He pulled her over to the table, motioning for her to sit down. He dropped into the chair opposite her. His knees felt as if they were hollow.
“Crazy. That’s the word everyone used because I refused to believe she’d drowned.” He took her hand in his, as if that could form some kind of bond that would transfer any detail she might forget to include. “Tell me everything.”
“There isn’t all that much to tell.”
She went through it quickly, telling him how she’d spoken to the cashier and that as far as the woman knew, “Claire” never mentioned anything about her childhood, or anything that had happened in her life before she’d come into the small town.
Her father listened to her intently, as if each word was a secret to be investigated on its own before it was gathered together with the rest.
Finishing, she looked up into his eyes. “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you—”
Because they were so alike, he knew exactly what she was thinking, exactly the path her reasoning had taken. Vacillating between distrust and a desire for it to be true.
“You had to,” he assured her.
Now that she’d told him, she wanted to protect him from any disappointment that loomed in front of him. “I don’t even really know for sure that it’s her, Dad.” She paused, debating. Then told him what had persuaded her. “But there’s this feeling—”
He understood perfectly. “Never underestimate gut feelings, Rayne. It’s kept many of us alive.” Getting up, he crossed over to the counter and took a sheet of paper from the pad he always kept there. “Tell me exactly where this diner is.”
She gave him the directions. He wrote them down, then folded the paper and put it in his pocket. “You’re going there now?”
“There’s no reason to wait.”
None but fear,
he added silently.
Part of him wanted to hold on to the information, to revel, just for a little while, in the possibility that he would finally, after all these years, find Rose. If he went there now, once he walked into that diner all that might be taken away from him.
But he’d never been a man to hang back when moving forward could accomplish something.
She followed him to the front door. “Want me to come with you?”
The car was going to be full as it was. Filled with his nerves. It was better if she didn’t see him this way. He smiled at her, but shook his head. “Thanks, but I’d rather do this alone.”
She understood. “Dad—”
Hand on the doorknob, he paused to look at his youngest. Rayne threw her arms around his neck and held him for a moment, praying that things would turn out the right way. Praying that her father would be lifted out of limbo. She didn’t even begin to think about the way finding their mother alive would affect the rest of them. It was too soon for that.
“Good luck,” she murmured, brushing her lips against his cheek.
Andrew nodded, not trusting his voice. His throat was suddenly clogged with emotion. Touching her cheek with his fingers, he silently told her how much he loved her.
And then he was gone.
Rayne stood in the foyer for a long moment, praying she hadn’t just sent her father off to have his heart broken again.
Dragging a deep breath into her lungs, she turned on her heel and raced up the stairs. She was giving herself exactly fifteen minutes to shower and change into fresh clothing.
Rayne was out the door in just under fourteen.
Checking the pockets of her jacket for keys, she hurried to her car. And stopped dead the second she saw him.
Longwell was getting out of his car.
The vehicle was parked right in front of her driveway. From the sounds it was making, he must have just pulled up. Which meant her father hadn’t seen him before he left. An uneasy premonition reared its head. Rayne slipped her hands into her pockets.
“I thought you were out of town.” The words were a challenge. Her eyes never left Longwell’s face. He looked far from happy.
There was no one else out. Everyone had left for wherever they were going, school, work, shopping. Rayne felt suddenly alone and exposed. She cursed the fact that she didn’t keep her weapon in her pocket. All she had within easy reach was her cell phone.
Longwell’s fair face reddened a little more with each step he took toward her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? It’s not enough to question my findings, to make it look as if I did something wrong, now you’re trying to pin this on me?”
He’d taken one hell of a leap from point A to point B. Innocent men didn’t think that way. “I’m not trying to pin anything on you—”
“Don’t lie to me, Rayne,” he growled. He was in her face now, fairly snarling. “How much is that pretty boy paying you to plant evidence?”
She had no idea what he was talking about and doubted that he did, either. Cornered animals lashed out indiscriminately. Had they cornered him? “I’m not planting evidence, Longwell. Why don’t you just calm down and maybe we can—”
“No! ‘We’ can’t do anything. Me, I’m going to do something, not you, bitch. You women are all alike. I thought you were different, honest, but you’re just like the rest, conniving, looking out for yourself, sucking a man dry and then throwing him away—”
He was rambling. She tried again, putting her hand on his arm. “Longwell, look, whatever’s wrong—”
Without warning, he grabbed her hand and yanked it up high behind her. She bit down on her lip not to cry out from the pain that went shooting up her arm right on up to the top of her head. For one second, she thought he’d broken it.
