“Blood’s thick in the air, body lying dead on the ground, and you’re the only one still standing. How do you explain that?” I took a menacing step toward him, head tilted in question, my eyes locked on his, and my finger resting on the trigger. “For the last time, get on the fucking ground.”
He moved quickly in the opposite direction and I took off in pursuit. Boots pounding behind me told me Austin was following. There was no chance he was getting out of here. I moved left. Austin went right. The assailant’s head bobbed between us, and fear stretched over his face when he realized there was no chance of escaping.
“It's bad enough being out in the rain in the middle of the night, so I sure as fuck don’t need to be running,” Austin said sharply. “Now, if you don’t want to be shot by my partner, and believe me, he will shoot, I suggest you get on the fucking ground.”
His eyes went wide and darted to me, and as I went to take a step toward him, he quickly dropped to his knees in surrender. Austin remained stationary, with his gun locked and loaded, while I secured mine to my hip and moved in. I pushed him to the ground and cuffed him, before reading him his rights and dragging him to his feet. In the dim light, I got a good look at him. The trembling man standing before me was barely twenty years old.
“What’s your name?” I asked as I nudged him to walk.
“Scott Jones. I have no clue what’s happening. I got paid to deliver a package to this address, and that’s what I’m doing. I didn’t ask questions. I just did the job.”
“At midnight?” I pressed.
“I need money. I don’t say no to jobs.” He stuttered.
Being a cop for so long allowed me time to develop the skill of reading people. This guy was trembling, and the chill in the air wasn't the cause. His breathing was labored. He wasn’t avoiding my gaze. He answered everything I asked without thinking of his response; therefore, not giving himself time to come up with a lie.
“How much did you get paid?” I asked as we stepped through the door and out into the pouring rain.
“Man, I was paid twenty dollars. I don’t know anything.”
Twenty fucking dollars.
We stopped moving when we got to Officer Carey.
“Take him in and lock him up. Hart and I will be in to have a chat with him. The crew can go in there and start working, and put a priority on identifying the body.”
Jones looked between Carey and me before trying to pull away in protest. “Why am I getting locked up? I only delivered a package,” Jones cried out in disbelief.
Austin grunted and took a step toward him. “There’s a dead body, you’re the only here, and you ran the moment we turned up. That means we are having a chat.”
“Why can’t we chat here?” Jones asked as if he didn’t hear the mention of a dead body.
Now it was my turn to step in his space. “It’s raining. I’m cold as a motherfucker, and it’s past midnight. Standing in the rain is not where I want to deal with the excuses or stories festering in your head, which I know you’re going to try feeding us. I’m going to get a coffee, I’m going home to get changed, and then, and only then, will we chat.”
I stepped away, not bothering to hear what he said next. I knew he had nothing to do with that body, but I also knew there was a chance he might know who did. Austin fell into step beside me, and before we headed to the car, we went back into the building, which was now lit up by spotlights. I crouched down and took in the victim. A single gunshot wound to the head, eyes opened and looking to the sky, and dressed in an expensive looking suit. No sign of struggle, no blood splatter, little to no mess. That sounded the alarms. The witness reported hearing four gunshots, which meant someone wanted the victim to be found. I recognised him immediately. Stefan Stanley. A drug dealer from the next town over, who’d served time for possession and intent to sell, and as far as I knew hadn’t brought his shit to Monroe.
Until now.
“Hunt, get your ass in here,” Captain Santora called out from his office when I walked past. I turned and stepped in, closing the door behind me. “Jones is in holding room one. You planning on making him squirm?”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”
“Christ, Hunt. Just do it clean,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Hart told me you identified the victim as Stefan Stanley?”
“I’m 99% sure it’s him. The scene didn’t match the witness reports though. Single gunshot wound, yet numerous gunshots were heard. It looked like a clean shot. The team is working the scene now, so morning will bring more answers. But I don’t have a good feeling about this. Just by looking at him, it didn’t look like it was done there. No struggle, no blood splatter, no disturbance of any form.”
“We’ll see what the team brings back. I’ll call Eriksville PD and see if they’ve heard anything of Stanley being back in the business. Go and talk to Jones. See what he says. Just don’t frighten the kid too much. He about shit his pants when he was brought in here.”
“I’ll try my best.”
I left Captain shaking his head and mumbling under his breath, then made my way down the hall and stepped into the interrogation room. Austin sat on one side of the desk, and Jones sat on the other side. He watched every step I took and sucked in a deep, unsteady breath as I pulled out the metal chair and took a seat. I made sure I took my time grabbing a pen and tearing off a bit of paper. It was while they squirmed and waited that all of their deepest secrets came to the surface.
“So, tell me again, what were you doing there?”
He responded immediately, “I was picking up a package.”
“At midnight. In the rain. To an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town,” Austin added, arrogance drenching every word.
“I know it sounds crazy, but it’s the truth. I don’t know what was in the package. I just had to pick it up.”
“We need an address of where you were going to deliver the package. That’s step one. Step two is telling us why you didn’t call 911 when you supposedly stumbled on a dead body with a hole in his head.” I pushed, and narrowed my gaze. “Picking up a package should have been the last thing on your fucking mind the moment you saw a man dying in front of you.”
