Kendall was here. His Kendall. Unbelievable.
Cord had visited Eve many times over the last six years but since she lived on the far side of the county he never visited Lost Creek to keep from running into Kendall. But now here she was. Back in his life in a big way for the unforeseeable future. Man, oh, man. That was almost as painful as not knowing where Eve was or what happened to her.
He could do something about Eve by getting to work and finding her, but these feelings for Kendall rolling around his insides like a tumbleweed on the open plains—what did he do about those?
He looked across the room, where she was talking to her sister, Tessa, in the kitchen. As a crime scene investigator, Tessa was gathering a blood sample from the linoleum floor. She’d already bagged the rolling pin, and he’d hoped she would find prints on it, but Kendall dashed that hope when she informed them that the intruder had worn gloves.
“So, you can actually tell how long that blood has been there?” Kendall asked.
“Yes, with reflectance spectroscopy and spectral imaging, hence my equipment.”
“And do you know yet?”
“A little less than three days. And there are signs of the blood spurting here, too, which means this was active bleeding, not postmortem.”
Tessa’s response nearly stopped Cord’s heart. He didn’t want to even contemplate that Eve had died, but he had to accept it was a possibility. And if Tessa was right, the blood was from the day after he’d last talked to Eve. If only he’d gone to see her.
“So Eve was alive three days ago,” Kendall confirmed.
“Honestly,” Tessa replied, “though we can assume this is Eve’s blood, we don’t know that yet. Shoot, I don’t even know if it’s human.”
“But you think it is?”
“Sure, just like you do, but there’s no proof until I get these samples to the lab.” Tessa sighed. “I can tell you the blood isn’t from a gunshot. The spatter pattern suggests a knife wound.”
Had his aunt been knifed, or did she knife her attacker? If so, it wasn’t the guy Cord chased, as that guy didn’t appear to be suffering from a stab wound that would have left a large pool of blood on the floor.
“And you’ll run this for DNA in case this is the intruder’s blood, and we get a hit in the database?” Kendall asked.
“Of course, and I’ll try to get Dad or Matt to move it up in the lab’s priority list.”
When Cord had worked for Lake County, the department didn’t have the capability to process DNA. He thought maybe that would’ve changed with Tessa coming on board, but getting a lab certified for DNA was quite an undertaking, and he doubted they needed to run it often enough to make it worth her effort.
“Let me know if you find anything else,” Kendall said.
“You know it’s going to take all night to do this house and then the outside in the morning, right?” Tessa sounded like she wanted to quit talking and get to work.
“I do.” Kendall turned to stare out the back door, at the deputies engaged in the search for Eve.
He ran his gaze over Kendall. She was tall and lean but curvy in the right places. And she still filled out her navy-blue uniform in a way that made him think of anything except that she was a deputy. She often complained about how hard she had to work to be taken seriously by people she stopped in the course of a day. As a male law enforcement officer, he couldn’t understand that, but he did get it as the guy who couldn’t stop looking at her.
That was how they’d gotten together. She’d caught him watching her all the time at briefings and finally told him off. He apologized, and before he knew it, he was kissing her in the break room—her dad’s office right down the hall. Cord must’ve had a death wish to even think about going against her father’s belief that fellow officers shouldn’t date, as that was the only thing that could explain his actions back then.
And his actions tonight. What could explain how he’d basically run roughshod over her, doubting her abilities and taking over her investigation? His concern for his aunt was the only answer. His gut was filled with concern, but that wasn’t Kendall’s fault.
She deserved an apology. And an explanation.
She turned and caught his focus on her, and their gazes locked. She frowned and marched in his direction. “Still watching, I see. Some things don’t change, do they?”
“Sorry,” he said and left it at that. “I wanted to apologize for taking over here. I just want to help my aunt, and I know I succeeded in making things worse for you.”
Kendall pinched the bridge of her nose as if it helped stem an ache. He had to assume she was exhibiting physical pain and not pain from seeing him again, as she was the one who’d broken up with him. Still, it probably wasn’t any more comfortable for her to run into him than it was for him to see her.
“Look.” He stopped in front of her and caught a hint of vanilla from her shampoo, something else that hadn’t changed in years. “It’s not that I don’t think you’ll be a great detective. I do, especially once you have some experience under your belt. It’s just that we’re talking about my aunt here. She’s always been special to me. Now that my brother and parents are gone...”
He let his words trail off and shrugged. Even six months later, he still couldn’t talk about the loss of his family.
“Your family? All of them.” Her frustration vanished from her expression. “What happened?”
“Plane crash...six months ago,” was all he could get out over the lump in his throat that always came when he talked about them.
“Oh, Cord.” She rested a hand on his arm, and her sympathetic gaze met his, making it even harder to imagine speaking of his loss without losing it. “I’m so sorry. I know you were close to your family and losing them must be so hard.”
Her soft, compassionate tone was nearly his undoing, and feelings he’d fought hard against for months rushed to the surface. He swallowed them down before he started blubbering like a little baby. “It’s harder on my nephew, Lucas. His parents appointed me guardian in their will, and the court approved it. I’m in the process of officially adopting him, but he’s still totally lost. No matter what I do, I can’t reach him or help him.”
She squeezed his arm and released it. “I’m sure if you give him time.”
“Nah, that’s not going to help.” Cord shook his head. “Lucas thinks it’s my fault they died. I was supposed to be on that plane instead of his parents. I caught a big homicide case at the last minute, and Jace went in my place. He took his wife, Annaliese, along for a couples’ weekend.”
“But it isn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it?” He fisted his hands. “You and I always put work first. Before relationships. I didn’t realize what a fool I was until I lost my family. Now I would give anything to have them back.”
She watched him, her eyes dark and appraising. He couldn’t tell what she