Grunting orders, Longwell pushed her toward his car. There was no way she could twist around and get out of the hold he had on her. The more she tried, the harder he tugged her arm behind her until she felt dizzy from the pain.
“No more talking,” he growled at her.
“Longwell,” she cried, raising her voice. “Longwell, you’re not making any sense.”
Fisting his hand, he hit her square in the jaw. “I said no more talking.”
Rayne barely made out the words as she crumpled and slipped into darkness.
Chapter 15
H
er head and face were throbbing badly and it felt as if her eyelids were being held down with ten-pound weights as she struggled to open them. A moan nearly erupted from her lips but she managed to stifle it at the last moment. She needed to get her bearings. All she knew was that she was moving.
A car, that was it, he’d taken her to his car just before he’d surprised her with that sucker punch.
She finally managed to pry her eyes open.
She was right, they were in a car. Longwell was driving. She could make out the hilt of a gun tucked into his waistband.
For a second she thought of lunging for it, but her wrists were bound in front of her and she was held down by the seat belt Longwell had strapped around her, more to hold her prisoner than for her safety.
Can you hear me, Cole? Are you listening? Please be there,
she prayed. She cleared her throat. Her head ached harder. “What are you going to do with me?”
Longwell didn’t answer the question directly. Glaring in her direction, he had the crazed look of a man who’d been pushed over the edge. He pushed down harder on the accelerator.
“You brought this on yourself, you know. Just like she did. Why didn’t you just keep out of it? It wasn’t even your case, damn it,” he railed. “Rollins and Webber wrote off on it, why couldn’t you?”
Good, he was shouting. She raised her own voice. “Why did you kill her?”
She saw Longwell grip the wheel harder, his knuckles almost white. “I didn’t want to. She made me. She wouldn’t shut up.” Incensed, it was as if he wasn’t even in the car with her anymore, but back in Kathy’s apartment, confronting the woman. “First she made me fall in love with her, then she dumped me. When I asked her to give us another chance, just another chance, she laughed at me. Said I was worse than the last loser.” He shook his head, as if the events were all a mystery to him. “The only reason she dumped Garrison was because his parents had cut him off.” His voice went flat. And sounded all the more menacing. “She shouldn’t have laughed at me.”
More, she needed more. “What about the ring? Did she give you Eric’s ring?”
“Yeah, she gave it to me. And then she wanted it back. So I gave it to her.” He laughed. “Just not the way she wanted it.”
“How did it get back to Eric’s apartment? Did you put it there?”
“Yeah, I put it there, when we made the arrest.” He looked at her. “You’re never going to be able to tell anyone this, you know.”
He was going to kill her. Rayne’s mind began to race, at war with the pain that was assaulting it from all directions. “We can take your story to the D.A., Longwell. It was a crime of passion, there were extenuating circumstances, they can take that into consideration.”
His eyes told her he knew how that worked. “And what, give me twenty instead of life? Don’t you understand?” he demanded, his voice cracking. “I can’t do any time. I’m a cop, for God’s sake. You know what they do to cops behind bars.”
She could almost feel sorry for him. The man was desperate. Maybe as desperate as he’d been when he’d gone to plead with Kathy Fallon to take him back. She tried to appeal to his sense of logic. “If you kill me, there aren’t any extenuating circumstances to hide behind. It’ll be cold-blooded murder.”
“I can’t do time,” he insisted again. His voice bordered on hysteria that was barely being kept in check.
She kept trying to loosen her bonds, pulling her wrists apart as hard as she could. They weren’t budging. “So where are you taking me? The river?”
The laugh sent a cold chill down her spine. “Hey, it was good enough for your old lady. They never found her body.”
She had to clamp down on the flood of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her. To die the same way her mother reportedly had, the irony almost undid her.
Think, Rayne, think.
“Why didn’t you dump Kathy’s body there?”
There was pure disgust in his voice. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“And you’re not thinking now,” she insisted. “Stop while there’s still time, Longwell.”
“There
is
no time,” he snapped back. “It’s too late to undo what I’ve done.” His manner was frenzied now, like a man who found himself boxed in and was frantically looking for an opening to squeeze through. “But if I get rid of you and that pretty boy who stirred everything up, then maybe I’ve got a chance.”