“I don’t know anything.” He cried, his desperate gaze darting between Austin and I.
“You need to start fucking talking.” I warned.
I leaned back in my chair, crossed my legs at the ankles, linked my hands behind my head, and stared at him. I wouldn’t break. I would stay in this exact position long enough for him to become visibly jittery. The silence would become too much. Silence was the greatest weapon in getting the truth out of someone if they had something to hide. Silence was a beautiful, tranquil thing, but if your head was pounding with lies, the pounding would eventually become too much, and the silence would become a scream.
He took a deep breath and his eyes dropped to the table.
Broken.
My eyes sliced to Austin, and with a subtle chin lift he confirmed he knew what was coming.
“Just after ten, I got a call from the guy my sister is seeing. He wanted a package picked up. He gave me an address, and I went. I don’t know what I was picking up. I just know he is the kind of guy you don’t say no to,” he admitted in a flurry of short breaths. “I turned up, and then the cops turned up. I didn’t see or hear anything. No gunshots. Nothing.”
My jaw clenched as his words penetrated. “I’ll need the names of your sister and her boyfriend.”
“Darla Jones and Aaron Den—”
He stopped and looked toward the closed door, as the voice of a clearly pissed off woman infiltrated into the interrogation room. As I listened, I recognized the voice, and it belonged to none other than Sasha Hamilton.
“I’m going to see what’s going on out there,” I informed Austin before pushing back from the desk and standing.
Placing my knuckles on the top of the metal table, I leaned over and stole Scott John’s personal space. “Best thing for you
to do is to answer every question asked of you. You’re going to get prints taken, and you’re going to get tested for residue. "If what you’re saying is true, then this is the shittiest example of wrong place at the wrong time, and you have nothing to worry about.”
I straightened and left Austin to wrap it up. I walked up front and continued listening as Sasha unleashed in the waiting room. Tonight, David, our newest recruit, was working the front desk. On occasion, I’d enjoyed a beer with him, and I knew he was as timid as a mouse. He had no fucking hope of dealing with a woman who could hold her own like Sasha.
“Its two in the freaking morning," Sasha said with a loud, aggravated sigh. "It’s pouring down with rain, my hoodie is saturated, and yes, the water has gone through to my bra. This is not how I anticipated I'd be spending my night. I should be sleeping, David, not dealing with soaking wet clothes and cold boobs.”
“Sasha, if you could—” David stammered, and I started to feel sorry for the guy.
“My hundred dollar bra, David,” she replied, exasperated.
“Give me a second,” David mumbled, before moving away from the counter in the direction of Captain Santora’s office.
With David gone, I was granted full view of the waiting room. Sasha paced the room, and as my intrigued gaze ran over her body, I enjoyed every curve she offered. I was a hot-blooded man who thoroughly enjoyed the curves of a woman, and Sasha Hamilton had the perfect combination of curves and tightness.
Suddenly, it was two a.m. and dealing with a dead body wasn’t my main concern.
Finding out why Sasha Hamilton was here, and looking like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders, was.
6
SASHA
Instead of being tucked up in bed, I paced the waiting room of Monroe Police Department wearing soggy clothes, stringy hair, and ruined heels. As I was eating my body weight in cookie dough ice cream after the dinner from hell, I’d received a call notifying me that the alarm at Sass had been triggered. I called the police as I drove to my store. The PD was five minutes from Sass, and I was ten minutes away, so I assumed that when I pulled up I would be met by an officer. That assumption was my first mistake. My second was having a hissy fit in the waiting room of Monroe Police Department and unknowingly getting the attention of every member of the staff.
Captain Santora appeared from the office that David had disappeared into and made his way to the counter.
“Sasha?” he queried as he took in my dishevelled appearance.
“The alarm at Sass was triggered and I called, but when I arrived no one was there. I’d go in myself, but—”
His eyes flashed when I mentioned going on my own. “We had a situation tonight and there have been fatalities, so the department is a bit backed up.”
I sucked in a breath. “Oh, my god.”
“Yeah, honey. David has been manning the phones and counter on his own,” he said with a long sigh. He looked tired, and here I was ranting like a total lunatic. “We’ll get someone to Sass. It might take a little time though.”
Regret immediately flooded me. Here I was ranting like a total lunatic and unleashing not just bitchy Sasha, but also hissy fit Sasha onto an unsuspecting David who was just doing his job. My gaze darted to the office, and I decided that there was no time like the present to apologize.
“David, I’m sorry for being a total, over-the-top bitch,” I said loudly. “Come to Sass and you can get something for your girl to compensate for dealing with bitchy Sasha. Totally on the house, whatever you want.”
David stepped out of the office and made his way to the counter while shaking his head and fighting a smile. “No need to apologize, Sasha.”
“I’m serious, come and see me on your next day off and you can choose something for your girlfriend, because most of the stuff there is pretty girly. It’s the least I can do for making you deal with all of this.” I waved my hands wildy around my face and body to emphasize my point.
“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t have a girlfriend, and girly shit wouldn’t suit my apartment.”
