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“I’m just trying to appease you so I can get to work.”
“I’m like an open book to you,” he said with a straight face. “You know me too well.”
I stopped at the bottom of the third floor stairs and narrowed my eyes at him, but he kept smiling so the one dimple at the corner of his mouth appeared. When had the damned thing become so distracting? Why was I even noticing?
I averted my eyes quickly and instead focused on the stairs. The carpet runner was faded blue with small gold roses and it was a lot skinnier than I remember it being as a child. I hadn’t stepped foot on the third floor since I was a child and had scared myself witless by listening to Jack and Dickie tell ghost stories about it.
“I’ve been up,” Jack said softly. “There’s nothing there except a few pieces of furniture covered in sheets. I’ll get the guys to help move whatever you need from your house so you can get settled.”
“That’s good.” My throat had seized and the words barely came out. Jeremy Mooney had broken my voice, the doctors had told me. It would never be the same as it was. I’d never be able to sing badly to Madonna on the radio or scream at football games. But at least I could speak. I swallowed a couple of times and my hand clamped around the stair rail.
“There’s no need to do this now,” I said. “I’d rather just get to work. It doesn’t matter where I sleep.”
What I’d left unspoken was that I hardly slept at all—when I did manage to finally nod off, it was from sheer exhaustion, and only for short amounts of time.
Jack took my hand again and I tensed, but he waited until he felt me relax inch by inch. He pulled me closer until I stood flush with his body and he just waited. Waited as dizziness swept over me and claustrophobia surrounded me. He waited until the fear passed and I was left with nothing but the light and him. I leaned my head against his shoulder and his arms came around me. This time there was no tension at the touch. It was just the two of us.
“Why won’t you let me help, Jaye? You think I can’t see your terror every time I get close? I can feel you trying to pull away from me and deal with this on your own, but I’m not going to let you. It’s going to take time to heal. For all of you to heal, not just the physical. You almost died.”
His hands stroked my back in soothing circles and my arms came around him, holding tighter and tighter as I tried to find an anchor for the emotions rioting through my body. Yes, I feared. But I also needed to be held. Hadn’t realized how much I needed it until just now. Warmth and something else infused my body.
He ducked his head so his lips were against my ear, and I shivered at the touch. “Whether you want to hear it or not,” he said. “I love you. I’m not going to just sit by and watch you wither away.”
I stiffened in his arms at the mention of the L word. I cared about Jack more than anyone else I’d ever known, including my family. Jackwasmy family. But there were lots of different kinds of love, and neither of us had a good track record when it came to the emotion. What if I let myself love him and he changed his mind? I’d never had to do without him in my life. Or worse, what if I let myself love him and he was taken from me like Brody had been taken from me?
“Shh,” he said. “Don’t tense up. I’m not going to push you or pressure you, Jaye. I’m just going to be your friend for now. And I’m going to keep loving you, no matter how stubborn you get. Now nod if you understand.”
A strange sound came from my throat that was supposed to be a laugh but sounded more like a wheezing wild animal. I nodded and felt something break loose inside me.
It felt a little like hope.
Chapter Five
“You don’t have to do this,” I told Jack two hours later. “There are limits to friendship.”
“Nope,” he said, only slightly pale. “I’ve made it this far. I can make it through the autopsy. It’s the embalming fluid that gets to me, and you can hardly smell it anymore. I’ll be fine.”
Jack could stomach violent crime scenes all day long, but when it came to being enclosed underground in a place I frequently drained body fluids, he couldn’t quite keep it together. I didn’t even know what the smells would be like to someone who wasn’t accustomed. I’d grown too used to it over the years. I made sure the ventilation system was on as high as it would go and got to work.
I’d gotten the body set up on blocks so he was easier to clean, and I stood back while Jack inked the victim’s fingers to get prints. Officer Cheek had been the one to check Reverend Oglesby’s home and retrieve prints so we could use them in comparison to our victim. He’d also reported back there was no sign Reverend Oglesby had been at the house for a few days. The Reverend’s car hadn’t shown up either, so Jack had put an APB out on a 2001 white Honda Accord as soon as he’d received the word.
I’d already taken all the samples I could from the body and documented the exterior wounds on my recorder so I could make a written report later. The strong scent of disinfectant clung to the body now and I had him prepped and ready to begin the autopsy.
Somewhere between the third floor stairs and the white sterile box of my lab, I’d started to feel almost human again. Maybe it was because of Jack. Or maybe it was because I had something to do with my hands. But the great pressure that had sat on my chest like an elephant was gone for the moment.
Unfortunately, I was exhausted past the point of doing any good. The slight tremor in my hand wasn’t the only thing keeping me from proceeding with the autopsy. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept. Or eaten for that matter. The thought of food had my stomach clenching with pain, but nothing sounded good so I ignored it.
“His back teeth are all missing,” I said. “Presumably pulled during the torture, which is going to make identification harder if this happens to not be Reverend Oglesby and there are no reports of other missing members of the community. The killer did leave the victim’s fingerprints intact, which is sloppy if you’re trying to hide someone’s identity, which leads me to believe the killer wasn’t trying to hide the victim’s identity at all.”
“Killers,” Jack corrected. “There’s no way one person did all of this. The victim weighed over two hundred pounds and is built like a linebacker. He was tortured, but in very different ways, telling me everyone involved got their chance to inflict their own personal brand of pain. Then they chained him to a tree in the dark. Someone had to steady the dead weight of the body while they wrapped the chains around the tree. I don’t even think two men could have done it by themselves. I’d say it’d take a minimum of three strong men.”
I stood up tall and stretched, rubbing at the small of my back. “What we’ve got here is a healthy male in the prime of his life. He’s strong, but not strong enough to fight off his attackers. He was restrained,” I said, indicating the marks around his ankles and wrists. “Then he was systematically beaten. Blows to the torso first. Broken ribs that punctured a lung. Shots to the kidneys hard enough that he’d be pissing blood for days had he survived.”
I could see it clearly. The body was a map, and blood and bone didn’t lie. Every cut and bruise had its own time stamp. “They broke his hands next. Pulverized them to keep him from fighting back once they unchained him.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to think much past the pain,” Jack said. “Thoughts of fighting back would have been replaced with thoughts of trying to survive. He wouldn’t have tried to fight back at that point.”
I touched Jack’s back lightly but didn’t linger. The reason he’d left the S.W.A.T. team was because of the three bullets shot into his chest during a raid. More bullets had taken the lives of six others on the team. He didn’t talk about that time of his life, but I knew he was very lucky to be standing next to me today. We were both lucky.
