Held by You (8 page)

Instead, she headed for the closest locksmith. She was going to take care of her problem and there was no stopping her.

* * * * *

John sped toward the scene, his lights flashing and his siren screaming. He needed to focus on the situation ahead of him but he couldn’t help his fury over what Carl Whitfield had done to Hollie. John’s anger was hot and liquid and he had to fight to contain it.

Hollie had looked so pale and fragile, like the wrong words could cause her to shatter. John ground his teeth, wanting to kill Carl with his bare hands.

John was the first to arrive at the house where the sound of gunshots had been reported. It was in a poor neighborhood without a homeowners association, the yard choked with weeds, and a rusted old car up on blocks in the street in front of the house.

Without his partner, John was required to wait for backup. Still, he climbed out of his cruiser, weapon drawn as he eased up the porch to the front door. The stairs creaked but he didn’t hear any noises coming from the house.

When he reached the front door, he listened but still heard nothing. An unmarked vehicle pulled up next to John’s cruiser. Reese and Will Carter. John waited for them to join him on the porch.

When they were in position, John called out, “Police! Open the door!”

Silence followed his shout. He reached out and touched the door, which creaked open without having to turn the knob.

John looked at Reese who nodded. John kicked the door open. “Police! We’re coming in.”

The smell of death hit him the moment he entered the house. John’s gaze swept over the body on the floor, barely acknowledging it as he, Reese, and Carter first cleared room after room. When they determined the house was empty save for the body in the front room, John holstered his weapon and went to the dead man whose face had been blown off.

Carter searched the man’s pockets but didn’t find any ID. The one thing they did find was the tattoo on the side of the man’s neck that told them he belonged to Jesus Perez’s gang.

John dragged his hand down his face. “Too short and too slim to be Jesus. I’d guess this is Bobby Dominguez.”

Reese nodded. “I’d bet you’re right.”

John reported to the dispatcher and it wasn’t long before the coroner and techs arrived and the scene was being processed.

As he walked outside, his cell phone vibrated in his holster. He looked at the number, which looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.

“Lieutenant McBride,” he answered.

“John,” Hollie’s hysterical voice came over the phone. It was a bad connection and he could barely make out what she was saying. “Carl…dead…my gun.”

“Hollie?” he asked. He needed to make sure it was her since the connection was so bad.

“Yes.” She sounded as though she was choked with fear and hysteria. “Carl. He’s dead.”

His gut tightened. “Where are you?”

“Home,” she said with a sob.

“I’m on my way.” He started to say something else but the connection cut out and then she was gone.

* * * * *

Hollie was covered with blood. Carl’s blood. She barely realized she was clenching her pearl-handled pistol and couldn’t stop staring at his body and the pool of blood congealing beside him, and the smears across the floor. His sightless eyes stared at the ceiling.

She backed away from his body and against the wall. She slid down the wall and landed on the floor, never taking her eyes off of Carl. What had been Carl. The man who had backhanded her last night would never strike her again.

Her mind spun as she tried to grasp onto some form of reality. She finally looked away from his body and stared at the gun in her hand. It was covered with her bloody fingerprints. It wasn’t a heavy weapon but right now it felt like a lead weight. Yet she couldn’t drop it, couldn’t let it go.

The horror filling her was like nothing she’d ever experienced before. Her mind was reeling, so much emotion that had bottled up inside her suddenly coming out in a scream as she stared at her bloody hands. Blood had soaked the cuffs of her sweater and there were smears across the front and on her jeans.

Everything was a blur and she couldn’t think straight. Nothing made sense. What had happened?

She heard the sound of sirens but couldn’t get herself to move. All she could do was look from the gun to Carl’s body and back to the gun again.

The sounds of tires crunching on rocks in the driveway let her know that the police or sheriff’s department had arrived. Probably the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Department but maybe John. She had somehow managed to call John and he’d probably called the sheriff since they would have jurisdiction outside the city limits. John’s business card lay on the floor beside her, a red thumbprint on the front of the card. She looked at her phone also lying on the floor and the bloody prints on the keypad.

