by Lori Ryan
And then he was inside of her. Oh Lord, it was perfect. Deep inside her again and again, leaning back so he could fit a hand between them to continue the maddening pressure on her most sensitive spot. She clawed at him trying to hold him tighter to her, wanting more. It was too much and not enough all at once. It was everything she wanted, yet she knew there would never be enough of him.
Then there was no more being quiet. The cry that escaped her wasn’t something she could have held back. She felt him tense with his orgasm, following on hers, and then he lay still on top of her as they both waited for their breathing to slow.
Chapter 16
Jarrod pushed off Carrie, as the enormity of what he’d just done hit him. He’d done some stupid things in his life, but most of those had been as a teen. As an adult, this had to take top marks.
Curses continued to come under his breath, as he went to the bathroom and took care of the condom. He leaned his arms on the counter and stared into the mirror. The biggest asshole on the planet stared back at him.
When he got back to the living room, she was sitting up on the couch, already dressed. He didn’t blame her. She was slipping her feet back into her shoes. If he had to guess, he’d say she would have taken off before he got back if she’d been able to dress any faster.
“Carrie, I’m sorry.” He was such an ass. In twenty minutes, he’d managed to do the unthinkable. He’d given in to the urge to be with her and risked everything—his career, the successful prosecution of this case—to be with her.
“No, I get it.” She didn’t look at him and that dismissive air he’d seen women use as a protective mechanism rolled off her in waves. He’d never cared much when other women used it on him. With her, he cared. All too much. “You don’t need to explain anything, Jarrod. We can’t be together.”
“I just…Carrie. It’s just that,” he struggled for some way to explain what he was thinking, but the truth was, he didn’t know what he was thinking. Honestly, his brain was in meltdown. He wanted nothing but to be with this woman. Nothing more than to go to bed and make love to her over and over and over again. He wanted to ignore that there were a million reasons he couldn’t be with her. He wanted to bury himself so deep in her, to make her come so many times, she could no longer tell where he ended and she began. The urge was almost primal in nature.
Why did the one woman he needed to stay away from have to be the one woman he was attracted to heart, body, and soul in a way he’d never been before. And there was no doubt he had to stay away from her.
Only he hadn’t, and because of that his self-loathing couldn’t get any deeper.
He hated himself for being weak enough to start this, weak enough not to walk away when it had become clear he couldn’t resist her. He hated himself for making such a complete mess of everything. For screwing up this whole case. But now she was standing there looking at him like she wanted nothing to do with him. Like she wanted out of there.
“I have to go.” She didn’t wait for an answer, which was good because he didn’t have one. She grabbed her purse and slipped out the door.
Well, hell.
Chapter 17
Warrick Staunton and Jonathan Simms had brought two lawyers apiece with them. The friendly chat of yesterday was gone.
They’d shown the two men and their lawyers into separate interrogation rooms, and Jarrod and Cal stood by their desks huddling for some last minute preparations.
“Detectives.” The men turned to see Stephanie Kass walking toward them.
Stephanie was the head of computer forensics with the department. She looked like she’d been up all night, and Jarrod had a feeling she had. She’d been tasked with going through Warrick Staunton’s computer. One of the other technicians was handling Jonathan Simms’ computer.
“Got anything for us?” Jarrod had hoped for an update from her before they began questioning the two men.
A smile crossed her face and he knew she had something. “I sure do.” Stephanie was brilliant with computers. “Warrick Staunton was getting routine email reports from Dr. Coleman on the testing down at the clinic.” She handed him a stack of papers and he and Cal immediately began rifling through them, scanning the emails.
“Are you shitting me?” Cal looked as stunned as Jarrod did.
“Nope.” Stephanie might look tired but she was smiling. She knew she had just cracked their case wide open.
“I want to see Warrick Staunton try to explain this way,” Cal said.
Jarrod read through some of the emails. Sure enough, they showed Warrick Staunton not only opening the emails he was receiving from Dr. Coleman, but responding to them.
