Vulnerable (Morgans of Nashville) (27 page)

“He’s got an alibi for Elisa’s time of death. And Amber says she didn’t know Elisa,” said Jake.

“If not for Elisa, we’d never have found Bethany and Mike’s bodies.”

“Why kill Bethany?” Jake asked.

“Wrong place. Wrong time.”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s say Amber’s fall five years ago really was an accident,” Jake said. “She’s too messed up for Tim to carry her out of the woods. She tells him not to worry. She can claim amnesia to cover for Tim and no one will ever know he was in the woods.”

“Or she really doesn’t remember,” Rick countered. “We can have all the theories in the world, but until we can prove it, any decent defense attorney will rip our theories to shreds.”

“We need to find Tim.”

Georgia whistled and held up a white piece of print paper with a dark thumbprint. “Jake, was it you that said forensic science was too slow?”

“You have a print.”

“You bet I do.”

* * *

After Tim left through the back fence, with the evidence of his crime in the plastic bag, he drove to a neighborhood in Nashville’s east side. He drove his old four-door car, knowing it would blend and easily be forgotten by anyone who happened to see it. After he made the drop, the adrenaline pumping through his veins vanished. Exhausted, he found a quiet street in an area near the university. He closed his eyes, planning to sleep for only a few minutes.

When he awoke to sunlight, he realized he had slept for hours. Damn! He needed to see Amber and tell her what he’d done. Show her he could be trusted.

He drove to the Reeds’ neighborhood and waited until he saw Mrs. Reed leave for an early morning exercise class and then he hurried to the back door. He knocked hard and seconds later heard the clip of her footsteps on the other side of the door.

The door swung open and Amber stood before him. This close to her now, smelling the soft scent of her perfume, the desires that never, ever were satisfied, churned.

He’d always loved her. Always loved the smell of her freshly washed hair, the way she painted her nails a faint pink, the feel of her soft skin rubbing against him. The person before him wasn’t the girl he’d adored in high school, but a woman. She wore slim black pants and a white sweater that hugged her breasts. Her shoulder-length hair was neatly styled, her makeup expertly applied and her earlobes sparkling with diamond earrings.

If anything, he wanted her more than ever. “Amber.”

“Tim,” she said. “I’ve been calling you.”

“I heard your messages. I had a job to do before we could talk. Can I come in?”

She stepped aside, curious but also annoyed.

He closed the door and clicked the deadbolt in place, searching for signs of anyone else in the house. “Is there anyone else in the house?”

“No, we’re alone.”

“Good.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her hard on the lips. She tasted sweet, soft. As he deepened the kiss, she wrapped her arms around him, nestling close.

He tugged her shirt free of her waistband, but as his hand slid up her flat belly, she broke the kiss and stepped back. “We talk first.”

He moved forward, reaching out to take her again in his arms, but she sidestepped him. “The sooner you talk, the sooner we play.”

She raised a manicured hand to run a finger along the beads of a pearl necklace around her neck. She studied the dark stains on his shirt. “I’m waiting?”

“I went to see Dalton Marlowe,” he said.

“Why?”

His gaze was drawn to her hands that just days ago had been wrapped around him. “I know who he is to you.”

Her brow furrowed. “What do you know?”

Shaking his head, he couldn’t articulate the words that still tasted foul. “It doesn’t matter.”

She saw past his stony gaze. “I’ve been calling and calling you, but you never answered.”

Everything always made sense when she spoke. She made complicated simple, but when he thought of losing her, the world spun out of control. He liked that about her. Hated it about her. “I had to see him. It was time to take care of him once and for all.”

Her eyebrows knitted. “What happened? Did you fight?”

“I hit him.”

Her chin lifted as if the scene with Dalton played in front of her. “You hit him. How badly is he hurt?”

“I knocked him down and then I wrapped a plastic bag around his head. I killed him.”

Her face paled and she stepped back, shaking her head as she raised her fingertips to her mouth. “You killed him! Jesus, Tim, how did it get so out of control?”

“I wasn’t out of control. I knew exactly what I was doing. I know how hard it was for you to face him, and that you could never do what I did, so I took care of it. I was protecting you.”

He took her soft hands in his and pulled her closer to him. Her expensive perfume wafted around him and he grew so hard. Without thinking, he backed her up until she was pressed against the wall. His hand went to the waistband of her pants. “Marlowe was the one that pushed for this investigation to reopen. Now that he’s gone, it will die.”

She grabbed his hand. “Tim, stop. We can’t do this. Not now. Not here!”

He yanked hard at the waistband button and it popped, falling to the tiled floor. “You need to know you can count on me.”

