Not again.
I caught Pierce’s gaze and watched as his smile fell when he peeked into the space and saw the same thing I did. I tore my gaze away from him, back into the small room, and a breath ripped from my lungs as my brain registered what my eyes were seeing. It had to be a prank.
A body, slumped in the back corner of the closet, haphazardly thrown up against the shelving unit laid in a pool of its own blood. A river of the red stuff ran toward the drain in the middle of the room and my stomach rolled as my hand released the door and it slowly shut, cutting off our view.
But the sight etched itself forever in my mind.
A scream filled the hallway, and only when Pierce held me close did I realize the sound came from me.
2
Pierce
What now?
My gaze followed Katy’s until it came to a halt at the same spot. The far corner of the janitor’s closet had recently acquired a body. A dead one. Wonderful. I immediately checked my shoes for blood but found none on the soles, and then in the next breath I gathered Katy up in my arms and pulled her away from the door as she allowed it to close.
Her screams were sure to draw a crowd. I tucked her head in the crevice of my neck and pulled out the cell phone I had just finished having a conversation on, using it to dial nine and the one.
In that short span of time Katy found her wits and remember to be annoyed with me as she so often did. She lifted her head, but I refused to loosen my hold on her so she didn’t get far.
“Pierce, I can’t be found with you next to a closet!” she shrilled right next to my ear.
Exactly the words a man wants to hear from the woman he’s been in love with since fifth grade. “Katy…” I tried to put as much condensation in her name as possible. Usually ticking her off made her pay attention. “I think the dead body in the closet is worse than the gossip.”
She shook her head once or twice before tucking it back against my shoulder, and I finished my call by hitting the last one and waiting for the operator. Myrtle was the full-time 911 operator in this district, and she had a love for hearing the drama on anyone in Pelican Bay. She probably helped form the phone tree. Not the most professional, but her family helped found the town before the Revolutionary War and no one had the balls to fire her.
Myrtle would love this.
“Are you sure?” Katy asked on a mumble in my shoulder.
My word. The woman was becoming a giant pain in the ass. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.” I took care of most things in Katy’s life—as many as she’d allow me and then a few more she didn’t know about and I had no plans to ever tell her.
The phone rang once as the first person stuck her head into the hallway, coming to inspect where the scream originated.
Katy clutched onto my shirt, the heat of her body warming mine. The moments were fleeting, and I knew this would end too, but I relished every second having her close.
“Call Ridge,” she said as her fingers twisted more of the fabric of my button-down shirt.
Giant pain in the ass.
“No, this is a call for the police.” Even Ridge couldn’t handle a dead body by himself.
“911. What’s your emergency?” It wasn’t Myrtle’s voice on the phone, but someone younger.
I rattled off a quick description of what I suspected we saw, not willing to leave Katy and needing to guard the closet by myself to double check. Three more heads popped into the hallway getting close, but they kept a few feet away. I didn’t turn or address them. The only person who mattered in the moment was Katy.
“I have Detective Anderson en route. He should be there in under three minutes,” the not-Myrtle said, and I rolled my eyes. Everywhere in Pelican Bay was three minutes away if you had sirens on the top of your car.
Katy noticed the growing crowd and took a small step back, but she didn’t let go of my shirt. “What are we going to tell people?”
“The truth.”
She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. “I can’t.”
“Is the idea of being with me that horrible?” Why so many years later was I still doing the same song and dance with Katy? Would there ever come a time when I would be able to let her go?
She took another step away, and I noticed the loss of her body immediately. Her head hung in shame so I couldn’t see her eyes when she spoke, “You don’t understand.”
