first possibility.”
She shook her head. “But that doesn’t make any sense. The coincidence is too staggering, and the guy who murdered Misty Thompson most definitely knew who I was and made specific threats against me.”
“We’d like to question the suspect again with you present,” David said. “I’d like to get a feel for whether he recognizes you, pick up on his body language and see what else we can get from him when we question him directly about you.”
She nodded. “I agree. I’d like to hear him speak. I realize a voice ID is shaky at best, but I don’t think I’ll forget his voice anytime soon.”
“Okay, then let’s do it,” the chief said. “I’ll have the prisoner brought in to one of the interrogation rooms.” Then he eyed Regina across his desk. “You’re still not acting in an official capacity. You’re a witness, nothing more.”
“I understand, sir. I’ll follow your lead.”
She rose from her seat.
“Just a minute, Regina,” the chief said. He reached into his desk and pulled out her service piece. He slid it across the desk toward her.
“This was through processing a few days ago, but you were out of town. If the doc clears you, we’d be glad to have you back on Monday as we discussed.”
“Thank you, sir,” she murmured.
She patted the badge in her jeans pocket, drawing comfort from knowing that with everything else in her life spiraling out of control, she at least had her job back. The chief started for the door, and she quickly arranged the shoulder holster and secured her gun before following him out.
It should have meant more. She should have been more relieved. As she walked down the corridor toward the interrogation room, she tried to shake the foreboding that gripped her. It would be all right. She had her job back, and once she explained everything to the guys, things would be okay there too. They had to be.
She took a seat beside David and waited for the prisoner to be brought in.
Two hours later, Regina headed home, her mind in overdrive. Her gut screamed that the guy in custody wasn’t the one. He was a smooth son of a bitch. He said all the right things, and if he hadn’t killed Misty Thompson, he’d sure done his homework.
But he hadn’t so much as blinked in recognition when he’d walked into the exam room. He’d treated her just as he did all the other cops. With polite disdain and smug assuredness.
And his voice was all wrong.
There was enough doubt that the chief had warned her to keep on her toes, even though things had been remarkably quiet since the car bomb incident. David was groaning over the idea of having the wrong guy, and worse, having the wrong guy cop to a murder he didn’t commit.
If this guy wasn’t the one, it meant they were back to square one. No leads. No suspects.
She increased her speed, her reasons for wanting to get back home in a hurry twofold. Not only was she desperate to make things right with the guys, but now she had to worry that a killer was still on the loose. Someone she knew in her gut was after Hutch.
Then she had to bring them all back in for questioning. Whether they were still speaking to her or not. And now, once again, she was going to be faced with their skepticism over her motives. She sighed. How was she ever going to be able to make them see that she loved them and wanted to be with them, damn the consequences?
When she was a mile from the turnoff to the house, she saw a familiar truck pulled to the side of the road. She leaned forward and frowned as she got closer. It was Hutch’s truck.
She pulled up behind it but could see that no one was inside. Dread crept up her spine, and she reached for her gun. Prickles of unease danced across her skin as she slowly got out, her gun in front of her.
As she walked toward the driver’s side door, she saw the scrape of red paint on the white exterior. Sideswiped. Someone had sideswiped him and forced him onto the shoulder.
The door was slightly ajar, but what stopped her cold in her tracks was the splatter of blood on the ground. Her gaze traveled upward to see a smear of blood on the window.
She peered inside but found it empty. She whirled around to look on the ground and found a flurry of footprints, crossing over one another, some pressed deep into the dirt of the shoulder.
A struggle.
Her hands shook and panic swelled in her chest. He had Hutch. The son of a bitch had Hutch. She knew they had the wrong guy.
She took in the black tire marks leading from the far right of the road toward the middle and then back into the right-hand lane. Traveling north.
She ran for her car and yanked open her cell phone to call it in.
Please, Hutch. Be all right.
And then she prayed they’d find him in time.
CHAPTER 35
Hutch’s eyes flicked open, and pain stabbed him in the temple. He winced and closed his eyes again as he tried to figure out what the hell had happened.
A surge of adrenaline rocketed through his veins when he recalled the van slamming into his truck and forcing him to the shoulder.
Before he’d been able to get out and bitch at the driver, he’d been hauled from his truck by a man over a head taller and about a hundred pounds heavier.
Hutch had fought back, but a crowbar to the head had ended the fight in two seconds.
He tried to raise his fingers to his head to see how badly he was hurt but quickly figured out that he was trussed tighter than a Christmas turkey.
Goddamn it.
He wiggled his fingers experimentally and tried to restore some feeling to them. His hands were tied behind his back and his ankles were bound together.
