Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) (17 page)

“Shocked?”

“I am.”

“Defensive is more like it.”

“Isn’t that how people normally act when they’re being attacked?”

He squeezed her thigh. “Lace? What are you talking about? How do you know this man?”

Mitch was playing stupid. She’d seen her father work that tactic hundreds of times, and she’d seen the best criminals in Rebel confront him for it.

She barked a hollow laugh. “That night in Charlie’s. You came there to find me. You sought me out. And I let you take me home. How convenient for you.” She slammed her hands into his chest and pushed away to stand, but he wrapped his fingers around her wrists.

“Lacy. What do you mean, came for you?” Capturing both wrists in one hand, he flipped the file open to her kidnapper’s face again. Her heart thumped in her ears. “What do you know about him?”

Lacy shut her eyes, trying to push his image out of her mind, but the picture wouldn’t disappear.

She felt Mitch take a shallow breath, his fingers bit into the skin along her writs. “Did your father tell you about him? Really tell you what a man like Wray is capable of without sugar coating all the gory details.” His eyes narrowed. “Did he tell you what this man is accused of doing to little girls?”

She didn’t answer, her brain stuck on Wray’s fresh image. How could she have been so stupid? A detective? Of course he’d known. He’d hunted her down. Befriended her. Gained her trust.

“Lace, Angel?” Mitch moved his hold up her arms to her shoulders and shook her when she didn’t answer. The strained look on his face came close enough to passing for concern she could almost convince herself he wasn’t playing stupid.

Mitch released her shoulders and paced the room, pinching the bridge of his nose. He picked up the file and dropped it open on the table. He seemed to be changing tactics, playing good cop and bad cop like a one-man debriefing team. “His name’s Richard Wray. He worked as an animal trainer for a traveling circus in the Southeast. On his off nights, he hunted young girls and at times, young women. He promised them free tickets and animal rides to earn their trust.”

Behind tightly shut eyes, Lacy fought the memories. Should she come out and tell him? Was there any use in hiding what he’d eventually find on his own?

Something inside her slammed down. No. She could never tell. Especially not a Nashville detective. They’d throw the chief in jail for obstruction and expose her for the fraud she was.

Tears burned the corners of her eyes, and when she reached to wipe them away, they flooded over her cheeks.

His eyes went dark, and her body chilled. “Wray hid his victims in abandoned buildings,” Mitch went on. “He tied and gagged them. When no one found them, he claimed no one wanted them, and he
loved
them the only way he knew how. To death. He’s a sick son of a bitch who thinks he’s doing the world a service by killing.”

Her stomach twisted so tight, bile leached up her throat. She kept her gaze hard on his. She wouldn’t back down.

“He killed six girls before the FBI caught on to the serial pattern. Six before they figured out his fetish for young and pretty. Every six months or so, like a clock ticking away in his deranged head, he’d live a normal life. Work the fair, pass out tickets, interact without the need to kill, then the time bomb would explode and some innocent little girl would go missing only to end up in a shallow grave days later.

“Everyone thought it was over. He’d killed for the last time, or even better, his last victim had taken him to hell along with her. A year without a killing. Without the loss of a young girl. But we were all wrong. We let our guard down just long enough to let him back in to take another.”

Lacy’s head fell back. A lead ball of guilt rolled down her throat, cutting off the air to her lungs and her ability to speak.

Something sparked in his eyes. Something tormented and deep and agonizing to watch spread across his face. His mouth hardened.

“If you know anything about this case, Lace. Anything. You need to tell me now.”

Steel bands wrapped around her waist, pressing her body against his. She couldn’t take it anymore. She breathed deeply and steeled herself. “I don’t know anything about this man.”

“But you live with cops. You know everything.”

Her resolve began to crack. “I was twelve when the news broke about him around here. Too young to remember anything.”

His gaze softened. “The perfect age to have been one of his victims.”

If he hadn’t been standing so close she was sure she would have hit the floor. She swallowed the guilt and pain and memories of Wray, telling herself she only had to make it through his questioning, then she could break down.