“What?” I screeched, slapping my hand hard onto the counter and leaning toward him. “How do you not have a girlfriend? You are a hottie. Captain, tell him he’s a hottie. Look at those cheekbones, that stubble, those lips. David, let me tell you, girls like all those things, and you’re ticking all the boxes.”
“Christ,” Captain mumbled and didn’t answer my question. “How about we get back on topic?”
Oh right, yes, the fact that my store’s alarm went off.
“I got the call when I got home tonight. I got in my car, called the PD, and drove to Sass thinking someone would meet me there.” I met his eyes and dropped my voice. “I don’t have anyone to call, so I came here.”
“How are you doing?” he asked quietly, clearly sensing that my mood had shifted from feisty to solemn in the space of a couple seconds. Living in a small town meant your business wasn’t your own for very long, so most people of Monroe knew the history of the Hamilton’s. Being asked if I was okay wasn’t unusual, but as usual, I gave them a smile and went about my life the best way I could, and that was with my head held high, a smile on my face, and fierce determination in everything I did.
“I’m good,” I lied through a smile. “I’m just tired and worried about Sass. I’ll call Missy’s dad and see if he can meet me. There’s too much going on here to worry about sending someone down there.”
Concern flooded his face as he observed me, and I had no clue what to say, so I stood there and kept my mouth shut.
“We need to find you a man,” he stated matter-of-factly, shocking me to the core.
“Uh, I’m happy living the bachelorette lifestyle,” I declared with a girly snort. “And anyway, do you really think there is a man out there that could put up with me?”
The smile he shot my way told me he understood what I meant. His wife, Rose, loved my store and dragged him there every Sunday. While she charged things to the credit card, he chatted with me, and we got on like a house on fire.
“You ever need Rose or me, you come find us. I don’t like thinking of you living alone in that house by yourself. Since your Daddy died and your mother—” He hesitated, and his eyes grew soft as I felt my face freeze. “Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to bring her up.”
Every time someone mentioned her, a chill crawled up my spine and I froze. These days she wasn’t brought up often, but when she was, I was tossed back to being a fifteen-year-old girl whose world completely imploded. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since she left. There were no calls, no birthday cards, no congratulations on graduating college—nothing. Having to experience all of my firsts without the advice of my mother hurt the most. A girl should never have to experience her first boyfriend, her first broken heart, and her first kiss and awkward thoughts of intimacy without her mother. The moment she left, the life I knew changed forever.
I became distant, and super protective of what remained of my innocence. But as the years passed and I became an adult, my innocence died along with any hope that she’d return. That one moment molded the life I now lived, and it fueled my decision to depend on no one but myself. If my mother, my own blood, could choose to leave me, why would anyone else want to stick around? I, Sasha Hamilton, was a walking example of what abandonment issues looked like.
“I'll take her.”
The voice guilty of sending pleasurable shivers down my spine sounded behind me, and my eyes slammed shut. Sucking in a deep breath and pulling back my shoulders, I opened my eyes and slowly spun around to confirm who I knew was there.
And boy, was he there.
Ben Hunt leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his broad chest, his body covered in black jeans and a black shirt that was like a delectable second skin. His hair was crazy, his chin covered with light stubble, and those eyes locking me in place.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered with a sigh. Why was this man everywhere I went these days
? “Are you stalking me? Like seriously? What are you doing here?”
“Sasha, this is Detective Ben Hunt,” Captain Santora introduced, and Ben’s eyes never left mine, though his lips did twitch.
Detective Ben Hunt.
Well. Shit.
“Is there someone else that can take me?” I asked quickly, tearing my eyes from Ben’s and looking back at Captain. “How about David? There’s nothing like the present to repay him for being bitchy. I’ll take him for coffee. I’ll bring everyone coffee.”
“You got a problem with me, sweetheart?” Ben asked in a low tone that conflicted my emotions.
I was drawn back to him and watched as he pushed off the doorframe and stepped toward me. Why did hearing him call me sweetheart cause me to flounder between wanting to record him so I could always hear it, to begging him to never call me that again?
I scoffed and put my hand on my hip. “I already owe you for lunch, so this would mean I am indebted to you for something else.”
With that, his eyes flashed and he smirked. “There are worse things than having you in debt to me. Now let’s go, or is there something else you’ve gotta say?”
I shot a desperate look to Captain Santora, but he showed me no reason to believe he was going to be any help. My next hope was David, but when I turned to him, he was flat out smiling.
“Honey, you are in good hands,” Captain Santora acknowledged, and his eyes bounced between Ben and me. “Ben will take good care of you.”
I didn’t want anyone to take care of me.
7
SASHA
“Stay in here with the doors locked until I come back to get you," Ben ordered as we pulled up in front of Sass. “I’m going to check things out.”
The car trip had been silent aside from the soft music spilling from the radio. I’d sensed Ben looking my way during the drive, and on a couple of occasions I met his gaze, but we hadn’t spoken. As soon as Ben turned the car down Main Street, I sat up in my seat, desperate to see Sass with my own eyes. Now as we sat out front, I couldn’t see a thing but darkness.