Chapter Fifteen

Chad rubbed his throat as he watched Romeo from the kitchen window.

Romeo wore his oversized trench coat and black boots as he filled the free-standing birdfeeders. Merc sat at his side, big grey eyes on his master and not the impatient magpies hopping closer.

A blur of black passed the window. Chad leaned forward, trying to catch sight of the bird that had passed with Romeo's back turned, but it had disappeared in the direction of the outhouse.

Romeo turned, and his eyes met Chad's through the window. He smiled, but his smile fell when he noticed Chad obsessively stroked his neck.

‘I'm fine', he mouthed as Romeo began making his way back to the house, Merc waddling at his side. The magpies attacked the birdfeeders like they were attempting to tear it apart. Romeo didn't look back at it.

His gaze stayed fixed to Chad until he moved out of sight.

Chad opened the back door for him.

"Does it hurt?" Romeo asked.

"No." Chad dropped his hand by his side, and stretched out his neck for Romeo to see. "Not even a bruise."

Romeo hummed, stroking Chad's skin. "I can fix that."

He leaned in to suck a mark onto Chad's neck.

Chad slapped him away lightly. "Sap. I saw it again."

"Saw what?"

"That big bird I keep telling you about."

Romeo rolled his eyes. "Sure you did."

"It flew behind you when you were filling the feeders."

"How convenient. Eight letters. The excrement of a male cow…"

"That clue was lazy, and I'm not bullshitting you. It was there." Chad wrapped his arms around Romeo's neck.

His phone buzzed itself along the kitchen table and broke the moment. Chad sighed, backing away. He snatched it up and tapped his thumb on the email notification.

"Lynn's sent me the list of Vincent's visitors. Finally."

"Finally?"

"She was reluctant. I don't know why."

His heart skipped a beat at Tate's name. He'd visited Vincent once a week for a year at the same time on the same day. Saturday. 2:00.

"What is it?" Romeo asked.

"Nothing," Chad shook his head. He scrolled down, picking out Eileen Hastings' name, but not her daughter Lucy. Lucy had never visited him at Wiltknot before, but James had on and off over the years, along with a two other names, Sara Drinkwater and Adam Bell.

"There's a few names we'll need to research."

He kept scrolling, until he got to a name that sped up his heart.

"Chad?"

"Alexandra Coulson." Chad said, showing his phone to Romeo. "Ally has visited him before."

"December 11th." Romeo whispered. "Was it just the one visit?"

Chad frowned, brushing his finger over the screen. He scrolled back onto the previous year, passed Tate's first visit, and stopped again at Alexandra Coulson.

"December 11th." Romeo repeated. Chad swiped faster, going through the year before until he found her visit again.

The same day.

The same time.

December 11th. 1:00 PM.

Chad tapped off the screen, about to call her, but stopped himself. He placed the phone back down on the table and stared at it.

"Chad?" Romeo pressed.

"Ally knows this place. She knows Bardhum. She used to go to Clarksons supermarket, she told me Jeffery Adams' art shop has been here forever." Chad wetted his drying lips. "She never talks about her childhood, it's a complete no-go area, and she didn't want me to visit Vincent in Wiltknot— she didn't want me looking into the murders at all…"

He turned to Romeo. Romeo studied him with his head tilted.

"What if…" Chad whispered.

"If?"

"The DI was reluctant to hand over Vincent's files. He said there was some he couldn't give me. Ally said she couldn't be around me, until after this thing with Vincent was over. Every year. The same date."

"The date he got caught—"

"The date his victim escaped."

Romeo rubbed his chin. "She would've been the right age and she is very protective of you," he continued softly. "Almost as if she sees herself in you, a kindred spirit who carries a similar burden."

"I think… I think I need a drink."

"We don't know anything for certain."

Chad bit his lip. "I get it now. I get it."

"Get what?"

"The look in her eyes. She sees herself in me. A survivor. Why didn't she tell me?"

"If you'd had the choice, would you have told her about everything you've been through?"

"Probably not. Christ, Romeo…"

His phone chirped, and for a moment he thought it was Ally calling him, but it was only one of the camera sensors being triggered.

Chad slumped. "Better not be your magpies again."

Romeo shrugged as Chad swiped his thumb onto the feed.

