FADE TO BLACK - Thrilling Romantic Suspense - Book 1 of the BLACK CATS Series (35 page)

She said the words matter-of-factly, as if those occurrences were a regular part of life. For Winnie, they probably had been. At least since she’d married the guy whose head she’d just blown off.

“I went to see him this morning. Doc Taylor.”

“After Stan did that to you?” she asked, easing further into the room.

“Yes.” Winnie looked up, saw her moving closer, and stiffened.

Stacey froze, then spread her fingers wide on the grip of the Glock. She slowly lowered it, sliding it back in its holster, trying to calm the woman down, remain entirely unthreatening. No way was she going to be responsible for a suicide-by-cop. Not in her town. Not with this woman.

“Stacey …” Dean growled in warning.

“It’s okay,” she insisted. She did not, however, move into the line of sight between her two deputies, or Dean, and the armed woman on the couch. She was sympathetic, not stupid. If Winnie lowered the weapon and even came close to pointing it at her, either Dean or Mitch would take the other woman out without hesitation.

“What did the doc say?” she asked, staying a few feet away.

“He said my Lisa had gotten pregnant when she was fifteen. She came to see him.”

Not news to Stacey. But obviously it had been to Lisa’s mother.

“Then he told me Stan had been with her and had offered to pay for an abortion.”

Son of a bitch.

“Doc thought Stan was being a concerned stepfather.” The tears began to roll again. “I knew better right away. He wouldn’t have paid for a gallon of water to douse Lisa if she had been on fire.”

“What did you do?” She edged closer. One single step.

“I came home. Waited.” Her lips curled into a sneer. “He’s been off for a couple of days. People at work thought it was odd that he didn’t seem to want to stay home with me after the news about Lisa got out.”

Another step. Stacey nodded in sympathy, as if the two of them were having a normal conversation. As if Winnie weren’t on the verge of taking her own life and Stacey weren’t desperate to stop her. “What did he say when you confronted him?” she asked.

“He denied it at first. Then claimed she’d been coming on to him and he was just a poor, weak man.”

They had reached critical mass here. Suddenly Stacey realized the implications. If Winnie survived this, anything she said now could prove very important.

“Winnie, I have no doubt Stan beat the daylights out of you and has been for a long time. We’ll take pictures of your face. Doc will testify about the years of abuse I suspect you’ve undergone.”

The woman looked at her like she’d sprouted two heads. “Why should I care?”

Stacey pointed to Lisa’s picture. “Because she would care. She loved you and she wouldn’t want you doing this.” Nor would Lisa want her mother going to prison for the rest of her life for killing the man who’d abused them both for more than a decade. Physically, sexually, emotionally.

Stacey didn’t condone murder. But she could honestly see how someone in Winnie’s position could snap. And she thought a jury would, too.

“She was my beautiful little girl,” the woman whispered, again staring down at the photograph. “I should have been there for her. I didn’t do right by her.”

“Do right by her now. Live to see her killer caught and prosecuted. Stay alive and fight for justice.”

The woman froze.

Sensing she was getting somewhere, Stacey continued. “We’re getting closer to finding him, Winnie. Stan didn’t do it; we ruled him out as a suspect.” That didn’t seem to make much difference to the broken woman, who remained very still, as if she’d already figured that much out. Still, Stacey wasn’t giving up. “I know you want to know who killed her and see him put away to rot in a cell for the rest of his miserable life.”

She doubted the Reaper would rot in jail for long. He’d killed in at least three states with the death penalty.

“There’s a chance we’ll find Lisa’s remains, and I’m sure you’d want to be there to see her properly buried.”

The woman nodded slowly. Stacey sensed Winnie was listening now, really listening, and pushed just a little harder. “Killing yourself means Stan wins and that he destroyed you both. You know that’s the last thing Lisa would want to happen. It’s the last thing
you
want to happen. Don’t give him one more piece of yourself; he took enough while he was alive.”

