Winter warning, p.15
Winter Warning, page 15
“I’m so...” But as she was about to say the last word, the wave of ecstasy crashed over her, and she called out with pleasure.
He sped up, working her until she was quivering and sensitive. “Stop...” she begged.
He leaned back with a smile on his face. Wetness covered his chin.
“Let me kiss you,” she said, barely able to move.
He leaned over and she tasted herself on him. She licked her juices from his lips, and he moaned into her mouth.
Weak and shaky, she stepped back from the table and dropped to her knees in front of him, pulling down his boxers. “Now,” she said, smiling up at him as they looked into each other’s eyes. “It’s my turn.”
Chapter Eighteen
Last night had been, hands down, the best night of his life. Ty had assumed that if he got a chance to have Holly in his bed again that it would have been incredible, but the reality was so much better than anything he could have imagined.
At one point, she’d begged him to bend her over the table. That was one memory that he would never forget. If anything, he hoped that they could re-create that on a regular basis.
That was, assuming that they were something more than a onetime thing.
He picked up his phone on the kitchen counter beside him as he stared longingly at the melamine table where so much had happened last night. He loved and hated that table. Taking his cup of coffee and his phone, he walked over to the table and gave it a light shove.
In their play, the thing had been tested to the max. It moved and swayed as he pushed against it. He would need to fix it and strengthen it if they were going to keep doing as they had.
He smiled at the thought. He would buy stronger mounting brackets for the tabletop as soon as he got the chance. Or maybe he just needed a table with four sturdy legs.
As he thought about his options, his phone buzzed with an email, and it pulled him from his planning.
He took a sip of his coffee and put it on the table before opening up his email. Both the ME and the mapping tech, Sharon, had sent him notes. According to her findings, everyone on the mountain had been exactly where they had stated—or, at least, their tracking equipment had been
He clicked on the ME’s note. They had finally managed to get the toxicology reports back from Moose’s body. No foreign substances had been found. As for Robert, he’d been taking large amounts of opiates. The sedatives had only been slightly metabolized in his system—meaning that he had taken a downer in the hour or so before his death.
That was odd.
The first opioid that came to mind was fentanyl. He wasn’t sure which class of drugs physical therapists had access to, but he would make sure to ask Holly as soon as she woke up.
If Robert was abusing fentanyl, it helped to make some sense of his erratic behavior. It was far more potent than heroin or morphine and just as addictive. Often, people who took fentanyl had instances of hallucinations and auditory and visual disturbances.
What was strange was that Robert had been working. It was shocking that he could be a professional by day and an addict by night.
Then again, he had seen this kind of thing many times before. Addicts came in every socioeconomic bracket. No one was immune.
He looked at the numbers. According to the report, the amount in his system wasn’t enough to cause an overdose. The ME had updated the report, and the immediate cause of death was listed as a gunshot wound to the lower mandible, exiting through the top of the skull. They had left the manner of death unselected.
They were waiting for his investigation. He would need to call them. It seemed entirely too possible that it was suicide, but there was something about the entire situation with Robert and Moose that made him question everything.
He pulled up the pictures he’d taken in Robert’s master bedroom where they had located his body. He stared at the first image of Robert’s head. He zoomed in on the man’s chin, staring at the tattooing the gunshot had made on his skin. It was dark and heavy around the wound and the barrel had even burned his flesh, which meant the gun had been pressed directly against the skin when the trigger was pulled.
According to the report, they had found gunshot residue, or GSR, on Robert’s left hand, but that simply meant he was in the room at the time of the shooting. What surprised him was that they had noted that there was no obvious residue on the right hand where he would have been holding the gun to inflict such a wound.
He looked back at his phone and the picture of the Glock 19. It was on the ground near Robert’s right hand. From the picture it appeared as though the moment he had died his arm and hand had gone limp and the gun had been dropped. It was consistent with most suicides he had seen in the past.
He zoomed in on the image. Something was a little off. He couldn’t pinpoint what was strange about it, but there was something about the gun’s placement that didn’t feel right.
He clicked on the other pictures of the gun. From some of the angles, he could see where blood had sprayed back on the gun and dried to the hot barrel. It was undoubtedly the gun used in the shooting, though they hadn’t run ballistics on the bullet they had pulled from the ceiling above the body.
As he zoomed in on the last picture, taken from near the level of the gun, he realized what was bothering him. The grip of the gun was slightly under the man’s thigh.
If he had shot himself, it wasn’t impossible, but it was unlikely that the body would have been atop the weapon.
He stared at the picture and scrolled through the rest in his phone. He had no idea how he had missed this on scene. However, it was barely under his body.
Then again, maybe the body had relaxed after death and moved slightly or perhaps it was an effect of rigor or some death process, which had caused the gun to appear beneath the man’s thigh.
