Page 12

TWELVE

Gabriel

“Gabriel, downstairs NOW. You need to stop Liam,” Matthew yells into the phone I’d just answered.

“Cole, stay right here,” I say as I take off running for the stairs. I take them two at a time and nearly slip on the way down before I hit the first floor and rush out to see what’s happening, but I don’t have to look hard as I see people trying to drag Liam off a man.

“What the fuck is going on?” I yell, unsure of what could have happened to make Liam lose his composure like this.

“I don’t know,” Matthew says. “He said something about this guy stealing his money and his mother’s head… his mother being beaten?”

My stomach sinks as I realize that the man Liam is wanting to get to must be the third man involved in his parents’ deaths. The one who stole the money and left before Liam’s mother was killed.

“Did you enjoy my money? Was it worth their deaths? Did it just make your life after ruining mine?” he snaps as he shoves someone off, but before he can reach the man, I slide in front of Liam and wrap my arms around him. Even though he threw everyone else off who tried to pull him back, he immediately stops when he realizes it’s me. I squeeze him tight as I can feel the tension winding through his body; his limbs are rigid with it.

I dig my hands securely into his back as I squeeze him to me, holding him with so much strength that he can’t break free… but he’d never chance hurting me, so he’s being careful.

“Gabriel, stop,” he orders.

“No. Liam, you know you have to calm down,” I say, afraid he’s going to do something he’s going to regret. “Shh. It’s okay. I’m here now. I’m right here.”

He shudders and I feel the tension release as I hold him tight.

“What is happening?” the new chief barks as she rushes out to see the problem. She’s only been in the chief position a month and is probably wondering what drama she has to deal with now. It’s not like she’s new to the district, though, so she knows that Liam’s a bit of a handful to deal with. But Liam has always been a handful in a completely different way. Never like this.

Liam is panting, his eyes wild, but he’s calming down.

A woman I hadn’t even noticed waves frantically. “That man attacked my husband! He attacked him!” the wife yells as people crowd into the area to see what’s happened and all eyes latch on to Liam.

Not sure what else to do, I pull myself from Liam, hating that I have to draw away, but well aware I need to take control of the situation. I direct him to Matthew, who Liam clearly doesn’t want. He immediately turns combative again, but Matthew gives him a shake.

“Knock it off,” Matthew hisses.

I turn to the man who people are trying to help. They think Liam’s the bad guy. They think he’s snapped.

“You’re under arrest for being an accomplice in the murders of Cassandra and Robert Paige,” I say. “Ma’am, please back away unless you’d like to be arrested as well.”

The hands helping the man hesitate, and I’m thrilled to see that he appears okay. Nothing worse than if Liam had hurt him. He looks shaken up, but that’s likely from the fact that after all these years, he’s finally been caught.

The man seems to think he can deny this. “W-What? No! I didn’t! I didn’t! I don’t know what’s happening.”

“Put your hands behind your back,” I order as I read him his rights while he tries to shout over me.

He’s shaking his head vehemently. “I didn’t! I didn’t!”

“What is happening?” the wife asks as I watch Matthew drag Liam back toward the elevator. His eyes catch mine and I can see that they’re wild. I really shouldn’t be gone from him for too long. Who knows what will happen if I am.

I wave Donna over and have her deal with the man—it’s not like it’d be appropriate for me to when I’m dating Liam—and turn to rush to Liam, but Michaels and Chief Taylor stop me.

“What is the meaning of this?” the chief asks.

“Liam was called in for an interview, but when he went into the room… something about the man made him realize that he was an accomplice in the murder of his parents,” I say. “You can’t be upset with Liam about this. I know he acted irrationally, but this man, along with two others, came into his home when he was a teenager and held him and his mother at gunpoint. This man fucking watched as Liam was thrown down the stairs, breaking his arm. They tied him up and he was forced to watch one of the men bash his mother’s head into the wall until she died and the other shoot his father in the head. You cannot tell me that any one of us wouldn’t have acted irrationally if the person who was involved in the death of our parents waltzed in and wanted our help. I love my parents so much that if that happened to them…” I shake my head. “I don’t even want to imagine what I’d have done to him.”

