Beth Andrews - Unraveling the Past

“Hey now—”

“And have generally been nothing but a pain in my ass.” How he kept any and all emotion from his voice, she had no idea. But she almost respected him for his control. Almost. “Now, you can continue along that path and force me to take action. Or you can accept that I’m now in charge and start working with me. So, no, I’m not making threats against your job.” He tipped his head close to hers, his breath caressing her cheek. “I’m giving you the choice of what happens next.”

* * *

BY 5:00 A.M., ROSS’S EYES were gritty, his fingers tingling with cold and his head aching. He walked toward his cruiser, the rising sun’s rays reflecting off the large rocks surrounding the water, turning the sky pink and gold. The damp air smelled of burned wood and dirt.

Once the forensics unit from the state had arrived on scene around 2:00 a.m., Ross had coordinated the search for more remains. It hadn’t taken long and by three, they’d found badly decomposed bones near the area where Jess had discovered the skull.

Now, the remains were on their way to the state’s lab for testing while Campbell and Patrick Forbes, one of the department’s part-time officers, packed up the spotlights. Sergeant James Meade, a middle-aged man with thinning hair and a perpetual jovial expression that hid what Ross had already deduced was a keen cop’s mind, stood talking with Sullivan by the still-smoldering ashes of last night’s fire.

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.