Beautifully Damaged (Beautifully Damaged series) by L.A. Fiore (28)

Since I was ordered to rest, I found myself with an abundant amount of time on my hands. When Caroline learned of the attack, she ordered me to take a few weeks off. I thought about working on my book but with everything going on, I just couldn’t concentrate, so I asked Trace and my uncle for copies of the police reports for both Trace’s parents’ murders and my mom’s accident.

As I settled down at the desk, I flipped open the folder on Trace’s parents’ murders. The pictures were really gruesome, the subjects practically unrecognizable. The bodies had been found on the sofa in the living room, which was where Trace remembered his mom to have been that night when he begged her for help.

Another shot was of the kitchen. There were dirty dishes on the counter and used pans on the stove, but it was the bottle of wine that caught my eye: more specifically the two glasses sitting near it. I sat for a good long time staring at that bottle and those glasses. Who the hell was Douglas drinking with? I’d bet the farm it wasn’t Victoria. Was there someone else in the house that night, someone else who witnessed Douglas’s depravity?

Was it Vivian and was it possible that she was the murderer? Vivian was Teresa when my mom was alive, but she died in 1993. Trace’s parents were murdered in 2001, at which time Teresa had already morphed into Vivian, but did she still maintain ties to her past? I flipped through the pages, reading the notes from the lead detective, Vincent Gowen, and found the statements from both Charles and Vivian. They both had alibis for the night of the murders: a charity function where dozens of people had seen them. Okay, so if it wasn’t Vivian in the house, and it was unlikely that Douglas was sharing a romantic evening with the woman he was drugging, then who the hell was in that house?

As I reviewed the file, I realized the autopsy reports were noticeably absent. In fact, there was nothing in the file that definitively identified the victims. That seemed odd to me, but since the bulk of my knowledge came from crime dramas I decided to call my uncle. I reached for my cell phone and hit three; Uncle Josh answered on the second ring.

“Hello, Ember. How are you feeling?”

“I’m good.”

His response was almost inaudible—almost. “Bastard.”

“I’m really okay.”

“Doesn’t make me any less angry.”

“I love you, Uncle Josh.”

“Ah, sweetie, I love you too.”

“I’m calling because I’m reading over the Stanwyck file and there don’t seem to be any autopsy reports. Is that odd?”

“I noticed that too and yes, it is odd.”

“In fact, I haven’t read anything that positively identifies the victims. Even though the bodies were found in the Stanwyck home, it wouldn’t just be assumed it was them, would it?”

“No, and it’s a pretty blatant exclusion, so it was either shoddy police work or…”

“Or what?”

“Or intentional.”

“A cover-up?”

“Maybe. I’m waiting on a call back from the investigator on the case. We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

I planned to interrogate him in person so I let it go.

After I hung up with my uncle I reviewed my mom’s file, but if the Stanwyck file seemed light, this file was almost nonexistent. My mom was walking home from the bus stop, something anyone who knew her would know was her routine, when a car came out of nowhere. It’s believed that she was dead on impact. There were eyewitness accounts, but it happened so quickly that no one got a good look at the driver and only a passing glance at the car, which Trace believed was his dad’s.

I suppose what I didn’t understand was why a man would keep the proof that could link him to a hit-and-run? The receipt to the car repair and the newspaper article were pretty damning. Wouldn’t the motivation be to put as much distance between himself and the crime as possible and not hoard proof that could tie him to it? Unless, of course, he wasn’t hoarding proof, but collecting it to protect his ass from someone.

And it was right on the cusp of that revelation that I made another more glaring one. The cases were believed to be linked through Douglas, but there was someone else, a person who was still alive, who tied the cases together. We were going to need to have another sit-down with Vivian.

I found Trace in the kitchen making dinner. He was standing at the counter chopping onions in that way of his that I found both incredibly skilled and deeply sexy. How out of my head was I for this man that the sight of him chopping vegetables was a turn-on? He looked at me from over his shoulder and smiled.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

“Hi. What are you making?”

“Curried chicken.”

“Something you learned to make from Mrs. Fletcher?”

Surprise flashed across his face before he answered, “Yes, you remember that?”

I walked to him and pressed a kiss on his back before I answered, “I remember everything when it comes to you.”

His hand snaked out and wrapped around my neck to pull me in for a kiss and then I heard the knife hit the counter right before Trace’s other hand reached around my waist and pulled me closer. Chelsea entered the kitchen just as I was about to wrap my arms around his neck.

“Hi.”

Trace’s lips lingered on mine for a moment before he pulled back. I smiled, he grinned, and he pressed a kiss on my forehead before he turned to Chelsea and said, “Hi.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my face into his chest. God, I loved this man.

After dinner, while Trace and I cleaned the dishes, my thoughts kept circling back to Vivian. I didn’t want to believe she was a killer, but, at the same time, she knew more than she was saying. We really needed to talk with her.

“I’d like to meet with Vivian again.”

He looked up from the pot he was cleaning, and I could see the question in his eyes before he asked, “Why?”

“She’s the common denominator in both cases. I think she knows more than she’s saying.”

Trace stopped scrubbing and just looked at me. “What is it you’re trying to learn?”

“I just can’t believe she has no insights from back then. Maybe she doesn’t even know that she’s holding on to vital information. If we get her to talk, maybe something will shake out.”

“You sound like your uncle.”

I guess I did. I held his gaze. “There are too many unanswered questions, too many holes, and though your dad was an animal I think your mom and my mom deserve to have their murders solved. And maybe in the solving of your mom’s death, you’ll find a bit of peace.”

His hands were still soapy when he wrapped them around my face and pulled me in for a kiss that was about more than love and, when his eyes found mine, I felt my knees go weak at the depth of emotion looking back at me.

“No one ever has, or ever will, know me the way you do. You’re inside me.”

I covered his hands with my own. “It’s that way for me too.”