Unraveling the Past

Ross lifted his hand, indicating he was leaving. Meade, taking a sip from his take-out cup of coffee, nodded. Sullivan kept her gaze on the ground. With his free hand, Ross pulled his cell phone from his pocket and hit speed dial. Jess’s phone rang. And rang. He tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder and opened his car door, tossed the evidence bag onto the seat.

His call went to voice mail. “It’s me,” he said. “Call me.”

Not that she would. Ever since he’d been granted custody of his niece, she’d been nothing if not steadfast in her determination to do anything and everything in her power to make his life more difficult.

He glanced back at Sullivan. Sort of like someone else he knew.

He just hoped neither one ever figured out what a good job they were doing of it.

He tried the house phone. No answer. Damn it. He needed to get the necklace they’d found near the body—the one piece of concrete evidence they had—back to the station so it could be processed. He could ask Meade to do it. Or, he could bite the bullet and do what he should’ve done in the first place.

“Sullivan?” he called. “Do you have a minute?”

“Can it wait until we get back to the station, Chief?”

Christ, but nothing was easy with her. Not even a simple request. “No, Captain, it can’t.”

Her mouth thinned but after saying something to Meade, she started toward Ross, taking her sweet time getting there. He bit back on his impatience. His edginess. Edginess she caused with her constant antagonism and smart-ass mouth. With her slow, saunter and the determined, confrontational glint in her hazel eyes.

Her dark ponytail swung behind her, the light blue, MPPD-issued windbreaker she’d put on at some point during the past four hours blowing open over her uniform. Showing the sway of her hips, how her breasts bounced under the loose material.

Interest, male and elemental, stirred. He hissed out a breath through his teeth. Shit. He must be more tired than he thought.

“Yes?” she said when she finally reached him, her tone belligerent, dark circles under her eyes.

“Jessica’s not answering her phone.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You let her have her phone back?”

Warmth crawled up his neck. He refused to call it embarrassment. “So I could get ahold of her. Yes.”

“Uh-huh. And how’s that working out for you?”

His jaw tightened. He was tired, cold and hungry. And in no mood to, once again, get into it with his most abrasive officer. “You took her home?”

“As per your orders.”

“And you saw her go inside?”

“No. I pushed her out of the car as I drove past,” Sullivan said dryly. “But don’t worry, I told her to tuck and roll when she hit the ground.” When he just stared, she sighed. “I walked her inside myself. I’m sure she’s fine. She’s probably sleeping it off. Besides, from what I saw, she threw up most of what she’d had to drink. And possibly a kidney.”

He stiffened. “I fail to see the humor in that particular situation.”

Sullivan waved at Meade as the sergeant drove away. “Yeah, well, a sense of humor comes in awfully handy when dealing with teenagers. Keeps you from losing your mind. And it has the added benefit of pissing them off. Win-win.”

He tipped his head side to side but the tension in his neck remained. “All I have to do is talk to Jess and she gets pissed at me.”

Why the hell had he admitted that? He didn’t share his thoughts easily, especially with a subordinate officer. Better to keep work and his personal life separate.

“I realize your shift is over in—” He checked his watch. “Less than five minutes, but I need you to take the evidence to the station to be processed.”

“If you’re really worried about her, I can call a friend of mine who’s an EMT. I’m sure he’d be happy to stop by and check on Jess.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said more gruffly than he intended. “Besides, I’m not worried she’s slipped into an alcohol-induced coma or succumbed to alcohol poisoning. I want to make sure she hasn’t taken off again resulting in me wasting time going after her, not to mention pulling my concentration from this case.”

Like she was doing now.

Sullivan’s mouth turned down. “Wow. That’s really…” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

He almost asked her to finish her sentence. But he could easily guess what she’d been about to say and he didn’t need to hear her low opinion on his guardianship skills. Not when his parents had warned him he’d be in over his head if he took Jessica on.

But she needed him. He had to save her. Somehow.

If he didn’t end up strangling her first.

“After you drop off the evidence,” he told Sullivan, “I’d like you to check the missing persons’ files, see if any are still open.”

