Page 43 of White Raven (Nevermore Duet #2)

BURIED

It had been an exceptionally long time since he’d set foot at this doorstep.

It still smelled the same, though it felt like a cold, hollow void where time went still, and even the sounds of happenings around him seemed to null out.

His chest felt like an elephant had just parked itself on it, the heart underneath pounding like it was struggling through thick mud.

Foley’s rehearsed words were lost on him as he subconsciously rang the doorbell and listened to footsteps approaching the frosted glass door.

It opened a few seconds later, and for a heartbeat, he saw Lindsay—a much younger, delicate version—standing between the open space between the edge of the door and the latch.

“Yeah?” she asked, furrowing her brows when his throat closed off and he didn’t announce himself. “You need some help? Need an ambulance?” Her face dropped into worry, and she stepped a bare foot out onto the freezing brick porch to reach her hand out and steady him.

Foley snapped out of it, conceding a step and shaking off his anxiety. “Sorry—you’re…are you Brynn Trainor?” The young woman brushed back her strawberry blonde hair and hugged herself against the chilly air, staring at him in confusion.

“Yeah? Who are you?” She had freckles dotting the bridge of her nose that spread out over her high cheekbones…just like her mother. Her soft green eyes focused on him as she backed up towards the open door.

“Malcolm?” another voice said from the dining room just past the foyer, his heavy footsteps nearing his daughter. Brynn looked over her shoulder as he stepped out and eyed him closely.

“Scott…it’s good to see you.” Lindsay’s husband looked anything but reciprocating of the captain’s feelings, tugging his daughter back into the door.

“Brynn, go finish packing,” he urged, as she looked curiously between them. She seemed as if she were about to argue, but her mouth pressed closed when Scott looked at her in warning. She disappeared a moment later and he closed the door behind him. “What are you doing here, Malcolm?”

“I know I promised never to darken your door again. I wouldn’t be unless it was for good reason. Can we talk?”

“I didn’t have anything else to say to you then, Foley, and I sure as hell don’t now. There isn’t a reason good enough for you to show up to this house.”

“I deserve that.”

“You deserve the same fate my wife suffered. I’m gonna ask you again, and you better have a better answer, or I might decide that I don’t give a shit and have Brynn call that ambulance for you anyway.”

He was bitter. And he had every right to be.

His wife was dead because of him and finding out about their affair after she’d already passed certainly didn’t make his suffering any easier.

Over a decade later, and that pain and ruthless anger was still as sharp as a knife.

There was no way Foley could ever blame him for the way he lashed out.

It was as deserving a punishment as any.

Foley lowered his eyes to the porch and pocketed his hands.

“There’s a case that’s opened up that involves Lindsay. I came to ask if you’re still in possession of anything she may have been working on at home in the months prior to her death.”

Scott inched forward; his body stick straight. “What case?”

“I’m not authorized to say. It could give us some answers though…about the circumstances surrounding her murder.”

Scott huffed a laugh and shook his head. “Oh, those answers are already out in the open, Captain …and you’ve got a lot of nerve. The only one responsible for her murder is standing here enjoying the promotion she should have had. You should be the one rotting in that casket. Not Lindsay.”

There was only so much he was willing to take.

While that affair and the events that followed ultimately landed on him, he hadn’t been holding a gun to her head to participate.

He’d only hold so much of that blame. She had been going behind his back and getting mixed up in something bigger that he was determined to find…

one way or another. Foley raised his face and broadened his chest.

“Alright, Trainor. You’ve got every right to hate me.

I’ll let you have that if it makes you feel better.

Lindsay got herself mixed up with shit she shouldn’t have been mixed up in, and had I known, I would have protected her.

I failed at that, and I take my share of responsibility.

If you have anything that can help me tie this together, I’m giving you a chance to surrender it.

If you’re gonna play hard ball, I’ll get a warrant and find it myself.

That’s only gonna make this more painful, and that’s the last thing I wanna do.

But I’ve already let precious blood spill for my mistakes.

I won’t be doing that again. So, what’s it gonna be? ”

The tips of Scott’s ears turned as red as blood, and Foley thought for a moment he could almost see steam pouring from them as his face began to flush the same color with his boiling rage.