She tried again, fighting to stay calm. “Your only chance is turning yourself in.”
“That’s a bunch of crap and you know it!” he shouted at her.
She looked around. They were on their way out of Aurora. Was this the route her mother had taken that day? Rayne felt sick down to the pit of her stomach. She had to keep stalling, had to somehow get Longwell to listen to reason. It couldn’t end this way. She had too much to live for.
“Damn it, Longwell, this is me, Rayne Cavanaugh. We went through the academy together. Don’t you remember, we were even partnered together when we first got out. You can’t just kill me.”
For a moment he looked as if he genuinely regretted what he had to do, but he had his back against the wall. “Look, I’m sorry, really sorry. If there was any other way, I’d take it. But there’s not.” He looked in his rearview mirror just before he started to take the turn that would lead him onto the road that would eventually lead him to the river. Longwell stiffened. It was obvious that something he saw upset him. “God damn it.” He bit off a string of curses. “Where the hell did he come from?”
Even as he asked the question, he stomped down on the gas. Trapped in her seat, Rayne tried to crane her neck to see who was behind them. Unable to turn, she looked in the side mirror instead. A flood of relief washed over her.
Thank God. Cole had picked up her signal, the one coming from her cell phone.
“Give it up, Longwell,” she urged softly.
He looked at her with eyes that appeared to be half crazed. “Okay, we’ll both go over.”
The speedometer was climbing, hitting seventy, then eighty and going beyond. Dread replaced relief. She knew that if Longwell got to the bridge, he was going to go over the side, killing them both.
Just like your mother.
Suddenly, like bees gathering in the distance, the sound of sirens began to fill the air. At first faintly, then stronger and stronger as they came closer. Rayne saw the panic on the policeman’s face and immediately realized that he was going to still try to find a way to kill them both.
Her hands were bound together as tightly as ever, but she managed to lunge for the steering wheel. Grabbing it, Rayne pulled as hard as she could, turning the car sharply to the right. They fought for control of the wheel. The car fishtailed from side to side like a drunken sailor on weekend shore leave after six months at sea.
Cars coming from the opposite direction swerved frantically to get out of the way. Tires screamed, melding with the curses that spewed out of Longwell’s mouth. Suddenly the car flew over a curb, turned sideways and crashed into an SUV parked on the side before it finally came to a shuddering halt.
Rayne remembered hitting her head, or maybe it was her mouth. She tasted blood.
And then the driver’s door was being yanked opened and Cole filled the space.
“Rayne, Rayne, are you all right?”
She felt as if she’d been thrown head-first into a blender, but she was alive and that was all that mattered. And he’d heard her. He’d come. “Never better.” She managed to somehow get the words out.
Cole dragged the semiconscious rogue cop out of the car. He wanted to kill Longwell, to strangle him with his bare hands. But even now, the police cars with the people he’d called were converging all around them. To vent his rage, Cole settled for delivering one good, swift punch to the man’s jaw.
Instead of swinging back, Longwell crumpled at his feet.
The passenger door was wedged against the SUV. There was no way he could get to her that way. Cole crawled in on the driver’s side and, as quickly as he could, got Rayne untangled from the seat belt. Afraid that the shattered windshield might collapse on her at any moment, he lost no time in getting her out.
She winced as he pulled her across the bench seat. “Are you sure you’re all right? He didn’t hurt you?” he demanded. Faint blue markings were starting to set in. “Your face is beginning to bruise.”
Right now, it felt like a throbbing mass and her eye seemed about to swell shut. “He knocked me out to get me into the car, but I’m okay.”
The instant Cole had her out of the wreck, a squadron of questions fired at her from all directions. Her mouth dropped open. Every member of her family who was actively on the force had shown up, siblings as well as cousins. The only one who seemed to be missing was her uncle Brian.
She looked at Cole. “What did you do?” she asked.
“When I figured out what was going on, I called Shaw and told him Longwell had kidnapped you. We tracked your cell phone signal.” Not wanting to cause her any more pain, he squashed the urge to hug her to him. She’d kept her head in a dire situation. Cole felt relief and pride mingle within him. She was one hell of a woman. “Pretty smart of you to call me and leave the line open.”