She smiled tightly. “And here I thought you’d stick me behind a desk so I could field more questions from the press for the duration of this investigation.”

In Boston, the press meant reporters from various media outlets: TV, newspapers, radio and magazines. All vying for a quote, a new side to the story they could run with, the more sensational the better.

Fortunately the Mystic Times had only sent one reporter out to the quarry last night. And he’d seemed more than happy to hang around all night, flirting with Sullivan instead of digging for information about the human remains found outside of town.

Because the paper went to press shortly after midnight and printed a morning edition, the story wouldn’t break until tomorrow. Although Sullivan had warned him—in her you-don’t-know-anything-about-small-towns-and-don’t-belong-here way—that everyone in Mystic Point would hear about it by lunchtime anyway.

“As I understand it,” he said mildly, “you’ve been MPPD’s liaison to the press and the public since you were first hired.”

She held Ross’s gaze, her hip cocked to the side. “Been studying my personnel records, Chief?”

“Just doing things the way Chief Gorham did them. Isn’t that what you want?” While he paused to let that sink in, her mouth opened. Then shut.

And if the sight of her finally being rendered momentarily speechless gave him a strong sense of satisfaction, no one had to know.

“Okay, you got me. Things weren’t perfect under Chief Gorham. But at least he trusted us to do our jobs.”

Damn, but she was stubborn. And, in this instance, possibly right.

Besides, he’d made his point. No need to drive it home with a hammer over her head.

“Fair enough,” he said, earning himself one of her suspicious glares. “After you drop off the evidence, why don’t you take a few hours, grab a nap and a bite to eat. We’ll meet back at the station at eleven for a debriefing.”

“A debriefing?” Sullivan asked as if Ross had told her to bring a bikini, a case of whipped cream and her handcuffs and meet him at a motel. “What type of debriefing?”

“The kind that will give me a chance to present the facts—as we know them now—about this case to the detective working on it with me.” Now she looked shocked. Good.

“Let me get this straight. You’re putting me on this case?” He nodded. “Why?”

“Because you were right. You should be in charge of it.” He’d let his animosity and irritation toward her goad him into letting his personal feelings dictate his professional decisions.

And personal feelings had no place on the job. Ever.

He leaned into the car, reaching across the seat for the box of plastic gloves. He put one on and straightened, the evidence bag in his other hand. “The sooner we’re on the same page, the sooner we can start investigating who this person was, how she—or he—died and came to be out here. And hopefully this will point us in the right direction.”

This being a tarnished, dirty silver chain that could’ve belonged to anyone, which wasn’t going to make their job any easier. Using his gloved hand, he pulled it from the bag. The charms—three small, intricately scrolled hearts, one in the center of a larger, open heart, the other two on either side—glinted in the sun.

Sullivan made a sound, somewhere between a gasp and a whimper, her hand going to her chest before she lowered it again, her fingers curled into her palm.

“Something wrong?” Ross asked, frowning.

“No.” But her face was white, her voice thin. Uncertain. She cleared her throat. “It just…hit me. What we’re dealing with. We’ve had homicides before, usually related to bar fights or occasionally domestic violence but…” She shook her head slowly. “Nothing like this. Where…where did you say the necklace was found?”

“Close to the skull.”

“But it could be that it doesn’t actually belong to our victim. Maybe the victim stole it or someone lost it. Someone not connected to the victim.”

“Anything’s possible but it’s highly doubtful. Besides, at the moment this—” he dropped the necklace back into the bag before handing it to her “—is our only clue to our victim’s identity. And once we discover who she was, we can focus on finding out who killed her.”

* * *

LAYNE’S HEAD SNAPPED BACK as if Taylor had slapped her. His eyes, always watchful, never missing a freaking beat, narrowed. Studied her. Trying to figure out what she was hiding from him. What she hadn’t told him.

Oh, God.

“You sure you’re all right, Captain?”

“Yeah. Sorry. Just tired. I’ll head back to the station. Get this processed.” And because she didn’t want to sound as if she couldn’t wait to get away from him, she didn’t move. “Unless there was something else you need me to do?”

“No. That should cover it.” He took off the glove and tossed it onto the seat. “If you need me before eleven, call my cell.”

