Holding the Truth Read online

  No cop was going to ever be good enough for his baby.

  He wanted her with Bert’s son. A nice, benign librarian. It would make up for so many of Lou’s sins, and she would have a ready-made family to love her.

  Not this sheriff. Not him.

  Lou watched the window for hours. But no one appeared in front of it again.

  Chapter 55

  Clay worked long into the night. They had two dead women, who’d been in the ground probably longer than Bailey had been alive.

  Now they had another dead woman. Who was less than a week dead.

  But there was a possible connection. Clay strongly suspected it.

  Now he just had to prove it.

  Even with the time gap between this recent body and the two before, women all matching the same victimology didn’t get killed in Barratt County without there being some kind of connection.

  He glanced at the clock; it was going on three thirty. He looked at the couch. She'd flipped over, knocking the blanket off. Of course, she'd been flipping and flopping for the last hour. It didn't surprise him.

  Bailey rarely stopped moving. A wire of energy ran through her most of the time.

  But when she whimpered, his head jerked back in her direction. When she let out a deep, piercing scream, he jumped from his chair. Before she could have everyone else in the building running in there. She’d be mortified.

  He knelt beside her and pulled her close before she could fall off the couch and hurt herself. The look in her eyes told him every bit of the horror she'd seen in her dreams.

  "Daddy! Don't let him kill us! Don’t leave us down here!"

  "Bailey! Look at me, honey. Just look at me." He reached over her head and snapped on the small lamp next to the couch.

  Blue eyes so full of terror latched on to his. Her hands grabbed his shirt and clung.

  Reason slid into those eyes slowly. Then embarrassment. Shame.

  "Ah, honey, don't look at me like that. You’re safe. It's ok now."

  "Is it? I feel like an idiot. And my father's still out there. Sometimes...sometimes I think he's still watching. Waiting." The last came on a whisper that broke Clay's very soul. Then she stiffened in his arms. One small hand came up between them. She looked around, orienting herself. "How did I get over here?"

  "I moved you here a few hours ago. It's about three."

  "You moved me? Why?"

  "Hell, Bailey, I couldn't leave you there like that. And you needed to sleep." He tried to back away, to put some distance between them, but he couldn't force his body to move. "You have nightmares like this a lot?"

  She stared at him for a long while. "Why? Going to use it to kick me off the force?"

  "Hell, no. But I'd like to help. We all have nightmares in this job." And the idea of this woman being plagued by fears was a knife right through him.

  She was shaking. For a moment, he was afraid she was going to fall completely apart. But Bailey was stronger than that. Far, far stronger. She pulled in a deep breath and straightened. One small hand landed on his thigh; she used the position to push herself upright the rest of the way.

  He grunted and grabbed that offending hand. "A little too close there, honey."

  Bailey's eyes widened, and her lips rounded into an adorable O. "I—I'm sorry."

  Her embarrassment was so damned palpable it pissed him off. Hadn't she realized? Surely she had. A guy's body did certain things when around the woman he wanted. And Bailey had to know he wanted her. “You ok?”

  She shook her head. "I'm ok. I...need to go home."

  No. He finally let go of her hand. "It's forty miles away. And you're back on at nine. It would be after four before you even made it home. Stay right where you're at tonight. I'll head out after a bit. You just stay on the couch. I'll rest easier, knowing you're here. Safe." His knees were starting to cramp, where he knelt next to the damned couch. But Clay stayed where he was.

  Bailey just stared at him, her eyes wide and soft in a way he wasn't used to seeing. He had to do something. Clay grabbed the blanket before he grabbed her. He tucked it around her shoulders. And fought the urge to let his hands linger. "Stay here tonight. I'll call Jake in the morning. He can grab anything you need then."

  Chapter 56

  Clay was gone when she woke on the couch the next morning. Bailey checked her watch quickly. It had been a gift from Kyra and Cam on the date she’d been released from the hospital. Kyra had inscribed the back of it with a quote about women who survived.

  Bailey’s last watch had been cut from her body during surgery. Her hand had been so swollen from the rocks that the watch had been cutting off her circulation. The watch had meant something to Kyra, but Bailey had never asked. Just said yes when her friend asked if she could have it. That watch had kept them both sane down there in the darkness.

  She liked this watch much better.

  Now it was telling her she had fifteen minutes to get up and grab a shower downstairs in the basement before Jeremy and the rest of her fellow deputies arrived. There was a note on the table by the couch, and she easily recognized Clay’s masculine scrawl.

  He’d be back by eight thirty.

  Just that.

  At least there wasn’t a green-eyed man there staring at her as she woke. She was grateful for small favors.

  Clay had left all the crime-scene photos pinned to the board. Bailey stepped closer while folding the blanket she’d used the night before neatly.

  The couch had smelled like Clay. It hadn’t been overpowering. But enough that he had slipped into her dreams in the early morning hours. In ways he hadn’t before.

  It was time she admitted to herself that it was more than just him being the sheriff and so anti-Bailey that had her so unsettled around him.

  It was attraction. Bone deep, down in the soul, can’t shake it no matter how hard she tried attraction.