A tear fell off Winnie’s face, riding the deep lines of sorrow in her cheeks until it dropped onto Lisa’s picture. The sadness rolling off the woman was a physical, tangible thing that filled the room, the house. For a long moment, Stacey thought she’d lost her. Because, really, how could Winnie go on? How had any of the parents of those poor college kids gone on?

Mercifully, she was proved wrong. Finally, after what must have been an eternity of debate in her own head, Winnie slowly—ever so slowly—lowered the gun. And dropped it to the floor.

She was gonna
kill that kid.

Having stood at the edge of the campsite and called for Nicholas for the past ten minutes, Tammy Logan was hanging on to her temper by its very last thread. Nicky had already practically ruined this camping trip by fighting with his future stepbrothers, and she’d had to take him to the parking lot and smack his butt. Was it too much to ask for him to keep his mouth shut and not annoy the older boys? Did he have to constantly tag after them, then complain when they rightfully got mad and shoved him away?

Now he’d gone to the park’s public restroom, promising to be back within ten minutes for the start of their big soon-to-be-a-family cookout. He’d been gone twenty.

“You spoiled brat,” she mumbled.

She’d worked hard to bring her long-term boyfriend, Jerry, around to marriage. They’d gotten engaged a few weeks ago and had decided to take the whole mixed crew on vacation for a trial run. And already, her difficult, eight-year-old son had managed to annoy everyone. Including her. If he didn’t get his scrawny tail back here soon, she was going to see to it that he couldn’t sit down for a week.

“Everything okay?” Jerry asked, walking over to the edge of their campsite after he’d finished firing up the charcoal grill. “Nick’s not back yet?”

She took his arm, rubbing against him. “He’ll be here soon, babe. Just ran to the restroom.”

“You sure you should have let him go alone?” He stared into the woods, frowning.

The cement building that housed the restrooms was only a quarter mile away. Earlier, when it had been fully light, she’d been able to see its outline through the trees. When Nicky had left, it had been light enough for her to see that bright red ninja backpack he wore, which contained all his “guys,” as he called his action figures.

So it was dark now, big honking deal. They were in a national park in western Virginia, for cripes sake, not in inner-city D.C. “He ain’t a baby.”

Jerry rubbed his hand against his stubbled jaw. He might not be the handsomest guy in the world, but he was a nice one, and she was lucky to have him. Not every successful plumber would marry a single mom, a cocktail waitress with a son fathered by an ex-con. He’d been good to her, even trying to make friends with Nicky. And had gotten nothing but lip in response.

“Maybe I should send the boys after him.”

Oh, perfect. His two sons, twelve and thirteen, already hated the kid. If they came back from their football toss down by the lake and found out they had to go hunting for Nicky because he had decided to throw a tantrum and hide, they weren’t going to be very happy. They might complain loudly to their doting dad. Who might change his mind before the wedding.

“Forget it; he’ll come back.”

Jerry shook his head, not convinced. “It’s gotten dark. I think one of us should go look for him.”

“You really want to tromp around the woods when all three of the boys are out of sight?” She rubbed against him, trapping his arm against her full breasts. “You sure you don’t want to make out a little, future hubby?”

Jerry’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Later. Humor me, okay? I’m worried about the boy.”

Tammy almost bit her tongue, the desire to let loose an angry rant nearly overwhelming her good sense. For some reason, her fiancé had taken a real liking to Nick. Who the hell knew why. Did she really want him thinking she wasn’t quality mother material for his own children?

“You’re a good guy,” she whispered, kissing his mouth. “I’ll go find him.”

“We can go together,” he said, lifting her fingers to his mouth. Such a gentleman. And definitely a good guy. Way better than she deserved, and she knew it.

Jerry walked away to grab a flashlight and returned a moment later. Taking her hand again, he led her into the woods, which had been bright and cheerful when they’d set up camp several hours ago. Now they were dense and shadowy, the thick leaves overhead completely blocking out the stars that had begun to pop out in the sky.

Cripes.
Maybe the kid really had gotten lost. She’d told him to take a flashlight, but hadn’t actually checked to make sure he had done it. It had been more like dusk a half hour ago when he’d left. Now the day had quickly dropped straight into night.

“He’s okay, right?” she said, feeling a tingle of concern for the first time.

