by Terri Reed
Da da DUM. A tri-tone bell-like noise issued from the console area. Mel glanced at it. Irene’s name flashed on the display. Saved by the bell, she thought, more than ready to end this conversation. Jace pushed a button to put the call on speaker.
“Yeah, ’Rene. What’s up?”
“Hey, buddy. You can bring Melanie back to Mom’s house tonight.” Irene’s voice, sounding distinctly smug, answered him.
“Umm, Irene,” Mel interjected, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Did you see the back of your mom’s house? She was pretty steamed.”
“Yes, of course I saw that. I heard about it, too. And she was angry. But then I overheard about you getting shot at over the police radio.”
“How?” Mel started to ask. Jace broke into the conversation.
“Irene’s husband is a cop, too. You haven’t met him yet because he’s away at a training seminar. Irene, how did you convince Mom?”
Irene sighed. “It wasn’t easy. But you know how she hates bullying. When it was clear Melanie is a target, she decided to give her another chance. Not to mention that Paul had someone come out to the house to install some state-of-the-art security system, on the police department’s dime, I might add. Official police business, he said.”
Air whooshed out of Melanie’s lungs, accompanied by a distinct wheeze.
“Where’s your inhaler?” Jace immediately asked.
She fished around in her pocket and pulled it out and used it.
Within minutes Jace had changed course and was heading back toward his mother’s house. It was with trepidation that Melanie stepped from the vehicle, unsure of what kind of welcome awaited her. Did Mrs. Tucker blame her for putting Jace in harm’s way? Or had Irene somehow managed to convince her mother that Melanie wasn’t the evil temptress she had been made out to be?
It was evening now—the sun had set an hour ago. A rumble from her stomach reminded Mel that they had yet to eat dinner.
She heaved herself from the car and felt as if she had concrete blocks tied to her feet as she walked beside Jace up to the house. She blinked as lights flooded the yard. Ah. The new security system. She tensed as Mrs. Tucker opened the inside door and waited for them. Once inside the house, Melanie stiffened her shoulders, knowing she had to meet the other woman’s accusing eyes eventually.
She lifted her head.
And got a shock.
Instead of the hostile glare she had received only that morning, Jace’s mother watched her with eyes filled with pity. Pity? Why would Mrs. Tucker pity her now?
Dread curdled in the pit of her stomach. She tamped down the urge to flee, to hide. Whatever had happened to make Mrs. Tucker look at her that way, she didn’t want to know. Because whatever it was, it would probably devastate her.
She was right.
“Melanie,” Mrs. Tucker said in the gentlest voice Mel had ever heard from her. It was a voice reserved for frightened children and wounded animals. “Melanie, one of the officers watching your aunt at the hospital called twenty minutes ago. I’m sorry. Your aunt is gone.”
“Gone?” Mel repeated, her mind numb. “Gone,” she said again, tonelessly. Why were her ears ringing?
“Mel, maybe you should sit down.” Jace’s voice was far away.
It was the final straw. Mel’s mind had reached its limit. She swayed, feeling her ears buzz as she passed out.
*
Mel was sitting on the window seat in her room the next morning when someone knocked on her door. She was tempted to ignore it, let whoever was on the other side think she was sleeping, but she couldn’t abide even that small deception. Besides, she had a feeling Jace at least might be concerned about her. After she had revived from her faint last night, she had allowed Irene to assist her as she got ready for bed. She had slept dreamlessly for almost twelve hours. Without turning her head now, she called out, “Come in.”
Irene walked over, a light breeze of perfume coming with her. She didn’t say a word. Just leaned over and gave Melanie a hug. Then she sat down on the window seat beside her. Melanie allowed a few minutes to pass in companionable silence before she faced Irene. Jace’s sister was watching her with compassion. But not pity. Mel was thankful for that. Pity was a hard emotion to deal with.
“I’m okay,” she assured Irene. “I’m even peaceful. Aunt Sarah is in Heaven, and she has perfect knowledge now. She knows the truth.”
