Page 31 of Cold Case Discovery

“It’s almost shift change. She should be available. Stay on hold for a second.” Jack got up and stepped out of his office and peeked into the main lobby, where his deputies met for shift change.

Chloe was at the front desk, smiling over something on Suzanne’s phone—probably the insane pictures Suzanne took of her cats dressed up like old Hollywood stars.

He hated to wipe that smile off her face, but when both Suzanne and Chloe looked over at him, he saw any enjoyment melt away. Because she knew it wasn’t good news.

“Chloe, Detective Hart’s on line one for you.”

Chapter Ten

Jack shouldn’t have called her Chloe in front of Suzanne. It was a dead giveaway. Maybe not toeveryone, but Suzanne was not everyone. She had a keen eye, an even keener ear and a nose for things other people didn’t want to share.

Jack had never once slipped up in front of anyone in all this time, and dread swept through her because she had a terrible feeling that Jack had used her first name because something really bad was just about to fall in her lap. Courtesy of Detective Hart.

Chloe wanted to ignore the call, run in the other direction, ask Jack to handle it. A million things that she wouldn’t do, because whatever this was, it was all hers. Just like always.

She moved stiffly into one of the offices the deputies all shared, closed the door and gave herself a second to breathe before she lifted the phone receiver. Whatever it was, she could weather it. She’d gotten this far, hadn’t she? “This is Brink.”

“Hey. Detective Hart here. I just wanted to give you an update on what we found in that chest of yours.”

Chloe swallowed, found a spot on the wall to stare at and made sure she sounded strong and firm. “Go ahead.”

“Mostly, it was just the dolls. We’re going to run some tests on the smears—determine fake or real blood and go from there. Some weapons were hidden inside some of the dolls. We’ll have to keep and run tests on those too. See if they were used in any of your father’s known crimes.”

“Great.” She hoped she didn’t soundtoosarcastic.

“There was also an old scrapbook. Delaney-Carson and I both looked through it, and we don’t see any reason for Bent County to keep it. It seems more family heirloom than anything else. Whenever you have a chance to stop by County, you can feel free to pick it up.”

She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry or just rage. All that—dolls and weapons—and her father hadn’t even been fully lying. Therewasa family heirloom hidden in there.

She should tell Hart to throw it in the incinerator. “I’ll be by tonight.”

“Okay. It’ll be up with Administration. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She returned the phone to its receiver. Then she just stood there, still staring at the same spot. She didn’t have her cruiser here; that was at her cabin. Her personal car was at the Hudson Ranch. She didnotwant Jack driving her over there. She didn’t know what kind of reaction she was going to have to this scrapbook, and she didn’t want him witnessing it.

She didn’t want anyone with her when she picked it up, when she inevitably went through it even knowing it was pointless. Whatever she wanted to find wasn’t going to be in some old, dusty book that may or may not even actually be a Brink family scrapbook.

But regardless, she wanted to handle all that alone. Where she didn’t have to worry about how her reactions might affect how anyone viewed her.

She blew out a breath, closed her eyes and tried to find her lifelong inner toughness. That thing she’d been building up since she was a kid. She had known, always, that life was nothing more than a series of blows to dodge and absorb as needed. Any good, you carved out yourself with hard work and fierce grit.

Why was she having such a hard time with these blows?

A knock sounded at the door. Chloe didn’t have to be psychic to know who it was. She twisted the knob and pulled it open.

Jack stepped in, closed the door behind him and studied her.

Here was the answer to the question. Where was her grit? Well, this man had somehow washed it away. By taking care. Bylovingher.

And what was it going to get her, this love? Ridicule? Pain? Guilt? And so much fear that it would all disappear, she didn’t know how anyone lived with the weight ofloveyou chose.

“Everything okay?” Jack asked carefully.

“Yeah.” She realized that Jack had been the one to tell her Hart was on the phone, which meant he’d talked to Hart first. “I’m sure Hart filled you in on everything.”

Jack shook his head. “No. Just that he wanted to talk to you about the contents of the chest.”

She shrugged, still not ready to look at him. “Running tests. Found some weapons. Mostly called because they found some old family scrapbook, I guess. I can go pick it up sometime.”

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