Fear washed over him. Not for himself but for Reggie. Was this the same asshole who’d attacked her? What was it she’d said? That this whole thing was some sort of payback against him?
He didn’t have any fucking enemies that he knew of. His only close friends were Reggie, Sawyer and Cam. He’d fired a few construction workers, but come on. That happened a lot and they didn’t go around killing people over it.
The pounding in his head viciously increased, and he had to pant against the nausea curling in his stomach. He had to get the hell out of here. He had to find Reggie.
“I see you’re awake.”
The sneer echoed across the dimly lit room and startled him into stillness. He lay there unmoving, uncertain of where the man’s voice had originated from.
He didn’t have to wait long. Light from a kerosene lamp flooded the room as it bobbed closer to him.
A large figure loomed over him. Christ, the man was big. Fear tightened his gut. Was this the asshole who attacked Reggie? Rage replaced his fear.
“Look at me,” the man said angrily.
Hutch stared back at the man. “Do I know you?”
Rage simmered across the other man’s face. Hatred. Hatred directed at Hutch.
“You don’t recognize your brother, Hutch?” he snarled.
Hutch blinked in shock. Brother? Daniel?
“Yeah, that’s right. Your little brother in the flesh. Although,” he said, “you’re looking more like the little brother right about now, don’t you think?”
God, it was like looking at his father. They were nearly identical in size and personality. Bile rose in his throat as memories of the night his mother died came crashing back.
“Why do you hate me so much?” Hutch asked faintly. “Why are you trying to destroy the people I love? What have I ever done to you? If you want to hate someone, hate our father.”
Daniel’s eyes went cold. “Why do I hate you? Because you left me, you son of a bitch. You left me with that bastard. I endured years of his beatings, his drinking and his mood swings while you were off getting a new life, replacing me with other brothers. You had everything and you never once gave a damn about me.”
The words, so harshly spoken yet with such an edge of pain, took Hutch’s breath away. His chest swelled until he had a hard time breathing.
“I was just a kid,” he s
aid hoarsely. “You can’t hold it against me that I had to get away from that monster.”
“You left me with him,” Daniel choked out. “I’ll never forgive you for that. I’m going to take away everything you replaced me with. Your foster mother. Birdie’s her name, isn’t it? Sweet lady. She could have been my mother too, but you didn’t give a damn what happened to me.”
“Christ,” Hutch said, the words he wanted to say nearly strangling him. “Daniel, listen to me. Birdie isn’t to blame. All she did was take in boys who didn’t have a home. She would have taken you too if she’d known about you. Don’t blame her. Blame me.”
“And your cop girlfriend,” Daniel continued on as if Hutch hadn’t spoken. “I would have killed her but the bitch fought back.”
That’s my girl. Thank God she was so damn ornery. Now that he’d seen Daniel, he didn’t know how the hell Reggie had managed to escape with her life.
“And your business partners. Do you call them your brothers? You were all raised together.”
“They’re my best friends,” Hutch said quietly. “They didn’t know about you either, Daniel. They had a rough childhood just like you. It’s me you’re angry with. Deal with me. I’m the only one to blame for leaving you.”
“Yes, you are,” he said simply. “But if I kill you first, you won’t suffer. I want you to live long enough to suffer the knowledge that the people most important to you are dead.”
Helpless rage boiled over him, bubbling up and threatening to explode. He was completely helpless. Unable to do a goddamn thing but lie there and listen to his own brother plot to kill the people he loved most.
“Daniel, what can I do to make this up to you, to make things right?” Hutch said as calmly as he knew how. His only chance was to reason with him, though God only knew how he was supposed to reason with someone who’d obviously lost his grip on sanity a long time ago.
“Where is our father now?” he asked, trying a different tack and subject.
An eerie calm settled over Daniel. His eyes lost some of their wildness, and an element of peace seemed to cloak him. It was chilling.
“I killed the son of a bitch.”
Just like he’d killed Misty Thompson, whose only sin had been going to Hutch’s senior prom. His throat ached when he imagined her husband and children, alone now, all because of a mistake he’d made when he was just a boy. Just a kid. Scared out of his mind and no longer able to take the brutality of his father. He’d barely been able to take care of himself. How could he have been expected to take care of a younger brother?
You should have tried.
He closed his eyes. It was too late. All the guilt in the world, all the coulda shoulda wouldas in the world wouldn’t change the fact that his brother hated him with enough passion to take someone else’s life.
“I’ll help you, Daniel,” he said gently. “We can be a family again. Just promise me you won’t hurt anyone else. I have money. We can buy a house. Just you and me. Go fishing. I remember how much you liked that.”