  Something about that cranky, people-avoidant loner of a man appealed to her on a base level.

  He was just as much a distraction for her, and she apparently was for him.

  And probably for the exact same reason.

  Clay wanted her. Why hadn’t she seen it before?

  Had it been from the very beginning? Or was it something new?

  Her gaze landed on the photos of the latest victim. Then shifted to the composite sketches the forensic artist friend of Cam’s had made for them to use temporarily.

  They did look alike.

  Kevin Beck had provided more than four dozen other photos for them. Some of those were headshots from old drivers’ license photos.

  None of their victims had been extremely attractive women, but none had been exactly plain either. They would blend in to a crowd probably. Much like Bailey always had—by choice. She’d chosen to not stand out because she’d spent her childhood trying to live down her father’s notoriety.

  But someone had noticed these women.

  Someone entered the office, and she turned. Clay. His eyes showed his exhaustion, but he was showered and shaved and dressed in what she’d privately dubbed his ‘going-to-court’ clothes. They made his shoulders look broader and his chest stronger and his eyes...greener.

  She felt like three-day old bread crumbs at the moment.

  Bailey hadn’t even brushed her teeth yet. “Not exactly attractive.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Bailey covered by turning back and looking at the photos. “The women. They’re not overly attractive women. At least not outwardly.”

  “No. They weren’t.”

  “But they weren’t plain.” Bailey stared at the woman who had been Kevin’s first victim. “It’s more that they—”

  “Didn’t stand out. I know. It occurred to me, too.”

  “So how did our killer get to them? Were any of Kevin’s victims involved with someone at the time of their deaths?”

  Clay shook his head. “Not that I can recall seeing in the files.”

  “I’m not
a profiler, Clay, but I know where we can find some.”

  “I don’t think we need a profiler to figure this out.” Clay stepped up behind her. “He lured them, most likely romantically.”

  “There were no defensive marks. But half had signs of sexual activity. The other half were too degraded to tell.” If all of the cases before them were connected, then they had twelve victims. One serial killer. It was hard to miss that what they had met the definition of a possible serial killer. “And there were no drugs in their systems.”

  Clay grimaced. “So they most likely went with him—willingly.”

  Bailey shivered and pushed the tangled hair off her forehead. “That tells us something, at least. He appears nonthreatening. He’s probably reasonably charming. Or he knows how to talk to people, to convince them to do what he wants.”

  “Or he has a way of getting these women alone. Then he takes them to his killing ground. So why does he dump them where he does?” Clay had coffee in his hands. He passed one cup to her. Bailey took it gratefully.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have to testify this afternoon. When I get back, we’ll go to the dump sites, one by one. See what we can find.”

  Bailey barely heard him, her focus on the photos. “Were they sex workers, Clay?”

  “The possibility was mentioned, but no one confirmed. Kevin followed up on that lead, but was pulled off for some reason.”

  “I can think of a few.” Mostly that some of the corruption issues within the TSP had focused on the sex trade. Bailey wasn’t stupid. She understood what that meant. “It makes sense. Only our most recent victim had drugs in her system—and they most likely were self-ingested. But what if the others went with him willingly because they were used to high-risk behaviors like getting into vehicles or private places with men they didn’t know? I don’t think this killer is stupid. Cold, ruthless, pathological. But not stupid. These women...no one really missed them. It almost didn’t matter to those around that they’d disappeared at all.”

  “I know. Follow that angle up today. Call some of the witnesses and family members. Make a list of who seems willing to talk. I should be back by the end of the shift. Hopefully.”

  Bailey just nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Chapter 57

  Bailey pulled in a deep breath as she spread files from all three crime scenes, including this new one, over the battered brown table that served as the conference area of the precinct. She needed to see if she could somehow connect all three scenes in some way. Without grasping at straws.

  Clay had pulled her and Jeremy off patrol duty right after the massive pile-up—not that Bailey had spent much time patrolling lately—to work exclusively on the murders.

  Bailey knew why he’d picked her. Forensics. That’s what it boiled down to. That’s really all they were going to have to go on. Still.

  Witness statements were next to nil. Especially on this latest victim. She was still unidentified.

  He was using her.

  Finally.

  Bailey felt useful again. Exhausted, but useful. She took a moment and called Jake to tell him she wouldn’t be home, that she and Clay were hitting this one around the clock. Now.

  Jake told her to be careful and watch her back. And Clay’s. He understood, even without her having to say it, how she was feeling.

  He might not know the details of what they were doing—or he might, considering that the Sandovals were good friends of his—but he was supportive.

  Someone had to be missing these women. Or they had at one point. Twenty to thirty years without someone was a long time. Did they think their loved one, mother, sister, daughter, friend, had just left them?

  Hadn’t cared enough to stick around?

  Bailey understood those feelings. She’d spent years not really understanding why her father had made the choices he did—and resenting her mother for being gone all the time. Sometimes her mother had worked three jobs just to pay for necessities.

  It had taken Bailey a while to understand. By the time she had, her mother was almost gone.

  Cancer had taken her when Bailey had been barely twenty-one.