So much for Jarrod’s defense of the guy. He was pissed. “Who do we talk to first?”
“Let’s warm up on Simms before we hit Staunton. I have a feeling Simms will be the easier of the two to crack.” Cal headed toward the interrogation room.
Jarrod followed behind. He was willing to let Cal take the lead on things for right now. Considering what he’d just seen, he’d rather trust his partner than himself.
Jarrod and Cal both knew Jonathan Simms wasn’t telling them everything. And right now, it was more clear than ever. He rubbed his hands across his pant legs over and over, like he was trying to wipe them dry.
“Mr. Simms, you need to come clean with whatever it is going on here. We’ve got a lot of evidence stacking up. A lot of it.” Cal leaned over the table looking Simms directly in the eye, which wasn’t easy since the man was doing all he could to avoid eye contact.
“Take a step back, detective,” one of the lawyers—the older one—suggested firmly.
Cal laughed and didn’t move. Jarrod knew his partner was familiar with lawyers. He dealt with them a lot, and he wasn’t about to let one of them push him around in his interrogation room.
Jonathan Simms raised a hand to his forehead and began to rub it. Again. The man would be horrible at poker.
The other attorney spoke up now. “Why don’t you share some of this evidence you have piling up, and we’ll see whether we’re going to sit here for this questioning much longer.”
Identical smiles spread wide across the faces of both detectives and Jarrod noticed some of the lawyers’ confidence fade.
Cal grabbed one of the chairs, swung it backwards and straddled it, his arms hanging loosely over the seat back. Jarrod stayed put where he was, leaning against one wall. His job right now was backing up his partner and observing the body language of everyone in the room. There would be a video of course that they could run later, but first impressions usually gave them a ton of information. Assuming he could trust his impressions at all.
“Well, for starters, we have Alan Sykes visiting the clinic multiple times over the course of the last seven months.”
“He doesn’t work for us anymore.” Jonathan sat up and waved an arm as if to emphasize his point. “He was fired. He had to be escorted from the building because he was trashing my lab.”
Cal nodded, not making any response to the man’s movements. “We saw that. There’s a police report on file and everything. You see the problem is, he represented himself as working for you, and he still had a Simms Pharmaceutical badge to show everyone when he visited the clinic.”
Cal looked over at Jarrod. “My partner and I have a hard time believing that you wouldn’t have made sure he didn’t have Simms Pharmaceutical ID if he was no longer working for you.”
“You have the Simms Pharmaceutical identification, gentlemen?” The lawyer’s smug question dug at Jarrod a bit. They didn’t have it. It hadn’t shown up in Sykes’ apartment or his car so far. There was no sign of it up at the cabin where they found his body, either.
Cal didn’t miss a beat. He shrugged off the question. “It’ll turn up. We have a lot more than that though. We’ve got Simms Pharmaceutical’s drug in the bodies of several of the victims. Not quite as easy to explain away, is it? Any idea how that got there, Mr. Simms?”
Jarrod added his two c
ents. “You said yesterday the drug was all destroyed when the trial ended. Problem is, the only thing we have to verify that are forms signed by you. Well, now I take that back. You and Mr. Sykes, who’s now dead.” Jarrod didn’t change his casual posture, still leaning one shoulder against the wall.
“The drug was destroyed.” Simms had now clenched his hands together and pressed them into the table, as if this would somehow make what he was saying evident to the detective. “At the time, Sykes was working in my lab with me. He was one of my main technicians. He and I destroyed the medication together and documented each batch as we did it. I can’t do anything other than give you the forms, but the forms are genuine.”
Everything Simms was saying sounded good, but his eyes kept shifting.
“Have you seen this?” Cal asked, opening the folder next to him and turning the pages so that Simms could see them. The lawyer closest to Simms leaned in and began to skim the pages.
“Where did you get these from?”
