Miles gritted his teeth. Dammit, tell me. Have you found her body?
Browns eyebrows rose. Then she is dead?
Youre twisting my words. Miles bit back a curse. He had no idea if Caitlin were dead or alive. After that last fight, shed stormed out of their three-week marriage. A few short days after theyd been married, hed realized his wife wasnt the woman she presented before the I dos. Or the passionate, love-struck woman shed led him to believe.
Shed been mysterious. Had been hiding something. And when hed questioned her about her past, her family, shed clammed up.
For all he knew, shed faked her death and would let him fry for murder. But where had she gone?
Brown didnt want to hear his suppositions. Hed only think Monahue was making excuses. Youre interrogating me again, he finally replied, so that makes me wonder if youve found something new.
Brown twisted his mouth into a frown. Nothing I can reveal.
Miles stood abruptly, his chair hitting the floor. Then get the hell out. Im sick of your runaround. If you find her, call me. Or if she contacts me, Ill let you know.
Brown pushed up from the desk, his boots clacking on the wooden surface. He paused in the doorway, pinned him with a warning look. Dont go anywhere without informing me.
Miles glared at the mans back as he stalked out, then he slammed the desk so hard his stapler flew onto the floor with a clatter. Frustration clawed at him. Even though he and Caitlin had only been married three weeks, their wedding triggered by a drunken night of raw, passionate sex, hed exhausted every imaginable lead hunting for her.
Of course, the police suspected him. He was the husband. And the last time hed seen Caitlin, they had fought publicly. Shed shouted that she didnt want to be married to him. That it had been a mistake.
Hed agreed. He knew nothing about love. Family. Commitment. But his pride had smarted and hed spouted off in anger.
Where
was she?
Off in Tahiti with a lover? Sipping margaritas and laughing at the mess shed left behind? Or had she met with foul play?
Guilt assaulted him as the gruesome possibilities flitted into his mind. Caitlin, dead at the hands of a madman. Or maybe shed been kidnapped and was being tortured and was still alive.
If so, every day that passed meant there was less chance of finding her.
He grabbed his keys and headed to his car. He had to get out of the office. Drive someplace and be alone.
Freezing rain and sleet pelted him as he jogged to his Pathfinder, cold air blasting him as he climbed inside and started the engine. He blew on his hands to warm them, hit the gas pedal and soared from the parking lot, gravel churning beneath his tires, sludge and mud spewing. Storm clouds darkened the sky, the sleet creating a steady staccato rhythm as it pinged off the hood and windshield. He flipped on the defroster, grateful for the noise that drowned out his turbulent thoughts as he drove through the small town of Ravens Peak. He tried to focus on the road and his surroundings as he made his nightly rounds, but the nightmares hovered in his mind, tormenting him. After Caitlin had left, the evening blurred. Hed had a headache, then added liquor on top of it. He must have blacked out. Then the nightmares had started. Nightmares that went back to his childhood.
The rugged edges of the mountain peaks and towering hardwoods rose in front of him like ice statues standing guard to the secrets within their massive walls. The canyon below had once been green and lush, sprinkled with wildflowers and honeysuckle, a haven for the sun as it fought over the jagged gorges. Now, it looked like a brown crater resting at the underbelly of the mountains, like a dark cavern below ground where shadows walked at night, a home for the demons who rested in their evil lairs.
He couldnt shake the interrogation with Brown from his mind, or the sense that something sinister had happened to his wife. Hell, he did have his dark side, but he hadnt killed Caitlin.
And not a second had gone by that he wasnt plagued with worry about her. The first few days, hed beaten the streets searching for her, for any clue as to where she might have been, had used all his resources and questioned everyone in Ravens Peak, where hed first met her at a local honky-tonk, the Steel Toe. But hed found nothing but questions.
His hands tightened around the steering wheel. The defroster worked overtime to clear the fog from the storm outside, the gears grinding as the tires clutched at black ice. Day by day, hed assured himself that Caitlin had probably just run off and left him. She was tough. Formidable. Shed obviously decided shed married him on a whim, that commitment wasnt her style, and ditched him before the ink on their marriage certificate could set permanently.
Still, hed blamed himself. It was his fault she had left. He hadnt known how to be a husband. Shed needed something he didnt know how to give.
Love.
Hed almost convinced himself he believed that she was coming back, that at least she was alive. Almost