“Tim, stop.” She pushed hard against his chest. “I know I can count on you.”

He pushed down her pants to her knees and reached for his own zipper. “I would do anything for you. Because I love you. We’re two sides of the same coin.”

Her body stilled and her resistance melted. Sensually, she stepped out of her pants. “You’ve been there for me so many times.”

Tim cupped her taut ass, not wanting anything else now other than to drive deep inside her. “We’re the same person.”

She raised steady hands to his face and held it. “I see that, now.”

He looked at her beautiful face. “I said I’d take care of you, and I will.”

“Did anyone see you leave the house?”

“No. I left through the back door and went out the gap in the fence just like I did when we were kids. But the maid will be there by now. She’ll have found him.”

“Okay.”

“It’ll be fine. They’ll never trace it back to me.”

She kissed him. “We can’t do this here. Mrs. Reed will be home soon. She can’t catch you here.”

His breathing was ragged and labored as his thoughts zeroed in on one thing—having Amber. “Where then?”

She ran her fingers through his hair. “Let’s get a motel room. Meet me at the Middle Motel.”

“When?”

“Go now. I’ll be minutes behind you.”

Reluctantly, he stepped back and fixed his pants. “You sound like my Amber again. Thinking.”

She tugged her pants over her hips and zipped them. “Yes, I’m always one step ahead.”

He kissed her.

“Hurry,” she breathed against his lips. “Wait for me. I’ll be there later this afternoon and we’ll have hours to be with each other.”

He leaned forward, grabbed her arms, and kissed her hard on the lips. She leaned into the kiss, allowing him to taste her and explore the inside of her mouth. There was so much promise in her touch. She was his soul mate.

She pulled back, moistening her lips. “Go on and go. I’ll call you soon.”

“I love you, Amber.”

She smiled. “I love you, Tim.”

* * *

Twelve hours passed before Georgia left the Marlowe house. She and Brad had spent the entire time collecting, documenting, sketching, and photographing trace evidence and fingerprints. She had pulled a very clear thumbprint from the back fence as well as an index fingerprint. They would be processed and analyzed when they got back to the lab.

When she arrived at the lab it was close to eight o’clock at night. Fatigue tightened the muscles in her back and legs. Her stomach grumbled as she realized she’d not eaten since last night.

Brad pushed through the lab door with evidence boxes in his hands. “This is the last of it. I’m locking it up and will start processing first thing in the morning.”

“Thanks, Brad.”

He rubbed his hand over his chin that was covered in dark stubble. “Tell me you aren’t staying tonight.”

“No. I’ll head home.” She’d not spoken to Jake since she’d seen him at the Marlowe crime scene. As much as she wanted to see him now, she needed time to think.

Grabbing her phone, she dialed KC’s number. He picked up on the second ring. In the background, she could hear muffled music and she imagined him in his back office with a pile of paperwork in front of him on an old desk he’d used when he worked homicide. “Hi, Georgia.”

“I’m checking in about the arrangements for Carrie. Sorry I haven’t called today. There was a crime scene.”

“I know, kid. I know the job has to come first.”

She pressed tired fingers to her forehead. “Where’s the baby?”

“Jenna has her.”

“Jenna? My sister-in-law?”

“Your brother Rick got Social Services on the phone. He talked to them for at least an hour and convinced them to let Jenna and him keep the baby for now.”

A sudden rush of tears welled in her eyes. “That’s what Buddy did for me.”

“He sure as hell did. I remember when your old man was on the phone talking to the social workers for you. He was a force to be reckoned with. Rick was the same way today.”

“I didn’t know they wanted children.”

“You know Rick. He plays his cards close to his vest.”

The stress that had coiled around her spine since she’d seen the baby crying released. She glanced at the clock. “It’s too late to call and check on them tonight.”

“All the arrangements for the baby came together only a few hours ago. Rick said he’d call you in the morning and give you an update.”

A tear snaked down her cheek and she swiped it away. “That works for me.”

“You okay, kid?”

“I keep thinking about Carrie. How could a man who says he loves the mother of his child do that to her?”

“You and I both know shit happens on the streets that make no sense. Evil is evil.”

“But she was the mother of his child. How could a father do that to his daughter?”

“Like I said, evil is evil.”

To argue this was pointless. KC was right. “Thanks for all you’ve done.”

“You sound dead on your feet.”

“I’m fine.”

His old chair squeaked and she imagined him leaning forward in it. “Go home and sleep. You’ll be no good to anyone tied up in knots and exhausted.”

