Page 69 of In the Arms of a Hero

“Oh yes, I am. I told her there was no way I wasn’t taking pictures for her wedding! Look, it’ll be in a church, and there’ll be tons of law enforcement around.”

“Do I need to remind you that there was tons of law enforcement around when you were shot? As much as it shits me to say that, it’s the truth.”

“Yes, but then, we didn’t know of any threat. This time, we will.”

He knew that continuing to discuss it would only upset her, so he decided to halt the wedding topic for now.

She looked up at him. “I suppose there were no more pictures that anyone noticed anything about?”

He shook his head, hating that was the answer he was given. “Although, they did get past your last photo shoots. They noticed that you also go out and take a lot of nature shots.”

“Oh, that’s right. I never thought to mention that, but I hardly think a picture that I take of a blue heron, a snowy egret,or seagulls on the water would give us any clues to someone being unhappy with me taking a photograph.”

He shrugged. “You never know. Believe me, we’re not leaving any stone unturned to figure out who’s after you.”

She smiled and cuddled closer to him on her good side. “Speaking of nature shots, do you remember when we met at Kiptopeke Park?”

“Of course, I remember it. How could I forget?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Sometimes I think maybe things are more important to me than they are to other people.”

He shifted on his side and cupped her cheek. “I never forget things that are important to me, and that day was. That was the day that you allowed me to talk to you. To confide in you. To let you see a part of me that I don’t let anyone else see.”

“That day meant a lot to me, Aaron.”

“Whatever it meant to you, sweetheart, I can assure you, it meant even more to me. I gave you my damaged parts, and you made me realize I don’t have to feel guilty or abandoned. I am who I am, and part of that is my past. I discovered that day that I’m not broken.”

“I think tomorrow, I’m going to go back through those pictures. I know I even took a couple of selfies of us. I haven’t done anything with those yet, but now I want to save some, get them printed, and hang on to them.”

“You do that, and I promise I also want to have one framed.” What he didn’t say was that he hoped they could soon be together more permanently and have a future with lots of pictures.

34

Aaron glanced at the paperwork, still piled on his desk, before looking up at Sam. “We have no murder weapon for William Gaston. No murder site. No witnesses. We’ve looked at the security cameras of the gas stations along Highway 13 in our county and had Liam do the same in his county. Nothing. All we know is that a man washed up on our shore. He’d been shot and hadn’t been in the water long. And we don’t have his car.”

“So you think this will be a case we send off to the state police?” Sam asked.

Grimacing, Aaron replied, “Maybe. I just keep thinking that there’s something right under our noses that we’re not seeing.”

“You’ve been under a lot of stress lately, Aaron.”

“Are you saying my instincts are off?”

“No.” Sam sighed. “I have the same niggling feeling.”

Looking up, he spied Colt walking toward them and then turned one of the chairs by their desks to face both of them. “I’ve just gotten some news about William Gaston, which may close the case in our county.”

Aaron’s chin jerked back, and it wasn’t hard for him to notice that Sam had the same physical reaction to Colt’s words.

“I got a call from the police chief of Virginia Beach. He said an abandoned car had been located in a shopping center. When they ran the tags, it belonged to William Gaston. As soon as they came up with his name, they looked in the database and saw that we had an open case on his murder.”

“So he wasn’t murdered in our area? He actually made it across the CBBT and into Virginia Beach?” Aaron asked for clarification.

“Why was his car just sitting in a shopping center? He drove it there and was then murdered? Kidnapped and then murdered?” Sam asked.

Colt shook his head. “The police chief didn’t have any answers. They’re going over his car right now, fingerprinting and seeing what they can find. He said they’d stay in touch.”

“So what does this mean for our case?” Aaron wondered aloud.

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