Page 40 of State of Retribution (First Family #9)

“ I wondered about your mother’s siblings and what they’ve had to say about it over the years. Where were they that night?”

“They were interviewed at the time and provided alibis that checked out.”

“Including their spouses?”

“As far as I know. The reporting by the local police was a little spotty, as they were somewhat overwhelmed by such a huge case.”

“Are you in touch with your aunts and uncles?”

“Not so much anymore. I rarely get back to Morgantown since both my grandparents have passed.”

“How long ago did they die?”

“My grandmother about four years ago and my grandfather last year.”

“I’m sorry for your losses. That must’ve been tough since they raised you.”

“Are we being honest here?”

“Always.”

“I appreciated them taking us in and keeping us fed and clothed, but I’ve always blamed them for what happened to Jordan.”

“How come?”

“Why was a seven-year-old playing outside with no one watching her? When I was home, I always went out with her and kept an eye on her. It was rare for me to hang out at someone else’s house because I didn’t like to leave her, and the one time I wasn’t there, someone snatched her?

I was outraged with them, and they knew it. ”

“Why were you at someone else’s home that day?”

“My cousin Bryce had gotten an ATV and invited me to come check it out. That was hard to say no to. I told Jordan I’d be back in an hour, and we could go outside when I got back, but an hour became two, and when I came home, she was gone, and my grandmother had just realized it.

That’s why we don’t know the exact time of her disappearance.

I couldn’t believe she’d let Jordan go out alone. I still can’t believe it to this day.”

“Was your neighborhood unsafe?”

“It could be sketchy at times, with people living around us that we didn’t know all that well.

Also, I saw the way men looked at Jordan, even when she was that young.

They were dazzled by her, which was revolting to me.

Six months before she went missing, I got into it with a guy at a restaurant who kept staring at her.

I got in his face and told him she was six and to fuck off.

My grandparents were angry with me for making a scene, but I didn’t care. The guy was a creep.”

“Did you investigate him?”

“I did. He died two months after our confrontation. I wasn’t unhappy to hear that.”

“Have you gone back to look for sexual offenders in your area at that time?”

“All dead ends.”

“Have you thought about engaging the press? You could publicize the age-progressed photo and tell your story to one of the true-crime shows or podcasts.”

“That’s something I haven’t considered. Due to the nature of my job, I don’t court publicity.”

“I get that, but at this point, it couldn’t hurt anything. Let me ask my partner, Freddie Cruz, about the podcasts. He’s a fan of them and would know which ones would work best.”

“I appreciate the help and the brainstorming.”

“I wish there was more I could do to help.”

“This was more than enough, and it’s got me fired up again, which I needed.”

“I’ll let you know what Freddie says about the podcasts.”

“Thanks again, Sam. I really appreciate it.”

“Any time.”

As Jesse ended the call he’d said he had to take, she watched as he plugged his phone into the bedside charger and stretched out next to her.

As his girlfriend/fuck buddy/colleague/sorta friend, Memphis Rose Costello wanted to ask about the call but couldn’t bear to witness the devastation that always overtook him when he talked about his missing sister.

She’d learned to tread carefully on that subject. Raised in Memphis by her grandmother and mother to be a strong, competent woman who didn’t need a man, Memphis Rose had made it her mission not to become attached to the perpetually out-of-reach Jesse Best.

That mission had been an abject failure.

Her grandmother, the world’s biggest Elvis fan, had cleaned Graceland for thirty years, and Memphis was born in the same hospital as Lisa Marie Presley, a point of pride for her mother and grandmother.

The two strongest women she knew would be appalled by what she was putting up with in her “relationship” with Jesse if they knew about it, which they didn’t.

He’d insisted on the secrecy because technically, they shouldn’t be fraternizing outside of work since he was her boss.

To cope with the restrictions, she’d made some rules for herself: never spend the night, never ask questions about where “this” was going and never let on that she loved him or that she hurt for him.

That last part was getting tougher all the time as she witnessed his torment over the ongoing cold case.

