Karen’s dark brown eyes moved from the wound over to stare at Belinda, her expression of concentration falling slightly. “Not here, no. But I saw my fair share of them.”

  Belle spoke. “Karen served as an Army nurse.”

  Belinda felt immediately contrite. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to be insensitive.”

  Karen waved her hand dismissively. “You weren’t! It was years ago. I can definitely tell you that it was a very clean wound, and your surgeon did an excellent job stitching you up. The wound looks good, so please keep doing exactly what you’re doing.”

  After a few more minutes, Belle helped her into her shirt and sling. Belinda walked them to the front door and said goodbye. She was now as comfortable with Karen as she was with Belle and looked forward to seeing her again.

  She smiled at Arthur as he watched TV. He looked up and immediately asked, “Can I get you anything, sweetheart?”

  She couldn’t help but smile at hearing the endearment fall from his lips. By getting to know Aaron’s father better, she understood where Aaron’s goodness came from. Shaking her head, she said, “No, please keep watching TV. I think I’ll use Aaron’s computer to get a little work done.”

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” Hayley asked. She inclined her head down toward her laptop. “I finished one job and am not in the mood to start another, so I can easily help you do anything you want.”

  “I thought about signing on and looking at my photographs. I understand that the police are looking, but I know my subjects and my settings so well. Maybe there’s something I’ll see that they could miss.”

  “I don’t think that’s a bad idea at all. Do you want me to look, too?”

  “We could look together?”

  Hayley grinned and nodded. “That sounds perfect.”

  Perusing the wedding photos, she had to admit having Hayley with her was fun. Even though they were looking for something untoward, she and Hayley were already plotting what would be the perfect pictures when she and Sam got married in a few weeks.

  Hayley looked at her, worry in her eyes. “You know, I really want you as the photographer, but there’s no pressure. With what’s happened to you, I don’t want you traumatized, and I certainly don’t want you to hurt yourself while trying to take pictures.”

  “Nothing is going to keep me from taking the pictures when you get married to Sam. We’ll be inside the church, the reception is in their hall in the basement, and there’ll be plenty of deputies around to keep an eye on things when we take the outdoor photos.”

  With that settled, the two women continued going through the pictures. She said goodbye when it was time for Hayley to pick up her children after school. Tired, she went back to the bedroom and took another nap. When she woke up, Arthur was talking to Ivy, who had shown up after work.

  She laughed when she walked out. “I never know who’s going to be here when I get out of bed.”

  “Arthur told me that you and Hayley were looking at pictures earlier. I take it you didn’t have any luck?” Ivy asked.

  “We were only looking at the wedding photos, and there’s nothing. Nothing in the crowd. Nothing out on the bay. Nothing but beautiful wedding pictures.”

  “Well, I’m sure that the detectives are going back further. I just don’t want you to stress yourself any more than you already are.”

  Just then, Bess walked in carrying items from the bakery with Aaron and Andy on her heels.

  Now, surrounded by her and Aaron’s families, she watched as they plated the food and settled, comfortable in each other’s company. It was the type of evening that she and Bess would’ve had with their parents when they were still local. She knew that eventually when her grandmother passed, her parents would probably come back to the shore. But for now, still surrounded by family and love, she couldn’t think of anything better.

  Usually, by the end of each day, Aaron came home to an empty apartment. In the past, he might stop somewhere for dinner or even a bar if he was in the mood. But more often than not, it was just him. He’d never spent time decorating, knowing it was a temporary abode.

  He kept a few framed photographs of him, Andy, and their dad around, but other than that, his place was sparse. Not exactly a bachelor pad, but more of a pad for a bachelor.

  Coming home that night, greeted by the sight of Belinda smiling, his heart skipped a beat. With Bess laughing along with his dad, Andy, and Ivy, it felt like a home for the first time.

  And as much as he hated the reason Belinda was there, he wasn’t sorry that she was in his place. Walking over, he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead. “You look tired, sweetheart.”