“Yes, sir.” Keeping her stride unhurried, she walked toward her cruiser, her pulse drumming in her ears. She kept the bag pressed against her chest with both hands, the plastic slippery against her damp palms.

“Sullivan?”

Her breath caught. Fear enveloped her, coated her skin in a thin sheen of sweat. She licked her lips and faced him, her eyebrows raised in question.

She prayed he couldn’t see how unsteady her hands were.

He jingled the keys in his hand. “Good job last night.”

The air left her lungs making speech impossible so she nodded. She’d overheard him say the same thing to the other officers who’d worked the scene but having him say it to her stunned her.

Almost as much as it scared her.

She didn’t want to care what he thought of her or how she did her job. Couldn’t afford to change her mind about him. Not now.

She went around to the trunk and pretended to organize the items back there. Chief Taylor sat behind the wheel of his patrol car, his head bent. The engine was running but he didn’t seem in any hurry to leave.

It was all Layne could do not to press herself against his back bumper and start pushing.

Finally, thankfully, he pulled away.

She lurched to the open passenger-side door of her car and collapsed onto the seat. Lowering her head between her knees, she breathed deeply, battling the sense of urgency, of panic spiking in her blood. She squeezed the top of the bag, her nails digging into her palm through the plastic.

Tears blurred her vision but she refused to let them fall. She couldn’t cry, couldn’t afford that weakness or that luxury. She had a case to solve.

Her head still down, she stared at the necklace.

And wished she didn’t recognize it.

CHAPTER THREE

“I DON’T KNOW HOW the Boston P.D. does things,” Ross’s secretary Donna Holliday said in her precise tone, “but in Mystic Point we tend to start our workday at 8:00 a.m. Sharp.”

Ross tucked his cell phone between his ear and shoulder as he climbed out of his car and shut the door. Donna, like the car, the beat-up metal desk in his office and the animosity from his entire department, had come with the police-chief position.

He’d love nothing more than to give all of them back.

“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he told Donna, deciding not to mention how he’d been working all night—which she damn well knew—because she’d probably point out how most of the department had been up all night and were already at work. “Twenty, tops.”

“Better stick with fifteen. Between that body popping up and you busting a kiddie party, we’ve been inundated with calls and visitors. We’ve had everyone from conspiracy theorists who are certain the bones belong to Jimmy Hoffa, to parents calling for your badge for having their little darlings brought home in a police car. And if that’s not enough to light a fire under your rear—”

“As always, I’m astounded by your professionalism,” he said dryly.

“The mayor’s assistant called,” she continued, ignoring him—nothing new there, “to say His Honor will be gracing us with his presence at nine sharp.”

“Fine. Fifteen minutes.”

He ended the call, slid the phone into his pocket and jogged up the steps to the back door, the bushy, overgrown shrubs on either side of the stairs scratching his arms. Inside, he tossed his keys on the counter and headed straight to the refrigerator. Mustard, ketchup, a carton of eggs he didn’t remember buying, milk and leftover pizza from two nights ago. Or was it three?

With a shrug, he pulled out the box, grabbed the slice inside and bit into it. And almost ripped his teeth out in the process. Definitely three nights ago.

He took another bite as he hurried upstairs to his bedroom. Holding the pizza in his mouth, he stripped off his shirt and tossed it toward the open hamper in the corner of the room where it landed on the edge to dangle by a sleeve. He took out the last uniform shirt in his closet and shoved his arms in, leaving it hanging open while he finished his breakfast.

He needed groceries. And to throw a couple of loads of laundry in the washing machine. The yard hadn’t been mowed in two weeks. He threw the pizza crust into the plastic garbage can next to his bed and buttoned his shirt. He’d put them all on his To-Do List, right after Identify Remains, Solve Mystery of Yet Unknown Person’s Death and Straighten Out Rebellious Niece.

At least he could cross one item off this morning—though it was the last thing on the list he wanted to tackle.

Tucking in his shirt, he went out into the hall. Jessica’s bedroom door, as usual, was closed, the whiteboard hanging off it sporting her flowing script in red: Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Ross squeezed the back of his neck. Guess a Keep Out sign would be too subtle.

