All Cried Out (All Falls Down Book 2) Read online

  "Without hesitation," Lewis responds instantly, his expression hardening as if the very thought of someone going after his wife makes him murderous. "Like you said, most abusers don't just walk away from a victim, no matter how difficult it is to get to that victim. But if he is unstable enough to attempt to break-in to your home, you need to prepare yourself for the possibility that this won't end well for you or for your fiancée."

  "Fuck that." I glare across the desk at him, my jaw clenched. "If your people don't find him, I will. And I won't be gentle about it. If he comes after her, I'll do what I have to do to protect her." I know how many domestic violence cases end in bloodshed, and this won't be one of them. If McKee comes near Savannah again, I will kill him without hesitation or remorse.

  Lewis nods as if he expected that answer and then changes the subject. "What about her mother?"

  "Packed her shit and walked away when Savannah was fourteen," I respond, still not sure I believe her story about why she's back now. "She claims she was addicted to pills and didn't want Savannah to suffer because of it. According to her story, she got clean a year ago and has been living right outside Mesa, Arizona since, trying to find a good time to reconnect with my girl."

  "And learning she was kidnapped was the perfect time," Lewis guesses.

  "Either that or the millions Savannah inherited when Matthew Talbot was killed brought her running back, hoping to make amends."

  "Well," Lewis says, barely reacting to the news that Savannah is a millionaire, and points at the folder still sitting on my lap, "for what it's worth, her criminal history matches her story. She spent some time in jail in Los Angeles around Savannah's fifteenth birthday, and spent her sixteenth in rehab before moving to Arizona. She was in and out of the system for drug convictions and forgery, and did three other stints in rehab. She went back to prison in 2011, and was paroled in 2013. She did six months in a treatment facility in Phoenix in late 2013, and has had no run-ins with law enforcement in the last year."

  "Huh." I flip open the file on my lap and sift through the papers again until I find Melinda's criminal history. Her story is laid out in neat little rows along with her last mugshot. She looks like hell with dark rings and bags around her eyes, and stringy, unwashed hair.

  I briefly consider whether or not this woman deserves a place in Savannah's life. I don't trust her. Not yet.

  "I need more information," I say to Lewis.

  "Figured you would," he grunts, rising from his chair. "You know where she's staying?"

  I rattle off the address of her motel in the Tenderloin district of the city.

  "Not the best area for a recovering addict," Lewis observes, grabbing his keys and badge from the only tidy corner of his desk.

  "Nope." I rise to my feet when he circles around to me.

  "Let's go see what she's up to today."

  "Where's your partner?"

  "Crossing off every other asshole on our list of suspects," he says with a sigh. "Your boss wasn't exactly dicking around when he stopped by yesterday. He made it clear that protecting your fiancée was to be priority numero uno for the both of us, and making sure McKee really is the one after your girl seems like the best place to start."

  I'm not sure what to say to that, so I don't say anything. Truth is, Richardson's a decent guy, but we both know he isn't lighting fires under San Francisco's detectives for a purely altruistic reason. He doesn't want another disaster on his hands, not with the media still breathing down our backs. And unless someone collars McKee before he gets near Savannah again, that's exactly what we're looking at.

  Regardless of Richardson's motives, I'll take whatever help I can get, especially if it means finding McKee before he does something completely fucking stupid and threatens my girl again.

  "Is everything okay?" Melinda asks, her gaze darting from me to Lewis and then back again as we stand in her small motel room. The scent of Pine-sol hangs heavy in the air, almost masking the stench of years of cigarette and pot smoke clinging to every surface. The room is surprisingly clean despite the barely masked odor. The linens are old and worn, but the bed is freshly made. The scarred table in the corner gleams with polish, and the small window is streak-free. The carpet is thin and frayed, stained in places, but vacuumed. Water stains spider-web across the ceiling. Melinda's suitcase is propped neatly in the corner, her purse resting on the table beside the bed.

  "We have a few questions for you, Ms. Martin," Lewis says in a no nonsense tone.