“I will. Thanks.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

She hung up the phone and stretched her head from side to side. Buddy had gone to the mat for her when she was too little to defend herself. Rick would do the same for Sara. He would protect that kid with his life.

And yet some fathers turned on their children. Her own birth father, a married man Annie had loved, had denied her. Hal denied Sara her mother.

Closing her eyes, her mind suddenly tripped to Amber. There was no father in her life.

Not in the picture . . .

What if he had been around?

What if . . .

She moved to her computer and turned it on. When it was up and running, she went to the database of DNA samples and on a hunch printed out Amber’s, Mike’s, and Dalton Marlowe’s all taken five years ago.

The printer hummed out the documents as she hovered and waited, her heart thumping in her chest. When she had the printouts, she laid them on the large light table and looked at each one. She compared the size of the sixteen genetic markers.

She paired Dalton’s with Mike’s and could clearly see that the boy had inherited distinct markers from his father. Drawing in a breath, she lined up Amber’s results. It took less than a beat for her to see the truth. No one had seen it before. No one.

Dalton Marlowe was Amber’s biological father and Mike’s half sister.

She stepped back from the table, stunned. Not only by the connection, but what it also implied about the relationship Amber had shared with her brother and her father. Did she know?

Her phone rang, startling her. A glance at the display set her nerves on end. “Amber?”

“Georgia!” Amber’s panicked voice reached through the phone line.

“Amber, what’s wrong?” She pushed a strand of hair from her eyes, doing her best to keep her cool and not tip her hand.

“It’s Tim.”

“What about him?”

“He says he knows what happened in the woods.”

 

G
eorgia’s fatigue burned off in a blink as she stepped away from the light table in her lab. It was as if Amber sensed Georgia had connected these critical DNA clues. “How could Tim know what happened in the woods?”

“He said he was there and knows details. He has always known. He told me to meet me at the Middle Motel. Room 116.”

“Dalton Marlowe is dead.”

“What?” The word rushed over the line. “How could Dalton be dead?”

“He was murdered.”

“Did Tim do it?”

“We don’t know yet.” Georgia rose and slid her feet into her shoes. “Okay. Where are you?”

“I’m at the motel now. I can see him inside pacing in front of the window.”

“Don’t go in and talk to him until the police arrive.”

“I’ve got to find out what happened in the woods, Georgia. It has haunted me. If the cops show, he won’t talk to anyone and I might not ever find out.”

Whatever Amber’s relationship was to Marlowe and his son didn’t mean that Tim wasn’t a real threat to her now. “Wait for me.”

“Just hurry. I’ll wait for you outside the room.” Panic chased the words out in a rush.

Georgia rang off and tied her shoelaces before she called Jake. He answered on the third ring. “Jake Bishop.”

His voice was rough like gravel, heavy with fatigue. He and Rick would have been working nonstop on the Marlowe case and she wondered if he’d even gotten enough time to eat something. “Amber called me.”

“When?”

“Just now.” She recapped her call about Amber’s fear of Tim. “I’m headed over there.”

“Georgia, don’t engage her or Tim.” His tone sharpened, reached out as if trying to grab hold of her. “Wait until Rick and I can get there.”

“Where are you?” Georgia pulled her messy ponytail free of the hair band and combed her fingers through her hair.

“We’re ten to twenty minutes out.” In the background, she heard Rick mutter a curse.

“I’ll see you there.”

“Don’t engage.” In the background, Rick said, “Listen to him, Georgia.”

“Jake, I pulled DNA for Marlowe and Amber. They’re father and daughter.”

His answer was a muttered curse. “Okay. We’ll deal with that in due order. Now, we’ve got to get Tim secured.”

She moved toward her desk where she kept a gun locked in the bottom drawer. She fished out her keys from her purse, unlocked the drawer, and removed the gun. “I won’t engage. Unless I have to.”

She ended the call to his curses. Shoving the phone in her back pocket, she rushed to her car. The moon hung high in the sky. The air was cool and crisp. This late there was little traffic and the drive went quickly.

Georgia spotted Amber’s car nosed in a spot next to room 116. She scanned the lot for Jake and Rick’s vehicle and seeing no sign of it knew she’d act alone if forced. She sat for several minutes before she saw the curtains flutter.

Room 116 had a large picture window now covered with a thick curtain. The curtains fluttered once and then twice more as if someone had peeked out of it.

“Damn it.” The gun holster now resting on her hip, she dug out her cell as she got out of the car. Dialing Jake, he answered on the first ring. “I see only Amber’s car. I don’t see her or Tim, but the window curtain in the room is moving. Someone is in the room.”