He knocked. “Jess?” Nothing. No sound of any kind from the room. He tapped his forehead against the door several times. He really didn’t have time for his niece’s games. Lifting his head, he used the side of his fist to pound against the wood. “Jess! Open the door.”

Still nothing. Trying the lock, he raised his eyebrows when it turned easily. As with it usually being closed, the door was also often locked. He opened it wide enough to see inside. Sunlight filtered through the slats of the blinds covering the two windows, illuminating a lump on the single bed.

“Get up,” he said, flipping on the overhead light. Jess stirred then snuggled deeper into her pillow. Ross shoved the door open. It hit the wall with a resounding bang.

Jessica jackknifed into a sitting position with a gasp. Breathing heavily she twisted from side to side as if to locate what had woken her. She shoved her tangled, dirty hair from her eyes and blinked rapidly.

Ross leaned against the doorjamb. “Good morning, sunshine.”

She hit the bed with both hands. “What is wrong with you? Were you raised by psychopaths or something?”

“Is that any way to talk about your papa and Grammy?” And if his active, sixty-year-old mother ever heard him call her Grammy, she’d hit him upside the head with her tennis racket. “It’s time to get up.”

“It’s not even nine!”

“From now on, you’ll be up and out of bed each morning by eight,” he said, kicking clothes out of his way as he crossed the floor to one of the windows. He opened the blinds. “Which shouldn’t be a problem since your new bedtime is 9:00 p.m.”

“You’re kidding,” she said flatly.

“Not even a little.” He opened the second set of blinds and she winced, holding her hands up like some vampire trying to ward off the brightness.

Going by how many times she’d puked last night, she probably had one hell of a hangover. She groaned and flopped back onto the bed, one arm covering her eyes, her face pale. Sweat dotted her upper lip, dampened the hair along her forehead. Sympathy stirred. If he was a good uncle, a more caring guardian, he wouldn’t want her to suffer. Would offer her pain meds to stop the pounding in her head. Ginger ale to soothe the dryness of her mouth and ease the churning in her stomach.

A good uncle wouldn’t think she’d gotten exactly what she deserved for not only disobeying him and breaking the law, but following in her mother’s footsteps.

He stood at the foot of her bed, his hands on the curved wooden footboard. “You have piss-poor decision-making skills, no sense of right and wrong and way too much unstructured free time.”

She lowered the arm from her face. “Go. Away.”

“And while I can’t do anything about the first two, I’m taking control of the third.” He checked his watch, saw he had less than ten minutes to get to the station. If he used his lights and siren, he could make it there in three. “Which is why today you will mow the grass, sweep and mop the kitchen floor and do the laundry. And since all that shouldn’t take long, you can also clean out the garage.”

“Screw you,” she spat. “I’m not your servant.”

“This isn’t about servitude. It’s about taking responsibility and doing your fair share around your home.”

“This isn’t a home. It’s a prison!”

Ross scratched the side of his neck. Sweet God but she was as dramatic and rebellious as her mother had been at that age. And he was as clueless now as he’d been then as an eighteen-year-old watching his kid sister spiral out of control.

“Fine.” You couldn’t argue with certain segments of people. Stoners, sociopaths and teenagers. None of them listened to reason. “It’s a prison. And after today it’s going to be a clean prison with a neatly mowed yard.”

“That’s why you took me in, isn’t it? So you could have someone to clean up after you.”

His jaw tightened. He didn’t expect much from her. Obedience. Respect. Maybe a bit of gratitude for how he’d rearranged his entire life for her.

He’d settle for one out of three, and at this point, he didn’t even care which one it was.

“I took you in,” he pointed out, “because it was the right thing to do. And because you had nowhere else to go.”

Her lower lip trembled. Great. What the hell had he said now?

Before he could figure it out, her mouth flattened and she went back to glaring at him as if she wanted to carve his heart out with a spoon.

“After you’re done with the chores I’ve assigned you,” he said, “you are to spend the afternoon pounding the pavement.”

She pressed both hands against her head. Probably trying to keep it from exploding. “What?”