Irene tilted her head, reminding Mel of a delicate bird. “That’s good. I’m glad for you on that score. Still, it has to be difficult for you. You never even got a chance to be together again before all this happened.”
Feeling her throat tighten with emotion, Mel nodded.
“My mom had Jace make breakfast. Will you come down?”
“Jace cooked breakfast?” Melanie was entranced by the idea of him providing for his family in such a way. She wished she could have seen him as the teenager he had described to her, the one who stepped up to take care of his family after losing his father. Was he ever in trouble, or was he always determined to be a cop? She would ask him someday.
Irene scoffed at her question. “Of course he cooked breakfast. I wasn’t here, and my mom is dangerous in the kitchen. If she had made breakfast, it would have been peanut butter toast. Not that she doesn’t try. She does. She just can’t seem to get the knack of it. I can’t think of a single recipe she has made successfully.”
Melanie trailed along beside Irene, laughing softly. Jace turned at the sound, a relieved look on his face. She realized he’d been worried about her. Even Mrs. Tucker gave her a strained smile. That smile coming from a woman who had treated her with hostility recently almost undid her.
“He never even went to work this morning,” Irene muttered next to her ear. “He was so concerned. He called the office and requested permission to work from here. I think he was planning on waiting here all day until you came down.”
Melanie flashed the woman a warning look. The last thing she wanted to do was make jokes at Jace’s expense. Not after all he had done for her. She pushed away the thought that there might be another reason she didn’t want to make fun of him. Irene wasn’t impressed. She smirked, then sauntered around to her chair.
Jace strode toward her and placed his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them gently. His gaze searched her face as if trying to gauge her mental state.
“You hanging in there?” he queried, his voice pitched low so only she could hear.
Tears spurted to her eyes. Her throat ached as she held them back. Unable to speak around her grief, she answered him with a stiff nod.
Jace gave her one last squeeze, then gently shoved her toward a chair. She sat, not even giving him token resistance. She was far too spent for that. Her world had been tipped on its edge again, and she felt it was all she could do just to hang on. It was sheer reflex to hold the warm coffee mug Jace placed before her between her chilled palms. She inhaled the pungent aroma. Jace made coffee the way she liked it, strong. She sipped the bitter brew and felt herself settle. Jace set a plate with an omelet filled with veggies in front of her. Not in the mood to eat, she pushed her food around on the plate, only vaguely aware of the conversation around her. It wasn’t until Irene and Mrs. Tucker finished eating and excused themselves that she spoke.
“I want to talk with that doctor from the hospital. The one we talked with last time. Dr. Ramirez, I think his name was.” The words popped out of her mouth. She grimaced. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so abrupt.”
“No, that’s okay. I was thinking the same thing.” Jace sipped his own coffee, his eyes deep in thought. “We can go right after you eat.”
“Oh, but I’m not really that hungry…”
Jace stopped her with a look.
“I know you don’t feel like eating, Mel. Could you try? Maybe just a bite or two? Today’s gonna be a hard day. You’ll need your strength.”
Melanie scowled, but obliged him by taking a small bite of the spicy omelet. Whoa. It was delicious. Once she s
tarted eating, her appetite kicked in. She stared at her plate in dismay minutes later. She had wolfed down her breakfast with as much gusto as a teenage boy. Jace chuckled and tossed her a smug wink. Her stomach fluttered.
Mel was suddenly conscious of how much she had come to rely on him. How had she let her guard slip? He was a good man, but she had seen too many “good” men turn on a dime. Her father let alcohol and drugs change him. Seth let his father’s opinion sway him. Well, she wasn’t going to give Jace Tucker a chance to break her heart.
*
At the hospital, Jace leaned against the registration desk and flashed the young woman sitting there a pleasant smile. He could practically feel Mel’s eyes shooting daggers at him. His smile threatened to become a grin. He wasn’t flirting with the girl, just being polite. Well, okay, maybe he was flirting a little. He was regretting being so tender with Mel that morning. He couldn’t let her get the idea that they could ever be anything other than friends. He didn’t want to hurt her any more than she was already hurting. As soon as this case was closed, he needed to walk away from her. The thought should have brought him relief. Instead, it made his heart ache.
