Torn - Cynthia Eden Page 0,44
shoulders.
“I didn’t do anything!”
He was a familiar man.
Her mouth dropped open.
“Oh, shit,” Wade said.
And then she saw the woman. A woman who was also in handcuffs. A woman with a tangle of long blond hair. A woman who was yelling, “You can’t do this to us! Why are you doing this to us?”
More cops were running in and out of the house. The man and the woman were being led toward the patrol cars.
Just then the man glanced up—and his blue eyes locked on Wade and Victoria. There was fear in his gaze. Fear and desperation as he recognized them.
“What’s happening?” Lucas Branson shouted at them. “Why are the cops doing this to me?”
Dace had a tight grip on Lucas’s shoulder as he pushed the younger man forward. “We traced your call, Branson, though I sure as hell never expected to see you when I went into that house. I actually bought your act years ago. I thought you cared about Kennedy.”
“I do care about Kennedy!” Lucas jerked against his cuffs while the blond woman with him started to cry.
Do care. He’s using the present tense. For some reason those words pierced Victoria straight to her core.
“Dr. Palmer! Wade!” Lucas yelled their names. “Look, shit, will you two just tell this detective that I hired you? That you’re working for me to find Kennedy?” Lucas demanded.
They hadn’t even had a chance to tell him the news about her remains yet. Victoria had identified the body, they’d been going to the captain’s office and—the killer called me. She had planned to deliver the news about Kennedy’s remains to Lucas in person.
“Cut the act,” Dace snarled. “We traced the call you just made to Dr. Palmer. We know what you did.”
“I didn’t just make any call!” Lucas was nearly screaming. The blond woman was still crying. “I just got here a few minutes ago. This is my fiancée’s house. We were out, meeting with the caterer. I brought her back—and then you guys burst in the house with your freaking guns blazing!”
The woman looked over at them, her dark gaze tear-filled. “We didn’t do anything,” she cried. “I swear. We just got home. We just—”
“Found the phone!” one of the uniformed officers yelled as he ran from the house. He had an evidence bag in his hand. “It was on the kitchen counter, just waiting for us.”
Dace shoved Lucas toward a patrol car. His lips twisted in disgust. “You sick sonofabitch. You used Melissa’s own phone to make the call.”
“Who is Melissa?” Lucas yelled.
Dace glared at Lucas. “The doc over there—she identified Kennedy’s remains.”
Lucas’s eyes widened.
“Uh, detective . . .” Wade began, voice tense.
“K-Kennedy?” Lucas whispered.
“We know what you did to her. We know you kept her alive for years. You got off on torturing her, right? You stabbed her. You broke her bones. You made her life hell—”
“Detective Black,” Wade barked. He rushed toward the detective and his prisoner. And Victoria ran right after him.
“Then you bashed in her head and you buried her body. That wasn’t enough, though, was it? ’Cause on the anniversary of her abduction, you had to bring her back. You dug her up and you dumped—”
Lucas vomited. Again and again.
“Fuck.” Dace jumped back.
Wade grabbed his arm. “Lucas hired us to find her. This setup—it’s not right.”
The blond woman was staring at them all with dazed, horrified eyes. “Kennedy? Kennedy Lane? You . . . found her?”
Victoria stepped closer to the blonde. “Are you Connie?” Because she remembered that name. Lucas had told them that Connie didn’t know he’d hired LOST. He was going to move on, with Connie.
The woman blinked. “Y-Yes, I’m Connie. Connie Sutherland.” Then she very slowly turned her attention to the evidence bag that the uniformed officer had brought over to Dace. “That’s not mine.” Her voice was wooden. Too flat. Is she in shock? “We—We both have the newest models, the big screens, the—” She broke off, her lips clamping together. Her body rocked back and forth. “What is going on? You—You all think Lucas killed Kennedy?”
No, Victoria didn’t think that. She also didn’t think that Wade believed that, either.
Lucas had stopped vomiting. Now he was hunched on the ground, covered in filth, and he was—crying.
“Kennedy . . . he tortured Kennedy . . .” Lucas mumbled again and again.
Her chest ached as she listened to him.
No, she didn’t have Sarah’s expertise with killers, but every instinct she did have told her one thing. Lucas Branson wasn’t the killer they were after.
“I