said softly. “You can’t do anything to him because—”

“I know,” Jim cut in, rubbing his hands on his suit pants. Calm, he reminded himself. Calm. “We don’t have to go over that.” The urge to ask her about providing his alibi hurt as he buried it down deep. “Can we talk about you and Tripp in college?”

Tracey’s doe eyes widened a fraction. “College?”

“You went to Ashland, in Southern Oregon.”

She nodded slowly.

“And you played lacrosse.”

She tipped her head to one side as if trying to figure out his line of questioning. “Yes. Four years.”

From memory, Jim reeled off some of the colleges she had competed against, mixing up various schools with the towns where the murders occurred.

She nodded through each one. “That sounds right,” she said as he finished his list.

Jim’s heartbeat sped up. He could feel his mouth drying up, his tongue swelling as he pressed it against the roof of his mouth. “Did Tripp ever travel with you?”

“My sophomore year,” Tracey murmured, a tiny hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “He said he would miss me too much if he didn’t.”

It was all Jim could do not to get up and beat his chest.

H
E
VIBRATED
from the Trump Hotel to the airport to the plane. He texted Matt everything Tracey told him, hands shaking as he settled into his first-class seat.

They had confirmation.

Jim reined in his emotions as best he could, but the replay loop in his mind would not stop.

Before they parted, Tracey had shaken his hand, her voice soft and tremulous. “He told me I’d end up like Carmen if I didn’t watch myself. That’s why I left, you know. That’s why I’m getting the divorce. His parents are going to have to give me what I’m owed.”

The only thing Jim could focus on when she said that was the confession woven through Tripp’s threat.

He might not be able to put Tripp away for Carmen Kelly’s murder, but he knew, even if no one else ever would.

“I’m going to get him, Ed. It’s almost done,” he whispered before shooting off a text to Griffin.

I love you.

G
RIFFIN
HANDLED
a bout of tears when Sadie realized that the “bye, Momma” game ended with Momma being bye-bye. They sat on the living room floor and played with the box of toys Griffin kept for her; Sadie found a purple stuffed monkey that she immediately began cooing to and petting like it was a baby doll.

“Okay, purple monkey baby makes you happy, which makes me happy,” Griffin murmured, stroking Sadie’s fine dark hair. His phone buzzed, which caught her attention. Griffin pulled Sadie into his lap so he could read his message.

“See? Uncle Jim loves Uncle Griffin,” he said, showing her the screen.

Sadie made the purple monkey kiss the phone, and Griffin’s heart melted.

I have a surprise for you!

He hoped said surprise would push his fiancé a little further down that long hallway toward fatherhood.

J
IM
FELT
amazing. Jim was jazzed and pumped and ready to come home and suck his fiancé’s brains out through his dick.

Twice.

So when he tipped the driver before heading to the front door, there was a spring in his step. Then the door opened and, well….

“Uncle Jim’s home! Hi, Uncle Jim! Sadie’s having a sleepover!” Griffin enthused.

Sadie waved a purple monkey at him.