Trigger Warnings: Guns Standard Disclaimer for this whole work: I own nothing all credit goes to Lena Diaz and maybe a few credits goes to Fox's Glee creative team.
Chapter Eleven
Cedes stared at Sam in disbelief. "Don't give me the usual cop platitudes of self-defense and yada yada yada. I'm telling you it doesn't matter. No one would believe me any more today than they would have back then. They're going to put me in prison, so I might as well get used to the idea."
"I'm not giving you platitudes. You didn't kill Cooper."
She frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"When you left the cabin, I promise you, Anderson was very much alive."
"But...the police found his body a couple of hours later, when his father and brother went looking for him."
"Yes. But the most you did was knock him out for a few minutes. That wasn't what killed him. Cooper died from internal bleeding, a ruptured spleen."
"I don't...understand. How is that possible? When I hit him, he fell so hard that his spleen ruptured?"
He shook his head. "No. That wouldn't have done it. Someone beat him. They took a baseball bat or something like that and hit him across the lower back and abdomen. The coroner counted at least a dozen blows. They beat him, left him there to die. And then they took his ring. His father reported it as missing in the police report, said Cooper never went anywhere without it. That means that after you left, someone else went inside that cabin and killed him. There's no other explanation."
"I didn't kill him," she said, in wonder.
"No. You didn't." His smile faded. "But right now all we have is your word. And, unfortunately, if you tell anyone else what you just told me, it only corroborates that you were at the murder scene."
She blew out a frustrated breath. "No telling what physical evidence your boss has that ties me to that cabin. I imagine he found my missing button. There had to be hair, too, and fibers from my clothes that he tore."
"No. There isn't. That's one of the reasons that Schuester never could get a judge to sign a search warrant for your home. That cabin was pristine. Like someone had scrubbed it down top to bottom that night. There was no blue wine bottle. No button, no hair or fibers. And no note, either."
"Why? Why would someone do that? Do you think they saw me go into the cabin and wanted to...what, protect me from being blamed?"
"Possible. More likely whoever killed him just wanted to clean every inch of the place in case any trace evidence could be used against them. I think they took advantage of the fact that you'd knocked Cooper woozy and they decided to finish him off. Then cleaned up afterward so no one would know they were the one who'd killed him."
Her earlier elation faded. "So I did kill him after all. I left him there, semiconscious, unable to defend himself."
"Don't start feeling guilty over his death now. You said it yourself earlier. Cooper Anderson was a bad person. He was the worst kind of scum, someone who preyed on women. The only person Cooper can blame for what happened is Cooper."
His words made sense. She'd accepted long ago that she'd killed him, and didn't feel guilty for that. But now, knowing that she'd left him injured, easy pickings for someone else to kill him, she did feel guilty. It was an odd feeling, to finally have compassion for a man she'd hated all of her adult life.
"What do we do now?" she asked.
"We go over your story again, from beginning to end."
"What? Why?"
"I need to know every single detail that you can remember. Someone out there, whether it's Cooper's father or someone else, believes you killed him. And they're determined to get you to confess. If there's anything else that you can remember about that night that I can use to help your case, and put the true murderer away, then going over and over your story will be worth the pain."
He grilled her about every single detail that day. He even made her recount as much as she could remember about the week leading up to Cooper's death, looking for anything that might give them a clue about who else might want Cooper dead. He took mercy on her well past the lunch hour when her stomach started rumbling. But after they wolfed down ham and cheese sandwiches and potato chips, he was back at it.
"What about after Schuester released you from jail?"
Cedes was lying on the couch now, her head propped on a throw pillow and one arm thrown over her face. Mad Sam, as she was beginning to label him in her thoughts, was currently perched on the edge of the coffee table beside her, pen scribbling after every question he asked her.
She wanted to grab that pen and snap it in two.
"What about when I got out of jail?" she asked wearily without moving her arm.
"You were in town for two weeks, rumors swirling around, people saying terrible things. And all the while, Cooper's family was making things really difficult for you, demanding the chief arrest you."
