The Promise (Wolfe Creek Duet #2)

57

THEA

Slow clapping comes from behind me. My head snaps to see who the fuck it is. The man in the doorway is the last person I expect to see in my house.

Detective Williams is leaning against the door frame, the sound of his hands echoing in the bathroom. I freeze, realizing how bad this looks. Cole’s tied to the chair, bleeding, and I’m about to pull the trigger on him.

“I—I can explain,” I stammer. I don’t know what I’ll say, but it’s the only thing that comes out. My hand holding the gun drops from Cole’s forehead. Glancing quickly at him, his face is twisted in shock, probably because he’s still alive. “How… Why are you here?”

Williams slides his hands into his pockets. Calmly, he explains, “Someone called in a wellness check. I tried knocking, but no one answered and the front door was unlocked. Good thing I came.” His chin tips toward Cole and then he looks around the bathroom, no doubt seeing the streaks of blood on the floor and the knife. I wonder if he sees the severed finger in the corner of the shower. “Looks like you’ve gotten yourself into some trouble, Ms. Griffin.”

“It’s not what it looks like. This is self defense,” I tell him. His brow raise in disbelief. “He’s the one who took Gavin. I have a confession. He put a hit out on Damian, too. It’s all recorded on my phone. He was going to kill me. He’s already tried.” I’m hoping that Williams hears the sincerity in my voice and sees the vulnerability in my eyes.

He nods, his bald head catching a bit of the light. “I know. I heard him.” My eyes narrow as I shrink back. “First things first, you need to hand over that gun. I’ll take the phone too. That’s critical evidence.”

I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone.

“Thea, don’t do it,” Cole chimes in. I roll my eyes, then step out of the shower, handing over the gun and the phone. “I told you to back off.” I look back at him, ready to question his words, when I see that he isn’t staring at or talking to me. Cole’s eyes are locked on the detective. “What are you doing here?”

Looking back and forth between the two of them, I try to decode what’s happening. Cole looks alarmed while Williams looks amused. “What’s going on?”

Both of them ignore me.

“I’ve been tracking you, Cole. I figured you had something to do with Gavin’s disappearance. Now, I have this confession, proving everything. You just seemed a little too invested in all of this to be completely innocent, so I needed to find out what was really going on.” I watch as Williams slides my phone into his pocket, his gray-blue eyes shining in satisfaction.

Looking at Cole, I’m still trying to piece together what’s happening. “Cole, tell me something. How do you know him?”

He doesn’t answer.

The detective steps forward. “Tracking you was the first step. Once I saw how frequently you were coming out here in the middle of the night, I realized that this was more of a case of obsession. That’s how I knew you’d slip up. You were too focused on her,” he says, pointing a finger at me. “Now that I have what I need, you’re done blackmailing me. It’s my turn. You’re going to call up your friend and tell him to stand down. I want that footage deleted.”

I’m not going to let them continue. Someone needs to start explaining. “What the fuck is going on?” I shout, grabbing their attention.

Williams smiles smugly at me. “Ah yes, there’s so much you don’t know. I’ll start at the beginning.”

“Cole and I met in culinary school,” the detective starts. “What was that, about nine or ten years ago now?” Cole doesn’t answer him. His mouth sits in a tight line. “We weren’t friends or anything, just acquaintances. So imagine my surprise when he called me up out of the blue and asked to meet me about three months ago.”

My mind’s reeling. Where is this leading? My eyes drop down and I can see that Cole’s working his hands frantically against the ropes, even more so than when I was torturing him. Something about it makes my stomach drop.

Williams continues. “I was sitting in Cole’s apartment when he pulled some footage from our culinary days. I was no boy scout back then—”

“Don’t downplay it, Jason,” Cole interjects. “That footage was of you raping an underage drunk girl. You’re a criminal.”

“Takes one to know one,” he throws back. “Anyway, Cole shows me this footage and threatened to send it to my superiors. He threatened to have my badge taken away and probably worse, depending on the statute of limitations. He told me that if I helped him, then he’d destroy the footage, like it never happened.”

I shake my head, realizing I’m stuck between two very dangerous monsters. “Why?” I gasp out.

“Why, Cole?” The detective asks rhetorically before answering the question himself. “Cole here told me that he had this bitch of an ex who needed to learn a lesson. He asked to intimidate you, scare you a bit, make you a little paranoid. With my background and career in law enforcement, I had the tools. I have a badge, the ability to forge warrants, I could bring you in for questioning, and even fingerprint you. And you believed all of it. He said he wanted to break you. So, I began poking around in your life at Cole’s direction. He fed me information and would tell me exactly what I needed to do to drive you to the brink of insanity.”

Oh my fucking God. This is sick, so much sicker than what I’ve done. The last three months flash through my head. Cole was sending this man after me and then taunting me about it when he’d visit me, knowing none of it was real. “There was never an investigation. I was never a suspect.” Saying it out loud sends a shiver down my spine. The level of manipulation is unreal.

“Nope. It was all fake,” Williams reiterates.

“How?” I look at Cole. “Gavin’s been gone for months. How has no one filed a missing person’s report? How is no one actually looking for him?” I need answers and only he can provide them.

I’m not sure if I’ve broken him of all his confidence and will to keep up this pointless fight for me, but I see his hazel eyes soften. “I’ve been texting Gavin’s family. I told them that he got a new number and I’ve been keeping in touch. They think you and him got back together. They think he decided to move up here to make things work with you. His parents haven’t cared much to dig into it. It was easy, to be honest.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I feel like I’m in a nightmare, one that I can’t wake up from.

“I could tell Cole was spiraling. He became erratic and was hard to get in touch with. Then, a few weeks ago, he told me to back off. I started getting worried that he was going to back out of our deal. I couldn’t have that. So, I took matters into my own hands.” Cole and I look at the detective curiously. “I started following him whenever he’d come here, watching him trek through the woods to get the house. Then, for the last few days, he’d just sit in his car by the side of the road for hours. I knew something strange was going on. Then tonight, he finally got out. I wanted to follow, but there was no way I was trekking through the woods. So I drove up to the house and noticed that everyone’s cars were gone. I figured that you were probably the only one home.” He seems so satisfied with himself. “But, admittedly, this wasn’t what I was expecting to walk in on and I certainly wasn’t anticipating getting the leverage I needed to blackmail Cole in return.”

Their eyes meet. “So what now?” Cole asks tensely.

The detective shrugs, but the way he does it tells me that he’s already come up with a plan.

“Well, I figure you can have that footage deleted and I’ll delete your confession. We can both walk away free men. What do you think?”

My jaw drops. How did I go from having all the control to losing it so quickly?

“Deal,” Cole agrees. My head snaps to him. He’s going to fucking kill me if he’s freed. And it won’t be quick.

“No, you can’t do that,” I tell the detective. “He’ll kill me.”

I wait for pity or understanding. It’s nowhere to be found. Williams doesn’t care about me or doing the right thing. He only cares about himself. It’s all unraveling. My perfect plan has slipped through my fingers and there’s no salvaging it.

I’m a dead woman.