by Lori Ryan
As he sat and stared at the dying shrub, it was his wife he saw instead. His wife and the small baby who died with her. The baby he hadn’t even known about until the doctors had told him in the hospital when his wife died.
That was the first time he drank himself into a stupor. And when he’d come out of it, he’d gone and got the rosebush and planted it for his baby. Their baby. He had planted it right next to all the roses Vicki had planted and loved so much. And now he’d killed that too. Stupid as it was, he couldn’t help but feel he’d let them down again.
Rage poured through him. Rage at himself for never getting it right.
Warrick’s hand wrapped around the lamp next to him. He tightened his fingers around it, gripping so tightly his hand began to hurt. With a roar, he threw it across the room, hitting the wall where it shattered into pieces. A shattered life. How do you put that back together?
It wasn’t enough. He stood and grabbed a fireplace poker, smashing the other lamps in the room, bathing it in darkness. It still wasn’t enough, but the darkness suited his mood much better.
He crossed to the bar and reached for the bottle of Glenlivet, not bothering with the glass.
Chapter 26
Detective Harmon felt the rush that came with the first big break in a case. This one had been too long in coming. They had gone back to see Meredith and Edward Ball, this time tackling the couple separately. Meredith Ball had talked.
Tyvek was more manipulative than Jarrod had given him credit for. He’d played the couple against each other. When Tyvek escaped the fire, he called Edward and convinced him Meredith had been in on his plan the entire time. That she’d been so set on expanding Branson Medical into the pharmaceutical industry, that she’d partnered with Tyvek on the promise that she’d get to develop the heart drug if the drug trials produced anything useful.
None of it had been true, but Edward Ball hadn’t known that and he’d been willing to do anything to save his wife. By the time Meredith found out what was going on, Edward had been hiding Tyvek for weeks. The couple felt they didn’t have any choice but to keep hiding him.
Jarrod watched as SWAT breached the apartment they had leased in a fake name for Tyvek. It was a rundown kind of place. The type of place you could pay cash for and no one would ask any questions. That was exactly what they had done, which was why a run of their finances hadn’t shown the small monthly payment being made. They had simply taken it out of the pocket money they already withdrew from the bank each month.
Jarrod listened to the calls of “clear” coming from the officers in the apartment, cursing under his breath because he knew that meant Tyvek was no longer here. He and Cal entered as the team lead came back to the living room.
“No sign of him, but he’s been here recently. There’s a wet toothbrush in the bathroom and food scraps in the sink that are day-old at best,” the man said as his team filed out into the hallway.
Jarrod nodded. “You guys clear out as fast as you can. Hopefully he hasn’t seen us. We’ll take a look around here, then post a couple of undercover guys to wait for him to come back.”
The SWAT team left almost as quickly as they had come and Cal and Jarrod did a quick search of the apartment. It was small, with peeling paint and only a kitchenette, living space with bed, and bathroom.
“You see anything useful?” Cal asked a minute later, coming out of the bathroom.
“Nothing that tells us where he is. I called into the station and the captain has two undercover guys on their way. They’ll text when they’re in place, but we need to get out of here. How about you?”
Cal held up the packaging from a box of hair dye. “I’m guessing Tyvek is now a brunette.”
“Can that stuff really cover a guy as gray as Tyvek was?” William Tyvek had had a full head of gray hair, not just a little salt and pepper throughout. He’d always seemed like one of the most recognizable guys to Jarrod, but maybe if you took him out of the designer suits and got rid of his fancy haircut and manicures, the guy could pass for average.
“Apparently.” Cal turned over the box to show an image of a man with a full head of gray hair next to an image of the same man, now brown-haired and looking easily ten years younger.
“Shit. That’s a pretty major difference.” The image was striking and Jarrod struggled to imagine what the change would do to Tyvek. Maybe one of the forensic artists could help them figure out what he’d look like now.
“Still, Tyvek is a pretty well-known face around the city. He’s got to be doing something else to cover his looks.”
“I don’t know. How much of his look had to do with the suits and the fancy cars and things? Would he be as memorable in jeans and a hoodie without a chauffeur?”
Cal’s only response was a curse.
“We need to see if Meredith or Edward Ball has seen him. We need to know what he looks like.”
Cal agreed. “I’ll reach out to them. Can you get with the captain and make sure the undercovers headed this way know what to look for?”
“You think it’s worth the risk to canvas the neighbors right now?”
“No. Let’s give him a day to come back, then we’ll canvas.”
Tyvek continued walking straight instead of turning at the corner. He couldn’t take a chance that the SWAT vehicle was at the apartment building for him. It had been a miracle they hadn’t found him before this. He didn’t have much time left. It was time to finish what he’d started.
Chapter 27
It took Warrick a minute to figure out why his head was pounding and his mouth felt like someone had planted wheat stalks in there overnight. He had broken a rule he never broke. When the grief had swamped him after Vicki and his baby died, he’d been so damned tempted to bury himself in a bottle. But he’d also been smart. He knew damned well if he went down that road he wouldn’t come back out of there.