"No, not his whole family," she said. "Just his parents." She lowered her arm and rolled her head on the pillow to look at him. "I never did hear how the father ended up in a wheelchair. And I haven't seen Mrs. Anderson in town since I got here. Were they in a car accident or something?"
"Worse. She died of breast cancer earlier this year. A few months later, he was diagnosed with late-stage bone cancer. His bones are so brittle he was walking down the sidewalk one day and his hip just snapped. That's why he's in the wheelchair. They say he doesn't have long to live, maybe a few months, best case." He straightened and frowned off into the distance.
"Sam? Something wrong?"
He slowly shook his head. "No. I need to make a phone call. Hang on a sec." He grabbed his phone and punched in a number. A few moments later he said, "Hey, Mike, yeah, it's me. Mmm-hmm. Mmm-hmm. I figured he'd be ticked. That's why I ignored his earlier calls. Nothing I can do about that right now, but I'm still working the case. I need to ask you something. Remember when Mrs. Anderson was being treated for cancer, where did she go for that? Uh-huh. And Mr. Anderson, he's been going through chemo at the hospital. But I never asked which one. I just assumed Maryville. But where..." His gaze shot to Cedes as he nodded. "Right. Got it. That's what I was thinking. Did Hunter make any headway with his contacts? What about your interviews?"
Several minutes later, he hung up the phone.
"Well," she asked, "do I have to beg you to tell me what that was all about?"
He smiled. "That was Mike, one of the other SWAT guys who's also a detective like me."
"I know who Mike is."
"Right. Well, he re-interviewed two of the gunmen at the hospital. One of them, a guy named Rick, finally admitted that he'd seen the guy who hired them to go after you. He worked with an artist to do a rendering of the guy."
"It can't be Robert Anderson if he's in a wheelchair. He couldn't drive."
"It wasn't. But close."
"Blaine? He's such a nice guy."
"No, it wasn't Blaine. The picture is the spitting image of one of the security guys Anderson senior keeps at his farm. Even more importantly, the new guy on our team, Hunter, was able to link that car to that security guy. It sure looks like he was the one in Nashville who hired those thugs to go after you. And it's not like he had that kind of money, or a motive. Only his employer had that. Even better, Mr. Anderson—the father, not Blaine—was quite familiar with Nashville, since he and his wife were both there most of this year for cancer treatments."
"Okay, sounds like he's probably the one behind going after me. At least now we know who it is."
His confidence seemed to take a tumble. "Well, I'm not sure about that. Yes, he's the one who hired the gunmen, through his personal security guy. We should be able to prove that after we get a warrant for his bank records and follow the money. But what's his motive? He believes you killed his son and he wants you to confess. He wants you to go to prison because he thinks you're a murderer. That's problematic."
"I really hate that I see where you're going with this," she grumbled. "Your point is that the current bad business between Mr. Anderson and me makes it seem highly unlikely that he's also the one who killed his son. Because if he'd done that, he wouldn't dredge all of this back up right now and shine light onto it."
"Exactly. Now you're thinking like a cop."
"Lord help us all."
He laughed, but quickly sobered. "Who does that leave us, suspect wise? I'm thinking we're back to Rachel Berry."
"Rachel? But she was in love with Cooper. She wouldn't want to kill him."
"He wasn't in love with her. He treated her like an insect he wanted to brush off his shoe. You said so yourself that you saw her in the store that night with Cooper. Maybe she followed you and you didn't know it. And after you ran out of the cabin, holding your clothes, she thought you'd actually been his lover and were running home, maybe to make curfew. I can see her justifying it that way, and being angry and hurt and going into the cabin to confront Cooper. When she found him lying there, unconscious, assuming he was naked—"
"He was." Her voice was so tight she could barely speak.
"Okay. He was naked, and she thought he was cheating on her, at least in her mind. So she grabs whatever is handy. Cabin like that, on the edge of the woods, there's bound to be stuff in there, maybe in a closet. A bat or something like it. She could have hit him with it while he was still unconscious, so that even if he woke up while she was hitting him, he'd already be too hurt to put up much of a fight." He pulled out his phone. "The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced she's the only one who makes sense for Cooper's murder. I'll get Mike to bring her in for questioning."