“Fucking hell. Where’s this guy at?” Michaels asks.

Chief Taylor turns and shakes her head. “Sergeant, you will not be speaking to him. I will send someone else to speak to him. How did Paige know that this was the man now, but not when he was a teenager?”

“I don’t know.”

“How many people were involved in this incident?” Taylor asks.

“Three,” I say. “One died on scene. The other two got away.”

“He was never able to identify either of them?” she asks.

Michaels hesitates before shaking his head. “I was a detective at the time and one of the ones who responded to the call. Paige never got a look at any of their faces.”

I look at him in surprise, not having realized that Michaels had been one of those who’d responded. I assume Liam knows, but maybe he doesn’t.

“They never figured out who the two were that got away,” he says. “There wasn’t enough evidence and eventually, the case ran cold.”

Michaels has no idea that the final man is already dead and has been dead for many years. If they get this guy to confess, will he give up the dead man’s name? Will people look into it?

“Can I go check on Liam? He was quite upset,” I say.

“Go ahead. I want to know how he figured out it was this man. Any evidence we can find would be best,” Taylor tells me.

“I will,” I say as I head for the stairs since the elevator seems a bit congested with nosy people wandering around.

When I reach the top of the steps, I nearly run into Matthew. “Where’s Liam?”

“He’s in his office with Jesse and Cole. What the fuck’s going on? Liam’s parents were killed by that guy?”

“I don’t think that guy, exactly. I just…” I shake my head, not feeling right sharing Liam’s past.

“I’m literally going to walk right over to my computer if you don’t tell me. I will look it up myself.”

I sigh. “Three men broke into his home when he was fifteen. They claimed they were there for money and took him and his mother hostage. But after days of holding them, they ended up killing his parents. Him claiming that this guy took the money tells me that this guy wasn’t involved in killing them, but he was an accomplice. Please be a friend to Liam and don’t go digging. If he wants you to know more, he’ll tell you. Now how is he?”

“He is… acting perfectly fine. Jesse is like this ball of positivity, so I whisked him up here to save the day, but Liam’s back to normal.”

“He… copes in… odd ways,” I say as I head to our office and pull open the door.

Liam looks up the moment the door swings open and smiles at me. “Join us, Gabriel. Jesse thinks we are interested in the different stages of larvae. I told him this is why he’s going to die alone, but he told me he won’t be alone because he has ‘Nefertiti,’ which I’m assuming is what he named the teddy bear he uses to sop up his tears when he thinks about how awesome I am.”

I’m so thrown by all of this that I end up just standing in the doorway and staring at him.

Jesse gasps. “She is not! She’s my baby. Do you want to see pictures of her?” He quickly whips out his phone. “This is us reading together. This is us eating dinner together just last night.”

Jesse flashes me a picture of him cuddling on the couch with a tarantula. Matthew visibly shudders when he sees it.

“Gabriel, I’m starting to think your cat isn’t so weird,” Liam announces.

Matthew leans in to whisper in my ear. “Told you. Acts like nothing’s wrong.”

“Liam, could we talk for a minute?” I ask.

“I don’t know if I feel comfortable leaving Cole alone with Jesse. He’s a bit creepy.”

“Look at her with this little Santa hat I made her!” Jesse says as he shows Cole, who looks less than impressed. But Liam dutifully gets up and follows me out. The issue is that now everyone in the main office is staring at us.

“Paige,” Michaels says when he sees him. “We need to talk about what we need to do.”

Liam simply waves him off like Michaels has just told him that he borrowed a Post-it Note. “I don’t plan to press charges against Kenny Marsh. I think I might have actually been mistaken. It was just… it was on my mind recently. And it was just that something he said sounded like something the man I mistook him for said. I apologize for the scene. I will apologize directly to the chief. Gabriel, what did you need?”

Michaels just stares at him for a moment, so I usher him into an empty room and shut the door.

“Are you okay?”

