CHAPTER 14
When Brooke finally made it home, she was bleary-eyed from looking at endless photos on a computer screen. She parked in her driveway and jogged through the drizzle to her neighbor’s door on the other side of the duplex. Their landlord had agreed to meet the locksmith for Brooke and leave the new key with Leila, but he was adding the charges to next month’s rent.
Leila answered the door with a smile on her face and a glass of wine in her hand. Her smile dropped as she took in Brooke’s bedraggled appearance.
“What happened to you?”
“Long day.”
“Well, I just opened a bottle of Chianti if you want to come in.”
“Thanks, but what I really need is a hot shower.”
“Okay, one sec. Your key’s in the kitchen.”
Brooke waited, shivering, on the porch, and Leila returned with a shiny set of keys.
“Here you go.”
“Thanks. And thanks for dealing with Kopcek. How was he?”
Leila rolled her eyes. “An ass pain, as usual. He noticed the cat food on my porch and pitched a fit.”
“Damn. Sorry to call him over here.”
“No biggie. That locksmith guy was hot, so I didn’t mind.” Leila winked. “I might have to lock myself out of my car next week.”
“Sounds fun.”
“If you change your mind about the wine, you know where to find me.”
“Thanks.”
Brooke let herself in using her new key. She closed the door and locked it behind her with a smooth snick. Then she looked around, noticing bits of sawdust on the floor. She glanced at the coffee table. No beer bottle this time.
Brooke pulled off her damp sweater, stripping down to a black tank top. She tossed the sweater on top of an overflowing laundry basket. She didn’t have the energy to think about chores tonight. Tugging her ponytail loose, she headed through the kitchen and into the utility room. She tested the new key and peered through the window, surveying the shadowy yard for a moment before closing the blinds.
Standing in the cool darkness, Brooke was reminded of the crime scene from a few days ago. Five days. So much had happened since then. It seemed like ages since she’d been on her knees in that utility room, surrounded by the stench of blood and fighting off nausea as she fingerprinted the doorknob only inches away from a woman’s butchered body.
Some guys are allergic to rejection.
A chill went through her as she remembered Sean’s words.
Over the years Brooke had worked hundreds of crime scenes. Some mundane. Some gut-wrenching. Samantha’s stood out because of the sheer emotion Brooke had felt just being there. Even on her second visit twenty-four hours later, she’d felt it. That crime was about rage, pure and simple. The motive might still be fuzzy, but the emotion behind it was crystal clear, at least to Brooke.
She stepped to the sink to wash her hands and glimpsed her reflection in the kitchen window. She looked shell-shocked, which shouldn’t have surprised her because she’d been shot at tonight.
Shot at.
Recounting the details to the first responder and then to Jasper, Brooke had felt detached, as though she were reporting something that happened to someone else. But now that she was in her own home, surrounded by familiar sights and smells, she didn’t feel detached at all. She felt an overwhelming sadness for her family over what had almost happened. Brooke knew better than most how guns could rip apart lives in only an instant. She’d seen the gurneys and heard the wailing mothers, and she was acutely aware of the stark finality of death.
Don’t go there. It didn’t happen.
Brooke grabbed a dish towel to dry her face and saw that her hands still had a tremor.
The doorbell chimed, and she turned around. She hesitated a moment, then crossed the house to check the peephole. Relief flooded her at the sight of Sean’s broad-shouldered silhouette on her porch. She flipped on the outdoor light and opened the door.
“Hi.” His gaze went to her bandaged elbow. “Can I come in?”
She stepped back to let him inside. His hair and his jacket were wet with rain, and he dripped water on her floor, just as he had the other night.
He closed the door behind him and gave her a long look before taking her hand and lifting it to brush a kiss over her knuckles. The unexpected gesture sparked a firestorm of nerves inside her.
“Come here.” He pulled her against his chest and wrapped his arms around her. His leather jacket felt damp and cold, and she rested her cheek against the warm flannel of his shirt.
He kissed the top of her head.
“What’s this for?” Her voice was muffled, but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away from him. He smelled way too good.
“This is what I should have done earlier instead of standing there arguing with you.”
She took a deep breath, absorbing his scent, his strength. She loved the way his arms felt around her.
“Tell me the truth. Are you all right?”
“Better.” She didn’t say fine this time because that would have been a lie. That shooting had shaken her to the core.
She pulled back and looked up at him. “How are you?”
“Tired. How’s the dog bite?”
“All bandaged and disinfected. It’s no big deal.”
Sean didn’t look as if he believed her.
“Where are Cameron and his mom?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“ ‘Somewhere’?”
He looked at her for a moment before answering. “My sister’s an ER nurse in Austin. She helped me get them settled at a shelter up there. They’ll be fine for a night or two until we sort this out.”
Brooke felt relieved, but not completely. Who knew how long it might take to “sort this out,” as he put it? They couldn’t stay at a shelter forever.
“We need to talk, Brooke.”
She tensed. “About what?”
“Matt Jorgensen.”
She sighed and looked away. “I don’t want to talk about him tonight.”