A few minutes later, he hung up the call and pitched his phone onto the coffee table. "Okay, I put everything into motion that I could. Hopefully the guys will come through for us and get proof and wrap it all up."
She eyed him with dread as he picked up the legal pad and pen again. "I thought we just solved the case. Rachel killed Cooper. And Anderson senior had one of his men hire the thugs to get me to confess. Why are you getting your torture devices out again?"
He rolled his eyes. "Because I still want to review the two weeks you were in town after Schuester let you go. I want to know who all you spoke to, and what they said. Who you might have seen skulking around. Until Mike tells me that he has Rachel's confession, I'm not letting down my guard. We need to see if anyone else around town did anything odd those two weeks that might make them rise to the top of my suspect list for having killed Cooper."
She groaned and collapsed back onto the pillow.
Sam rubbed the back of his neck and looked out the wall of glass to his deck and the angry, broiling sky over the lake beyond. The sun had set long ago, but the frequent cracks of lightning illuminated the heavy clouds that had been threatening rain most of the day. He figured the storm would finally let loose its full fury and drench them with rain soon. But until then, it was doing its best to whip the last of the dry leaves from the trees, making winter look even closer than it was.
A snuffling sigh sounded behind him and he turned around to see that Cedes had fallen asleep on the couch while he'd taken a few minutes to stretch his legs. He was tempted to smile at the adorable picture she presented. But he didn't really feel like smiling. It was hard to when the woman he'd loved had rejected him so soundly all those years ago, and then put him out of her thoughts for ten years. He sure as hell hadn't put her out of his.
In the beginning, he'd been pathetic, begging her mother to tell him where Cedes had gone. Later, once he'd become a cop and knew how to find her, he'd tracked her down. He'd driven to Nashville and planned on confronting her. By then, he was well past the blubbering love-struck fool phase. He'd lived in the anger phase for a good year or two. And he wanted to demand an explanation. But when he'd seen her, he couldn't do it. Couldn't go up to her and debase himself to ask her why she'd left. Ask her why she'd never called. He was too angry to even form a coherent sentence.
After that, he'd never gone to Nashville again. And he'd almost convinced himself that he'd forgotten her until she'd shown up at that deli counter. And just like that, all his old feelings of anger, grief, resentment had risen to the surface and formed a crack in the heart he'd thought he no longer had. And in just a matter of days he'd brought her to his home and begged her to tell him why she'd never tried to see him, talk to him, after she left.
He was such a fool.
He strode to the couch and looked down at her. But the anger and resentment faded away, replaced by a pathetic longing that went deep in his soul. Cedes. His Cedes. She would always be his in his battered and bruised heart, even if not in reality. No matter how much he wished he didn't care about her.
Her exhaustion was evident in the dark circles under her eyes. She needed to sleep. But he still had some questions. And he imagined his boss would be parked at his doorstep early in the morning, demanding that he get his butt back to work and bring Cedes with him.
On the outside, Schuester was a grumpy pit bull. But when it came to his team, he was often full of bluster. He considered the SWAT team his family, and because of that he'd forgive Sam the sin of ignoring his orders and walking out of the station with Cedes. But Sam knew better than to push it a second day. That would cross the line. He'd be suspended at best, fired at worst. Being a cop was something he'd wanted for as long as he could remember.
But what he'd really wanted, more than anything else, was lying on his couch, a thin line of drool drying at the corner of her mouth.
God, she was beautiful. Maybe not in the classic way most men thought of beauty. She had short legs, her mouth was wide, her cheeks round—something that had always bothered her, especially in middle school when other kids had called her chipmunk cheeks. She'd finally had to realize that no matter how she exercised or how little she ate she would never be thin. She had a body of a woman at thirteen and age had only increased her plush body and curves. Sam liked to think that maybe he'd helped her with her acceptance of her body, by telling her how beautiful she was, over and over, until she started to believe it.