“From Warrick Staunton’s laptop. Don’t worry, they were legally obtained with the warrant we executed yesterday.” Cal turned his attention to Simms, ignoring the attorney for the time being. “Did you know your nephew was communicating with Dr. Coleman about the testing?”
Simms leaned in and skimmed the pages, shaking his head and muttering as he did so. “No, this isn’t right. This isn’t right. You’ve got this wrong.”
Cal glanced at Jarrod. “Tell me how I’ve got it wrong.”
The attorney placed a hand on Simms’ arm. “We should talk first.”
“While you’re talking, be sure to discuss how Alan Sykes’ body showed up in your nephew’s cabin.” Jarrod watched intently for the reaction. The shock on Simms’ face told him what he wanted to know. He’d talked to the state investigators earlier. They’d gone to see Warrick Staunton shortly after he and Cal had served their warrant to let him know about the discovery. He hadn’t shared the news with Jonathan.
“He didn’t tell you? I’m surprised.” Cal chimed in.
“We didn’t see each other after you left last night. I was…” He broke off and ran a hand through his hair. Again. At this rate, the man wasn’t going to have much left.
“You were what, Mr. Simms?” Jarrod leaned in, using the weight of his stare to pressure the weakening man.
He looked miserable as he answered, speaking more to the table, than anyone in the room. “I was drinking. I didn’t answer my phone, and he and I didn’t have much time to talk this morning.”
“Detective,” the lawyer said, laying her hand on Jonathan’s arm once again. “I really must insist you let me speak to my client privately for a moment.”
“No, I’m not going to let this happen.” Jonathan shook off the attorney’s arm and faced Cal and Jarrod head on. “Warrick had nothing to do with this. Simms Pharmaceutical had nothing to do with this. It was my fault.”
“Okay, why don’t you tell us what happened from the beginning.” Jarrod came and walked toward the second chair next to Cal, and sat. “Tell us the whole story, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Chapter 18
“Tell me about your relationship with your father-in-law.” Warrick Staunton and the two lawyers looked up at Jarrod’s words, likely surprised he hadn’t even bothered to say hello when he walked into the room.
Jarrod no longer felt uncertain. His gut had been screaming at him this entire case, but his feelings for Carrie had gotten in the way. His feelings for Carrie had made him doubt his ability to look at the evidence in the case and see what was really happening. Now, he knew exactly what was going on. He just had to figure out how to prove it.
“I’m sorry?” Warrick looked between Jarrod and Cal.
“Your father-in-law, William Tyvek. Tell me about him. Tell me about your relationship since his daughter died.” Jarrod saw the small flicker of pain on Staunton’s face, but he wasn’t worried about that right now.
Warrick let out a breath. “We don’t have a relationship. We barely had one when she was alive, and after she died, well…There wasn’t any reason for us to see each other anymore.”
“I thought you see each other all the time. You both attended the gala,” Jarrod pointed out.
“Yeah, we see each other at things like that, and sometimes at industry conventions. But we don’t talk to each other.” He shook his head. “Honestly, it’s painful for both of us. It’s just a gaping reminder of how we failed Victoria.”
“Tell me what you mean by that.” Jarrod and Cal each took a seat and the lawyers watched cautiously, clearly wondering what was going on.
“Victoria was… searching. Always searching. The entire time I knew her, she wanted… Hell, I don’t even know. If I’d known, she would probably be alive today. Somehow, life wasn’t enough for her.” He laughed, but it was bitter, not a laugh of mirth. “I don’t mean that she never had enough. It wasn’t a material thing. There was this hole in Victoria, no matter how much she was loved by the people around her, it just wasn’t enough.”
Jarrod hadn’t expected to hear so much pain coming from the man. Even though Staunton had been cooperative the day before, Jarrod had still seen him as a corporate executive. Maybe a corporate executive who was better than a lot of the others he’d met, who cared about his employees, and seemed to take pride in the work he did, but a corporate executive nonetheless.
