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Chapter Forty-seven
Waking to a man in need, tucked in front of him, cuddled close and totally engaged in delightful morning sex, Charli contributed fully. Warm skin nestled behind, arms strong and persuasive, whispered words urged her on. She allowed him passage and reveled in their combined mounting passion.
When he whispered his thank you in her ear after their mutually enjoyable finish, she’d smiled and thought no one else would ever be so thoughtful. Drifting off again, still feeling heavy after her sharing from the night before, she snoozed and didn’t wake until she felt him leave her side.
“Blake, come back here. We need to talk.” She tackled him before he could disappear. Wanting to hold him to his promise of giving her the complete lowdown of what happened yesterday, why he’d been absent a lot of the time, she stopped his escape to the shower by following him there and joining him.
His engaging grin and soft kisses weakened her enough that she went along with soaping his back and letting him soap hers, but only after he promised to come clean… a pun he thought hilarious… when they were finished.
As they dressed, he explained about his absence the afternoon before. Only the murder of one of his own cops would have tempted him to leave the house.
“I didn’t know where you’d disappeared to, one minute you were there and the next, Gramps said you’d been called away.”
“Detective Newton figured I’d want to be involved, and he was right.” Further explanation of what he’d witnessed shook her foundations.
“Dispatch took a call from the rookie’s girlfriend who’d stopped by his place and found him. The officer, Tom Sheldon, had worked the night shift, and he’d promised to take her out to eat, go shopping, and then he would catch up on his sleep afterward. Except, he hadn’t shown up, nor did he answer his phone.”
Charli listened to every word, but his expression warned there was a shock coming.
“The girlfriend, angry that he’d broken his word and fallen asleep, went over there and let herself in, only to find him shot, lying on the floor in his underwear.”
Charli listened closely. “Where was he hit?”
“Forehead, dead center.”
“Aww… shit!” Her angry reaction reignited the worry she’d put aside for the last few wonderful hours. “It still could have been a coincidence. He might have disturbed a burglar. Was anything missing?”
“Just his uniform.”
“What?” Charli felt the fear building, the instinct that this wasn’t an ordinary act of violence. “So, you don’t believe it to be a typical break-in gone wrong. Was he shot with his own gun?”
“No, with the same gun that killed the bartender and his two customers at Freddie’s.”
“Jesus. It’s him.”
“We believe so.”
“He wanted the uniform so he could get close to this house.”
“We thought of that so we made sure our guys all wore their civilian clothes last night and hung back. We wanted him to stand out. But, since then, we’ve changed our minds as to why he needed the uniform.”
“Why?”
“Bill Newton’s daughter goes to the same school that Kayla goes to, and when he picked his girl up after the final class yesterday, the Vice Principal visited with him, congratulating the police department for hiring such gracious and polite officers like the one who’d been there earlier asking questions about a missing girl. We had no one assigned to any such task.”
“You’re kidding me? So now that bastard knows we’re here for sure and where Kayla was going to school. Thank goodness we kept her home yesterday.”
“Remember, he’s also skilled with computers; enough to use his own to shut down the security system at the house where he shot Agent Dale.”
Charli’s mind raced through the points and arrived at the same conclusion Blake obviously had too. “He hacked into the school’s computer system and accessed their student database.”
“We checked the log files and someone had infiltrated their data. We followed the trail and found out that he’d used a computer at the library. He’d cleared the browsing history but our guys were able to track his path. When we asked for the video surveillance, we were told their camera had been fiddled with yesterday. The one taping that area had only covered the far wall rather than the day’s traffic or individuals who’d been using the equipment close by.”
“He’s too smart to show up on a camera. If he hacked into the school’s files, it was for one thing only.”
“Yes. He now knows this address.” As he buttoned his shirt, Blake started to turn away. “She’s not going back to that school.”
“You’re bloody right. She’s not going there or anywhere else in this city. We need to get her away from here.”
“Yes, but…”
