OBSESSION (The Bening Files (Novella) Book 4) (2 page)

Like pitch the phone into the bushes surrounding Gamegon’s building. Or into the dumpster twenty feet beyond where they stood. She tightened her fingers around it. If it wouldn’t contaminate possible evidence, she’d consider it.

“Get off my crime scene, Dillon.”

“This is my property.” His back straightened. “And a woman was murdered here. A homeless woman.”

Charleen sucked in what she hoped was a discreet breath. “How do you know she was homeless?”

His eyebrows crinkled together. He gestured toward the body donned in rag-tag clothing. “Seems pretty obvious.”

And welcome to part of the nightmare. “You know how odd that sounds, right? You making assumptions about a woman you don’t even know. I guess we better pack up, guys.” She spun toward the CSU team, who eyed her as if she belonged anywhere but here. “She was obviously homeless. No need to make a fuss.” Then she turned back toward him. “Or maybe you’d like it to be that simple.” An excuse for his fingerprints on scene.

He stuffed one hand in his pocket. “I don’t have anything to hide.”

“I’m sure you and your pain-in-the-butt attitude have more pressing matters inside the building. You know, rotting children’s brains with nonsensical video games.” She signaled the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Crime Scene Unit, thankful she didn’t have to give much direction. The team knew how many pictures to take, what evidence to collect and who to keep off scene.

Amanda had and could work off of less, whether she was ready to or not.

Which was perfect, because Charleen’s stomach gurgled like a clogged up sink full of gunk looking for a bubbling release. The last thing she needed was Rupert Dillon witnessing a spectacularly disgusting show of stomach contents. Followed by the inevitable question that had no answer.

Why are you a cop?

A few more minutes and she’d be free.

Until the next body showed up. The next scene. The next…

“Where are you going?”

The open menace in his voice made her stop. She shouldn’t have. She didn’t owe him anything. And she certainly wasn’t afraid of him. Her heart was jangling against her ribcage for a different reason altogether.

Breathe. It’s not a big deal.

She turned back. Expected to find him in the same spot. Instead, he was at her side, towering over her in a way that should have sent irritation slicing through her body. The kind that left people with the imprint of knuckles and her in a heap of trouble.

Get in. Get out.

Too bad all her nerve endings were already alive with simmering emotion. It made the swirling storm in her stomach tick up ten notches. Sent her heart skyrocketing for some unknown object.

Rupert reached toward her. The shift in the air around them made all the hair on her body stand on end.

Nope. Not happening.

As if she hadn’t noticed his seemingly platonic gesture, she stepped away. Hoped her actions portrayed that the route had been her intention all along. “I’ve got a job to do. I suggest going back to—what was it you said you were doing when you found this woman?”

“Taking out the trash.” His jaw flexed. His eyes glittered.

The answer was quick. Even more so than the first time. He didn’t make eye contact. And all sorts of red flags were waving. Too bad she couldn’t tell if they were related to this scene or something else.

There’d been no nearby trash bag. No scuff marks or blood on his clothing, indicating he’d rushed to this woman’s aid or tried to determine if she was alive or dead. No scratches on his face. And yet something wasn’t ringing true.

She doubted the CEO of a multi-million-dollar gaming corporation took the time to help the cleaning crew.

She swallowed back a heavy dose of bile and resisted the urge to lie down and curl in a ball. “Why don’t you tell me what you were really doing back here?”

CHAPTER TWO

DOING THE RIGHT thing had never felt so wrong.

Last week had been easier. The week before that, even, where the number of days wasn’t important to the process, or pivotal in healing. Just had a make-it-through-until-tomorrow type of attitude that worked well.

Until it didn’t.

Amanda Nettles, now Robinson—a last name she was still getting used to with only thirty days of actual use under her belt—gripped a travel mug of steaming coffee between her palms. She stared at the red-brick building in front of them without actually seeing it. Instead, a dry-erase board she’d tacked to the refrigerator, in their spacious kitchen, floated into her mind.

No. It wasn’t
their
kitchen. Not technically. It only came with the teenager they’d—well, it came with Paige and a slew of other things no one wanted to discuss. In the light of day or the wee hours of the morning.

Especially the wee hours.

In her mind, doctor’s appointments mingled with a summer-school schedule and landed on the date she’d circled in red, sometime last week. Was it Monday? Tuesday? Somewhere in her idiotic brain, she’d thought the two-dimensional shape might alleviate the heavy cloud riding above the Robinson household. That organization might take a storm, worse than a category five hurricane gaining speed over a large, warm body of water, and help it dissipate.

It was a mistake. The looming red shape. The stark white calendar. Not evacuating when hints of the figurative atmospheric phenomenon had first hit the news.

The quiet teenager standing next to her, in front of Rosedale Junior High, was proof of it. The tense conditions permeated the house they had no right staying in. The foreign surroundings once owned by now deceased people meant so much to her niece and yet hurt her at the same time. Because those people—a loving mother and father—were gone.

The poor kid was stuck with Amanda and Robinson, who were as adequate parents as a duck was to a bear cub. At least, she was. Robinson on the other hand…

Better figure it out.

Amanda’s gaze strayed to the ever-present private security detail a few paces behind them, and to the person dressed in rags a block down the street. Unnatural stillness emanated from the woman covered by a dirty sweatshirt and torn jeans. At least, from the small stature and curves, Amanda guessed a female resided beneath the clothing. She sat against a storefront.

Even in the sweltering morning temps, a hood covered long, stringy blonde hair and shielded her face. Was she asleep?

And since when had one of Charlotte’s northern school districts started having loitering issues? The campus police were usually on top of those things. Today, there was no one in sight.

