Page 27 of Twin Threats In Austin
Breakfast tacos would have to wait.
Chapter Ten
After a quick stop for convenience-store coffee and a bland bagel, Rochelle hopped into the passenger seat.
“I can’t stop thinking about how busy Kage would have to be if he was responsible for these kidnappings and still had time to stalk your home last night,” Camden said after gobbling down the awful bagel and washing it down with burnt coffee. He made a face but didn’t complain. They’d both done this dance before. The old routine of “get something—anything—in your stomach while on the road.”
“The kidnapping happened days ago,” she pointed out.
“Which would make Justina the fourth victim,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“And, somehow, he still had time to swing by the bar?” he asked. “I don’t know. Nothing makes sense to me at this point.”
It wasn’t unusual for the puzzle pieces of a case to seem unrelated until she found the one bit that connected all the dots. The mental challenge was a big part of the reason she’d become a detective in the first place. The other more important one had to do with putting the bad guys behind bars so they couldn’t hurt anyone else ever again. “I know what you mean. It’ll click.” It had to. There was no way in hell she intended to allow these cases to run cold. The percentage of cold cases that were eventually solved was heart-wrenchingly low.
Families deserved to know what happened to their loved ones.
“Everyone in law enforcement has a story,” Camden said. “What’s yours?”
“I already told you that I’m an only child,” she said. “What I didn’t say was that my best friend from age eight to twelve was also an only child. We were thick as thieves, the two of us.” She took a second before saying her friend’s name. After all these years, it was still a gut punch. “Victoria McGowen was her name.” Rochelle breathed in a slow breath as the song “Butterfly Kisses” came to mind. Victoria had been obsessed with them. All things butterflies, actually. “For four years, she was all I had. But her parents started fighting when we were around ten years old. They were probably hiding their disagreements before then. The fights escalated so Victoria stayed at our house most of the time. Then, her father demanded she come home. Back then, I had no idea a person could hurt their own child. Victoria always made excuses for turning up with bruises. It wasn’t until years later that I put it all together.”
“What happened?”
“He flipped out one day while cleaning his gun,” she said. “It discharged by accident. The bullet went through Victoria’s bedroom wall to strike her.” She stopped to gather her thoughts and stop the moisture gathering in her eyes. She never talked about what happened. She never allowed herself to think about what had gone down. And yet, she realized the irony because that day changed everything for Rochelle. “She didn’t survive.”
“I’m so sorry,” Camden said, his voice a balm to a broken heart.
“Her mother lost it,” she continued. “Wrestled the dad for the gun, ended up getting shot in the process.”
“That’s awful, Rochelle. I couldn’t be sorrier for a tragedy like that to have happened, let alone to people you obviously cared about.”
“The dad was consumed with guilt after calming down and realizing what he’d done.” She paused to take another breath. Being with Camden made her able to talk about a past she’d buried so deep that she was only beginning to realize how deeply the wounds had affected her. “He took his own life.”
Camden’s hand closed over hers. His was huge by comparison, and rough. Another time, another place, she would allow herself to imagine those hands roaming over her body.
“It’s an unimaginable horror,” he soothed with compassion that wrapped her in warmth.
“An entire family was gone.” She snapped the fingers of her free hand. “Just like that.”
“You lost your best friend,” he said, his deep timbre offering more reassurance than she should probably allow. It would be a little too easy to lean into his strength. And then what? Have nothing again when this case was closed? Rochelle had learned the hard way that it was so much harder to have a confidant and lose them than not to have one at all. The pain of losing a best friend was almost too much. With Camden, it would be ten times worse because the current running between them was loaded with promise.
“I did,” she said quietly. “And every milestone birthday makes me wonder what Victoria would have been like at that age. Would we still be best friends? Would we have gone to college together? Would we have been roommates like we’d planned?”
“It must have been lonely,” he said, using his thumb to draw circles around her palm. “Growing up without her.”
“You have no idea,” she said.
“You’ve lost so much,” he continued.
She should probably end this conversation before she went down the rabbit hole of letting him be her comfort. Because his words soothed her far better than anything she’d ever known.
With a deep breath, she released his hand and sat up straighter in her seat. “We should probably get going.”
Camden sat there for a long moment before finally turning on the engine and driving out of the parking lot.
The drive to Kage’s place was spent in comfortable silence. Too comfortable. Rochelle was letting down her guard with Camden, bit by bit, despite knowing better.