Liam beams at me. “I’m fine. Did you miss me? Did you witness my child-taming skills and realize that I’m the ultra man?” he asks as he kisses me. How the hell did we get here? He grabs me around my waist and pulls me in like we’re just going to start making out right this second when I can feel the tension in his body. He might be fooling everyone else into thinking things are just fine, but he can’t fool me.

I pull back, and when he goes in for another kiss, I put my hand between us. He doesn’t mind. He just starts kissing my hand without hesitation. He’s making sure each fingertip gets attention as he kisses his way down the row. “I love your fingers. I love you. I love everything about you.”

I pull my hand away and he looks almost upset about it until I grab his face in my hand. “Liam, stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop… this. Talk to me. You can’t just… you can’t excuse what he did, and then just… what? Make him disappear? He could be telling them the name of the last person, the one who killed your mom, as we speak . They could find out he’s dead or missing or whatever the fuck they think happened to him. And then if this guy just disappears as well?”

He tilts his head, fixated on kissing my fingers like that’s the only thing in his life that matters.

“Liam, please.”

At the desperation in my words, he presses his lips close to my neck, and I’m convinced he’s just going to continue kissing me when he says, “I’m going to kill him.”

I shake my head. “No, no, you don’t have to.”

“But I do. And I can’t if he’s in prison. He’s going to lie and say that he played no part, and I’m going to tell them that I fucked up. I messed up. And I’ll play the card of ‘I was traumatized seeing my mother’s head slammed into a fucking wall, I must have made a mistake,’ and then I’m going to kill him. Let me kill him. Please let me kill him. Gabriel, I have to kill him.”

He’s acting frantic again. It’s like he can’t catch his breath.

I reach up and smooth his hair back. “Liam… I need you to think. I need you to think really fucking hard. If you were a detective… if you were looking in from the outside and suddenly this man disappeared… and the other man who killed the person’s parents disappeared… who the fuck do you think you’d start looking at? The son, right? I can’t lose you. I love you, and I can’t lose you. And if you kill him, I’m afraid I’m going to lose you.”

Liam’s fingers dig into my back. “Please.”

“You’d risk everything . Everything for this.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement and he knows it.

“FUCK,” he hisses as he tucks his head against my shoulder. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

My fingers cradle his head as I try to convey how much I love him. How much I need him. How much I’m afraid of what will happen if he goes through this the way he wants. “I’m sorry. But not him. It can’t be him.”

I gently guide him into a chair, and I give his lips a soft kiss. “Please.”

He slowly nods.

I open the door and find Michaels not far away, waiting for us to come out. I nod to him, and he hurries over and steps into the room.

“Paige, I’m so sorry that it’s come to this. But we might finally get the closure you need,” Michaels says.

Liam is silent, just sitting there, and for a moment, I’m afraid he’s going to lie.

“I always felt so awful that I never gave you the closure you needed,” Michaels adds.

Liam still hasn’t said anything, so I reach over and squeeze his hand. “His voice,” he finally says quietly. “I could tell it was him from his voice. I know it’s not the proof you need. And I don’t know if you can even do anything about it… but it was his voice. The instant he spoke… I was back in that room. He’s the one who took the money… not the one who killed my mom. But… he might know who that man is.”

“I will do everything I can to get you the answers you deserve,” Michaels promises. “Cole is due back at his school. Why don’t the two of you drop him off and take the afternoon off? There’s nothing happening here that the others can’t work on.”

“I’m staying on Jane Doe’s case,” Liam says. “Knowing the person who pulled her out of the river does not prohibit me from working the case.”

“Yes, but now his wife could be involved, with her claim that someone’s been following her.”

“Someone else can deal with his wife. I’m working on the Jane Doe,” he insists, and Michaels nods. Does he feel guilt for not having the answers Liam had needed and is willing to give him what he wants?

“And I’m looking at Abby’s file.”

“I give you an inch and you take a mile,” Michaels says, but Liam just stares at him and the guilt seems to control Michaels. “You can assist.”

Liam seems satisfied by this, and hopefully the two cases will keep him occupied enough that he’ll stop fixating on the idea of killing this man. I just don’t know for how long.