  She glances at me again, anxiety churning in her gaze as she wrings her hands. Licking her lips, she nods, gesturing to the two aluminum folding chairs tucked against the small table. A small blush tints her cheeks, and I'm yet again reminded of her daughter. "Would you like to sit?"

  I almost feel guilty, like we've intruded into a part of her life she'd rather we didn't see, one that shames her. I desperately need to keep my distance from this woman until I know she means Savannah no harm, but I'm finding it hard to do when she looks and acts so much like my girl. "We're fine," I tell her.

  She nods again before perching on the edge of the bed and looking at us expectantly. "Is my daughter okay?"

  "Fine," Lewis says before I can respond.

  She looks at me for confirmation.

  "She's shopping for her wedding dress," I murmur.

  "Oh." Melinda's eyes widen. "The wedding is soon?"

  "Two months."

  She's quiet for a moment, processing. A parade of emotion flickers across her face—sorrow, regret, sadness, guilt. "It's hard to imagine she's grown up, getting married. The last time I saw her, she was still just a girl." She frowns sadly. "I've missed so much."

  She's right; she has missed a lot. But she made that choice, so I say nothing.

  Lewis clears his throat, prompting Melinda to shake her head as if to clear it. She offers him a half-hearted smile. "What can I help you with?"

  "How long have you been in town?" he asks, pulling his notebook and pen out of his breast pocket to jot notes.

  "A little over a week," she says.

  "Why did you wait so long to contact Agent Corbit?"

  Her gaze shifts in my direction and then away. She looks guilty and apologetic at the same time. "I wasn't sure why he was with my daughter," she admits. "I wanted to make sure-"

  Lewis glances up from his notebook when she breaks off and doesn't continue.

  "Go ahead," I tell her quietly. Whatever she has to say, I can handle it. Besides, she's already told me she didn't trust me. Ironic, all things considered.

  "I'd seen the news reports about him and Alexis Talbot supposedly being engaged prior to his relationship with my daughter. A few reporters hinted that my daughter broke him and Alexis up. Others said his relationship with Lexi was part of his cover, and he risked his career to save my daughter, who he'd fallen in love with. You know how the media talks… there was a different story every week, and most of them implied his relationship with my daughter was the reason she was kidnapped. I wasn't sure what to believe."

  Despite expecting them, I find myself fighting the urge to flinch at her words. I am the reason Paulson kidnapped Savannah, at least partly. He thought he could use her as a pawn to get what he wanted from Lexi, that I'd force Lexi to give in to his demands in order to get Savannah back. His ploy almost worked, too. I lost it when he took her, and Lexi came damn close to handing the bastard everything he wanted to bring Savannah home.

  "Where were you the day before yesterday?" Lewis asks, not commenting on my relationship with her daughter or Paulson. In fact, he's yet to really say anything about either subject, keeping his thoughts and opinions on the matter to himself. If he resents being told by Richardson to get his ass in gear and find McKee, he hasn't shown it.

  Melinda frowns. "I was at Talbot International with him."

  Lewis arches a brow as if to ask why the hell I haven't told him this.

  "When I left T.I. to attend my brother's wedding, she was outside with a group of report
ers," I mutter. "I thought she was one of them. We didn't actually speak until yesterday."

  Lewis gives a curt nod at my explanation. "And after that?" he asks Melinda.

  "I had lunch and then came back here."

  "You were here all night?"

  "Yes. You can ask the desk clerk. I assisted her with some of the cleaning around here. I've been helping since I got here." Her frown deepens as she looks to me again. "What's going on, Agent Corbit?"

  "Jared. My name is Jared." I'm not sure why I say it when the last thing I want to do is give the woman an inch, but I hate being called Agent Corbit. It's too formal, stifling. I've never cared for the title.

  "What's going on, Jared?" she asks.

  I sigh and meet her gaze, holding it. "Someone attempted to break into our apartment. Had our alarm not scared them off, I'm not sure what would have happened. Whoever it was knew Savannah, said her name."

  "Oh!" Melinda gasps, her wide eyes full of concern. And then realization flits through her expression. "That's what you meant when you asked if I'd come to your home."