“I’m sure he’s fine.” But Jerry didn’t sound sure.

“There’s, like, no grizzly bears around here, are there?”

“In Virginia?” He laughed at her. “Not likely.”

Then they walked around the side of the small cement building, and his laughter faded. She followed his stare and saw Nicky’s Orioles ball cap lying on the ground. Beside it was his still-lit flashlight, which was rolling an inch or two at a time, pushed by the nighttime breeze. Nearby was a dark circle, then another.

Oil? It took a second for her to process it. Not oil. As the flashlight rolled another inch, rustling across the dead leaves that had drifted onto the cement walk, it sent light across the stains.

Not black. Red.

Tammy started to scream.

W
hen she had returned
to Hope Valley a little over two years ago, Stacey had felt sure she’d never have to process a murder scene again. She very much wished she’d been right. Dealing with the nightmare that had taken place in the Freeds’ drab little house was something she would happily have foregone.

She had spent the entire evening here, accompanied by the county medical examiner and a crime scene processor from the state. Her own jurisdiction didn’t have the manpower for something like this.

Winnie had been taken to the hospital to be checked out. She’d been making a strange, wheezing sound as she’d breathed, and Stacey suspected Stan had broken a rib or two before she’d taken him out. Stacey would have to head up there in the morning for formal questioning, and to take the woman into custody. But she’d already put a call in to the DA in Front Royal and explained the situation. She doubted Winnie would face murder charges. Maybe involuntary manslaughter, at most. And with the extenuating circumstances, she didn’t see the woman actually serving hard time.

Dean and the other two special agents had offered their assistance in any way possible. She’d refused. They had another job to do, one which she couldn’t help them with right now. For all they knew, the Reaper was already out trolling for his victim.

Or worse, had found him.

They had no time to mess around with a local murder, especially one that had literally been solved as soon as it was reported. The proverbial smoking gun in the hand of the abused wife—it didn’t get much more open-and-shut than that.

So, accompanied by random professionals who showed up as the evening wore on, she did her job, went through all the motions, as familiar with them as if she dealt with such things on a regular basis. What, she wondered, would Dean think about that?

The things he’d said to her at her dad’s place hadn’t left her thoughts, returning to echo in her head at odd times throughout the evening. And part of her, the part that resented the hell out of having to watch blood-spatter evidence being taken and Stan Freed’s brains being scooped up off the floor, wanted to tell him he was wrong.
Wrong
.

Another part had to wonder. While she truly hated that this ugliness had come to the town she’d grown up in, she couldn’t deny that it felt good to be doing real police work again. She was energized, her thoughts sharp and direct in a way they hadn’t been for a long time. All the haziness, the lazy, laid-back attitude she’d had a little more than a week ago, had been eradicated.

That was a bad thing.

So why was she feeling so alive all of a sudden?

“Violent death,” she muttered as she took one last walk through the Freeds’ house late in the night. Such sudden, violent death would make anyone reassess what he was doing.

“I’m done here if you are,” the young crime scene tech said as he packed up his evidence kit. He looked around the room and shook his head. “Somebody’s going to have a hell of a mess to clean up.”

Stacey extended her hand and shook his. “Thanks for all your help.”

“Don’t mention it. Hope this works out the way it should.”

He’d been around for hours and had heard enough to understand the situation. These kinds of things were hard even for law enforcement to deal with. Every cop she knew was committed to stopping, and solving, crimes, but they were also human. Anyone with an ounce of humanity could look at the barely cognizant, badly beaten Winnie Freed and know she wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer.

Desperately wanting to go home and shower, she checked her cell phone as she walked to the car. A blinking signal indicated a message. Dialing, she listened, figuring she’d hear Dean’s voice. Instead, she heard her father’s.

“Stacey, I heard about what happened and I know you’re busy, but …” His voice broke, and she’d swear she heard him sniffling. He’d probably been thinking about poor Winnie and her poor daughter. “I need you to come over as soon as you get this.”

She didn’t like the sound of that.

“And I think you should come alone.”

She definitely didn’t like the sound of that.