Maybe it had something to do with the fentanyl in his system.
Or perhaps he just didn’t want to accept that Robert had killed himself. In a secret dark part of his brain, he hated the idea that the man had taken the easy way out of his life after he had caused so much upheaval in Holly’s.
“Good morning,” Holly said, pulling him from his thoughts.
He was as grateful as he was sure that those thoughts were probably some indicators that he needed therapy.
“Hi, babe,” he said, shutting off his phone and shoving it in his pocket.
She looked adorable with her mussed hair and sleepy expression. He handed her his cup of coffee. “Here, you can have mine. I’ll make another.”
He gave her a peck on her forehead as she took the coffee from him.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Is everything all right? You seem off.”
He started to make himself another cup. “Because I gave you my coffee? Yeah, I see how you could get there.” He knew exactly what she was talking about, but he was a little surprised that she could so easily pick up his emotions without him saying anything.
“Not because of the coffee. Did I do something wrong last night?” Her face was dead serious.
He realized his misstep. “It’s nothing like that, I promise. I never want you to think that. Last night was perfect.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her lips. “You’re perfect.”
She burrowed deeper into his embrace, and he tightened his hold. A man could get used to this. He’d forgotten how good it felt to have a woman in his life whom he cared about.
“I’m far from perfect, but I’m glad you had fun.”
He had a hell of a lot more than some fun.
If he had his way, he would be honored to call her perfect every single day.
“Maybe we can repeat it tonight?” he offered, a sly smirk on his face.
She giggled and the sound vibrated against his chest. He loved that feeling.
The vibrating intensified and as it stopped and started again, he realized it was coming from his back pocket. It forced him out of their embrace as he answered it. It was Detective Stowe.
“How’s it going, Stowe?” he answered, slightly annoyed that the man had interrupted what was a great moment—and long awaited.
“It’s going well. I was calling about the Robert Finch case. Do you have a moment?”
He grabbed his coffee. He was going to need a bigger cup. “What’s up?”
“I got the phone records back from Robert Finch. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I’m going to send them your way.”
“Perfect. Did you get the ME reports? See the fentanyl?”
Stowe chuckled, dryly. “Our boy was definitely using. He had some major amounts in his blood. He’d obviously been using for a while.”
Holly’s eyebrows rose in surprise, making him realize he had yet to tell her about what they’d found. “That’s what I got, too. Still not a factor in his death, though.” He cleared his throat. “Did you notice that the gun used was sitting slightly under his thigh?”
“I did,” Stowe said. “I have been looking into similar cases. So far, I’ve only found a couple that had matching scenarios and results. The only time they’ve had something like this has been when a body has been left in the heat and there’s been swelling with decomposition, or if a body has been disturbed.”
“Well, that or it was never really a suicide and the murderer screwed up,” Ty added.
“I went there, too.” Stowe paused. “They pulled prints from the gun, but they were pretty poor quality. I think someone wiped it.”
Ty pulled in a breath.
“Yep, exactly,” Stowe said, must having heard him. “I’m going to see if we can pull any prints from the brass.”
“Let me know how it turns out.”
“You got it, and I’m sending you the phone records. Let me know if anything stands out.”
“Did you see anything of note?” Ty asked, looking at his phone for a second, looking to see if Stowe had sent him the records.
There was nothing.
“Actually, on his apps, it looks like he was spending a lot of his time looking into Holly Dean.”
The news didn’t come as a surprise. “Anybody else?” Ty asked, his gaze moving to Holly. He could tell she was listening in.
“There are a few other women it appeared he had been speaking to, but I don’t know any of them personally. That’s where I was hoping you’ll come in and use your local knowledge.” Stowe paused. “Also, I was hoping to talk to your evidence tech about Robert’s body placement. What is their name?”
“No problem. That’s Valerie Keller. She’s in the office today, I believe.” He didn’t add in the part about her being hard to contact on the phone sometimes.
“Great, I’ll stop by. I’ll be in touch.”
As he hung up the phone, he looked over at Holly, who was taking a drink of her coffee. She had a contemplative expression on her face.
“Are you okay? I realize this has to be hard on you,” he said, concerned that his conversation may have been the reason she looked as she did.
She sat her coffee cup down on the kitchen counter and looked over at him. “Actually, I was thinking about the conversation I last had with Valerie. Or, I guess it wasn’t the last conversation, but when I first met her.” She stared off into space as she must have been thinking about it. “She actually mentioned that she had a sister who had been dating Robert.”
“What?” he asked, shocked. “She never mentioned it to me.”
“Well, it’s not like she was dating him and at this point who wasn’t Robert dating? Seriously, he was even dating Penny from the PT clinic.” She forced a laugh, and it sounded almost painful.