Next thing she knew there was a banging at the door and she startled. Someone called out “Sheriff” and “We’re coming in.” Yet she didn’t move. Couldn’t move. All she could do was sit there.

A crash and the door burst open. Sheriff’s deputies poured into the room.

One of them spotted her and pointed his weapon at her. “Put down the gun. Nice and slow.”

She met his gaze. Frozen for a moment, unable to process what he was saying. All she could see now was the barrel that was aimed at her.

“Put down the weapon,” he said again. “Now.”

The pistol slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. The deputy kicked it away from her and he lowered his weapon. “I need you to stand and come with me.”

Dully, she stared at the officer and then noticed John behind the deputy.

When she saw him, she wanted to run to his arms and let him hold her and hope that he would never let her go.

“Hold on.” John spoke to the deputy as he moved around the younger man. “I know Hollie.”

The deputy frowned and looked like he was going to say something, but John moved past him. John was in uniform, wearing his badge.

“What happened, Hollie?” John said as he crouched beside her. “Is this Carl’s blood on you?”

Slowly she nodded, her back still against the wall. “He was dying and I tried to stop the blood flow.” Her voice sounded weak to her own ears. “But it was too much. There was so much blood… And I—I was too late to save him.”

John rested his hand on her shoulder. “Did you shoot Carl?”

“What?” She looked at him, startled. “No. I would never shoot anyone.”

“You were holding a weapon and it was pointed at the victim,” the deputy interjected. “You’re covered in blood and you’re pretty beat up.”

“It’s my gun.” Hollie gingerly touched her black eye with her fingertips as she turned her gaze from John to the deputy. “The pistol was lying in the foyer when I got home and walked in the front door. I didn’t know how it got there, so I picked it up.” She looked back at John. “I walked into the living room and saw Carl lying there…and the blood… God, there’s so much blood…” She drifted off, still unable to process everything.

“Then what happened?” John prompted.

“He groaned and he looked at me, and he asked for help.” Her throat worked as she swallowed. “I went to him and tried to stop the blood from leaking out of him.” She shook her head. “Then Carl just died. Before I could do anything, he died.”

“You said you just got home.” John’s features were unreadable. “Did you see anyone? Did you pass anyone on the road on your way home?”

“No one.” She shook her head again. “Carl was the only one here and I didn’t see any other vehicles once I got off the highway and turned onto the road to the ranch.”

“What about on the highway?” John asked. “Did you notice any vehicles coming from the direction of your ranch?”

She strained to remember but nothing would come to her. “Maybe. I don’t remember much that happened before I got here.”

“Who gave you the black eye and split lip?” the deputy asked.

“Carl did.” Hollie’s throat felt raw as she spoke. “When I got home last night, close to midnight.”

The deputy gestured to Carl’s body. “Did you give him those scratches on his arm?”

She looked confused and turned her gaze on the body. “Yes.” She looked back at the deputy. “When he hit me I started to fall and scratched him when I was catching myself.”

“Did you kill him in retaliation for hitting you?” the deputy asked.

“I didn’t kill him.” Shuddering, Hollie rubbed her arms with her palms, feeling unbelievably cold. She started shivering violently.

“She’s going into shock.” John looked at the deputy. “She needs a blanket.”

The deputy didn’t move but called out to someone to bring a blanket. Hollie continued to shiver, feeling as if all the blood had drained from her body, just like Carl’s blood had poured out of him. She barely felt the blanket that someone draped over her shoulders and arms. In her daze, she realized it was John.

“Sheriff McBride,” the deputy said, his voice sounding far away.

Hollie and John looked up. John nodded to the sheriff, his brother, before turning his attention back to Hollie.

“We’re interviewing a possible suspect,” the deputy was saying to Sheriff Mike McBride. “Hollie Simmons, the victim’s stepsister.”

Suspect?
Hollie blinked and looked at the deputy. With incredulity she said, “You really think I killed my stepbrother?”

John turned his gaze on the deputy, his eyes narrowed. He said something in a low, hard voice to the deputy, but Hollie was in too much of a daze to grasp the words.

