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As soon as he made it back to the station, the first thing he did was check on the run Detective Sparks had going on Ryan’s background. He’d tried convincing her from the start that there must be some kind of mistake but understood that they had a job to do no matter how distasteful he found it.
At first, the information the computer was spitting out was more of the same. Things they already knew about the man from public records, but then his eyes landed on something that brought him up short. Something that made the blood run cold in his veins. “No-no-no-no-no!” He jumped up from his chair, almost crashing it onto the floor as he stared at the words, rereading them again and again.
He picked up the phone and dialed Detective Sparks by rote because he could barely hold a thought, let alone remember her number. Celia, who was still sleeping peacefully with a half-smile of satisfaction on her face, heard the buzzing sound of her phone going off. It took her a few seconds to recognize the sound when her eyes finally fluttered open and another few to remember that it was her work phone. How the hell did it get on vibrate?
She climbed out of bed and stretched before reaching for her purse, where she kept her phone. Her brows furrowed when she recognized the number, knowing that something must’ve gone wrong for someone to be calling her from the station. “Hello?”
“Detective, it’s me, Officer Bailey; you might want to come down to the station.”
“Why? What’s happened now? Please tell me it’s not another body.”
“No, nothing like that. It’s about the background check you had running on Ryan Swamp.” Celia felt her gut drop. She’d been leaning towards believing his claim of innocence after their conversation at the hospital and had even bitched at tech to get the led out on trying to figure out who where and when the message to the Bishop girl had been sent, now it looked like she was off.
“He did it before!” She said it more like a statement of fact instead of a question.
“No, it was done to him.”
“I’m sorry? What do you mean?”
“You should come see this for yourself; it’s bad, really bad.”
“Okay, I’ll be right there.” Celia hung up the phone, wondering just what could’ve put that tone of shock in her partner’s voice.
She sat on the side of the bed to get her bearings before getting up to head into the shower to clean the feel and scent of sex off of her. In the foggy mirror after what had to be the quickest shower in history, she yelped when she got her first look at the love bites Riley had left all over her body. It was too damn warm for a turtleneck, and besides, she hates the things since they always feel like they’re choking her.
She did her best to cover them with makeup before heading to the closet to get dressed. Riley was nowhere to be seen when she went downstairs, and according to Eileen, he’d gone back out to help the hands with the calving. “Tell him I went in for a few hours. I should be back before late.” At least she hoped so.
“You going out like that?” Eileen pointed at her neck, and Celia clapped a hand over the spot the older woman pointed to, her face going up in flames. She mumbled something as she turned to rush into the downstairs guest bathroom and looked in the mirror. She’d covered most of the spots with foundation, but there was at least one still on full display. She’d never live it down if the others saw this.
Opening her purse in a huff, she withdrew her compact and got to work hiding the evidence of what Riley had done to her. With a swift apology, after she left the room, she hightailed it out the door and hopped into the SUV. He’s probably going to be pissed when he comes back to find her gone, but at least she’d gotten some rest like he wanted.
Marissa’s parents had picked her up from school after her visit to the principal’s office, and she was once again hiding out in her room. It hadn’t been easy explaining what had happened, but once she’d shown proof that the messages had been sent years ago when she was young and stupid, the principal had dropped it.
His focus now was on finding the person responsible for leaking the messages, but she could not forget the look of disappointment in her parents’ eyes. She felt hollow inside and like everyone was looking at her through new eyes. Would they think that she’d lied about the message from the coach? How was she going to prove that one thing had nothing to do with the other?