He hadn't been lying. He really did see the beauty others missed. It came from inside and shined through her bright, curious, intelligent eyes. Her laughter, her singing voice, her generosity, and forgiving nature made her only more beautiful to him. Those legs she thought were too short were perfectly proportioned to her body. She looked like one of those Rubenesque models of the 17th century or like a pocket-size Venus statue.
She snuffled again, grumbling something in her sleep as she scrubbed at her mouth. Then she rolled over toward him. And opened her eyes.
He crouched down, almost at eye level. And his heart ached. "Hello, beautiful."
Her eyes blinked. "Don't call me that. I must look terrible." She covered her face with her hands.
He gently pulled them down and, despising his inability to resist her lure, pressed a soft kiss against her lips.
Instead of kissing him back, she shoved at his chest and hurriedly sat up, covering her mouth and mumbling something behind her hand.
She was so cute when she was half-asleep and still confused.
"Betghrm," she mumbled behind her hand again.
He tilted his head. "Hard to be sure, but I think you might be asking about the bathroom?"
She nodded enthusiastically.
He held out his hand. "Come on. I was going to question you some more, but I think I'll give you a reprieve. You're too far gone to make sense anyway. I'll show you the guest room."
She hesitated, then put her hand in his and let him pull her to standing. She let his hand go and stepped back, running her hands through her hair as if worried about her appearance.
"I'll just freshen up and then you can drive me home."
"I'd rather you stayed the night."
She frowned. "Why?"
"You mean other than the fact that the wind is whipping and dry lightning is cracking outside?"
Her gaze went to the windows. "I must really be tired. I hadn't even noticed."
"Even if it weren't storming, I'd strongly suggest that you consider staying. Whoever is after you knows about your mom's house. I can protect you here, if it comes to that."
She ran her hands up and down her arms and nodded. "Makes sense. Thanks. I appreciate it."
"No trouble at all. The guest room's the first one down the hall on the left. There are toothbrushes, shampoo, everything you need in there. Oh, except something to sleep in. My room is right next door. You're welcome to grab one of my T-shirts to sleep in if you want."
"Sounds good." She grabbed her purse from one of the end tables and started toward the hallway, then stopped. "Sam?"
He'd just rounded the island going into the kitchen but waited and raised a questioning brow.
"Thank you," she said. "For everything. I know we haven't figured out how to clear my name yet. But for the first time in, well, forever, I feel like there's hope. So, thanks."
"You can always count on me, Cedes. I'm always here for you. No matter what." Sappy, but true. No sense in denying it.
Her eyes widened, and then she whirled around and disappeared down the hall.
Sam let out a deep breath and headed into the kitchen. They'd talked right through dinner and his stomach was rumbling. He grabbed a handful of grapes from the refrigerator and leaned against the counter, popping them into his mouth and chasing them with a bottle of water. When he finished his snack, he headed into the main room to kill the lights.
Was Cedes asleep already? Probably. She'd seemed so worn out. He couldn't help smiling, thinking about her lying in the middle of the bed, wearing one of his T-shirts. He froze in the middle of the room, his smile fading. His T-shirts. He'd told her to grab one. He kept them in his top dresser drawer.
But that wasn't all he kept in that drawer.
He swore and flipped off the main light then hurried down the hallway. The light was on in the master bedroom, streaming into the hall. Hurry. Stop her. He bolted to the doorway then froze. Cedes was standing in front of the dresser, her face freshly washed, but still wearing her jeans and blouse. One of his T-shirts dangled from her left hand. Maybe he'd caught her in time.
Her eyes slowly rose to his, and then she held up her other hand, the one holding a diamond solitaire ring.
Cedes'S entire being shook as she held the same ring that Sam had offered her so long ago. There was no mistaking it. Every facet had been branded into her memory. It was definitely the same ring.
"Why?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "Why did you keep it?"