"Oh…"

"What is it?" Romeo asked.

"It's Lucy," Chad said slowly, frowning down at the truck trundling up the dirt road.

"What the hell does she want?"

"No idea."

Chad stood up, pocketed his phone and went to meet her outside. Chad pressed his flat hand above his eyes to help with the early morning sun, squinting as Lucy got closer to the house.

The truck wheels squealed as she came to a stop.

Chad strolled around to the driver's side, "Hey—"

"Don't hey me," Lucy snapped. She slammed the door of the truck and rushed at Chad. For a second, he stiffened, thinking she was about to hit him, but she stopped, and wagged a finger at him instead. Her hair was wild, and her eyes were ablaze. "I just had an interesting phone call with Candice. She said you were asking questions about me, and Harriet and Gavin. Why are you stirring up the past, Chad?"

"I'm not stirring."

"You drove halfway across the country to speak to my oldest friend. Why?"

"I had my reasons."

"Candice said you were particularly interested in my relationship with Harriet, my broken heart over Gavin choosing her, not me, then leaving altogether to live with his dad."

Chad raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I just wanted a little background information."

Lucy pushed his hands down. "I know exactly what you were doing. You wanted to find some kind of motive for me hurting Harriet. James did the same all those years ago, but he found nothing, and you didn't either—"

"You lied about where you were the night she went missing."

Lucy's breath caught. A flare of panic widened her eyes, but she pushed it down. "I didn't—"

"Candice let it slip. You took your parents' truck and drove to her house. You spent the night."

"So what?"

"Why wasn't that mentioned in your original statement."

"I knew James would look for a way of passing the blame for her disappearance to me. I asked Candice to lie. We thought James was responsible. We thought he'd done something to Harriet and the police had covered it up, and we continued to think that until Vincent admitted the truth."

"The truth." Chad tilted his head. "The truth? You told your dad Harriet was going to a friend's house when you'd seen her getting in the car with James."

"I told you why. I didn't want to add to my dad's stress."

"And then you drove past Harriet on the way to Candice's."

"No." Lucy shook her head. "I didn't."

"You drove down the road Harriet was walking up, and you didn't see her?"

Lucy averted her gaze. "Vincent must've already taken her by then. I didn't see her. Do you really think I would've left her walking home in the dark if I had seen her?"

"You and Harriet weren't getting along at the time—"

"She was my sister! Why are you picking open old wounds?"

"Because I want to know the truth, and what I've discovered is that you lied about your whereabouts the night your sister went missing."

"So what? It doesn't change anything. Vincent still took her. He still killed her. He admitted it."

It was Chad's turn to look away.

"Wait…" she whispered. "You can't possibly think…"

"What?"

"He confessed to it, Chad. Vincent Whitehall murdered my sister."

"I'm open to all lines of enquiry."

"Why?"

"I'm a detective. It's in my nature. It's in my blood."

"This isn't a homicide case," Lucy took a step nearer. "This is a recovery." Her breathing came in pants. "We're after my sister's remains, not her killer. We've already got her killer. He's in Wiltknot, he's been in Wiltknot for over thirty years, but you don't think it was him, do you?"

"I don't know what to think."

"Do you seriously think I'm capable of murdering my own sister?"

"When pushed to it, anyone—"

"Anyone can be a serial killer," Lucy interrupted.

Chad shook his head. "That's not what I was going to say."

"Vincent Whitehall famously said that, didn't he? Anyone? You. Me. Tate—"

"Don't bring up Tate."

Lucy's eyes dropped to slits. "Why? Have I touched a nerve? This whole time I thought you were on my side, working to help find my sister, but you've been investigating me. You've found yourself a motive, even placed me at the scene of the crime. You bastard."

"I—"

Her hand shot up so fast Chad didn't have time to blink before it struck his cheek. He winced at the slap, tasting blood. His teeth cut into his flesh, and he grunted.

"You're investigating me, and not the man that last saw her? That had Harriet in his car? That was obsessed with her, picking her up from school and showering her with expensive gifts while his wife wept for their dead daughter alone." She let go of a bitter laugh, wrapping her arms around herself. "It doesn't surprise me. You're all the same. The police look out for their own first. They protect them and turn a blind eye when it suits them."

"I'm not turning a blind eye to James. He told me about Harriet."