With defiance she wasn’t sure she could hold onto long, she looked into his face. “Well thank God I wasn’t or I’d be dead.”

She didn’t wait for him to move before shoving against his solid chest and pushing her way into the bedroom.

Too afraid Connie would freak at the anger in her voice, she texted her instead and in the mess of sheets and blankets found her discarded closes and pulled them on.

She had to find a way to tell her Dad Mitch was searching for Wray without sending the man into cardiac arrest. He’d done what he’d done for her. Committed a mortal sin to save his daughter, and she’d be damned if he’d suffer one night in jail because of it.

“Give me a second to change, and I’ll take you home.”

“Don’t bother.” Lacy stepped clear of the bedroom door to find Mitch in the exact spot she’d left him, leaning over the kitchen table with a pained expression on his face.

He looked up. His forehead winkled. His eyes red. “You’re not going alone.”

She glared at him. Years of hate for the man who’d kidnapped her fueled enough rage to resent the man bringing her past back to life. “Walking home is safer than going anywhere with you.”

“Fair enough.” Mitch pushed up off the table and strengthened. He towered over her. Easily twice her size and her strength, but with anger burning through her veins, she felt every bit his match tonight. “What about Connie? Can she give you a ride?”

“She didn’t answer her phone.”

He reached in his pocket and retrieved his cell. “A cab then?”

She wanted to break. Wanted to pound her fists into his chest. To scream and yell and unleash the fury he’d created brining up Wray. But, she kept her body still and her voice cold. “I’ll wait outside then.”

Mitch let her pass. She’d let him push her far enough tonight to make two things clear. She knew more about Richard Wray than he did, and she wasn’t giving in to his scare tactics.

She’d just reached for the doorknob when she heard him step forward.

“Angel.” He spoke to her back. “You don’t have to believe me, but before you walk out that door, you have to hear me say it. I didn’t know. Whatever it is you’re fighting so hard to hide from me, I wasn’t taking advantage.”

Lacy let that admission sink into her turned back. Damn he didn’t know. He was a fucking detective. He’d calculated out every step from challenging her at the bar to Stetson’s little tirade to – oh God – her stomach tightened with the thought of what she’d done with him, allowed him to do to her all in the name of trust. He’d made her trust him. Give in. Surrender. What a fucking idiot.

Too angry to just stand any longer, she pushed through the screen door and let it slam behind her. If he had an ounce of chivalry, he’d let her go without following. Thank God he did.

Outside, she paced the narrow gravel driveway, checking her phone every five seconds for a message from Connie and tossing heated looks at the front window.

He wasn’t fooling her. She could see the steam billowing off his coffee cup in the shadows of the heavy drapes. He’d held his phone to his ear long enough to call the cab company, then turned his full attention back to her. Looking for clues she’d been lying to him no doubt.

If he wanted something to watch, damn she’d give him a full show. She cut her gaze up to the window and tracked through the shadows until she found his face. He was watching all right. A bemused grin on his lips around a mug of coffee. She’d wipe that smile right off his lying face.

She stalked toward his bike. The Indian he’d rebuilt with his father, if that story was even true, and gave the back tire a swift kick.

From the window, she watched the coffee mug lower, but he didn’t move.

She hadn’t expected the emotional connection to spark between them, but now, standing with her eyes narrowed on his outline in the window, she had to face the truth. He’d hurt her. She’d let him in past her protective walls with the promise of no commitment. Let him go further than any man…obeyed him for crissakes. Years spent protecting herself, protecting her past, and she’d let Mitch slide right into home plate undetected.

Years spent rebelling against protecting her family with lies now seemed wasted.

That admission fueled another kick at the back tire and another until she wasn’t kicking the bike anymore. She was kicking him.

Before she could stop herself, every emotion she’d held back in the kitchen flooded over. Wray and her father and guilt. The guilt she kept to herself and never showed. The guilt of surviving when all those other girls had died.

