Guilty as Sin (10 page)

Kate’s expression softened a bit, as though she picked up on his discomfort. “Having worked to raise money to pay people like you, I appreciate you donating your time. Plus, it’s good to have someone familiar with the family and the situation on board, so thank you.” This time Tommy could tell Kate wasn’t just paying lip service. He didn’t know if it was CJ’s endorsement or if she’d just resigned herself that he would be working closely with her until they found Tricia.

All he knew was that tentative smile of hers gave him that same twisty feeling in his gut he’d gotten the first time he’d noticed it that summer fourteen years ago.

“No problem,” he said gruffly, and focused his attention back on his computer.

An electronic trill rang through the air. CJ pulled his phone out of his pocket and scowled at the screen. “Time to
pick up Travis. The sitter can’t be at my place until four—I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Take your time,” Kate called.

She made a
tsk
ing sound as the door closed behind him. “So sad about Kelly,” she said. “She was so young. And his poor nephew.”

A little over a year ago, CJ’s older sister, Kelly, was killed in a hit and run by a drunk driver, leaving her eight-year-old son behind.

“CJ’s taking good care of him,” Tommy said.

“He had to give up so much,” Kate said. “His career with the FBI, his life in Denver. One day you’re a single guy, the next day you’re a single father—”

The admiration in her voice raised his hackles. “If you’re looking to take on the role of Mrs. Sheriff Kovac, get in line. Every single woman—and some married ones—under the age of fifty has her eye on CJ.”

“So when you cast them off, you send them his way?” she said wryly.

“Oh, they don’t sniff around me too much,” he replied, unable to keep the sly grin off his face. “I’m too mean.”

Kate settled back in her chair in front of her own laptop, but she couldn’t keep her lips from quirking up at the corner. “Only because you want them to think so. I remember how sweet you can really be.”

“Don’t kid yourself that you know me anymore,” he said, too harshly, but Kate’s little smile and the misty look in her eyes summoned his own memories of that summer. Memories he’d shoved down deep and had no interest in dredging up. “Anything soft, or sweet, or nice about me disappeared when your father did his damnedest to ruin my life.”

Her cheeks flooded with color and, just like that, the fragile connection was gone.
Good.

Kate was a colleague, an ally in the quest to get Tricia home safe. Tommy couldn’t afford to see her as anything more.

And if that were true, he’d get up right now, head back to his home office, and churn through the data on Tricia’s hard drive in peace and quiet. Isolated from the distractions of the sound of her slim body shifting in her chair, the sound of her delicate fingers tapping on the keyboard, the way the fragrance of her shampoo drifted over on the breeze when she ran her fingers through the red-gold strands of her hair.

Instead he stayed exactly where he was, unable to make himself leave.

K
ate almost jumped out of her chair in delight when the door swung open about fifteen minutes after CJ left. She didn’t care who it was. After sitting in uncomfortable silence with Tommy, she would welcome any distraction. She looked up to see a young man who could have been anywhere from his late teens to his early twenties. “Are you here to volunteer?” she asked after he stood silent for several seconds, looking uncertain.

“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” he said. “My name’s Ben, Ben Kortlang,” he said as though she might recognize the name.

After a few seconds she did. From the police report CJ had forwarded to her. “You were with Brooke the night Tricia went missing.”

“I feel awful,” Ben said, the words pouring out of him now that Kate had acknowledged his involvement. “When Brooke told her to leave, I should have driven her home. But I was already buzzed,” he admitted sheepishly. “And then Brooke and I—well, she… you know,” he said, his cheeks reddening as he trailed off.

“We can fill in the blanks,” Tommy said.

“And Brooke is so… Well, I really like her and… I kind of forgot all about Tricia until the next day when I heard she didn’t make it home.”

Kate could understand the distraction. Combine raging adolescent hormones and the fact that—from what Kate had seen in the pictures anyway—Brooke was a seventeen-year-old knockout, she could see how Ben would be quickly distracted.