His phone pinged with a message from the detective. He opened up the email and clicked on the attachment, which contained a comprehensive report of Robert’s phone activity. According to the data, Robert had called Holly 147 times since his last billing cycle three weeks ago. In total Robert had made nearly 300 phone calls, many of them to the number he recognized belonged to the physical therapy clinic. There were only 47 phone calls which weren’t somehow related to Holly.
The man was definitely a stalker.
The numbers for his text messages were of a similar ratio. However, it appeared that he had been in contact with at least two dozen individuals. His social media was interesting. He’d spent a great deal of time on one particular platform, which was photo based. There, he had been searching “girl next door,” “hot physical therapists” and “how to make a woman fall for you,” amongst a variety of other terms.
He really didn’t like him. None of what he was finding surprised him. The guy was pathetic and a confirmed drug addict.
Holly stepped to his side, and he held out his phone so she could take a peek at the list, as well. She scanned through the pages, stopping on his messages.
“Is there a page where we can see who all these numbers belonged to?” she asked, pointing at the phone numbers he had been in contact with.
“We can pull them up on NCIC. It’s the national database law enforcement uses. It basically has everything about everyone. It’s actually a bit terrifying how much data is in that thing.” He had used it to look into Robert when he’d been digging around after his death, but the man didn’t have any real record when it came to criminal activities. As for his private information, he’d learned about every apartment and phone number Robert had ever had, as well as all of his family members’ addresses and phone numbers.
“I’ve heard about it.”
A sense of excitement filled him. They weren’t any closer to finding answers to Robert’s death, but at least they were getting some more information. He closed his phone and stuffed it in his back pocket. He walked toward the door and put his hand on the doorknob. “I’m going to run out and grab my computer. I left it in my pickup. We can sit down and dig into these numbers. I don’t think it will take us too long to come up with the names.”
She gave him a strange look, one that almost hinted at fear. Was she worried about being left alone? Her enemy was dead.
He stopped and came back to her, not wanting to see that expression on her face ever again. It pained him to see her in pain. He took her into his embrace, and he dropped his hands down to her lower back as he looked into her eyes. “Everything is going to be okay. You are safe. You will always be safe with me, babe.”
She relaxed in his arms and laid her head against his chest as though she was taking a moment to listen to his heart. As she did, his heart started to ache and he wished, not for the first time, that he could get even closer to her even though they were already touching. It was an illogical thought, but it made him realize exactly how much this woman meant to him.
He was the luckiest man on the planet to be holding a woman like her in his arms. He never wanted to let her go.
After a long moment, she leaned back and looked up at him, waiting for his kiss. He obliged, moving down and giving her a kiss that he hoped she recognized as standing for something far more real and more tangible than simply lust.
She smiled, her mouth still against his, and it made him wonder if she read his kiss for exactly what he had intended. “Go grab your computer,” she said, her breath warm against his lips.
He couldn’t say he really wanted to go anywhere, but he let her go. He hurried outside, and as he did, he realized he wasn’t wearing any shoes when his feet touched the fresh snow on the ground.
“Oh...damn,” he said between gasping breaths.
He took out his keys and unlocked his pickup as he hurried through the icy snow. His feet ached with the cold by the time he reached his rig. As he opened the door, he watched as his breath made a cloud in the air in front of him.
It was barely in the single digits outside, if even that. It would have been perfect weather for being on the sled in the mountains; the snow would be great for riding. If Moose had still been alive, he would have been getting a call this morning to hit the slopes.
He really was going to miss his friend.
Thinking about Moose, he needed to reach out to Rebecca and make sure she was doing okay. She was probably having a really hard time right now, planning the funeral and waiting for the ME to release his remains to the funeral home. He felt so bad for her.
He moved to grab his computer, but as he did, he caught sight of the empty spot where he normally parked his work rig. That round had nearly cost him his life. Any of them could have—and that was to say nothing about Holly. She had gotten down in the pickup, taken cover, but that didn’t always mean that a person wouldn’t take a hit.
They were both lucky to still be alive.
He’d already lost Moose; he couldn’t lose another person who he cared about.
And whoever had shot at them...they were still out there. Moreover, they had probably been the ones behind Moose’s death.
He picked up his computer and slid it under his arm as he shut the pickup door. His feet were so cold now that the snow around them was melting, but slowly and as it did it left fat droplets of cold water on his steadily reddening skin.
He needed to get back inside and to Holly.
Though he couldn’t explain it, a strange sense of foreboding and fear filled him.
He glanced around toward the front of the house, but he was alone out here in the wintery morning. He hated that ugly wiggling feeling that started in his stomach and climbed up to his heart and made it race. It was akin to fear, and he’d only felt it a handful of times before, unless he was under fire or in direct fight or flight.
Something was wrong, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. It reminded him of the feeling he had gotten when he discovered that the gun had been accidentally moved under Robert’s leg.