“Y-yes?” the brown-haired girl behind the desk stammered, her eyes wide. “May I help you?”
“I hope so—” his eyes flashed to her name tag “—Diana. I need to locate Dr. Ramirez. Is he in today?”
The girl cocked her head. Her eyes lost their starstruck look and became puzzled. “No-o,” she responded slowly.
Jace exchanged a glance with Mel.
“Do you expect him in later today?” Mel butted in to the conversation.
“I’m sorry, but there is no Dr. Ramirez here.”
“Not today?” Jace persisted, although his instinct told him that she meant more than that.
She confirmed it when she shook her head firmly.
“No, I mean not ever. There is no doctor by that name working here.”
“Then who was the doctor in charge of Sarah Swanson when Dr. Jensen was gone?” Not bothering to give the flustered receptionist time to respond, Mel whirled on Jace. “That man, the one in Aunt Sarah’s room—”
Jace nodded at Mel, than turned back to the girl at the desk. “The room where Sarah Swanson was is now a crime scene. No unauthorized personnel are to enter. Have hospital security posted outside that door until backup arrives. Is that clear?” Jace used the radio on his shoulder to call in a team to do the forensics. Mel looked shell-shocked. He needed to discuss the situation with her, make sure she was coping.
Unwilling to hold this conversation in front of witnesses, Jace placed a firm hand at her elbow and started to steer Mel toward the waiting area. She jerked her arm out of his grasp and walked, stiff-backed, into the room. Jace frowned at the back of her head. The spacious room was empty, the only noise coming from the television set. Jace increased the volume, allowing the soap opera to act as a screen for their own conversation.
“Mel, I am really sorry about this, but we have to assume that your aunt fell prey to another attempt on her life. It would be fair to guess that the missing Dr. Ramirez had a part in that.”
“I hate this!” Fists clenched at her side, Melanie’s body shook with frustration. Her jaw tightened, and he thought she was probably grinding her teeth. “I mean, I knew that was probably the case, but hearing you say it, to know such evil is so close—”
“I know, and I hate that I need to be so blunt, so cold about the whole thing, but you need to stay alert. A killer is on the loose. I need to get a team in here. Then I’ll get you back to my mother’s.”
He should have expected resistance, really. Mel lifted her pointed little chin and folded her arms across her chest. The daggers shooting from her eyes told him she needed answers as badly as he did, and she wasn’t going to walk away without a fight. She opened her mouth to argue. He held up one hand to forestall her.
“Look, Mel, Paul needs me to go to Pittsburgh to check on the juror who died in a car wreck. You know, talk with the officer in charge of that investigation. I can’t do that if you’re around. I won’t leave you unprotected. You know that.”
He waited until a security guard could come in and stay with Mel, then left. He returned to her twenty minutes later. She was subdued.
“Okay, Mel. I ordered a warrant to look at the security disks. The team has arrived and is going over every square inch of your aunt’s room for evidence.” Not that they’d find much.
“Why don’t you sound confident?” Mel asked.
He sighed. He hadn’t been as good at hiding his doubts as he’d thought.
“Your aunt died last night. They’ve already cleaned the room. Since she was in coma already, the doctor on call declared that she died of natural causes so no one thought to take any precautions to preserve the room. The one good thing is that there wasn’t a new patient assigned to the room yet. Any way you look at it, though, it’s not very likely the team will find any new evidence. So let’s hope the security disks will.”
They waited for an hour before the warrant arrived. They watched the monitors in silence as various nurses and staff walked past the room. Every now and then the camera caught a nurse entering the room. She’d check vitals and mark the chart. After half an hour, the man they knew as Dr. Ramirez entered the room. He checked the vitals and marked the chart, same as the nurses had. Then he glanced over his shoulders at the door. Keeping his eyes on the door, he slipped a hand inside his coat and pulled out a long needle and attached a vial to it. He moved over to the IV and injected the liquid. Pocketing the vial and needle, he sauntered back to the door and exited. The camera clearly showed him talking for several seconds with the security guard before walking to the elevator. A minute later, the entryway camera caught him, now dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, leaving the building.