That wasn’t who he saw in front of them right now. This was a man who still mourned the loss of his wife years after her death.
“Her father and I both tried to fill that void for her. We both failed.”
“So, what,” Cal asked, “the two of you never talk anymore? Tyvek and you?”
Warrick shook his head. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary, which it rarely is.”
“Why all the questions about William Tyvek?” One of the lawyers asked.
Cal ignored the question. “Do you think Tyvek blamed you for his daughter’s death?”
Warrick looked like he’d been slapped in the face. When he spoke, it sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth. “I blamed myself for her death. So, yes, I would guess he did, too.”
“Why is that? Why did you blame yourself?” Jarrod asked.
Staunton looked away, and Jarrod had a feeling this was hard for him to talk about. Like maybe he hadn’t voiced any of these thoughts to anyone. It was strange, but Jarrod suddenly had the sense that Warrick Staunton was probably a very lonely man. He knew in many ways his friend Jack Sutton had been this way before he met Kelly, his wife. But Jack had at least had his best friend and his cousin running his company with him. He had good friends. Jarrod wondered if Staunton had any of that.
“Victoria and I grew up together.” Jarrod had known this from his talks with Carrie, so it didn’t come as a surprise. But he was surprised to hear Staunton talking about it. “I think I loved her from about the time we were fourteen, maybe fifteen.”
Staunton was quiet for a moment, staring at the table blankly before he looked up, almost looking surprised to see others with him in the room. “She drank a lot when we were in high school. Did some drugs. She spent a little time in a rehab center. It was something her dad managed to hide from most people, but I knew.”
There was a heavy weight in the room as the man talked about something so completely personal. It wasn’t the normal type of thing you got during interrogation. “By the time we went to college she’d cleaned up. We got married, and I really thought things were good for a while. But there was always that hole.” Staunton shook his head but kept on talking, like once he started he was unable to stop the story. “We had trouble getting pregnant. She wanted to try adoption when the fertility treatments failed. I told her I didn’t want to. I don’t know why I didn’t, but I just wasn’t ready to give up on having our own baby. I was so stupid, you know?” He looked up at Jarrod.
Jarrod cleared his throat. “What happened then?”
“She started to drink again. And then the pills
started. By the time I told her I was happy to adopt, to do whatever we needed to do to have a baby, to give her the child she wanted—I knew she was addicted again, but I didn’t know how to fix it. I didn’t know how to make everything better for her. How to fill that damned hole that was always there.”
“What happened the night she died?” Cal asked.
“We fought. Which was nothing new, but most of the time I hid her keys or wrestled them away from her when she tried to storm out wasted. That night, I didn’t have the energy. I let her walk out. I knew she was going to drive, but I let her walk out anyway.”
The room was quiet. This wasn’t anything they would arrest him for, but it still felt like a confession.
“And you think William Tyvek felt the same way you do? That it was your fault?” Jarrod brought them back around to the topic of Tyvek.
Warrick shrugged. “He might. Like I said, we don’t talk. Even when he’s at the house, I do all I can to avoid him.”
Jarrod sat forward. “What do you mean when he goes to the house? I thought you didn’t see each other?”
“We don’t. He comes by when I’m not there, but sometimes I come home halfway through one of his visits. Victoria had a rose garden that she loved. She didn’t let our gardener in there. It was the one thing she did by herself in the yard. He either sits out there, or sometimes he comes in the house and sits in her library. I guess it’s his way of being close to her again. As much as William Tyvek is a cutthroat businessman, he loved his daughter. Very much.”
“So he has access to your home?”
“Yeah, sure. He has a key and the alarm code. At first I just never thought to change it after Victoria died. I mean, why would I? And then when he started coming over, it just seemed like it would be cruel to ask him to stop or to change the locks.”
Jarrod could practically feel Cal buzzing beside him as he put the pieces together the same way Jarrod was. If they were right. It was still possible they weren’t.