And as she took in Ben’s rangy form, sun-streaked brown hair, and green eyes, she could see how a girl like Brooke might find him equally distracting.

“And now Brooke won’t talk to me. I’ve called her like twenty times and texted her a bunch of times, but she doesn’t answer. It’s so messed up. I feel bad and all—I know I should have walked Tricia home if I couldn’t drive, but Brooke’s treating me like somehow it’s my fault.”

Kate could feel Tommy’s gaze burning a hole in the back of her neck. “I’m sure she doesn’t blame you,” she said, her throat tightening as she forced the reassuring words out of her mouth. “I haven’t talked to her myself, but I imagine she’s struggling with her own feelings of guilt right now, and it’s probably really hard for her to face anyone or anything that has to do with that night.”

Ben shoved his hands into the pockets of his cargo shorts and looked down at his brown-and-white skater sneakers. “Yeah, that’s what Mr. Fuller said when he answered her phone.”

“It was nice of Jackson to give you an update,” Tommy said. “At least you know he doesn’t blame you too. That’s a heavy burden when you’re already carrying plenty of your own guilt.”

Ben looked curiously between the two of them, aware as Kate was that Tommy’s words weren’t meant expressly for him. “Right. Well, when I saw the news that you were looking for volunteers I figured I should come down, do whatever I can to help.”

“Once the flyers get here, we’ll need help distributing them around town—” Just then the door opened, and Kate saw a female figure balancing a large box. Backlit by the afternoon sunlight, the woman’s features were obscured as she stepped over the threshold.

Kate felt her smile slip as she recognized the woman.

“Mom,” Tommy said sharply. “What are you doing here?”

“I brought the flyers,” she said, raising the box in front of her as though the answer was obvious. “I ran into Sherry on her way over here, and since I was heading here anyway, I told her I’d take them for her.” She set the box down on a table and turned to Tommy. “Stop glowering at me and give me a hug.”

Kate couldn’t help smiling at the way Tommy rolled his eyes as he heaved himself to his feet and walked over to his mother. Despite his reluctance, there was no mistaking the genuine warmth as he embraced her. No matter what he said or how he felt about Kate, the warmth and sweetness were still in there somewhere.

Tommy’s mother returned his firm squeeze and stepped back. Though she must have been in her late fifties, Sylvia Ibarra’s shoulder-length hair was barely streaked with gray, and though the lines around her eyes and mouth had deepened, with her warm brown eyes and bright smile, she was still a lovely woman. Dressed in knee-length shorts, a short-sleeve striped T-shirt, and woven leather sandals, she was tall, fit, and ready to take on the world with the energy of a woman half her age. Kate couldn’t help but compare her to her own mother, who, from the time of Michael’s death, had seemed to shrivel more and more each year.

One day Kate expected to hear that her mother’s assistant had gone to wake her and found a grasshopper in bed instead, like that obscure Greek myth.

“Hello, Ben,” Sylvia said. “I won’t ask you if you’re having a good summer, given the circumstances,” she said after the young man returned her greeting.

“No, ma’am,” he replied solemnly.

Kate braced herself as Sylvia turned her attention on her.

But instead of the expected animosity, Kate read only friendliness, mixed with a bit of sadness in the older woman’s eyes. “Kate,” she said softly. “You’re looking well. Of course, I know from TV you’ve only grown more beautiful, but really, the cameras don’t do you justice.”

Kate thanked her and rose to greet her properly. To Kate’s surprise, rather than taking her proffered hand, Tommy’s mother pulled her into a hug so warm it brought tears to her eyes, enveloping her in the scents of clean laundry and fresh-baked cookies. “I never did get to say goodbye to you properly after everything that happened,” Sylvia said, when she finally broke the embrace.

Kate stepped back, sniffing back tears as discreetly as she could. “I would have expected you to greet me with a slap in the face.”