“Do not go in that room, Georgia,” Jake growled. “I’ve got uniforms on the way.”

“What if he’s in the room alone with her? You and I both know he could have killed Marlowe. It’ll take only a few seconds to incapacitate and then kill her.” She’d not been there for Carrie. She’d not been able to save her. “Tell the uniforms to come in without sirens. I don’t want to spook this guy.”

“Understood. I am minutes—seconds—out. Wait.”

Impatience clawed at her gut. “Jesus, she could be already dead.”

“Stay put!”

As she edged closer to the motel room, she heard the
pop, pop, pop
of gunfire. “Damn it.”

“What?”

“Shots fired. I have to go in.”

“No!”

Phone clutched in her hand, she unholstered her gun and raced toward the door, the blood in her veins pumping so hard that she couldn’t hear Jake’s shouted warnings.

Standing to the side of the door, she held her gun close as she reached out and pounded on the door. “Tim Taylor!”

In all the years working in the forensic field she had never fired her weapon outside of a firing range. And though she was trained for moments like this, no amount of practice could really prepare her.

Silence echoed from the room. One. Two. Three.

“Amber! Amber, it’s Georgia!”

“Georgia!” Amber screamed. “Help me! I’ve shot Tim.”

She reached for the door handle and turned it, allowing the door to swing open as she waited for any kind of return fire. Over the sound of her own pounding heart she heard Amber’s weeping, desperate and frightened.

She drew in a breath as she adjusted her hold on the gun and turned to go into the room. Blue lights behind her flashed as Jake and Rick pulled up in their unmarked car. Both men were out of the car in seconds, guns drawn.

Jake paused and looked at her, unvarnished fear burning in his gaze as it swept over her. Signaling for her to stay, he moved past her into the motel room as several marked cars pulled into the lot.

As Amber cried in the middle of the room, she held a gun in her hand that now pointed at the ground. Her face had paled to a bloodless white and when she raised her gaze, it was filled with fear. Tim lay on the floor, facedown, his arms splayed out.

“Put the gun down,” Jake ordered. “Put the gun down!”

Amber glanced at the gun as if she forgot she were holding it and slowly released her grip and the gun fell to the floor.

Jake quickly picked it up and checked the chamber for a round. “What happened here?”

“He started talking about the woods almost immediately,” Amber said softly. “He said he killed Bethany and Mike and was going to kill me just like he killed Marlowe. I grabbed the gun. It went off.”

“Tim confessed to killing Dalton Marlowe?” Jake asked.

“Yes.” She pressed her hand to the darkening bruise on her cheek. “I freaked out and he came at me. I told him to stop. I told him I didn’t want to shoot him.”

Jake turned Tim over and they all saw the bright red bloom of blood in the center of his chest. The bullet had exited out his back.

Pressing fingers to the man’s neck, Jake shook his head. “There’s a heartbeat, but barely.”

Rick reached for his cell and punched in numbers. “This is Detective Rick Morgan. I need an ambulance.”

As he rattled off the address, Georgia holstered her gun and stood ready as Jake grabbed a towel from the bathroom and moved to Tim’s chest and pressed it firmly onto the wound.

“He’s really alive?” Amber asked.

“Barely,” Rick said.

Georgia knelt beside Jake. “What can I do?”

“Help me press this towel onto his chest.”

Tim’s face had turned a deathly white and she feared it would be only minutes at most before he bled out.

Amber hovered over Tim, her expression blank. “He’s alive?”

Jake, not answering this time, tipped Tim’s head back and opened his airway. “Very shallow breathing.” He checked his pulse again. “Faint heartbeat.”

The towel had turned a blood-soaked red as Georgia continued to apply pressure. A faint gurgling sound echoed from Tim’s mouth. At least one of the lungs had been hit. Blood would also be pooling inside the body and lungs. He was drowning.

In the distance an ambulance wailed, growing closer and closer with each minute. Amber lowered her face to her hands and began to weep. “I didn’t want to shoot him, but he wouldn’t stop. Why didn’t he stop?”

“Where did you get the gun?” Jake asked.

“It was Tim’s. He brought it.”

“How did you get the gun from him?”

“I don’t really know. He said he was going to rape me first and then track down Mrs. Reed. I didn’t fight him, and I waited until he set the gun down to undo my blouse. It distracted him long enough for me to grab the gun and shoot. I just wanted him to stop.” She looked down at the near lifeless body. “I didn’t mean to hurt him. I just wanted him to stop.”

Red lights of the ambulance flashed on the walls of the motel room, casting an eerie glow. The rescue crews rattled a gurney carrying equipment through the open door, unpacking as they went.