So he limited himself carefully, always maintaining complete control. Except for the one night of the year when he let himself go. Now, he’d broken the rule, getting completely sloshed in an effort to erase the guilt, the memories, the feelings. He thought he could do this with Sara. That he could let some feeling back in and maintain control.
He was wrong. There couldn’t be any halfway on this. Letting himself feel meant he had to feel it all, face it all. As it turned out, he wasn’t as strong as he thought he was. Not nearly as in control as he’d hoped to be.
He eyed the empty bottle next to the couch and the mass of broken glass in the corner of the room. He stood and walked to the patio. Apparently, he’d gone after the rose shrub at some point the night before. There was now a broken branch and a crack down the center of the largest stem. If it wasn’t dead before, it was dead now. He stared at it blankly before pulling out his phone.
Plenty of missed texts and calls.
“Charlotte,” he said when his assistant answered the phone, “I need you to cover things for me for a little bit at the office.” He looked at the clock on the microwave. It was 9 a.m. She’d already been covering for him for an hour at work since he’d had meetings scheduled at eight. But that wasn’t what he meant.
“For the morning?” She asked, her voice holding a tone of uncertainty.
“No,” he said rubbing his temple. “I’ll be gone through Friday, maybe longer.” He could hear the stunned silence at the other end of the line. “Cancel what you can, handle anything that can be handled, just put people off.”
“Is everything all right?” He knew she had to be worried to ask that kind of question. Charlotte was old school. She was the type who believed in privacy.
“Everything is fine. I just… Need to go away.” He didn’t know where he was going. Maybe he’d start house hunting for that cabin in the woods.
He still had a place in the woods, but William Tyvek had used that cabin to kill one of the scientists working with him. He’d left the body there to make it look like Warrick was the killer. Charlotte had arranged for some crime scene cleaning company
to clean it out, but somehow, the idea of going there didn’t appeal. They’d listed it for sale, but word was out about the dead body. Funny how that slowed things down.
He could go look for something else now, though. Maybe he could figure out his next step. Things at Simms were getting back on track. The cousins didn’t seem to be calling for his retirement any longer. Sales had been coming back into line with what they’d seen before all this started. It was time for him to start thinking about where to go from here.
“Oh and Charlotte?”
“Yes?”
“Can you have somebody come and clean my condo while I’m gone?” He had a regular cleaning service that came every week, but he didn’t want to leave all this broken glass for them to find. “It’s, uh, it’s a bit of a mess.”
“Of course. I’ll send someone over. Is tomorrow okay for that?” He knew she was asking if he’d be there when they came or if she could send them anytime.
“That’s fine. I’ll be gone by then.” He hung up the phone and went to pack a bag.
Chapter 28
Sara looked at the clock. It was noon but she had accomplished next to nothing all morning. She hated to admit it, but she’d been looking at the door to her office all morning. She kept thinking Warrick would come through it at any minute.
Part of her, a big part of her, wanted to see him. Another part of her didn’t know what to say if he did come. It was why she hadn’t gone to see him herself. She was chickening out.
Would he be upset that she’d sent him away the night before? Would things be awkward? Or would he tell her he regretted what had happened? That they needed to go back to just being friends with an occasional kiss? Or friends without the kissing?
Not friends at all? Clearly, sitting and stewing on the matter wasn’t helping her.
She didn’t know what to think about the fact that he hadn’t come to see her at all. Then again, it was entirely possible he was waiting for her to come to him. After all, she was the one who had set the boundary last night. So maybe he was letting her make the next move.
She looked at her desk, searching for some excuse to go up and see him. She didn’t find any answers on her desk, but she stood anyway. She could come up with something on the way up in the elevator. She could always ask him if he wanted her to contact Jax Cutter about developing a prosthesis for lower limb loss.
Or maybe she’d grow a spine on the way up and just say she had come to see him. To ask what next. Nothing like the direct route.
She exited the elevator on the top floor and made her way down the hall toward Warrick’s office. Charlotte sat at her desk outside, as expected. But the double doors of his office stood open. She could see before she even approached Charlotte, that the room is empty. She pasted a smile on her face.
“Is he in?” For the most part, nowadays, if Warrick wasn’t on a conference call or in a meeting, Charlotte would waive Sara past her.
Instead, today she frowned. “No, I’m afraid not. He’s out for the rest of the week.”
Disappointment slammed into Sara. Disappointment and humiliation. Because if he left for the week and hadn’t told her, last night hadn’t meant anything to him. Right? She hadn’t been this confused in a long time.
She nodded, unable to speak past the lump in her throat. She should have known. It was stupid really, for her to read more into it. They said right from the start they would be friends that would kiss occasionally. So what if kissing had moved into sex? That didn’t mean that the sex meant any more than the kisses had.
“Do you want me to try to reach him for you?” Charlotte asked, a hint of something in her voice that Sara couldn’t place. Pity?
Wonderful. Now she’d gone from self-pity to pity from others. Was that a move up or a move down? She really didn’t know. But she didn’t like it. She remembered that saying about changing your reaction to something when you couldn’t change the thing itself. That’s what she needed to do. She couldn’t control what had happened with Warrick. She couldn’t go back and make changes but she could change her response.