“There’s our guy,” Jace murmured. He rubbed the back of Mel’s hand with his thumb. All at once he realized what he was doing and dropped her hand. He casually leaned forward as if needing to see the screen better. He wasn’t sure why he wanted to mask his attempt to keep his distance, other than he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“There’s something familiar about that guy. Don’t know what. Maybe it’ll come to me on the drive.”
ELEVEN
Melanie had been none too pleased when Jace informed her that he would be traveling to Pittsburgh alone. Oh, sure, she knew he would accomplish more without her, especially in a police station where everyone would see her as nothing more than a convict. She would have been in the way. In her mind, she understood that. In her heart, though, she was uncomfortable being away from him. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized just how safe he made her feel.
She could not fall into that trap again. Yes, she trusted Jace. He was a brave man, a man who took his call to protect and serve seriously. But he was still a man. She needed to put her trust in God. He would care for her. She wouldn’t let herself need anyone else.
A sigh left her. She could no longer procrastinate. Jace had contacted Paul that morning before he left. Mel knew that two officers would be with her most of the day. She had reluctantly let Jace convince her to allow Irene to deal with most of the funeral arrangements. Mel was of two minds about that. On the one hand, she was grateful that she didn’t need to be out and about by herself on such a gloomy mission. On the other hand, she felt she owed her aunt so much, and now she would never be able to repay her.
Still, she was alive. Her aunt would not approve of her moping around when there were things to be done.
Her steps were sure when she walked into the bright kitchen for lunch. She was pleasantly surprised to see Irene sitting at the table reading the newspaper, a fresh carafe filled with coffee in front of her.
“Hi.” Jace’s sister greeted her with a warm smile. “Have a cup and I’ll tell you our plans for the day.”
Melanie raised her eyebrows. “Oh? Do we have plans?” Not very hungry, she popped a bagel into the toaster and poured herself a s
teaming cup of coffee. She couldn’t resist bringing the cup to her face to inhale its rich fragrance. Even if she had hated the taste, she would have still loved the aroma. Good thing she liked coffee.
Irene gave a vigorous nod. “Of course. I figured you probably need to get out of my mother’s house. We are going shopping.”
“Oh, Irene, that’s so sweet. But Jace—”
“But Jace nothing. My dear brother is at his protective best. He told me you were in danger. I understand that. I called the department and got us our own personal bodyguard. Some newbie named Miles is coming with us. And another officer will meet us at the mall.”
Melanie shook her head, doubt creeping into her eyes. “I don’t know, Irene. It seems so silly, going shopping now. My aunt just died, you would be putting yourself at risk…”
Irene stood and swept across the room to Mel. Her expression serious, she placed her hands on Mel’s shoulders.
“Melanie, I know this is a trying time for you. I don’t mean to make light of the situation. But you can’t stop living. You will be in an open public place, and there will be a police car directly behind us at all times and two officers dogging our every step.” Mel wavered. It sounded as though all the necessary precautions were in order. Irene hugged her. When she stepped back, her eyes were filled with compassion. “And honey, the shopping trip is not silly. There is sure to be a huge crowd, not to mention media, at your aunt’s funeral. You need something to wear that actually fits you.”
Okay, that made sense.
“Besides, think of how disappointed Miles will be if we don’t go! I fully expect him to have the sirens going the whole way up, he’s so excited about being given such an important duty.”
Laughing softly, Melanie shook her head. “I almost feel sorry for him. The kid is so new, he squeaks. But he seems sincere.”
Satisfied, Irene smiled. “Then it’s settled. Go get dressed and we will be on our way to the mall. You are in desperate need of a new wardrobe. Maybe we can get you something fun, too. Like possibly an outfit to make my brother’s head swim.”