She smiled and then instantly winced because it hurt her lip. The moment she had seen Longwell coming toward her, the hairs had stood up in the back of her neck. The way they always did when she had a premonition. She’d slipped her hand into her pocket and pressed the automatic dial button for Cole’s cell phone, praying that Cole wouldn’t start talking before Longwell did.
“Saw it in an old Harrison Ford movie. I figured if it was good enough for Harrison Ford, it was good enough for me.”
Her cousin Troy was the first to reach her. “Rayne, are you all right?”
“What the hell did he do to you?” Clay demanded hotly.
“You’re lucky she’s still alive, Longwell.” Shaw jerked the man to his feet, only to have the policeman crumble to his knees again. Shaw had been in the first vehicle behind Cole. He looked at him now. “Hey, just how hard did you hit him?” There was no mistaking the admiration in his voice. “Not that the bastard didn’t deserve it.”
Now that it was over, the pain was sinking in in earnest. Rayne sagged a little against Cole. “Longwell’s got a glass jaw,” she told her brother.
Her cousin Dax cocked his head, looking at her face. “Speaking of jaws, Rayne, maybe you should go have that lip looked at.”
“Yeah,” Clay put in, then grinned broadly at his younger sister. “Maybe the doctor’ll tell you that you can’t talk until it heals.”
“That kind of stuff only happens in fairy tales,” Teri lamented.
Callie placed a protective arm around her. There was unmistakable relief in her smile as she looked at the youngest in the group. “Knowing Rayne, she’d find a way to become a ventriloquist.”
They were using humor to defuse a very tense situation, Cole thought. It was evident that they were all very aware the youngest among them had been a hair-breadth away from becoming a casualty today.
But she hadn’t and that was what they were all focused on now.
“No doctor,” Rayne said firmly. She would have shaken her head if it didn’t hurt so much.
“Too late,” her other cousin Jarred told her. He jerked a thumb behind him at the ambulance that was even now making its way toward them.
Rayne groaned. She hated hospitals, hated the thought of being poked and prodded at. “Send it back,” she insisted.
Cole surprised her by taking hold of her arm and saying, “You’re going.”
His tone left no room for argument, at least, not for the average person. But anyone in the family could have told him that Rayne was anything but average. It was close to impossible to get her to do something she didn’t want to do.
She dug in. Her hero swiftly became her nemesis. “The hell I am.”
Cole didn’t waste time arguing. Actions, as far as he was concerned, always spoke louder than words. As the ambulance came to a halt and the others watched, he scooped Rayne up in his arms.
“Yes, the hell you are.” A paramedic hurried out of the cab, making his way to the back of the ambulance to open the doors. As he walked toward the vehicle, Cole glanced over his shoulder toward the group behind him. “Can someone see to my car?”
“You got it, sport,” Dax called out. He grinned as he looked at the other members of his family. “Looks like Rayne might just have met her match.”
“Works for me,” Shaw commented as he yanked Longwell back to his feet again. This time, the man managed to stand up long enough to be handcuffed and deposited into a squad car.
Refusing to lie down on the gurney, Rayne sat on it instead. The paramedic had finished administering to her over her obvious glare. She would have waved him away if Cole hadn’t stopped her.
She didn’t like not being able to call her own shots. And yet, having someone looking out for her did carry with it a strange sweetness she was almost afraid to explore.
“This is a waste of time,” Rayne insisted. “It’s just a cut lip.”
In response, Cole took her chin in his hand, tilting her head so that he could get a better look at it. Her bottom lip had swollen around the cut. Hints of yellow were beginning to join the ghost of blue along her cheek. “And a hell of a bruise forming.”
“I can put ice on that and my lip.” Talking without moving her lower lip too much was proving to be a challenge, but nothing she wasn’t up to. She shifted impatiently on the gurney. There were reports she should be filling out.
“There’s no need to go to the hospital.”
Cole crossed his arms and looked at her. “Do you have to argue about everything?”
She sniffed, watching the streets go by. Feeling powerless. “Only when I’m right.”
Amusement twisted his mouth. “And how often are you wrong?”
She glanced in his direction. “I’ll let you know when it comes up.”
Damn, she was making it sound as if she could just turn toward him anytime the whim hit her, Rayne thought. Nothing could be further from the truth. Cole wouldn’t be there to turn to, at least not soon. His reason for coming back to Aurora was gone now. She knew that because of what Longwell had confessed in the car on the open line, the D.A. would be dropping the murder charges against Eric. With his brother free, Cole could go back to his life again.