“No,” she said shaking her head, trying for an air of indifference. “I just had a question for him, but it can wait.”
She turned before Charlotte could see through her bullshit, but she had a feeling the woman wasn’t fooled. Charlotte had the ability to see through any smoke screen.
Sara walked stiffly back to the elevator and got herself to her office before she let the tears fall. She honestly felt like she was crying over so many things at once, and maybe it was time she’d let herself mourn a few things.
This wasn’t just about Warrick. She was crying because Mitchell had walked out on her all those years ago, opening a wound in her that would probably never heal. She was crying because last night she had let herself believe, even for the smallest of moments, that maybe she could have a normal relationship. She was crying because she knew deep down she had fallen for Warrick Staunton. She had fallen for him in a big way, and now it looked like her heart would be stomped on once again.
Chapter 29
Two days in a cabin had turned out to be enough for Warrick. So much for his new life plan. It had been more than just the emptiness of not having anything to do. He could have handled that. This cabin had been more rustic than the one his family owned. He hadn’t wanted to go there. Not only had Tyvek killed a man there, it brought back memories of Vicki and him. Not to mention, it didn’t really qualify as a cabin. It was more like a luxury home except for being made from logs rather than drywall or brick.
The cabin he’d rented had a lake right outside the door and hiking trails through the woods. It had a wood burning stove and small kitchenette. It met the definition of cabin in more than a cursory sense. And that meant there was little to do there and it was awfully quiet. The biggest problem with it, though, had been that Sara wasn’t there with him.
He had wanted Sara. He wanted to hold her and make love to her. But he also wanted to talk to her, to hear her laugh, to have her take away that heavy weight that sat in his gut all day every day.
She would have made hiking through the woods fun. She’d likely have found a way to engineer fishing poles out of scotch tape and a paper clip so they could make use of the lake. That was the kind of thing she did. She could make something out of nothing. She could make him feel human again.
On the third night, Warrick got in his car and made the four-and-a-half-hour trip home. It was almost midnight when he got in.
He opened his condo door to find his Uncle Jonathan pawing through his mail. “Jonathan? Jesus, what are you doing here?” His thoughts went to his mother. Maybe something was wrong with her. Or Sara. Hell. “Is everything okay?”
Jonathan spun, anger in his eyes. “No, everything is not okay. You took off. You didn’t tell Charlotte where you were going. You didn’t call me or your mother. And you think everything is okay?” As he spoke Jonathan crossed the room, closing the distance between him and Warrick.
Warrick half expected him to strike him, but Jonathan pulled him in and hugged him tight to his chest. Warrick stood frozen, then brought his arms up, half surprising himself when he returned the hug.
His uncle held on for a long minute then stepped back and looked at Jonathan. “Where were you? I’ve been going through your place trying to figure out where you might’ve gone. I know you sold the beach house and you sold that monstrosity you bought for Vicki. I had the sheriff drive out to the cabin even though we’ve had that closed tight since the murder, but you weren’t there. I’ve been out of my mind. I couldn’t figure out where else you would’ve gone. I called the caretakers at your mother’s place thinking you might be in the guesthouse but they hadn’t seen you on the grounds anywhere.”
Jonathan sank into the couch and Warrick sat next to him, surprised to see his uncle was shaking a bit. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think—” He was so used to his uncle being a bit scatterbrained and not checking in for days, it hadn’t even occurred to him
that his uncle would worry about him. “I went up to New Hampshire, rented a place. I thought maybe I’d get away for a little while but it turns out I suck at getting away.”
“And all this?” Jonathan waved his arm toward the empty end tables and the patio that still held the empty planter where the rosebush had stood. The dead shrub was gone and the glass and ceramic had been swept away. “You want to tell me what spurred this little getaway of yours?”
Warrick lowered his face to his hands and scrubbed it. “Things were just getting a little too, uh, stressful here.”
“You mean you were getting too close to Sara here?”
Warrick’s eyebrows shot up. He didn’t know his uncle could be that intuitive. The man was a scientist through and through. Intuition never seemed to play a big part in his makeup. “Yeah, that.”
“Have you told her any of it?”
“Any of what?”
“Any of why you and Vicki fell apart?”
“No. I’m not sure I can answer that question for myself much less for somebody else. Besides, Sara has her own issues to work through. She doesn’t need to deal with my shit.”
The lines in Jonathan’s face deepened. “Did you tell her about the baby?”
Just hearing the word “baby” felt like a knife twisting into Warrick’s gut. He was stunned that it had come from his uncle. “You know about the baby?”
Jonathan nodded. “You talk about it sometimes on your binge nights.” His uncle had always seemed to be around when Warrick needed someone to get him into bed at the end of his anniversary nights. That’s what they call them, the anniversary nights. The anniversary of the night he let his family down. He had to wonder how much more Jonathan knew if he’d been talking when he was drunk. Did he know Warrick had let Vicki walk out even though he knew she was too high and wasted to drive?