Sylvia shook her head and made a disdainful sniffing sound. “What happened wasn’t your doing,” she said, arching a dark eyebrow at her son. Her dark gaze turned back to Kate. “Just as what happened to your brother wasn’t yours, no matter what your father said.”

Just like that, all the guilt and grief Kate worked so hard to keep at bay came surging to the forefront. If her emotions had a color, they would be bilious green, pumping through her bloodstream, gnawing at her guts, poisoning her with their toxins.

“I—” Kate struggled to draw breath, much less form a reply.

Sylvia patted her gently on the arm, “It’s okay, dear, of course we don’t have to talk about it. I just wanted to say my
piece, clear the air first thing. Ah, there’s my book club,” she said, smiling and gesturing to whoever was outside. “I called everyone and told them to come as soon as I saw the press conference.” Kate gathered her composure as Sylvia introduced the half a dozen middle-age women who had come down to volunteer.

She brought Sylvia and two of her friends up to speed on working the tip line, explaining what questions needed to be asked and how to log calls.

She dispatched the rest along with Ben to paper the town with flyers, then set to work setting up a bulletin board with a map of the area so they could pinpoint any sightings called in. As the afternoon progressed, a few dozen more volunteers arrived, and soon Kate had enough people signed up to cover the tip lines twenty-four hours a day for the next week.

Kate prayed that they would have answers by then. In her experience with missing person cases, after the initial burst of enthusiasm from the volunteers, interest in the case waned after a couple of weeks. Kate hardly faulted them. They had their own lives to lead and their own families to tend to.

Only the families of the victims, the ones dealing with the constant, agonizing pain of wondering where their child was and if he or she was safe, could muster the dogged determination to keep the mission going until they had answers. For better or worse.

Right now she had to channel all of the local enthusiasm into getting as much information as quickly as possible.

“What’s out here?” Kate asked the owner of the hardware store, pointing at the map to one of the many roads leading away from the lake and up into the mountains.

“That’s a forest road that connects with Route 2. A few people have seasonal cabins out that way, but it’s pretty thinly populated.”

“No stores, gas stations?”

A thickly muscled arm reached past hers. “There’s the Gas and Go about ten miles in—right about here,” Tommy said, tapping a spot on the map with the blunt tip of one long finger.

Since Kate had thrown herself in with the volunteers, she’d managed to keep her awareness of Tommy at a level where she could still function. Now just the sound of his voice was enough to send a curl of heat down her spine—forget the fact that he was standing close enough that she had only to lean back and she’d be nestled against the hard wall of his chest.

“Along with hitting everything along the major trucking and bus routes in a fifty-mile radius,” she said, trying to move away from Tommy quickly without being conspicuous about it, “we also need to plaster all the smaller local places.”

Tommy went back to his computer while Kate began assigning the different routes to the waiting volunteers. Satisfied that the phones were covered by the remaining people, Kate gathered up a stack of flyers and planned to go out herself. Not only were they short on drivers, Kate was still keenly, inappropriately aware of Tommy sitting across the room, her senses still addled from the experience of having him standing beside her, close enough she could feel the heat of his body radiating off him and pick up the scent of laundry soap mixed with the unique musk of his skin.

“Wait,” Tommy said as she reached for her purse. “I think I found something.”

Kate’s protest died in her throat as she hurried to stand behind Tommy, whose heavy brow was knitted into a fierce look of concentration as he studied his computer screen.

She leaned in, squinting a little as she focused in on what she quickly realized was a chatroom dialogue.

“This wasn’t just deleted, it was shredded,” Tommy said.

That meant that Tricia hadn’t wanted to risk the logs being found if someone wanted to restore her deleted files. It was something she meant to keep well hidden.

When can we actually meet IRL?
the person with the handle RJRED asked.

My dad has us at this stupid place in Idaho
, Tricia with the handle TRIFULL97 replied.