“I need this room cleared,” a paramedic ordered.

Rick took Amber by the arm as Jake spoke to the paramedic, who nodded and said he’d take over.

As the paramedic took Georgia’s place, she rose, her hands now red with blood. Jake grabbed a small towel from the bathroom and wiped her hands and his own clean as they moved outside.

Georgia moved past Tim as one member of the rescue crew started an IV and the other swapped the towel for a pad of clean gauze.

She stepped outside. The chill touched her sweat-soaked skin and along with the adrenaline dump sent a shiver through her body.

“Are you all right?” Jake asked.

“I’m fine. Do what you need to do.”

He hugged her and then she moved toward her car where she kept a clean blanket along with MREs, a change of clothes, and shoes in the trunk. She raised the lid and pulled out a blanket, which she wrapped around her shoulders.

Turning, she saw Rick speaking to a limp Amber. The woman looked devastated. Jake along with Georgia moved closer, needing to hear and better understand her story.

“Why did you call Georgia?” Jake asked.

Amber smoothed her hands over her head. “I don’t know. She’s the closest person I have to a friend since I came back to Nashville. And I knew Tim might be trouble. I thought she could help.”

“Why not call the cops?” Jake challenged. “They would have been better equipped to help you.”

She shook her head. “Like I said when I was mugged, I hated the way the cops grilled me five years ago. None of them believed me. They wouldn’t listen. I didn’t want to do that again.”

Jake glanced at the blood smeared on his shirt. “But you called Georgia.”

“I called a friend,” she said.

“Why’d you leave the Reeds’ house?” Jake’s questions were clipped and quick. He fired the questions like bullets so she didn’t have time to fabricate.

“Tim called me. Offered to tell me about the woods.” She touched her fingertips to her lips and turned her face from the body as if it pained her to look at it. “He said he needed to tell me the truth, but I didn’t trust the way he sounded.”

“His chest has a center mass wound, Amber. You aimed to kill.”

“I didn’t,” she said, her eyes watering. “I shot to stop him. I didn’t want him dead.”

“Why did he need your help?”

Fresh tears glistened in her eyes. “He said he’d done something horrible.”

“What did he tell you?”

She pressed trembling fingertips to her temple. “He said he killed Mr. Marlowe.”

“Someone did,” Jake said.

Amber drew in a deep breath as if to slow down Jake’s rapid-fire questioning.

“How did Tim find you?”

“He’s been following me since I came back to Nashville.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this originally?”

“I panicked. I thought you wouldn’t believe me. I thought none of you trusted me.”

Jake rubbed his chin darkened with stubble.

Georgia glanced back into the motel room where paramedics were trying to resuscitate Tim. Too much about all this bothered her, but she couldn’t articulate it.

She hurried to her trunk and grabbed a camera. As the rescue crews worked on Tim, she stood out of their way. From the threshold she began to take pictures of the room. What was wrong with this? Amber’s explanation made sense, but something didn’t fit. She couldn’t see it. Couldn’t put it into words. But her gut gnawed when a crime scene didn’t match the witness’s accounts.

Three more marked cars had appeared and now filled the parking lot near the ambulance. Lights flashed as uniformed officers got out of their vehicles, hands on their guns.

The paramedics had run an IV into Tim’s arm and had packed his wound and put an oxygen bag on his face. As Jake hovered close, they loaded Tim onto a stretcher and locked it into the raised position. As one paramedic squeezed the bag over his nose and held up the IV, the other pushed the stretcher.

Tears spilled down Amber’s face as Tim was wheeled past. “Is he really alive?”

“Barely,” one paramedic said.

Tim was loaded in the ambulance and the paramedic climbed into the back beside him and closed the door. The other paramedic ran to the driver’s seat, and seconds later, the siren wailed and the ambulance left as a uniformed officer moved toward the scene with a roll of yellow crime scene tape.

As more marked cars arrived, Georgia indicated the areas she wanted marked off. Though she was tempted to process the scene, she held back. She was now a part of this investigation and her involvement could be misconstrued as a conflict of interest later in court.

* * *

Jake’s focus shifted from the ambulance to Georgia’s tired face as she moved toward him. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. As many crime scenes as I’ve processed, I’ve never been involved with one. Now I seem to be linked to two.”

“Why do you think Amber called you?”

“I guess it’s like she said, she feels I’ve been a friend to her. I took her to the hospital after she was mugged.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Do you buy her story?”

“I don’t know.” She stared into the open door of the motel room. They stood in silence for a moment. Taking it all in. “Thanks for coming to my rescue.”