The deputy looked angry and the sheriff stepped in. “I’ll take care of this, Deputy Schmidt.”

Schmidt steeled his expression, gave the sheriff a nod, and turned away.

“Tell me what happened,” Mike said as he crouched beside John. Even though she was still in a kind of fog, Hollie found it easy to see the striking resemblance between the brothers, but there were differences. The main one was that John seemed more hardened and weathered than Mike did.

Hollie repeated the story to Mike. She found strength in John’s presence as she spoke. She clenched her fingers when she told him about trying to stop the blood flow and realized that John was holding her hand, even though it was coated in dried blood. Mike asked her about her bruised and swollen face, and she explained that, too.

“Was anyone else here when Carl Whitfield struck you?” Mike asked.

“Freddy Victors was.” She felt a wave of heat wash over her as she remembered the things Freddy had said to her. “He threatened me sexually.”

John’s hand tightened around hers so hard she winced.

“Carl also destroyed your property?” Mike asked.

She nodded. “He trashed the house from top to bottom. Destroyed so many of my things.”

Mike glanced around. “You say it happened last night?”

“I spent hours cleaning it up,” Hollie said. “I didn’t stop until I finished, which was after dawn.”

“Is the debris in the garbage from your home?” Mike asked.

She looked at him, puzzled. “Yes.”

“You said the gun is yours,” Mike said. “It’s registered to you?” When she nodded he said, “How did it come to be in the foyer?”

“I don’t know.” She hesitated. “Last night when I got home, Carl and Freddy had torn the place apart, looking for money. They found my mother’s music box in my bedroom, beneath a floorboard where I’d kept it safe for years.” She let out her breath. “I kept my pistol in there, too. When I went to check to see if the pistol was still there, I found that it was gone. Carl must have stolen it when he took the music box.”

When she finished giving him all of the information she could, Mike called to a forensic tech to test her hands for what he referred to as GSR, gunshot residue. The tech’s face remained impassive but he said something low to Mike who nodded. The tech also did something to her fingernails, checking beneath them.

After the tech finished, she said, “Can I please clean up?” She looked down at her bloody clothing. “I need to take a shower.”

“We’re going to need your clothes,” Mike said.

“Why?” She looked at him in confusion.

Mike gave a nod in the direction of Carl’s body. “To compare DNA from what’s on your clothing to the victim’s and to check for gunshot residue.”

“I already told you it’s his blood,” she told him. “And you can’t possibly find residue when I didn’t fire the gun.” But when his expression didn’t change, she said, “I’ll go clean up in my room and put on other clothes.”

John stood and held out his hand to her. “I’ll go with you.”

Hollie took his hand and let him help pull her to her feet.

“I’m going to have Deputy Betty Turner join you,” Mike said. “We need a female in with Ms. Simmons.”

Hollie started to ask why but clamped her mouth shut and led John and Deputy Turner up to her bedroom.

John frowned as he studied Hollie who sat half in/half out of Mike’s sheriff’s department SUV. Her feet rested on the running board, her purse in her lap. Deputy Turner had already searched the purse to make sure she wasn’t carrying a weapon or anything else that might be deemed dangerous. Mike would take her in for questioning in a matter of moments.

Seeing her battered face caused anger to burn within him, no matter that Carl was dead.

She had cleaned up, her light brown hair pulled back in a ponytail and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. The bruises and her split lip were dark against her pale skin and her eyes were a little glassy, dazed. She had put on fresh jeans, a turtleneck sweater, sturdy shoes, and was wearing a jacket with a woolen scarf to keep her warm. Her hands were stuffed in her jacket pockets.

He crouched in front of her, no one else nearby, as he tried to form the right words. “One of the last things you said to me about what Carl had done to you was ‘I’m taking care of it,’” he said.

Her eyes widened and she looked at him. “You think I did it? That I killed Carl because he hit me?”

“No.” He shook his head. “But if you said that to anyone else, it wouldn’t be good for you, Hollie.”

“I didn’t say it to anyone but you.” She touched her fingers to her bruised eye. “I’m sure of it. I hated Carl for what he did to me, for everything he’s done to me, but I would never kill him.”