“This can’t wait.”
“What happened to Sean Byrne, King of Patience?”
He rested his hand on her shoulder. “As the guy who wants to date you? I can give you all the time you want. As the cop investigating a shooting in which you could have been killed—”
“I wasn’t the target.”
“We don’t know that. And until we do, I need every scrap of relevant info. So, I’m sorry, time’s up. We’re going to talk about this.”
His voice was all-business, and she knew it would be pointless to argue.
She pulled back from him. “Fine.”
“Fine.” He gazed down at her. “You eaten yet?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
After a halfhearted debate, they decided on a diner near the university. The ride there was silent and strained, and Brooke spent most of it staring out the window of Sean’s truck at the rain-soaked streets. When they arrived, he asked for a corner booth where they’d be able to talk with some measure of privacy.
Brooke scooted in first, and Sean slid around until he was right beside her. Before she’d left the house, she’d pulled a thick sweatshirt over her tank top, both to ward off the chill and to keep Sean from staring at her bandaged elbow.
A young waitress stopped by and asked for their order.
“I’ll have a milk shake,” Brooke said. “Double chocolate.”
Sean looked at her, then glanced at the server. “Make it two.”
When the waitress disappeared, Sean leaned back and rested his arm on the back of the booth. “Ice cream for dinner?”
She shrugged. “Comfort food. It’s been a crap day.”
His brow furrowed, and she wished she hadn’t reminded him. He looked all serious now, and she glanced away, bracing herself for an interrogation. Nothing about this felt like a conversation between friends, and it wasn’t.
As the guy who wants to date you . . .
Was that truly what he wanted? She’d known he wanted something from her, but she’d thought it had more to do with sex. Was that a line, or was he sincere? Maybe she was being overly skeptical, but that was how she was now—always second-guessing her instincts and questioning her judgment when it came to men.
Sean was watching her closely, and she resisted the urge to squirm in her seat.
“So, what did you want to ask me?”
“Let’s start with the vehicle. At the station you identified the truck as a ’95 Chevy Silverado, all-black.”
“That’s right.”
“Are you sure about the age on that?”
“It’s an estimate. Give or take a few years.”
“Only a few?”
She huffed out a breath. “What are you getting at?”
“Jorgensen drives a black pickup.”
“I know what his truck looks like. He drives an F-250. That’s not the truck I saw today.”
Sean just looked at her.
“I told you, it wasn’t Matt. He’d never do something like this.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I know, all right?” Her chest tightened. “I was with him for two years. We didn’t exactly break up on good terms, but he wouldn’t try to gun me down in the street, for God’s sake. He’s not capable of that.”
“What’s he capable of?”
Sean watched her, his expression unreadable. This was his cop face, and again she felt like she was in an interrogation. She looked away from him. A tear leaked out, and she brushed it away.
“I’m sorry we have to talk about this,” he said quietly.
“It’s fine. Let’s just get it over with. What do you want to know?”
“Why did you guys break up?”
She took a deep breath. “I didn’t like our pattern.”
“So, you’re the one who ended it?”
“Yes.”
“Were you living together?”
“No, thank God. That would have been harder.” She sighed. “He wanted me to move in with him, but I never felt good about it. I don’t know. I’d lived with someone once before, and it didn’t work out, and I didn’t want to go through all that again.”
“You said you didn’t like your pattern.”
Sean watched her, waiting for her to elaborate. He was looking so closely, picking up every nuance of her body language. He was good at reading people, and he’d know if she tried to sugarcoat anything, so she might as well tell him the truth.
“He had a temper.” She cleared her throat. “He would yell. Throw things. Get up in my face. He wasn’t like that at first. I don’t know what happened, really, but it changed.”
She looked at her hands and tried to collect her thoughts as all the old feelings came back. “Stuff would escalate, and my reaction only made things worse.”
“What was your reaction?”
She paused to try to describe the utter calm that would settle over her. “It wasn’t a conscious thing, really. It was just what I did. He would get louder and more pissed off and all red in the face, and I would go completely calm. I wouldn’t say a word or react or anything. It used to drive him crazy.”
“You were in control and he wasn’t.”
“I don’t know. Probably.” She glanced up at Sean, then looked down at her hands. “There was this one time, we were at the yogurt shop down the street from my house. We got in an argument over something stupid and he was being unreasonable. So I rolled my eyes and walked away from him. That set him off. He followed me down the sidewalk and started shoving me from behind, saying he wasn’t done talking to me. He kept shoving me and shoving me, and I kept walking faster and faster so I wouldn’t trip. And every jab was like a shock because I couldn’t believe he was making this scene in public.”
She glanced up, Sean’s face was tight.
“We got to my house, and I told him to go home and cool off. I told him if he ever touched me like that again, our relationship was over.”
“Did he leave?”
“He got in his truck and peeled off. And that was it. The next day he came over and acted like everything was fine. And it was for a while.”
The waitress appeared with two tall shakes topped with whipped cream. Brooke stirred hers with the straw and took a sip to cool her throat.