  She scrunched her nose. “Just what a girl wants to hear.” Her exaggerated tone let him know she wasn’t really insulted, but he winced anyway.

  His arms tightened slightly, and he said, “I apologize. I should’ve led with you look beautiful… and tired.”

  She leaned back and smiled at him. “I am tired, but it’s been so good to have people around.”

  “How was your meeting with the home health nurse?”

  “It was wonderful. Her name is Karen Drummond.”

  “I know her. Or rather, I’ve seen her at our American Legion meetings occasionally. So I take it you had a good meeting?”

  “She explained everything, looked at the wound, and said it was healing well. She also said that I could go off the heavy-duty pain meds whenever I wanted. She said that they prefer for patients to start using just over-the-counter pain meds at the earliest time to help avoid addictions.”

  Hearing people moving around, he glanced over her shoulder at the gathering filling plates from the food on the counter.

  Belinda looked over to see what he was staring at. “Carrie brought some food, and Bess brought things from the bakery.”

  “It’s nice to see you up and smiling, but I don’t want you to overdo it. I’ll give my brother and dad the sign for everyone to leave soon.”

  “You don’t need to. It felt so nice to have friends around earlier and this evening. I promise I’ll take it easy, and believe me, I’ll go to bed early.”

  Soon, they were all eating while Arthur told stories about Andy and Aaron, delighting Ivy and Belinda. Bess told a few embarrassing childhood memories about Belinda that had Aaron roaring with laughter and Belinda blushing.

  After eating and cleaning up, they said good night to everyone. Finally, Aaron and Belinda were alone. Once again, they showered together, and she made a half-hearted joke about wishing she felt stronger.

  He looked at her and shook his head. “If you think I’m going to have sex with you when you’ve just been shot, you don’t know me at all!”

  He helped her into her pajamas, and she pouted. “I didn’t say anything about you having sex with me. I was just thinking that I wish I could have sex with you!”

  A deep chuckle rumbled from inside his chest. “I’m not sure I see the difference, sweetheart, but until you get well, we’re just sleeping together.”

  As he crawled into bed, she snuggled into his side. “Hayley and I started going through some of my pictures. I hope you don’t mind, but I used your laptop since I knew my pictures were saved to the cloud.”

  He held her gaze. “Going through what pictures?”

  “Well, the wedding to start with. Hayley and I were talking about her upcoming wedding to Sam.”

  He relaxed and held her close.

  “And I wanted to see if I could help with the investigation.”

  Now, he startled, his arms twitching. “Belinda, babe, you don’t need to do anything about this.”

  “What if I recognize something?”

  He hesitated. “Did you?”

  She scrunched her nose and shook her head. “No, to be honest, we barely made it past the wedding. It was giving Hayley ideas about pictures she wants for her wedding.”

  He sighed heavily. “Look, I know they asked you to take pictures, but they get married in a few weeks, and you aren’t going to be⁠—”

  “Oh yes, I am. I told her there was no way I wasn’t taking pictures for her wedding! Look, it’ll be in a church, and there’ll be tons of law enforcement around.”

  “Do I need to remind you that there was tons of law enforcement around when you were shot? As much as it shits me to say that, it’s the truth.”

  “Yes, but then, we didn’t know of any threat. This time, we will.”

  He knew that continuing to discuss it would only upset her, so he decided to halt the wedding topic for now.

  She looked up at him. “I suppose there were no more pictures that anyone noticed anything about?”

  He shook his head, hating that was the answer he was given. “Although, they did get past your last photo shoots. They noticed that you also go out and take a lot of nature shots.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I never thought to mention that, but I hardly think a picture that I take of a blue heron, a snowy egret, or seagulls on the water would give us any clues to someone being unhappy with me taking a photograph.”

  He shrugged. “You never know. Believe me, we’re not leaving any stone unturned to figure out who’s after you.”