He headed toward the door. “Get a job.”

She scrambled onto her knees, tugging the material of her oversize T-shirt out from under her. “It’s summer vacation.”

“It’s summer,” he agreed, his hand on the handle as he stood in the doorway, “but vacation time for you is over. Working will help you realize what it’s like out there in the real world. Plus, last night’s little adventure proved how much you need some structure to your life.”

“You should be thanking me instead of being such a di—”

“Careful,” he warned darkly.

“—douche bag,” she spat. Not exactly a term of respect but better than what she’d started to call him. “I found that body,” she pointed out. “If it wasn’t for me, you never would’ve even known it was out there.”

This must be why some animals ate their young. So they didn’t turn into teenagers.

“Part of the reason we moved here was so you could get a fresh start. Instead you snuck out of the house and disobeyed my direct order not to engage in any reckless or criminal activity.” Though his hand tensed on the handle, he kept his voice mild. “But you’re right about one thing. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t know about the body. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be in Boston, not trying so damned hard to make things work for us here.”

She looked so stricken he immediately wished he could take his words back. That he could tell her he didn’t mean them. But while Jessica was rebellious and mouthy, she was also bright and had a way of seeing through people’s bullshit. No way she’d buy an apology from him. One he wasn’t even sure he’d mean.

He cleared his throat. “I’ll be home for dinner at six. Seven,” he amended, figuring he’d have to put in a hellishly long day. “Be here.”

He stepped into the hall and had no sooner closed the door when something hit the other side of it with a loud crash. He tipped his head back and blew out a heavy breath. He didn’t know if he’d ever be able to get through to her. If he’d ever be able to save her from herself.

Some days he wondered why he even bothered trying.

* * *

LAYNE BACKED INTO HER SPOT in the police station’s paved parking lot. She stepped out of her cruiser only to reach back in for her aviators. The dark lenses hiding her eyes, she shut them long enough for the edginess in her stomach to smooth out. For her nerves to calm and her scattered thoughts to settle.

She doubted herself, the decisions she’d made, which she’d never done before. Couldn’t afford to do now. So she stood there, the bright, midmorning sun warming the top of her head as she inhaled deeply, the familiar briny scent of the sea filling her senses. She held her breath. When she exhaled, she opened her eyes and strode toward the entrance as if her moment of weakness had never happened.

She didn’t do weak. She had too many people depending on her. Counting on her to take care of them.

Sure, sometimes she wondered what it would be like to worry only about herself. To put her own needs first without thought or care for anyone else. To be manipulative and selfish and egocentric.

Like her mother.

But she was so much stronger than Valerie Sullivan had ever been. So much better.

And if she kept telling herself that, if she pretended that this morning had never happened, that she’d never seen that necklace, maybe she’d actually start believing it.

For the first time in her life, she had no idea what was real and what was fiction. What if her suspicions were right? What if the past eighteen years were nothing but a lie? Worse, what if she was to blame?

She pressed her lips together and yanked open the door so she could step into the dimly lit, cool hallway. No. It wasn’t her fault. None of it was. The blame lay with one and only one person—Valerie. All Layne had ever done was keep her family from falling apart.

She’d keep doing it. No matter what.

Before turning the corner that would take her to the squad room, Layne stopped long enough to crack the knuckles of each finger then shook her hands out. Her expression composed so none of her doubts, her guilt, showed, she entered the room and went straight to the desk she’d kept despite her promotion a year ago.

Across from her, Jimmy Meade glanced up from where he pecked at the keyboard of his computer. He frowned. “I thought you were going home to get cleaned up.”

“I got sidetracked,” she said, hooking her foot around her chair leg and pulling it out. As she sat, she felt him watching her. “What?”

He leaned back in his chair, linked his hands together on his protruding stomach—now half the size it had been thanks to his wife insisting he cut back on the sweets in case the new chief decided to fire anyone who could no longer fit into their uniform. “You have something on your mind?”

Her throat clogged. Jimmy had always been on her side, from the moment she’d first been hired. One of her uncle Kenny’s old school buddies, he’d kept an eye out for her, mentored her. And she was about to look him in the eye and lie.