His jaw tightened and he crossed the room to her, swiping the ring from her palm and grabbing the little black box from the drawer full of T-shirts. "No reason, just never got around to returning it." He shoved the ring back in its velvet bed and popped the lid shut.
"It had to have cost a small fortune. You probably made payments on it for years," she said. "You couldn't have forgotten it."
His expression was shuttered, remote, as he faced her. "I believe that you have everything you need in the guest room. Have a good night's sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
"Oh, Sam. What have I done?" she whispered. Hot tears traced down her cheeks.
He let out an impatient breath and strode to the door, holding it open. "Good night, Cedes."
Like two duelers at ten paces, they faced each other—her with his T-shirt clutched in her hand, him with the promise of forever in his. A promise he'd once offered out of love and she'd refused, also out of love. But he didn't understand that. She'd never explained any of that to him. And seeing the ring in his drawer had shocked her to the core, and made her realize for the first time that maybe she'd been wrong. She'd made a decision to protect him. But she'd also shut him out, never explained her reasons, and left him in a state of limbo, always wondering why.
This amazing man in front of her deserved so much better than that. She wasn't the girl she'd been back then. She was a grown woman. And it was high time she came clean about everything, not just the horrible events around Cooper's death. She needed to explain to Sam why she'd told him no.
She slowly padded toward him in her bare feet and lifted his hand away from the door.
He frowned down at her, obviously not sure what she was doing. She smiled sadly and pushed the door closed.
A wary look came over him. "Cedes, what are you—"
She pressed her fingers against his lips, startling him into silence. "I owe you an explanation for this."
She tried to take the velvet box, but he pulled it back, a gentle tug-of-war.
"Please," she said. "I don't deserve your trust, but I'm asking for it. Trust me. I'll just put this back in the drawer."
Without a word, his back so stiff he could have been a soldier submitting to inspection, he relinquished his hold on the box.
Unable to resist another look, Cedes opened the lid and turned it, watching the solitaire twinkle beneath the overhead light.
"Cedes—"
"I know, I know. Sorry. It's just so beautiful." She slowly closed the lid and replaced the box in the drawer. After tossing the T-shirt onto the king-size four-poster bed, she crossed to Sam again and took his reluctant hand in hers. "Can we sit down, just for a few minutes? I need to tell you what I should have told you years ago."
The struggle inside him was evident in the expressions on his face. Unlike a lot of tough guys, Sam didn't do stoic very well. He was tough, yet sensitive, always caring. It was one of the things she'd always admired about him, one of the reasons she'd known he'd be an excellent cop—because he cared.
Although the master bedroom was large, it was neat and sparse, like the rest of the house. There was only one chair, on the right side of the bed. So she tugged his hand, urging him toward the bed with her. She let his hand go and had to climb up on the blasted thing, it was so high. Then she turned around and patted the spot beside her.
He looked like he was trying not to laugh, and finally gave in to a grin. "You look like a real life Powerpuff Girl climbing up on that bed."
She shook her head. "I never did understand your fascination with that cartoon."
"Not with the cartoon. Just you." His smile dimmed and he sat beside her. "Whatever you think you need to say, you don't. I don't have any expectations of us getting back together. There's no reason for you to feel uncomfortable or worry that I'm going to hit on you."
"You kissed me in the family room."
"Momentary insanity. I recovered. It won't happen again."
She looked down at her hands, trying not to let him see that his words had struck their target. Her heart. She braced herself and forced herself to look up, not to cower and not to run again when the going got tough.
"It's time I faced my past," she said. "I've already told you about the night of my birthday in regards to Cooper Anderson. But I didn't tell you everything, not the part about us."
He swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat. "You don't have to do this, Cedes. It really doesn't matter anymore."
"It does matter. I hurt you, and that was never my intention, in spite of how it must have seemed. All I ask is that you listen. It won't take long. I just want to explain why I said no."
He shrugged as if he didn't care. But his gaze was riveted on her and he didn't protest anymore.