  She smiled and cuddled closer to him on her good side. “Speaking of nature shots, do you remember when we met at Kiptopeke Park?”

  “Of course, I remember it. How could I forget?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe things are more important to me than they are to other people.”

  He shifted on his side and cupped her cheek. “I never forget things that are important to me, and that day was. That was the day that you allowed me to talk to you. To confide in you. To let you see a part of me that I don’t let anyone else see.”

  “That day meant a lot to me, Aaron.”

  “Whatever it meant to you, sweetheart, I can assure you, it meant even more to me. I gave you my damaged parts, and you made me realize I don’t have to feel guilty or abandoned. I am who I am, and part of that is my past. I discovered that day that I’m not broken.”

  “I think tomorrow, I’m going to go back through those pictures. I know I even took a couple of selfies of us. I haven’t done anything with those yet, but now I want to save some, get them printed, and hang on to them.”

  “You do that, and I promise I also want to have one framed.” What he didn’t say was that he hoped they could soon be together more permanently and have a future with lots of pictures.

  34

  Aaron glanced at the paperwork, still piled on his desk, before looking up at Sam. “We have no murder weapon for William Gaston. No murder site. No witnesses. We’ve looked at the security cameras of the gas stations along Highway 13 in our county and had Liam do the same in his county. Nothing. All we know is that a man washed up on our shore. He’d been shot and hadn’t been in the water long. And we don’t have his car.”

  “So you think this will be a case we send off to the state police?” Sam asked.

  Grimacing, Aaron replied, “Maybe. I just keep thinking that there’s something right under our noses that we’re not seeing.”

  “You’ve been under a lot of stress lately, Aaron.”

  “Are you saying my instincts are off?”

  “No.” Sam sighed. “I have the same niggling feeling.”

  Looking up, he spied Colt walking toward them and then turned one of the chairs by their desks to face both of them. “I’ve just gotten some news about William Gaston, which may close the case in our county.”

  Aaron’s chin jerked back, and it wasn’t hard for him to notice that Sam had the same physical reaction to Colt’s words.

  “I got a call from the police chief of Virginia Beach. He said an abandoned car had been located in a shopping center. When they ran the tags, it belonged to William Gaston. As soon as they came up with his name, they looked in the database and saw that we had an open case on his murder.”

  “So he wasn’t murdered in our area? He actually made it across the CBBT and into Virginia Beach?” Aaron asked for clarification.

  “Why was his car just sitting in a shopping center? He drove it there and was then murdered? Kidnapped and then murdered?” Sam asked.

  Colt shook his head. “The police chief didn’t have any answers. They’re going over his car right now, fingerprinting and seeing what they can find. He said they’d stay in touch.”

  “So what does this mean for our case?” Aaron wondered aloud.

  Colt shook his head. “Right now, it’s still an open case that I want you working on. My suggestion would be to contact the CBBT. They have security cameras all along the Bay Bridge Tunnel. See if we can find out when he left our area and crossed into Virginia Beach. I know that something that their police can do, but since his body was found on our side of the bay, I’d rather we do it.”

  “That makes sense, Colt. If he did make it to Virginia Beach and was killed over there, and then his body was dumped, it would take more than two days to wash up on our shore. The timeline just doesn’t add up,” Aaron added.

  Colt dipped his head. “Agreed. Check with the CBBT, and let’s see what we have. Here’s the Virginia Beach detective handling the case for them.” With that, Colt stood and handed them the information before returning to his office.

  Aaron looked over at Sam. “I’ll call Ivy and find out what we need to do.”

  Sam chuckled. “Convenient that your sister-in-law works there.”

  “I think so, but she may not agree by the time I get through asking her what I need.”

  He dialed Ivy’s number, glad when she picked up immediately. After greeting her warmly, he told her what they were looking for and why.