Daniel put his hands over his ears like a child and shook his head vigorously. After a moment, he dropped his hands and moved closer to Hutch. His face was drawn in anger. Dark menace lurked in the brown eyes so much like Hutch’s own.
Hutch twisted his wrists, trying to loosen the ropes. They cut into his skin, but he didn’t care. He had to try something, anything to escape. There were too many people at risk.
Daniel curled his fingers and reached menacingly toward Hutch.
“Back away or I’ll shoot!”
Reggie. Jesus Christ, what the hell was she doing here? His gaze flew to the door where she stood, legs apart, her gun aimed at Daniel.
Daniel leapt toward Hutch and, true to her word, she shot. Daniel grunted as he landed on Hutch, knocking the breath out of him. They rolled with Daniel’s momentum, and Hutch landed on top of his brother.
Daniel scrambled to his feet, and Hutch felt the warm smear of blood. Reggie had hit Daniel.
A cold blade pressed to Hutch’s neck, and he held his breath for fear any movement would send the knife slicing through his skin.
“Put the gun down or he dies,” Daniel snarled.
Hutch’s gaze found Reggie across the room. Her gun was trained on Daniel, or maybe it was him. They were meshed so close together, Daniel’s arm wrapped tight around Hutch, that for all practical purposes she was aiming at both of them.
Her eyes narrowed in intense concentration as she walked forward.
“Put the knife down,” she said in a voice that would intimidate even the biggest guy. For the first time, Hutch appreciated what a badass she was when she was in cop mode.
“In a few minutes this place will be swarming with cops. You won’t get out alive,” she said coldly.
“As long as he dies, it doesn’t matter,” Daniel said with an edge of desperation to his voice.
Reggie stalked sideways now, adjusting her grip on the gun, trying to get a better angle to take Daniel out. As much as Hutch wanted out of his current predicament, his heart sank at the idea of his brother dying. Such a goddamn waste.
The knife cut into his skin and a trickle of blood slithered down his neck. Reggie stopped in her tracks and held the gun in unwavering hands.
“What have you got against Hutch?” she asked in a calm voice. “I mean I know he can be a pain in the ass, but surely that isn’t worth the death penalty.”
Gee thanks, Reggie. He glared at her, but she didn’t so much as look at him. All her attention was focused on Daniel.
“Tell her who you are, Daniel,” Hutch rasped, careful not to send the blade any deeper into his neck. “She’ll want to meet you.”
“Daniel. Nice name,” Reggie commented. “Got a last?”
“It’s Bishop,” Daniel snarled.
Hutch saw Reggie’s eyes widen as she made the connection.
“Well you obviously aren’t his father. I’m gonna guess you’re his younger brother. You know he used to talk about you all the time.”
Daniel stiffened and Hutch almost groaned. What the hell was she doing? He’d never mentioned his brother. Hell, she hadn’t known he had one until the other night.
“What did he say?” Daniel demanded, and Hutch marveled at how childlike he sounded.
“Just that you two used to have some good times,” she said in a calm, measured voice. Damn she was good. “What a sorry bastard your father was to both of you and how he regretted that you didn’t get out with him.”
Somehow, she’d managed to get a grasp on the situation. Either that or she was a damn good guesser. But she’d plunged right into the heart of the matter.
“Yeah, right,” Daniel spat. “He felt real bad. He got everything. A mother. New brothers. You. He got you. I want him to watch all of you die. I want him to know what it feels like to lose people he loves.”
The knife dug deeper into his skin and more blood slid down his neck. Christ. This wasn’t good.
Reggie raised the gun and leveled it with an ice-cold look. “Put the knife down, Daniel. You don’t want to do this.”
“Back off!” Daniel screamed. “I’ll kill him right now. It won’t matter if you shoot me or not. I’ll slice his neck before I die.”
Reggie hesitated, and her eyes narrowed in concentration. Obviously she was judging his determination. She relaxed and lowered her gun. Maybe she realized he wasn’t bluffing.
“All right,” she said soothingly. “Let’s do this your way. I’ll put my gun down. You let Hutch go. It’s me you want, right? You want Hutch to watch me die. He can’t do that if he dies first, Daniel.”
“Reggie, no!” Hutch bellowed. “What the fuck are you thinking? Shoot him. Do it now.”
She ignored him and crouched down, hunkering on the floor. She laid the gun on the carpet and slowly stood again. She kicked the gun away and it went spiraling across the floor.
“There. Gun is gone. Now show me some faith here. Let Hutch go. You’ll have me. I’m who you want.
He loves me, you know. You kill