  "Yes."

  She shakes her head, holding my gaze. "I swear to you, I didn't. All I want is to talk to her, see if she still has a place in her life and in her heart for me. I don't deserve it, God knows I don't. But she's my daughter. I love her. I wouldn't do that to her. "

  Her expression is so earnest, so heartfelt; I don't doubt her. I can't. Melinda Martin didn't try to break into our apartment. Which means Toby McKee really is after my girl. I knew it all along, but… fuck.

  Lewis wraps up his questioning a few moments later and we leave. I've barely registered the rest of his conversation with Melinda. My mind is a million miles away, trying to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do now. I don't even know why knowing Melinda isn't responsible has thrown me for such a loop. Deep down, I always knew it was McKee. But I wanted to be wrong.

  How messed up is it that I wanted Melinda to be guilty? That I wanted a reason to keep her away from Savannah as much as I wanted to hope that McKee hasn't really come bursting back into our lives? I lived through what Paulson did to my girl. I can't do it again. And McKee? I'm fucking terrified he's going to do so much more damage to Savannah than Paulson did. He already has.

  "What do you think?" Lewis asks as we stroll toward his unmarked car, parked on the curb beside a meter that no longer works and probably hasn't for years. No one gives a shit what happens in neighborhoods like this. So long as the violence and drugs don't trickle out into the upper-class neighborhoods scattered around San Francisco, places like this could burn to the ground and no one would care.

  "She didn't do it," I say, stalling on the sidewalk. The words taste bitter.

  "You're surprised?"

  I shake my head. "I'm not surprised, but…."

  Hell, it would have solved more than one problem had it been her.

  "You don't want your girl to know her mother is here." Lewis leans back against his car, pinning me with a sharp look, one that sees far more than I'm prepared to share with him.

  I simply shrug.

  "I don't envy you," he says after a long, silent moment. "It's a shitty position to be in."

  "You have no idea." I blow out a breath and chuckle. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself life would be easy once Paulson was dealt with and I had Savannah back. It's turning out to be so much more complicated than I expected. For the second time, I feel like I'm failing her, and I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to do about it.

  Shaking my head, I lean back against the building, glancing upward. "What the fuck am I supposed to do now?" I ask quietly, though I have no idea if I'm talking to Lewis or the sky above.

  "Do you believe her?"

  "Do you?" I ask, tilting my head to look at him, curious to know what he really thinks about all of this. "If it was your fiancée, would you hope for the best and let the woman who abandoned her waltz back into her life?"

  "Are you asking what you should do or what I would do?"

  I shrug, not sure what I'm really asking.

  Lewis regards me silently for a moment, his gray eyes full of thought as he considers my question. "I don't think I'd be able to make that decision if it were my wife," he says quietly. "It wouldn't be my decision to make."

  He's not wrong.

  "Fuck," I sigh, raking a hand through my hair.

  "Let's go talk to your neighbors and see what else we can shake loose today," he suggests. "Maybe it'll make your decision easier."

  Somehow, I doubt that, but I agree anyway. What the hell else am I supposed to do?

  Chapter Eight

  Sedated

  By late afternoon, we've tracked down eleven of my neighbors and I'm more frustrated than ever. No one we've spoken with recalls seeing Melinda anywhere near the property. One little old lady is certain she saw McKee lurking around, but can't recall if it was recently. The neighbor who swears she saw someone running away the night he attempted to break in is the farthest thing from a reliable witness as far as I'm concerned.

  During our brief conversation, she hinted more than once that she'd be willing to say she saw whoever we wanted her to see. She then shoved her breasts in my face and tried to slip me her phone number on my way out the door, whispering that no one would ever have to know.

  I'm desperate for a shower to wash off the overpowering stench of her perfume and call an end to the day when another neighbor pulls into the parking lot in his SUV. Lewis doesn't hesitate before heading toward him, flashing his badge and asking for a moment. I lean back against the wall a few feet away and take a deep breath, too exhausted to deal with another dead-end today.

  "I'm not home much," the neighbor says to Lewis when my cell rings.