One problem at a time.

The words came to her in Robinson’s deep voice, meant to be soothing, but his frustration was evident in the syllables spoken in the dead of night. A giant King Kong in their lives. Everybody saw the dangers. Big guy. Little city. Giant toddler tantrum.

Nobody was talking about it.

Beside her, Paige shifted her backpack and tucked a strand of long brown hair behind one ear. She stared straight ahead, as if the building were shifting toward them in some sort of horrific Halloween spook. Dark circles rimmed her brown eyes, courtesy of nightmares Amanda was powerless against.

How did she convince Paige the images weren’t real, but a by-product of surviving trauma? In the daylight there was a fifty-fifty shot. Three a.m. was a different monster altogether, where the near-wordlessness of the teenager was anything but okay.

You’re okay. You’re safe.

She could only repeat the phrases so many times before they sounded like lies. The kid was safe, but okay? Well, that remained a far-off dream.

“You have everything?”

“Yup.” The response was automatic and left little room for a reply.

Amanda rubbed a clammy hand down her slacks. Tried not to let annoyance crawl up her back and take root in her spine. She wasn’t that out of touch that she didn’t know what interested teenagers anymore, right? She didn’t have a problem connecting with Robinson’s niece, so what was the deal here?

“I’ll be back at three thirty.”

“I know.” The teen’s hand glided over a sequined maternity top that did nothing to hide her protruding stomach.

Amanda bit back a barrage of anxiety-inducing questions. If Paige was having contractions she would have said something.

She hoped.

Any and all inquiries were likely to be followed by more one-syllable replies, leaving Amanda’s ineptitude pretty obvious in the wake. Bring in the blue and red flashing lights. Adoption process terminated. Take a seat with the kids in the system and age out because a guardian sucked the big one.

The thought sliced pain through her heart. “Hey…” She placed a hand on Paige’s shoulder. The muscles beneath her palm bunched as if the girl fought the instinct to pull away from a flaming inferno. Paige’s entire body stiffened.

Amanda removed her hand. Bit back an apology. Been there, done that. Lesson learned.

Paige fiddled with her backpack as if her reaction had been an issue of bag placement and not something deeper.

Do something.

“From there, you’ll cart me off to another doctor’s appointment.” Paige’s voice rang clear. Warm amber eyes the exact same shade as Amanda’s found hers and latched on. “And if I’m lucky, it will be with the OB who will prod my lady parts and tell me to take it easy or I’ll have to spend the rest of this pregnancy on bed rest, instead of the therapist who tries to pull a rabbit from the hat of my mind.”

A swallow of coffee flew into Amanda’s lungs. She brought the back of her hand to her mouth, worked to remove the liquid from the area without falling over due to lack of oxygen.

“I can carry on a normal conversation, Amanda. I understand the therapist. There’s not much to say.”

Was this out-of-left-field moment real? Because every other day had been such a short send off, she imagined she looked like a spinning cartoon as Paige whizzed by in an effort to avoid all contact. She couldn’t say she blamed the kid. Parentless to an extent. Saddled with a family—namely Amanda—that tied her to events no one wanted to remember.

So, my biological mom was a hard-core criminal who got my adopted family killed. Fan-freakin-tastic.

“You could try actually talking to her. About anything.”

The conversation didn’t need to start with the harrowing events of her captivity. It only needed to start.

The teen rolled her eyes. “So she can write little notes on a legal pad about how much damage has been done to my psyche? Will nurture or nature win? Tune in next week.” Blank boredom crossed her features. “Pass.”

Nurture would win. It already had. For Paige. For Amanda. “Knowing where you’ve come from doesn’t mean you’re going to end up on the same path.”

Paige folded her arms above her stomach and turned back toward the school. “You do realize that’s all the shrink has asked me about? What I think about a birth mother I don’t know. Wouldn’t care to know if she were still alive.” She heaved in a deep breath, then pressed her lips together.

“I think there’s plenty to say. Maybe it’s more that there’s nothing
you think you
should
say.” The words escaped from Amanda before she could stop them.

The girl remained quiet.

And that annoyance was quickly turning to frustration at her shortcomings. How had her parents done foster care for years? Taken in children and dealt with issues so complex? If Paige didn’t talk to the woman or to anyone…

Sometimes, when we give the child some time and space, they open up.

The therapist turned magician—they were going to have a serious discussion about Paige’s sessions—had said the words as if it happened all the time. As if she and Robinson had some type of rapport with Paige, one a parent who’d raised her from infancy might have. A foundation on which to build.

There was no baseline. No
before.
Just here and now. A place where comparing nature versus nurture simply didn’t matter, because choices emerged without any type of guarantee. And promises skittered out of reach, fulfillment a faraway dream.

Time and space and patience all sounded like a
good luck, Chuck,
wrapped in beautiful paper in order to hide the very ugly truth. Things were going to get worse before they got better.

That was a mouthful no one wanted to hear, let alone utter. It meant Amanda was failing in the most basic way. Because making that uphill climb wasn’t a trip she had control over.

It was in the hands of a thirteen-year-old.

Yup. Last week had been easier.

From the corner of her eye, she noted the shift of their security detail.

“If you and Robbie would teach me more self-defense, I wouldn’t need that guy.” One fisted hand, thumb out, flew toward the spot Kevin Gates currently stood, black suit sans a tie. His feet were braced shoulder width apart, his hands clasped in front of him as if guarding the presidential family. Dark shades completed the picture.

He was an eyesore. The kind you wanted around. At least for the time being. And if Amanda had her way, he’d be camped out 24/7, but
somebody
had pointed out the folly in that.