Cutting Ties (Book 2) (Piper Anderson Series) Read online

  Cutting Ties

  Book Two of the

  Piper Anderson Series

  Danielle Stewart

  Copyright Page

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, locations, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictionally. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locals, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  An Original work of Danielle Stewart.

  Cutting Ties Copyright 2013 by Danielle Stewart

  Cover art created by Calista Taylor

  http://www.calistataylor.com

  Author Contact:

  Website: AuthorDanielleStewart.com

  Email: [email protected]

  Facebook: Author Danielle Stewart

  Twitter: @DStewartAuthor

  Dedication

  To my husband Dave for not just telling me he believes in me, but showing me every day.

  Becky, I hit the friend lottery when I found you. Thank you for all you do.

  Ruthie, I’m constantly amazed by your selflessness and talent. I hope to make you proud.

  My sisters, like everything else in our lives, we do this together.

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Bobby

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Excerpt From Marie Astor’s To Catch A Bad Guy

  Bobby

  When I became a police officer I swore an oath. “On my honor, I, Robert Murphy Wright, will never betray my badge, my integrity, my character, or the public trust. I will always have the courage to hold myself and others accountable for our actions. I will uphold the constitution, my community, and the agency I serve. So help me God.” As I run that last phrase through my mind, I realize it has morphed from an affirmation to a plea. Help me, God.

  I pledged to tell the truth, to execute the law, because the law is the only thing that separates us from living in a state of anarchy. We are not meant to be judge, jury, and executioner. Falling in love was not supposed to challenge that. They were mutually exclusive ideas. You should be able to love someone and honor your responsibilities at the same time. That is, unless the person you love has been failed by the system so many times she can’t trust it. If I’m constantly searching for ways to stand behind the words I swore that day, and she is forever looking for channels that undermine them—can we truly find happiness together?

  Meeting Piper, the daughter of a serial murderer, was like winning the worst kind of lottery. No matter how much I try to rationalize it, try to convince myself loving her is dangerous, I can’t stop. I watch her battle herself, wondering if the wickedest parts of him are somehow a part of her. She rubs her hand over that scar he left on her leg, the number twenty-three carved so precisely, and I know she fractures a little more. Something broke me the same way it broke her, we just pieced ourselves back together differently.

  Witness protection was supposed to be the answer for her. Edenville was supposed to be her fresh start. Watching her accept the unreserved affection of my friends, Betty and Jules, gave me a hope that maybe she could find peace. Maybe we could find a way to love each other.

  But I didn’t plan for the fact that her past wasn’t quite as buried as she hoped. When I got the call that a girl on campus had been attacked, the number twenty-three carved into her leg, I knew the trajectory of our lives was about to shift. But something doesn’t fit. Too many facts don’t align with the normal methods of her father, the Railway Killer. Has he found her or is someone emulating his evil? Why use the same number again? Especially considering Piper was not his last victim. Her mother was number twenty-two, and the unfortunate girl killed after Piper’s attack was twenty-four. This discrepancy is the small glimmer of hope I’m clinging to.

  Yes, I fell in love with a fragmented and damaged girl, but she isn’t the only one with a dark past. I have my own secrets, my own history. I begged and fought to know hers with no intention of ever revealing my own. Not to her, not to anyone. With every second that ticks by, every inch closer we get to her past, I’m afraid we’ll end up unearthing my own. Life isn’t supposed to be this hard, love isn’t meant to be this complicated. So why don’t I walk away? Those eyes. Those big, brown, old-soul eyes of hers just keep calling out to me. One run of my fingers through her silky, dark hair, one brush of my lips on her skin, and I get dangerously distracted from what I believe.

  Chapter One

  “I heard it was a crazy scene over at the university. Did you get a peek at that girl’s leg? Creepy,” Officer Lindsey LaVoie said as she squatted down next to Bobby and laced her boots. He still hadn’t gotten used to seeing her in the precinct locker room. It was pretty clear none of the male officers had. Prior to her being allowed in there, many of them had often strutted around naked with their chests puffed out proudly. Now they scurried from the shower to the stalls wrapped in robes or towels. Bobby actually appreciated the change. As far as he was concerned no one should have to look at that many hairy asses before breakfast.

  It had been a long battle, Lindsey against the whole department, but she’d finally won. All it took was threats of legal action. Bobby could understand. She just wanted to be treated as an equal, like anyone else on the force. But that was still a far cry from reality. She’d been granted the right to ready herself in the locker room, but her peers found other ways of punishing her for not being a man. They responded just a little slower than normal when she radioed for back up. Partner assignments were like a revolving door after each officer inevitably complained to the captain. Bobby knew when it was his turn to partner with her he’d make it work. Lindsey was as effective as any of the officers he’d worked with, and he trusted she always had his back. They’d formed a casual friendship primarily built on the fact that he didn’t treat her like garbage—a low standard but a welcomed change for her.

