Chapter 15

Candace threw off the covers and kicked her legs free of the tangled sheets. She’d lain awake for hours, tossing and turning, unable to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes the taunting voice of the man who’d attacked her filled her head.

Candy Girl.

She shuddered and jammed her hands over her ears, but it didn’t stop. The frightening name repeated, again and again, as if imprinted on an endless audio reel.

She had to do something, anything to block out his voice. She’d tried reading, watching her favorite old movies, playing video games, marking test papers. Nothing worked. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she rubbed her tired eyes. Her body craved the restorative release of sleep, but her mind wouldn’t shut down.

There were some sleeping pills in the bathroom cabinet, but she didn’t like taking pills at the best of times, and this definitely wasn’t the best of times. A large dose of examine had been injected into her. Adding another sedative to the mix wouldn’t be a good idea.

But she had to do something. She couldn’t sit there all night, staring at the walls, listening to that insidious voice inside her head. Grabbing her robe from the hook on the back of her bedroom door, she slipped it on and tied the belt around her waist. Shuffling down the dark hall, she flicked on the light to her home office and sat on the chair in front of her desktop computer. She needed a distraction, and what she was about to do was just the ticket.

Detective Breacher had called Aiden Loverboy and hinted Aiden was involved in something shady when he worked for the police force in Seattle. At the time, she’d ignored the insinuations, but now she couldn’t stop thinking about them.

She studied her homepage on the flickering screen. Aiden had been kind to her. He’d treated her with respect, and now she was going to delve into his past, a past he would've told her about if he wanted her to know. Over the last few days, she’d begun to think of him as more than just another cop.

Much more.

Not only was he one handsome hunk of a man, but there was something about him, something honest and real that called to her soul. Of all the cops she’d dealt with over the years in her quest to keep her sister’s case front and center in the police’s active case files, he was one of the good ones. He cared about the victims and saw their cases as more than a means to a high solve rate.

Yet, there she was—about to violate his privacy. She shoved back her chair and stood. No, she wouldn’t do this. If he wanted her to know about his past, he’d tell her. Until then, his previous life was none of her business.

She headed to the kitchen and heated a cup of water in the microwave. When the timer beeped, she removed the cup, tossed in a tea bag, and dragged it through the hot water. Ever since Charlene had gone missing, she hadn’t trusted any man. How could she when he could be the person who’d abducted her sister? Ridiculous, she knew, but to her, the fear was all too real.

All these years, she’d lived with the knowledge she’d been sound asleep in a bed in the same room beside where her sister slept, when Charlene was dragged from her bed and carried away by a monster. Candace hadn’t wakened, hadn’t screamed for help, or done anything to save her sister. The guilt kept her awake at night. Her therapist told her she needed to stop blaming herself and move on with her life.

Easier said than done.

She’d undergone years of intensive therapy before she felt comfortable enough to go to the store on her own; years wasted as she hid behind locked doors, startling at every sound, terrified the man who took Charlene had come back. She’d stopped going to her classes at school and started correspondence courses, missing out on prom, meeting new friends, and attending parties and dances like other young people.

After her parents passed, she’d finally gathered her courage and ventured out into the world beyond her front door, but she was always looking behind her, searching the shadows, certain she saw someone waiting, watching. She’d lost track of the number of times she’d called the police and reported seeing the infamous Isaiah, the man who took her sister.

At first, they’d arrived, sirens blaring, lights flashing, guns ready, only to discover she’d identified the wrong man. When the same scenario played out again and again, the cops took longer to arrive, and their cruisers were silent. Eventually, they stopped coming.

She’d tried, done her damnedest to put the terrifying events behind her. She finished high school and went on to the university and earned her Bachelor of Arts degree. After that, she’d continued her studies and received a doctorate in Anthropology, and now she was on tenure at the college.

In spite of her academic and career successes, she continued her crusade to find Charlene. She showed up at the police station at least once every few months and demanded updates on the search for her sister. Her persistence didn’t make her popular with the local police, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was they didn’t forget Charlene, and they continued their investigation.

She wasn’t a complete fool. She knew the odds of finding Charlene alive were slim. The police were probably right, and Charlene was long dead, but Candace wouldn’t rest until she knew the truth about what happened. Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked them back. Maybe snooping into someone else’s previous life would take her mind off her own sordid past.

She picked up her cup of tea and headed back to her home office and settled before the computer. Steam rose in the air, bringing with it the soothing scent of chamomile as she set down the cup and started typing.

Her tea was cold by the time she pushed back her chair and shuffled to the window and shoved aside the curtain.

The streetlights shone on the quiet street. In the cold green light, her lawn looked surreal. The carefully pruned bushes along the edge of her property cast deep shadows.

Nothing stirred, but she couldn’t dispel the sensation someone was out there, watching, waiting. She shivered and dropped the curtain back into place.

Grabbing her cup, she wandered into the kitchen and poured the cold tea into the sink. She refilled the cup from the tap and set it in the microwave and pushed the Start button. As the water heated, she fought back a yawn and rubbed her burning eyes. She didn’t think she’d ever been so exhausted. It must be the residual effects of the examine and the trauma of the vicious attack.