His blue eyes burned like a thousand suns with his hate, and his pain, and his fists clenched until his knuckles turned white at his sides.

He wasn’t sure how long they stood there in blistering silence.

Scott turned on his heel and slammed the door in his face.

It took a few long moments before Foley could move himself away from the vacant door.

His own bubbling anger roared in his ears, and he slowly turned around to start down the steps and onto the short, cobbled walkway back to his car.

The front door opened again behind him, and Scott rushed back out with a small brass key, Brynn hot on his heels as Foley turned and faced them.

“Dad! What are you doing? Who the hell is this guy?” Brynn asked, seemingly torn with the idea of that key leaving her father’s hand. Scott approached him, stopping about a foot away.

“All that’s left of her mother is in a storage building on the west side of town. You want this, then it comes at a price. A price I’ve been dying to make you pay for sixteen fucking years.” Brynn stepped up to his side, shaking in anticipation and staring between them with her mouth open.

“Everything in that storage locker is mine. It’s my only way to be with her!” Brynn’s voice broke, and her lip quivered. “Who the hell do you think you are to come and take that from me?”

A cruel smile tugged at Scott’s mouth. “He’s the reason you don’t have a mother anymore, Brynn. This is the man that killed your mom.”

Checkmate. Well played, Trainor.

Brynn’s face paled, and he wanted so badly to hug the young girl…the only part of Lindsay that still mattered. She took careful steps towards him, staring into his eyes, and reminding him so much of his partner. “You’re him. You’re her partner,” she choked, a tear rolling down her cheek.

“I was, yes. I’m sorr—”

Brynn’s fist struck his mouth, and it was like being knocked into the past—in the training center with Lindsay, watching her grin behind her gloves when she took a cheap shot.

She hadn’t had the chance to teach her daughter how to fight—and didn’t need to.

She was spitting image of the woman he loved.

Just as fierce, and just as tough. Just as determined.

“Whatever you take from that unit, you will put back,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I’m studying law. I leave today to go back to school.

If you’re the man I think you are, then my mom must be looking down on me.

I’m spending every second I have learning how to bury you.

If it takes me the rest of my life, I’ll make you pay for what you’ve taken from me and my dad. ”

With that, she turned and stormed back into the house. Scott flicked the small key into the air towards Foley, and he caught it, licking the blood from the side of his mouth. “Corner of Fawkes and Sutton. Mail the key back when you’re done pushing your way back into a life you never belonged in.”

“I’m sorry, Scott. For whatever it’s worth…I’m truly sorry. For everything.”

It only seemed to make him more angry. That was fine.

He was too proud after seeing that fire light up inside Brynn Trainor to be anything else.

Scott seethed, checking his self-restraint.

“We broke bread at this house. Drank beer and watched football. You were there when my daughter was born. You stood next to me at that fucking funeral. How can you live with yourself, Malcolm? I always wanted to know. How can you call yourself a captain, let alone wear a badge you don’t deserve? ”

“I’ve never claimed to be a good man, Scott. But I’m trying my best to change that. I don’t expect you to forgive or believe me. I’m gonna find a way for us all to be at peace. Or die trying.”

“If you do, I hope I get to be the one to piss on your grave.”

Foley hung his head, nodding. A faint smirk crept across his face. He turned and started towards his car, stopping at the end of the walkway. Scott still stood, watching him.

“She chose you , you know. You and that little girl were the only thing that ever really mattered to her. I hope you choose to live. She wouldn’t want it this way, and you know that. Thank you for your help.”

Trainor didn’t say a word as Foley got into his car. They exchanged a long stare through his passenger window before he finally cranked it and pulled out onto the street.

Rhaena’s teeth chattered in the January air as she stepped out of the truck and tucked her chin beneath her scarf, approaching Foley at a sketchy storage facility on the west end. Her heeled boots did little to warm her, and the wind was biting like a starving animal today.

“Alright, I’m here. Are you gonna tell me why we’re freezing our asses off, and what’s so important in this ramshackle shit heap?” she asked, watching him struggle with the rusty padlock on the unit door.