  He watched as she pulled her blond hair into a tight bun with quick precision. It was a good representation of her overall performance on the force. She was incredibly efficient, quick, and reliable. Bobby thought she had a nice face, but her body was built stronger than he preferred. She had a sturdy frame that she worked tirelessly to keep solid and competitive. He had made a point to refrain from deciding if she was attractive or not. To him she was a colleague, and just like Bill Thomly with the buckteeth or Micah Chilling with the handlebar mustache, the way she looked didn’t determine how she did her job. The problem was part of him kept wishing he were attracted to her. Wouldn’t it be easier to love someone like Lindsey? Knowing that you both believed in doing things the right way, knowing you’d both sworn the same oath. He didn’t want to stop loving Piper, his feelings for her were stronger than anything he’d ever felt. The spark when he touched her and
the chemistry and bond between them was something he’d waited for his whole life. But as he watched Lindsey he let the stray corners of his mind admit that loving her would be easier, and probably much smarter.

  “I didn’t see the cut on her leg, but I heard the girl was a wreck,” Bobby replied, fighting off his inner voice and reminding himself it was Piper he’d been thinking about all day. She was the one he was counting the minutes until he could hold.

  “What do you think? An angry ex-boyfriend or something? It seems kind of sadistic.” It wasn’t uncommon for Lindsey and Bobby to chat about a crime that had occurred, to brainstorm, but this was different. He did have an idea who it was and why it happened, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  It had been a long shift, and as late afternoon set in he was ready to get out of there. “I’ve got to head out. If you hear anything will you give my cell a call? I’d like to stay up to date on it.” Bobby slapped her on the shoulder like he would any other officer, but he awkwardly pulled his hand away slowly. Nope, that didn’t feel right. Was that too hard, he wondered? Did I make her feel uncomfortable? She read his face and laughed.

  “Come on, Bobby, I’m not made of porcelain. Get over yourself.” She punched his shoulder and he stumbled back with the force. No, he thought, she was certainly not fragile. “I’ll call you if I hear anything,” she chuckled. “Have a good one.”

  * * *

  Piper hadn’t slept in far too long. After hearing about the campus attack that was eerily similar to the attacks her father had committed, Bobby had insisted Piper, Betty, and Jules spend the day at Michael’s house. She wanted to say they didn’t need a babysitter, but having Michael around did put her mind at ease. They’d be safer there, and though she had faced plenty of danger in her life, this felt different. Piper kept fighting the gnawing feeling that once again she’d roped innocent people into her mess of a life. Betty and Jules had welcomed Piper into their lives so willingly, and all she’d done so far was muddy it up. Michael, the lawyer she suckered into helping take down Judge Lions, kept getting pulled further into her wake of troubles. At some point she expected them all to realize loving her was more trouble than it was worth, and that scared her.

  Piper spent the day counting the minutes until Bobby’s shift would be over and he could tell her what he’d found out about the campus assault. Did they know who did it? Was it her father? She had wanted to fight sleep and stare out the window until she saw him pulling up, but her eyes grew heavy as lead, her head too weary to hold up. She finally took Michael up on his offer to crash in his bed. It took only a minute before she fell into a fitful sleep.

  She’d been haunted by nightmares most of her life, but since she’d moved to Edenville, they’d subsided. With the possibility of her father finding her, that dry spell seemed to be over. Her mind clouded over with a familiar scene. This was a nightmare she’d had before. It wasn’t soft around the edges like a dream sequence in a movie. It was sharp, and the way it took her senses hostage made her feel like the prisoner. She couldn’t just see the scene, she could smell her father’s musk, feel the wobble in her chair. Her sleeping body was helpless now as it overtook her mind.

  “This tastes like shit! I swear to God, Coco, you can’t cook a meal to save your life. This isn’t what I wanted!” her father shouted across their lopsided thrift store kitchen table.

  Piper, a smaller version of herself in this dream world, shrank down into her seat. Her father’s raised, sharp voice had that effect on her. She was twelve years old. Her father had insisted they sit down for Christmas dinner, something they had never done before. The entire holiday season really meant nothing to her family. There were never presents, special traditions, or family gatherings. The only thing Christmas brought was a more glaring contrast between them and happy families. It was the perfect time of year to realize how little you had.

  Her father spoke again, and now he was manic, desperately trying to recreate a scene he’d seen on television. He’d wanted them all to play a part, and so far it wasn’t going according to plan. He was spiraling out of control. He’d wanted the house decorated, but her mother couldn’t come down from her high long enough to hang the stockings properly. He’d wanted a nice meal, a true holiday dinner, but cooking was something her mother was not capable of. Everything was burnt, or soggy, or cold.