  I fish it from my pocket, some of my tension easing when I see Savannah's smiling face flash across my screen. "Please tell me you found the perfect dress and will be finished soon," I say quietly, holding the phone to my ear. "I need to spend the next few hours inside you, beautiful girl."

  "Jared, it's Lexi."

  "Lexi?" The instant I hear her voice, I push away from the wall, tension buffeting my body all over again. "What's wrong? Where's Savannah?"

  "We need you to get here," she says, ignoring my questions.

  My heart takes a dive in my chest before racing away. I'm frozen in place, unable to move as fear for Savannah pounds through me hard and fast.

  "Tell me she's safe." That's all I care about right now, whether my girl is safe.

  "She's okay," Lexi promises, allowing me to pull a much needed breath into my lungs. Her next words cause it to rush out in a sharp exhale. "But someone vandalized her car while we were shopping."

  What the fuck?

  "Where the hell was Evans?"

  "Savannah was afraid reporters would follow us and you'd see pictures of her in the dress she chose, so we left our cars at a public garage on the far side of the Haight and took the trolley to Union Square. We didn't know until we got back to our cars." Lexi curses and then immediately softens again, a tremble in her voice. "Jared, it's bad. Reporters are already showing up. You need to get here now."

  The urgency in her voice unlocks my muscles. Before she finishes speaking, I'm on the move.

  "Fuck," I mutter loudly, halfway through the parking lot when I remember the Jag is still sitting outside the Northern Precinct office. I spin around, only to find Lewis jogging after me. "Where are you?" I ask Lexi before covering the phone and quickly filling him in.

  "Son of a bitch," he swears.

  Lexi rattles off their location and tells me again to hurry. I'm already jogging toward Lewis's car, the need to get to Savannah driving every other thought out of my mind save one: Toby McKee.

  I'm going to kill the bastard when I find him.

  "Dammit," I curse, my hands clenching into fists when Lewis pulls up outside of the parking garage in the Haight. Complete chaos has erupted up and down the street. A fire truck and patrol cars block off half of the roadwa
y, firefighters directing traffic around the scene. Police officers form a human blockade of sorts, keeping the large clump of reporters, cameramen, and curious onlookers several feet away from the crime scene tape and traffic cone barrier they've erected across the entrance to the garage.

  Lewis rolls his window down and flashes his badge at one of the patrol units.

  "Let 'em through," the guy yells over his shoulder.

  The wall of humanity standing between the world and my girl shifts just far enough for Lewis to drive through. The arm of the gate over the entrance to the garage is up, the little guard shack unmanned. Two patrol cars are parked haphazardly on the other side of the shack, doors standing open. As soon as Lewis squeezes between them into the garage, my eyes land on Savannah's Charger and the large group milling around it on the far side of the aisle.

  The car is completely destroyed. The windows are broken. The head and taillights have been smashed to hell. It looks like the fucker took a baseball bat to the body. That's not what has me ready to rip McKee's head off though. Whore has been scrawled and scratched into the paint in massive letters.

  "Fuck," Lewis whispers, pulling to a stop.

  As soon as he throws the car in park, I'm out, striding across the garage, my eyes scanning the crowd for my girl. I'm on top of the group before I finally spot Drake Evans standing guard beside an unmarked SUV, his feet planted and his arms crossed over his chest.

  He sees me heading toward him and takes a step to the left.

  My eyes fall on Savannah. She's sitting in the SUV between Kit and Alicia, staring blankly at a floorboard in front of her. Lexi and Maddi stand off to one side, talking to a detective. I barely spare them a glance, all of my attention on Savannah. Her eyes are wide, and her face pale. She clutches her stomach like she's afraid she's going to be sick. Alicia and Kit have their arms around her, their heads bent toward hers.

  I open my mouth to call out to her when a short, stocky officer steps in front of me, blocking my path. His expression is sullen, pissy. It takes all of two seconds for me to register that he's one of those cops who acts like a dick simply because he can. He has a badge and a gun, and the authority that comes with both gives him a hard-on. I hate dealing with that type of cop.