She wanted to ask who’d called and who was helping him, but she’d learned not to stick her nose into places it wasn’t welcome.

Sometimes she wondered if she was nothing more than a warm body at the end of every hideous day on the job.

There would come a time when that wouldn’t be enough for her. If she was being honest, that time had come and gone about two years ago. And yet, here she was, still keeping his bed warm while wondering if anything—or anyone—could permeate the barbed-wire fence he kept around his heart.

When it became clear that he had no plans to further engage with her that evening, she started to get up in deference to rule number one: never spend the night.

“Don’t go.”

She froze because he’d never said those words to her before. Looking over her shoulder at him, she tried to gauge his mood, but as usual, his face gave nothing away. “Why?”

“Does there need to be a reason?”

Memphis Rose swallowed hard against the lump that had appeared in her throat out of nowhere.

Two little words from him invoked so many emotions in her, too many to process while she was trying to stay cool in front of him.

If he had any idea how she really felt, this would be over so fast, her head would spin.

Jesse Best didn’t do love. He didn’t do emotional involvement. For crying out loud, he barely did sentences. He’d said more to the person on the phone than he’d said to her, collectively, in all the time she’d known him.

“I don’t think I should.”

She started to get up, but his hand on her shoulder stopped her.

“Please stay.”

When her eyes filled with tears, she closed them, hoping that would keep the tears from spilling over and giving away her secrets. It didn’t work.

“We’re leaving in the morning for Shenandoah to assist the FBI.” He kissed her bare shoulder. “We could leave from here and drive down together.”

Wow. Two whole sentences in a row. That had to be a record. She pulled free of him and got up to find her clothes, blinded by tears that made it hard to see anything in the dimly lit room.

All at once, he was there, with his arms around her from behind and his forehead on her shoulder. “Please.”

She stiffened out of sheer self-preservation.

Then he dropped the bomb. “I need you.”

Memphis Rose crumpled for a second before she found her inner source of strength, although where it was coming from after he said that was anyone’s guess. Did he need her , or would any warm body do after that phone call reopened the wound on his soul? “I have to go, Jesse. Please let me.”

He held on for another long, breathless moment before he released her.

As she got dressed, she told herself he wouldn’t remember in the morning that he’d needed her in the dark of night.

In the morning, it would be back to business as usual, with him grunting and calling it communication, with her wondering where she stood and what it all meant, and him going on, oblivious to her until they were back in his bed, when the cycle would begin again.

Since she was the only one aware of this cycle, it was up to her to control her involvement in it.

Getting dressed had never been more of a challenge than it was with hands that didn’t want to follow the directions she was giving them. Buttons, clasps, zippers…

She grabbed her phone off the bedside table and left the room without giving him so much as a glance.

When she was in her car, driving back to her place while fighting to see through her tears, she acknowledged this situation was unsustainable.

It had been from the start. Maybe it was time to request a transfer.

Her mom and grandmother were always after her to come home to Memphis.

That would be a step down, careerwise, from the assignment in DC, but she needed to decide which was more important—her career or her sanity.

She wiped the tears off her face, furious with herself for the emotional reaction to three simple words.

I need you.

I need you.

How long would it take for those words to stop echoing through her overcommitted heart and soul?

Probably forever.

Freddie Cruz had rarely been angrier than he was watching the playback of the Hector Reese interviews that’d aired earlier in the day on cable news. Hector had hit all the major networks with his tale of how the first lady cop had beaten him when he was in custody.

Freddie, who’d been shot by Hector’s brother, Clarence, when he’d returned to the scene of one of the worst crimes any of them had ever worked, had little sympathy for Hector.

After all, Hector had enabled his brother’s efforts to run from the police after he murdered his wife and children with a baseball bat—and then shot Freddie.

He still had nightmares about the murdered baby in the crib. Shuddering, Freddie quickly pushed that thought to the back of his mind, locked away with all the other horrors he’d witnessed on the job.

In addition to that, a reporter had called Jeannie McBride to ask about the Fitzgerald investigation and whether Sam—and her father—had failed to charge Cameron Fitzgerald with murdering his younger brother.