  “I told you I wanted this to be like the movie,” he hissed, beating his hand on the table. Piper knew what came next. Her father’s emotional escalation was the same almost every time he beat them. First he’d bang his fist on a table, a wall, a car. Then he’d throw something. This particular time it was a plateful of freezing-cold instant mashed potatoes. The way they landed with a squishy thud on the floor almost caused Piper to laugh, but she knew it would enrage her father more. Finally, he would toss a few more inanimate objects before moving on to her mother.

  It was by no means a one-sided fight. Her mother would defend herself, sometimes even initiate the violence. It was a relationship Piper never understood. They were two toxic people who brought out the worst in each other, but just couldn’t bear to be apart. When one escalated, or spun out of control it seemed to fan the fire in the other.

  There were days Piper could slip away, be forgotten, and escape the wrath. This was not one of those days. Her father’s rage was bubbling over as the Christmas scene he had tried to orchestrate fell miles short of his expectation. Now they would pay the price.

  Piper shot up in bed, sweating and panting. She heard her own voice whimpering just as she had that day, the Christmas that never was. She looked around the room, trying to get her bearings. Michael’s bedroom, she reminded herself. Safe.

  She thought back through the dream for a moment, reliving it through the eyes of her younger self, but now processing it as an adult. Piper hadn’t known her mother’s real name wasn’t Coco until she was nineteen years old. She watched her mother fill out a job application and scribble down the name, Caroline Murphy. She often wanted to ask her mother where the nickname came from, how long she had been called Coco, but she never found the right moment. That could sum up much of her relationship with her mother, never quite the right moment to talk, to understand each other, to say the words that sat heavily on their minds.

  “You good?” she heard Michael ask, his large frame leaning in the doorway. He had heard her struggling and saw her awaken startled and upset. She drew in a deep, centering breath and nodded her head. Michael was a very calming presence in her life now, and she felt better just seeing him. His sandy blond hair had gotten long in the last few weeks, and he was in need of some gel and a comb. But Michael was one of those men who would have to try really hard not to be attractive. Even as he lost focus on his grooming during this chaotic time, he still looked better than most men who’d put hours of work into their appearance. You couldn’t do much to dim the brightness of his emerald eyes or take away from the strength of his boxy, distinguished jaw. He belonged on the cover of a romance novel, his muscular arms lifting the luscious blonde woman with a heaving bosom. His shirt torn open, the skin of his perfectly smooth chest would be a glowing bronze. Yes, Piper thought to herself, if Michael’s career as a lawyer was ever to fall apart, he could certainly make some money in other ways.

  It took another few minutes after Michael returned to his living room for Piper to gather herself. She smoothed her wild dark hair down and rubbed the rest of the sleep out of her eyes. She glanced over at Michael’s sleek alarm clock and realized time had gotten away from her. She leaped from the bed and headed through the apartment toward the window. Without a word, she skipped right by Betty and Jules who were sipping tea around Michael’s glass dining room table. Bobby should be here, she thought. He should know what’s going on by now. As she peeked out the window, she saw his red pickup pulling in. She ran down the old industrial stairs of Michael’s apartment building and burst through the heavy rusted door to greet him.

  She felt the knot in her stomach tighten
as she read Bobby’s grim expression. He stepped out of his truck with heavy shoulders. His dark brown eyes were filled with worry and his jaw was clenched. She couldn’t imagine the news would be good, not with that look on his face.

  “What did you find out?” she asked, her voice shaking with emotion. The cold air sent a shiver through her. Her thin cotton shirt was no match for the late fall air.

  He walked hesitantly toward her, hating to see her sad, wanting to save and warm her all at once. “It’s still early in the investigation. The girl is in stable condition. She told detectives she was attacked from behind, and no other witnesses have come forward. It’s too soon to know, really. The forensics team is just starting to go over the evidence now. I don’t know much more than I did when I left this morning.” Bobby opened his arms and she fell wearily into them, letting the muscles of his biceps tighten and curl around her. They were both so tired, physically and emotionally.

  She reached up and ran her hand through his short dark hair, and down his neck. It was funny to her that even though they hadn’t loved each other long, she seemed to have figured out small yet important things about him. When he was stressed out he stopped shaving, as if the energy to slide the razor down his cheek was too much for him. Or maybe the time spent looking in the mirror made his mind turn over and twist in ways he didn’t like. It seemed to change the whole dynamic of his face, but the beginnings of a beard looked good on him. She loved the scratchy sensation it gave against the softness of her palm.

  Even in the midst of all this chaos she had to fight the urge to get lost in a passionate moment with him. His touch made this entire thing feel like a distant worry rather than the looming danger it truly was.

  “I guess we wait and see what they come up with,” Piper murmured, talking into his shoulder as she squeezed him tighter, feeling safe in his arms.