She gritted her teeth and took a swing at the leather seat. When that didn’t alleviate the pain, she moved to the front tire and sank the toe of her boot into the rubber hard enough to burse her big toe.

She raised her fist to take another swing, but something warm and hard caught hold before she could drop it on the bike.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Lacy spun to face him. He held her one arm up high over her head and her other at her side. “What does it look like?”

The look in his eyes wasn’t anger. It was concern. Fear.

Something inside her broke, and a small sound escaped her lips even though she was able to hold back the burning tears.

“It looks like you’re assaulting my bike.” He scowled.

Lacy jerked her arm, but his hold on her didn’t break. She stared into his narrowed eyes. “And what are you going to do about it, Detective? Arrest me for assault?”

He tilted his head. “I just might.”

Before she could push the next words from her mouth, he swung her arm behind her back and his other arm behind her legs. Her head spun when he lifted her off the ground and threw her over one shoulder.

With a fist nailed to his back, she protested. “Put me the hell down.”

“No.” His arms wrapped tighter around her flailing legs.

“I’m warning you. I’ll call my father.”

Mitch laughed and took the steps up to the door. “And tell him what? You’re sleeping with the enemy?”

“Asshole,” she yelled, punching into his back and jamming her knees into his chest. Neither seemed to affect him. He strolled in the backdoor and set her down to the couch.

He lowered his face. His gaze zeroed in on hers. “I may be as asshole, but I’m the asshole who can help you. I know pain when I see it, and you’re carrying around plenty. No more games, Lace. How do you know Richard Wray?”

She sucked in a shallow breath, her heart beating wildly in her chest. If he wanted to know the truth, damn him she’d give it to him. All of it. Then they’d see how willing he was to fuck her.

It took every drop of restraint she possessed not to cry. To not seize up and clamp her mouth shut before she could get the truth out. She fisted her hands and let the words fly. “Because, Richard Wray kidnapped me.”

She felt him shudder and loosen his grip. “Lacy... I had no idea…” He trailed off, but she could finish his sentence. She saw him mentally put the missing pieces together behind stoic eyes. He’d made his life around studying Richard Wray and his six victims. He had no idea there had been a seventh who survived.

“Of course you didn’t. For thirteen years my father has kept my name out of the reports. Away from the possibility that Richard Wray would come searching for the one victim that got away.”

He grew thoughtful. “The cover-ups? He’s protecting you. Of course a father would do anything to protect a child.”

The resolve she’d so carefully kept together cracked into millions of sharp shards, each cutting her from within until the pain was so great she couldn’t contain the tears. What was the point of keeping her secret anymore if it meant others would die?

Mitch wrapped her in his arms and sank into the couch beside her.

She let the tears fall, her anger no longer enough to hold them back.

“You said you always keep your promises once,” she spoke against his chest once she caught her breath.

He kissed the crown of her head as an answer.

“Then promise if I tell what happened, it stays between us.”

“You know I can’t make that promise.”

Lacy dipped her head to her hands and wiped at the tears running down her cheeks. “I know. But for the sake of my sanity, tell me you can.”

His tone grew more serious. “Tell me what happened between you and Wray.”

She couldn’t name the feeling, but something told her the only person she truly could trust was the man holding her like she’d break apart if he let go.

Lacy sucked in a stiff breath and let the dam break.

“I didn’t know his name until I was much older, but I remember the day he took me. My mother had always taken me to the carnival on the River Walk for my birthday, but she was too busy. Dad had forbidden us from leaving the house without him because of some big case he was working, but I insisted on going. John was always a sucker for tears, so I cried until he gave in and agreed to go.”

Lacy shuddered and Mitch responded, pulling her tighter into his hold.

“He wore tan overalls like all the other guys working the rides. The first time I saw him, he handed me free tickets. Said someone had dropped them. By the time the fair wrapped up for the night, he’d tracked us down again. He told us he’d lost his puppy and was afraid the dog wouldn’t find his way home before they packed up for the night and moved to a new town.

“John didn’t want to at first, but we split up to search for the dog along the edge of the River Walk.