“Then a few months later it started up again. He’d been working all these weekends. Midnight callouts. He was under a lot of stress at work.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“I know.” She glanced at Sean. “Finally, one Saturday we both had the afternoon off, so we went to the river where some of his friends were hanging out at the sand volleyball court. You know the one by the campground?”
Sean nodded.
“So, we were standing beside the court, and it was the same old same old. We got in a disagreement about something minor. I told him he was wrong, and he picked up this big bottle of water and poured it over my head.” She remembered the icy liquid trickling down her neck and her back. She remembered her face heating. She’d been so stunned, and she’d wanted to disappear. “I mean, it was water. The most harmless thing in the world.”
Sean was looking at her now, his gaze intent.
“I was so shocked I just stood there. And I realized this was it. This was the end. He wanted to humiliate me in public and he did.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. I laughed it off. I acted like it was a joke. But inside I knew that was it for me. It was only going to get worse.”
She took a sip of her shake, letting the cold soothe her nerves. Sean still hadn’t touched his.
“We finished the afternoon with everyone. Went home. I told him I was tired, so he could just drop me off. I think he knew something was up, but he went along with it. The next day I called him and told him I wanted a break. I didn’t have the guts to tell him in person. I wasn’t sure how he’d react.”
“What did he do?”
“We talked in circles for a while. He told me I was being unreasonable. Overreacting. He told me I didn’t understand the stress he was under at work. Whatever. I’ve got work stress, too. And I deal with cops all the time, so I know what the job’s like. Yeah, it’s stressful, but that doesn’t give you a pass to treat people like shit.”
She took a deep breath. “So, that’s it. The whole crappy story. Aren’t you glad you asked?” Another tear leaked out and she swiped it away. “I don’t know why I’m like this. I’m not sorry it’s over or anything. My instincts told me it was going to get worse, not better, so I know I did the right thing, even though it’s been bumpy.”
“Define ‘bumpy.’ ” She didn’t miss the edge in his voice.
“Everything you’d expect. He came over drunk a few times. I pretended I wasn’t home. We’ve had some heated phone calls. He followed me around some.”
Sean’s gaze narrowed. “He followed you?”
“He’s not doing it anymore. I haven’t had a conversation with him in two months.”
Sean was watching her closely, but she couldn’t tell what was going on in his mind. She decided to omit the part about the spying app on her phone. Alex had removed it, and Brooke didn’t want Sean to know she’d been gullible enough to miss something like that. She’d agreed to talk, but that didn’t mean she had to share every unflattering detail.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I’m glad you told me.”
“That’s not all you’re thinking. What else?”
He put his hand over hers, and the warmth of it made her feel a pang of yearning.
She pulled her hand away and rested it in her lap. “Matt has plenty of flaws. I’ll be the first to tell you that. But you should trust me when I say he’s not capable of that shooting today.”
“You’d be surprised what people are capable of.”
“He’s been in law enforcement six years, Sean. He does good things, and he’s a volunteer firefighter. He’s got third-degree burns on his arms from rescuing a little girl from a house fire. I’m not defending everything about him, but that shooting? You’re wasting your time looking at him for that. That’s linked to Samantha Bonner’s murder somehow. I know it is. That’s the avenue you should be pursuing.”
“We are.” Sean pulled his shake toward him and finally took a sip, downing a third of it in one gulp.
“And?”
“And, as much as I hate to admit it, the drive-by reinforces my lieutenant’s theory that this whole thing is drug related.”
“What about the theory that someone’s gunning down an eyewitness to a murder?”
“If the target was Cameron? Yes, that makes sense. If the target was Kaitlyn, maybe not.”
“It was Cameron.”
The waitress was back with the check. Sean grabbed it. Brooke tried to leave money, but he waved her off. “No way. This was my idea.”
They left the diner in silence, but it was a different kind of silence from before. Brooke felt relieved. Lighter. Like two heavy sandbags had been lifted off her shoulders.
Sean opened the passenger door for her, and she slid into the truck. He stood beside her for a moment.
“What?” she asked. “What’s that look?”
He leaned in and kissed her. It was soft and sweet, and completely opposite of their other kisses, where she’d felt like he wanted to eat her alive.
He leaned his forehead against hers. “You amaze me.”
“Why?”
“Everything.”
“Right.”
He pulled back and shook his head, as if he didn’t want to bother arguing. He eased her door shut and then went around to his side and slid behind the wheel. She watched him as he fired up the truck and smoothly backed out of the space.
He was so strong, so confident all the time. She felt strong, too, whenever she was around him. Right now, for instance. At this moment she felt full and energized—as though sharing her experience with him had taken some of its power away.
It started to rain again as they exited the parking lot, and Sean switched on the wipers.
“So, where to?” He glanced at her. “You want to go home yet?”
“That depends.” She looked at him.
“On?”
Her stomach did a nervous dance, but she ignored it. “Does your offer still stand?”
He stared straight ahead as they neared a stoplight. The truck was quiet—just the swoosh-swoosh of the wiper blades as they rolled to a halt.
He looked at her. “My offer?”
“I’d like to go to your place.”