“Maybe you can have tomorrow off,” I said as I tucked a dreadlock behind his ear. “How does a three day weekend sound?”
“Yeah?” He looked up at me with his adorable little face.
“Yeah. You’ve earned a holiday.” He hadn’t. He was a few absences away from having to repeat kindergarten. But that was bullshit. He was smarter than all those little assholes making fun of him. And if his principal wanted to try to cross me, I’d pull the crazy card and scare him into agreeing with me.
“Thanks, Mom.” He snuggled back into my arms.
I wished that I could turn back time and name him something different. Something that didn’t rhyme with a hateful word. But children would find a way to be mean no matter what. That was what kids did. Hurt each other with words.
Zeke’s chest started to rise and fall slower. Knowing that he didn’t have to face his enemies tomorrow had put him fast asleep. I blinked away the tears in my eyes. All the thoughts of my ex, handsome detectives, and unregistered handguns disappeared. What was I going to do about Zeke? I needed to figure out something soon before he repeated my mistakes.
Chapter 4
Tucker
“Where the hell have you been?” Damien jogged over to me when I reached the bottom of the hill. “I’ve been running around the woods aimlessly for half an hour looking for you.”
“Sorry, I was…” I glanced back up the hill at the rundown house. I was what? Flirting with an innocent civilian? Not exactly. I hadn’t been flirting. I was simply questioning her. And she definitely wasn’t innocent. That woman was hiding something. I’d bet my badge on it. Not that such a bet would mean much...I was about to lose my badge anyway.
“You were what?” His breath was ragged from running.
I didn’t want to talk to him about the woman I had just met. He’d ask me too many prying questions and joke around about why it took me so long to question her. Besides, she was clearly married. And my number one suspect. I just wasn’t sure why neither fact made her less appealing to me. “Aw, Torres, were you worried about me?” I patted his shoulder and kept walking through the woods.
He caught back up to me. “No. These woods just give me the creeps. And it doesn’t help that there’s an escaped psychopath somewhere in the vicinity. Seriously, don’t take off like that.”
I could have kept teasing him about being worried. But I was glad someone had my back. Because no one else in this town did. “I’ll tell you next time I’m about to follow a lead.” I ducked under a branch.
“A lead? What lead? You weren’t even briefed yet.”
“A neighbor saw the woman who lived in the house run into the woods. I thought I might be able to catch her.”
He tugged the zipper on his coat higher. “No wonder I got the creeps walking out here by myself. One crazy woman on the loose is bad enough. But two? Let’s get the hell out of here.” He picked up his pace.
“What do you mean two? Are there two suspects?”
“Nah, I was just referring to Violet. I’d stay out of these woods due to her alone.”
“Who’s Violet?”
“Sometimes I forget you’re not a local. The crazy woman on the hill.” He gestured behind us.
The crazy woman on the hill? I glanced over my shoulder at the hill, but I could barely see it in the darkness. “You mean the one who lives in that dilapidated house?”
“Don’t tell me you met her?”
“I thought she might be the arsonist. There were footprints leading from the crime scene practically to her doorstep.”
Damien laughed. “She rarely leaves her house. Pretty sure she’s scared of germs or something. She’s a total nut-bag but not an arsonist.”
“Are you sure it’s not the same person? Her hair was wet. Maybe she had just dyed it. She fit Sally’s description otherwise and…”
“Who the hell is Sally?”
“That nosy neighbor at the crime scene.”
He shook his head. “And you believed the observations of a bored housewife?”
“Sally was a very credible source.” She wasn’t. She was exactly how Damien described her, only more of the gossipy variety. She had been fishing for information more than offering anything valuable. I was pretty sure she was already spreading rumors of Benjamin Harlow being a polygamist.
“Well I’m a more credible source than your new friend. And you’re barking up the wrong tree with Violet.”
“But she lied about seeing something. I think if we go back and question her again she’ll…”
“No need. We’re off the case.”
I stopped on the edge of the woods. “What do you mean we’re off the case? I already have a lead.”
Damien kept walking back toward my car. “There are no leads. Not for us anyway. I did what you wanted, we get to go have that drink now.”
“Well undo it. I really think we should go question…”
“Fine. I didn’t technically get us off the case. The captain said we no longer have proper clearance. It turned into some next level shit. The FBI will be here soon.”
Jesus. The FBI? Solving this case wouldn’t just save my career. It would set it on a much better trajectory. We passed the crime scene where the fire was finally being contained. I didn’t want to let this go. I had more questions to ask the cops and neighbors. I scanned the marred yellow caution tape that Sally had been fighting earlier, but she was nowhere in sight. The case had been so easily abandoned by everyone but me.
“Open the damn door, Tucker.” He knocked on the passengers’ side window of my car.
I pulled the keys out of my pocket and unlocked it. Damien had more information than he was letting on. He had been chatting with the captain for as long as I was running around in the woods. He had to have found out a lot about the case before we were called off it. I didn’t have much of a choice but to take him up on his offer of drinks now. I had already cracked this case wide open, I just needed a few more details. The more Damien drank, the more he’d talk.
***
“So you’re scared of Violet because she has obsessive-compulsive disorder?” I asked. Damien was three beers in while I was still nursing my first. It was the perfect time to pry more information out of him.
“I never said that I was scared of her. And I have no idea what her freaking diagnosis is. I said the woods give me the creeps because they're filled with crazy women.”
I should have been getting details about the case. But for some reason my mind had decided to focus on Violet. It had nothing to do with her beauty and everything to do with the fact that she was guilty. At least, that’s what I was telling myself. I needed to know more about her to figure out the perfect plan before showing up on her property again tomorrow morning. “OCD isn’t exactly creepy.”
“It’s not about the OCD. It’s everything else. It’s about the fact that she used to be so normal and then lost her mind and decided to isolate herself from the world.”
I took a sip of my beer and waited for him to continue. I knew that he would. Once he got going on a story it was hard to stop him, even if the story was terribly boring and I desperately wanted it to end. But I was dying to hear more of this one.