"You'd been hinting about that night for a while, talking about how special it would be, how important it was. It didn't take a genius to figure out you were probably going to propose. We'd certainly talked about the possibility of spending the rest of our lives together often enough. I think we both always assumed we'd end up together. I certainly thought I'd be your wife one day, that we'd build a life together, create our own little family."
His breathing hitched, but he didn't move, just kept watching her.
"I don't know if you remember, but Chief Schuester had come to the school earlier that week for one of his career day speeches. And just like every year before, you hung on his every word. And after it was over, you talked about your big dream, of being a police officer here in Destiny, of being a detective and working your way onto the SWAT team. It's the only dream you ever really wanted."
His jaw tightened, but again he said nothing.
She sighed. "Anyway, I knew how important that was to you. And I also knew that if that dream was ever taken away, it would utterly destroy you." She twisted her hands in her lap. "You'd already gotten in trouble fighting Cooper many times to try to protect me. That was okay while you were still a minor. But you turned eighteen two weeks before I did. If you fought Cooper again, you could have been charged as an adult. And that would have given you a criminal record. I couldn't let that happen."
He frowned. "Cedes—"
"Wait. Let me finish. There's more to it than that. I was afraid for your life. The situation with Cooper kept getting worse, and I didn't know what was going to happen or what to do. All I knew for sure was that Cooper was winning the war. And he was evil and told me many times that if he couldn't have me no one else would. If I had married you, Cooper would have killed you. I know it. I couldn't live knowing that I had caused your death."
He stared at her incredulously. "You told me no because you thought I couldn't protect myself?"
"What? No, I mean, yes. But you make it sound so simple. It wasn't. I truly thought Cooper would kill you if I didn't end things between us."
Tears splashed down her cheeks onto her hands. She impatiently wiped them away. "But even if I was wrong, if Cooper tried to hurt you and you ended up killing him instead, that would have destroyed you just as completely. Because it could have destroyed your dream of becoming a police officer. What if you were convicted of manslaughter or something like that? Schuester wouldn't have allowed you on the police force with a record. I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't live with myself knowing you'd grow to hate me a little bit every day we were together, realizing that I was the reason you'd given up what you truly loved."
His hand firmly tilted her chin up so she'd look at him. The anger that flashed in his eyes startled her.
"Are you saying you turned down my proposal to protect me? Either from Cooper or from myself?"
She tried to nod, but couldn't, so she whispered, "Yes."
He swore and stood up, his boots ringing against the floor as he paced in front of the bed like a caged tiger. "All this time, I thought maybe you'd played me. That you didn't really love me."
She blinked in shock. "I've always loved you."
"Funny way of showing it."
"I know. I'm so sorry. I never meant to hurt you."
He stopped pacing in front of her. "You may have loved me, but you sure as hell didn't know me."
"Excuse me?"
He braced his hands on the bed on either side of her. "Do you honestly think that being a cop was my biggest dream? That what I truly loved, more than anything else, was the idea of being a detective and a SWAT officer? Sure, I wanted to be a cop. And I wanted to stay in my hometown to do it. But a career wasn't the love of my life. You were. I'd have given everything I had for you and never regretted it for a single second. Ten years, Cedes. For ten years I've been asking myself what I did wrong, what was there about me that made me unworthy of you. I couldn't figure it out. I thought, maybe, one day, if you ever came back, you'd tell me about this horrible thing that I'd done to you and it would make the lightbulb click in my mind. I'd be like, oh, wow, that's what I did. And then I'd apologize and do everything I could to make it right. But I didn't do anything wrong."
He thumped his chest. "I did everything I could for you, loved you with every ounce of my being. And you didn't love me enough to even have a freaking conversation over your fears so we could work through it. You know what, Mercedes? If you'd just asked me what I wanted, I'd have told you that we could move away somewhere, start over in another town. I'd have gone anywhere, done anything and been happy, as long as I was with you. Instead, you didn't trust me, or love me enough to give me a chance. You didn't give me my dream by leaving me. You stole my dream, Cedes. Because being a cop wasn't my dream. Being with you was."
He whirled around and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