  All those wasted years would weigh on Bailey forever.

  She flipped to the first autopsy report. It was dated twenty-five years ago—almost to the date. The woman was old enough to have been a mother several times over. Someone was missing her. They had to be.

  But other than the plastic cling wrap and a generic physical description, they didn’t have much to go on.

  They didn’t even have an idea of what she looked like.

  Something tickled the back of her mind, and she flipped open her phone. Cam. Cam had mentioned having a friend in St. Louis who used computer technology and old-fashioned sketching to make forensic composites of what skulls might look like.

  It was worth a shot.

  **

  When Clay walked in, Bailey was on her cell, deep in conversation. He stayed silent, waiting for her to finish.

  She had everything spread out over the table in neat rows. She pointed to a stack of manila files. His copies.

  Bailey was very detail oriented and had apparently prepped ahead. He nodded and grabbed the files.

  They were pitifully thin. Clay sat the bags of hot food on the table away from her reports and picked up the first stack.

  Except for the ones from Kevin Beck. He was going to have to call the man—he’d actually worked with Kevin Beck several times during his early years in the TSP when he’d been assigned to Finley Creek himself—and get Kevin to come in for a consult.

  He had Bailey’s notes from when she’d spoken to the older man, but it wouldn’t hurt to hit him up with a fresher case now.

  Clay wasn’t going to turn away any possibilities at this point.

  She finished her conversation and then looked at him. “I spoke with Cam Lake. He has a friend in St. Louis who is willing to make a quick composite for us on the first victim. Her skull was intact. All I need to do is call the Finley Creek ME and have her scan the skull with a 3D scanner and take some measurements. They have a machine there that will help do that. The artist can actually get us a sketch to use sometime today. It’ll be rough, and not one percent exact, but we can use it to compare with missing persons. She’ll get us another, more thorough sketch sometime next week.”

  He was impressed. Irritated that she’d involved the FBI, but impressed. “It’s not too much trouble for Lake, is it?”

  He didn’t exactly like the guy, but something had shifted between him and the other man when Cam’s fiancée Kyra had been missing. With Bailey.

  And Cam had been the one to see Bailey laying in the desert. If he hadn’t...

  Clay would have missed her that day. He had no doubt about it.

  He would always be in Cam’s debt for that.

  “Cam says it’s no problem. He’s coming down later tonight, anyway. After Kyra gets off work. He said he’ll bring the initial sketch personally. So I don’t have to wait.”

  “Good.” Although the man could have faxed or emailed it. That was one benefit of technology, after all.

  “They were flying down for the weekend, anyway. This saves us some time.”

  “I know. Here.” He reached for the smaller bag. “Dinner. Eat. Every bit of it. You’re going to need it. I don’t plan to stop until we have a general idea of what we’re facing here. And when we’re finished with the food, we’re moving into my office. No one but you and I will be allowed in there.”

  She goggled at him as she took the bag. “Thanks. I was going to grab a bag of chips out of the vending machine after I read through everything.”

  “No. You’re going to take care of yourself. Don’t let yourself get too consumed with this. Promise me that.” He covered her hands on the bag. Until she looked at him. “Promise me. We’ll find this guy, but we will do it without letting it consume us. Before we get too deep, I want you to agree to that.”

  “Of course.”
She tried to pull her hands back. “I’m not stupid.”

  “No. But this is your first murder case. It can...eat at you.”

  “Did it you, during your first homicide?” There was a challenge in her blue eyes, but a vulnerability, too. A need to understand.

  “Yes. I still see the kid’s face when I sleep sometimes. I never caught the bastard who hurt him. The kid was seventeen, from a bad home life, not that different from what I had. I was working in Finley Creek. The kid just left home to go to his part-time job and never made it. For a while, I got obsessed about it. Remembered Jake and what the bullet had done to him. And Kyra. Anger kept me going for the weeks we worked that case. I still...review his file sometimes.”

  “No leads?”

  “None. Because it was just like no one saw him. Or cared. He wasn’t well-liked or smart or popular or anything anyone wanted to remember. But I remember him. I always will.”

  “It hurts to be forgotten. I know what he was feeling in his last moments. What they were feeling.” She motioned to the table. “The regrets. The wishes. And to know that they were going to die because of someone else. Something they had no control over. If I had died, there wouldn’t have been many people who would have cared. Jeremy and Veri, mostly. I didn’t even have Bert and Jake then.”

  “Me. I would have cared. Damn it. I didn’t breathe for those thirty-plus hours. Every minute you were missing was like a knife in my gut. I still see you in my dreams, too.”

  In more ways than he was ready to talk about. He didn’t trust himself to tell her the whole truth.

  Hell, he didn’t trust himself with her at all.

  He’d grown up watching his father tear his mother down almost every day. Then tell her that he loved her and was lucky to have her. That she was his world. And when the old man had gotten stressed, he’d taken that stress out on Clay’s mother physically. He wouldn’t ever forget the bruises he’d seen.

  She’d finally left his father six months before Clay’s father had died from liver cancer. She’d left. They’d divorced. A month later, his father had been diagnosed.