  “This won’t be nearly as hard as you think,” she said. “Because every car that goes through here has to have either an EZ Pass or they pay a toll, and we can find out exactly when he entered the CBBT and left it on the Virginia Beach side. If you give me his full name, I can run his EZ Pass and get back to you.”

  “Damn, that was easier than I thought it was going to be. His full name is William Lionel Gaston. The last known address where he was living was in Richmond, Virginia.” He rattled off the address.

  “Okay. This shouldn’t take me long, and I’ll get back to you.”

  “Ivy, you’re the best sister-in-law a detective could ever have.”

  She laughed. “I’m your only sister-in-law.”

  Disconnecting, he looked over at Sam and nodded. While waiting, he walked to the coffee machine to get a weak-ass cup of coffee. Dumping creamer and sweetener into it to make it more palatable, he took a sip and winced. Walking past Hunter and Brad, he asked, “Any luck?”

  “My eyes are crossed right now,” Brad complained.

  “We’ve gone back to the ones where you’re in a couple of them,” Hunter said, one side of his lips curving up in a smirk. “Looks like you two were at Kiptopeke. That must have been when you first got together again.”

  He nodded, thinking of the conversation he had with Belinda last night. “Don’t make fun of those pictures, man. It was at that meeting that she and I got back together. She forgave me for being such a dumbass, and we started moving forward again. Slowly, but surely.”

  “Hell, I won’t make fun of that,” Hunter said. “Belle and I had the same kind of situation. She got caught up in a case I was working on, and even though she wasn’t part of it, it blew up in my face. I’m lucky as fuck that she gave me a second chance.”

  “You guys are so whipped, it’s not even funny.” Brad shook his head.

  “Yeah, and thinking like that is why you’re still single,” Aaron quipped.

  Within the hour, his phone rang, and he looked down to see Ivy’s name. Grabbing it up, he asked, “What have you got for me?”

  “William Gaston’s vehicle entered the CBBT on the shore side at 10:43 p.m., four days ago. It left the CBBT on the Virginia Beach side at 11:09 p.m.”

  “Ivy, you’re the best!”

  Disconnecting, he looked over at Sam and said, “We have confirmation that William Gaston’s vehicle left the shore at 10:43. So it doesn’t look like his murder occurred in our jurisdiction.”

  Two hours later, a deputy walked over to their desks. “Detective Bergstrom? I just came back from a callout to a small gas station that was on Breeton Road, south of Baytown.”

  Aaron nodded for him to continue.

  “I noticed he had a security camera and thought to ask about the murder victim you were checking into. He grumbled a lot but admitted that he didn’t really have the camera hooked up. He said it was to keep some punk from trying to rob him. I had the photo to show him, and he said he remembered the guy. Said he didn’t get many people coming in who were dressed in a suit and tie unless it was on a Sunday when people stopped in after church. And even then, he knew the locals.”

  “Fuckin’ good work,” Sam said. “Did he happen to remember anything else?”

  “He said the man stopped by about noon. Mr. Critcher remembered that because the man bought a bag of chips and a candy bar. He asked if that was going to be his lunch because Mr. Critcher was trying to sell him one of the sandwiches his wife makes to sell to customers. He said the man thanked him but just kept the chips and candy bar. But he did add a soda for later.” The deputy shook his head and chuckled. “I think that old man can probably remember every customer he’s ever had in the past forty years!”

  “Thanks. Good work.” Aaron smiled at the deputy, but his mind was already racing.

  The deputy smiled and left his information with him. Aaron picked up the phone and called the Virginia Beach detective. After introducing himself and explaining why he was calling, he asked, “Can you tell me if a candy bar and a bag of chips were in the car? Either uneaten or just the wrappers.”

  Sam watched, and Aaron tapped his pen on his desk until the detective got back with him.

  “Detective Bergstrom? You’re right. The log of the contents of the car includes a half-eaten candy bar and a full bag of chips. The notes say they were sitting between the driver and passenger seats in the middle console.”