The microwave beeped, and she opened the door and removed her cup. Swishing a new tea bag through the steaming water, she carried the cup to the living room and sank onto the couch. She blew on the hot tea and sipped. The tea filled her with a comforting warmth, dispelling the chill that had settled like a block of ice in her chest.

The Seattle news headlines from last year were all similar…Detective’s Illicit Romance Results In Toddler’s Homicide…Seattle Detective’s Actions Lead To Child’s Death…Loverboy Detective Sent Packing…

She lifted her cup and inhaled the soothing scents of flowers and sunshine. Aiden had made a mistake, a big one, one that almost destroyed his career. According to the articles, he was the detective in charge of the case of the abduction of four-year-old Suzi Grantley.

Marissa Grantley, a single mother, reported her daughter missing when she disappeared from the backyard. The mother had left the toddler alone for a few minutes while she ran inside for a treat. When she came back outside, the child was gone.

A Seattle detective team, led by Aiden, investigated. Witnesses recalled seeing a suspicious white van in the area the day the girl vanished, and an extensive search for the van began. When the owner of the white van was tracked down, he turned out to be a delivery driver for a package distribution company. He was taken in for questioning, but the police couldn’t prove he was involved in the case, and so, after only a few hours, the delivery driver was released.

Two weeks later, Suzi Grantley’s bloodied and beaten body was found by an early morning dog walker in a nearby park. Her body had been hidden under a log and covered with leaves.

The tragedy rocked the city, and the cops pulled out all the stops, determined to find the murderer. For months there weren’t any suspects, and the investigators were stymied, even as pressure mounted to find the child’s killer.

As lead detective, Aiden worked closely with the victim’s mother, Marissa Grantley, interviewing her countless times and offering emotional support to the distraught woman. According to the media, over the many weeks of the investigation, his relationship with Marissa crossed the line from professional to personal, and they became lovers.

None of that would have mattered, or even come to light, if the case hadn’t taken an unexpected turn. Investigators discovered Marissa Grantley had a history of anger-control issues. She’d been fired from several jobs for threatening fellow employees. A neighbor came forward to say she’d often heard Marissa yelling at Suzi, and once witnessed her slapping her daughter across the face.

As evidence against the mother mounted, Aiden’s professional lapse rose to the forefront. Charged with murdering her daughter, and facing a lengthy prison term, Marissa Grantley’s lawyer revealed her relationship with Aiden to the media. Probably in the hopes of having her potential life sentence reduced and redirecting the public’s outrage onto the Seattle Police Department.

All hell broke loose. The press dubbed Aiden Loverboy, and the public’s anger against him exploded.

But the story didn’t end there. After Marissa Grantley’s conviction for first degree murder, her lawyer sued the police department and Aiden for unprofessional conduct. The police department denied Aiden had an inappropriate relationship with the suspect, but the media wasn’t buying it. A few more days of lurid headlines, and Aiden was dismissed from the force.

Candace sat back and curled her legs under her and sipped tea. The story was shocking. If what she read was true, Aiden had made a terrible mistake. One that ruined his career. But there were holes in the allegations against him. He’d never issued a statement to the press, never publicly defended his actions. The man she knew, the one who believed her when others didn’t, who offered her much-needed comfort and support, wasn’t someone who’d cross the line. His job was too important. He wouldn’t risk the life of a child for sexual gratification. If he thought for a moment Marissa Grantley was guilty, he’d have turned her in.

His steely resolve to find Amanda Jacobs was proof of his dedication to his job and his desire to help people in need. She hadn’t known Aiden long, but she knew deep in her gut that he’d never do something that would compromise a case.

She set her empty cup on the coffee table. He must have gone through hell all those months the media hounded him, labeling him Loverboy in order to sell more advertising space. He lost his job and left his home in Seattle under a cloud of distrust and infamy. What a step down for him to move from the bustling city of Seattle, where he worked hundreds of cases a year, to the sleepy town of Briggston. Other than the Forgotten Five kidnappings twenty-two years ago, the most exciting crime was when a group of teenagers broke into the high school and egged a teacher’s classroom.

But things had changed. In the past six months, the Briggston crime rate had skyrocketed. A young coed had been sexually assaulted, Amanda Jacobs disappeared from her bedroom in the nearby city of Cardion, and Candace was attacked and drugged. She shivered in the house’s early morning chill and walked down the hall to the thermostat and turned up the furnace.

She was glad Aiden was in town. Not just because he was working hard at solving her case. He was also doing everything he could to find Amanda Jacobs. If anyone could find the missing teen, he could. He was a good cop. She’d stake her life on his integrity.

She yawned and rubbed her aching eyes.

A cold, gray light filtered through the edges of the curtains covering the living room window. The long, sleepless night was over.

Finally.

It was Monday, and she didn’t have any classes scheduled until Tuesday morning. The thought of filling the empty hours, keeping her mind busy so she wouldn’t dwell on the events of the past few days, exhausted her. Maybe she should crawl back into bed and try and sleep.

She shook her head. No way. She refused to cower in her house like a frightened child, jumping at every noise, waiting for the man who’d attacked her to strike again. Pushing away from the counter, she strode out of the kitchen. It was time she stopped being a victim and took action.