Lucy snorted. "His version of it, not Harriet's. You've got Harriet's version on a statement, but still you discredit it because she was a seventeen-year-old girl and James was a police officer going through a hard time who needed a shoulder to cry on. Poor him."

"I needed his side of it."

"Harriet's wasn't enough."

"You keep saying gifts. What gifts did he get her?"

"Flowers and chocolates—"

"Things that are no longer here. That can't be proved."

Lucy leaned closer. "That pearl drop fucking necklace."

Chad widened his eyes. "What?"

"Yeah," Lucy sneered. "The one she was wearing when she disappeared. That was from him. She didn't like James, he creeped her out, but she liked that, she liked how expensive it looked, how grown up it made her feel and she'd wear it to school to the awe of everyone else."

Chad pressed his lips together.

"He was clever about the gifts, never handed them over directly, just left them in places she'd find with a nameless note. Roses. Heart shaped chocolates. And a pearl drop necklace. What did he tell you happened the night she went missing? And don't say he was cautioning her for possession, we both know that wasn't true."

"He said he was ending things before it got serious between them."

"Let me guess, he was letting her down gently, putting an end to her schoolgirl crush on him? Ever the gentleman."

Chad didn't answer.

"And you believed him?"

"I don't know. I don't know what to believe."

"He's a liar, Chad."

"But so are you."

Lucy recoiled as if he'd hit her. She reached back for the open door of her truck. "I didn't kill my sister. I didn't see her on the road that afternoon. I thought I could trust you, but you're like him, like James, like all of them, protecting each other."

She jumped back into the truck and slammed the door shut. The engine choked and spluttered before rumbling as she turned it around. Chad watched the truck race back up the dirt track, cheek still stinging and with the taste of blood on his tongue.

"Shit," he hissed, before turning back to the house.

Romeo waiting for him with his arms folded in the hall, breathing heavily through his nose. He didn't look at Chad, but watched the horizon where Lucy's truck had faded to a red dot.

"She hit you."

It came out as a rumble. Chad ignored him, and rolled his fingers into his cheek while squeezing past Romeo to get to the kitchen.

"She fucking hit you."

"Just a slap."

"Do you know how hard that was?" Romeo asked, pursuing Chad through to the sink, and breathing down his neck. Chad spun the taps on and leaned down to fill his mouth with water. He spat it out, bloodied, into the sink before asking, "What was hard?"

"Watching her hit you through the spyhole in the door, and not rushing out there to strangle her. I almost did."

Chad turned to face him. "You can't do that, Romeo. You can't. You can't be seen."

"I want to kill her." Romeo growled, gripping Chad's face.

"She was angry at me." Chad looked away. "I deserved it."

"No, you didn't." Romeo lifted Chad's chin. His grip bordered painful. "Being angry doesn't give her the right to hit you."

"It's fine—"

"It's not fine," Romeo snapped. He swept his thumb across the heated skin. "She's very lucky not to be dead right now. I'm tempted to take your car and ram her off the road."

"Don't do that," Chad said, grabbing Romeo's wrist. "Look, she knows I went to see Candice. She knows I was asking questions, looking for a motive, and opportunity."

"You found both and she's lashed out. Doesn't that tell you what you need to know?"

"No," Chad sagged against the sink, "it doesn't, and this," he poked his tongue into his cheek, "it's just an occupational hazard."

"It's happened before?"

Chad shrugged. "Usually Josh is there to intercept."

Romeo bristled. His thumb on Chad's cheek pressed harder as he stroked.

"She might not be guilty of her sister's murder, but she is guilty of hitting you, and that's enough to put her in our field."

Chad pressed his hand over Romeo's one cupping his face. He brushed his thumb back and forth over Romeo's hand until the painful grip softened. Romeo eased out a breath, dropping his shoulders. The tension coiling around Romeo lost its hold bit by bit.

He stroked Chad's face as his breathing slowed.

"You told me Lucy was on edge, but you didn't tell me she was that volatile."

"Her and James both," Chad said. "Something tells me we're not going to be on each other's Christmas lists after this."

"No, but Lucy has put herself on my list."

Chad rolled his eyes. "Is she before or after Dean?"

Romeo looked up to the ceiling as if he was considering. "After Dean, but before Arnold Fritz."