by Lori Ryan
The fluttering he always caused in her stomach had come back, too, and she felt it now as she reached for the door.
“Hello, detective.” The fluttering kicked up a notch, but with it came a sense of unease. Like she was missing something. There was something tickling the back of her memory.
“May I come in, Carrie?” The formal question struck her as odd, but it shouldn’t. Of course he should ask if he could come in.
“Yes, do you have more questions?” Carrie turned and shut the door after letting him in. “Come in.” She walked into her living room and stopped in front of the couch.
She stared at it.
She could sense the detective—No, Jarrod…he was Jarrod to her, she remembered now—standing behind her as images of another couch flashed through her mind. Of Jarrod kissing her, touching her. His hands in her hair, her arms around him. Clothes coming off.
Carrie took a breath and held it, feeling herself stiffen as the memories came back. Then the most mortifying one of all. The look on his face afterward. The regret. The look that told her he wanted to take it back.
“Whatever you’re thinking, Carrie, don’t. Just, listen to me.” He came around in front of her, hands out as though he could ward off her thoughts and memories. “Please.”
Now he took hold of her hands and led her to the couch. Carrie didn’t know what to say or do. She could remember how she’d felt when they’d had sex. Yes, the sex had been incredible. But even more so, the excitement she’d felt at believing they were both feeling the same thing. That maybe while she’d been falling for him, he’d been falling right along with her. She’d been walking on air. Until she looked at his face. Then, it had all felt humiliating and foolish.
He still held her hands now, and when she tried to pull back, he gripped them. Softly, but firmly. “Carrie, please listen to me. Let me explain.”
She watched his face, his eyes. “All right,” she said quietly, giving up on getting her hands back.
“I was such an idiot.” He shook his head and she couldn’t read him. Didn’t understand where he was headed. She’d been the idiot. That much she knew.
She didn’t say anything and he went on. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I first laid eyes on you, and that’s been screwing with my head. There are a million reasons we shouldn’t be together. We come from really different backgrounds. My family…” He stopped and shook his head. “It’s not pretty. My dad took off when I was a kid, my brother’s a mess. And I can’t afford to buy you squat on the salary I make. Not like you’re used to anyway. But that’s only the start of it. You were a witness, a suspect in a case I’m on. I can’t be involved with a suspect. I should have run fast and far away from you.”
She looked away, but he put out a hand and gently moved her face back to his. “I should have, but couldn’t. I haven’t felt for any woman the way I feel for you.” A pause. “Ever. You make me laugh when I’m not in the mood to laugh. You’re kind to everyone around you, without exception or judgment. And you care about people, care about whether everyone is taken care of. I love that about you.”
She should say something. She knew that. She just didn’t have words. She felt that tiny flicker of excitement build again in her chest, but she kept waiting for the big “but” at the end of his talk. For him to say, “but now I don’t want that,” or, "but we can’t be together.”
He took a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t care if it costs me my career. I’ll find something else to do. And I don’t care if your parents think I’m a poor dumb cop who isn’t good enough for you. I want to be with you.” He gripped her hand a little tighter, squeezing. “When I thought I’d lost you, I lost my mind. It gutted me, Carrie. When I found you and saw you in that fire, but couldn’t get you out of there…I’ve never felt that kind of terror.”
Memories of the fire began to fly at Carrie, but she stayed calm. She was okay, she realized. He was next to her, just the way he’d been there during the fire. She remembered what she’d felt when he found her in the lab. She’d felt such relief he’d found her, but that had quickly turned to dread. Tyvek had locked her to that chair. She was chained tight and all she could think was that Jarrod would get himself killed if he tried to save her.
“You got me out,” she whispered.
He nodded and ran his hand down her cheek, caressing her. She was amazed at how gentle he could be with her. She thought of him as this big testosterone-packed cop ready to take on the world, but he had such sweet gentleness in him, too.
“I never thanked you,” she said and watched a heat flare in his eyes at the words. Her body responded to that heat, even though she hadn’t intended the response. Her body seemed to do a lot around him that wasn’t in her control.
“I’m probably not going to be very good at this.”
She begged to differ. “I’ll bet you’re going to be fantastic at it,” she said, her eyes traveling down his body as she thought of taking off his clothes. How was it that she’d gone from feeling fragile and unsure moments before to…this. This passion that took over her thoughts.
He tipped back his head and laughed. “That I’ll be good at. I have no problems there.” He brought his gaze to hers again and sobered. “I meant the relationship thing. I’m most likely going to suck at that. I’m a cop. And I don’t express my feelings all that well. I work like a dog. An overworked dog.”
Now it was her turn to run a hand down his cheek. “I have a feeling you’ll surprise yourself.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” And she meant it. Even if he didn’t always tell her how he felt, she knew he’d make her feel it. That much he’d show her in a million little ways. She was okay with that.
She grabbed on to what he’d said a moment before. “Why do you think my parents won’t like you?”
He glanced away, but looked back quickly. “I don’t have money, Carrie. Well, not much, anyway. I have a little savings, and I own a small house, but there isn’t a whole lot left over at the end of the month.”
Now it was her turn to laugh. “They won’t care. My mom had nothing when she married my dad. His parents threatened to disown him if they got married. They didn’t care. They got engaged and then waited. They were engaged for four years.” She smiled and took his hand. “It took that long for his parents to get to know her and realize she wasn’t with him for the money. She loved him.”
“So, we’ll have to be engaged for four years?” A mock look of shock played across his face.
She swatted him on the arm. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. You can have a date.”
“One date?”
“Maybe two. We’ll see.” She batted her eyelashes playfully, then sobered. “This is going to sound all kinds of wrong coming from a woman my age, but my parents will be back soon.”
A bark of laughter was his response.
“I know. It’s so wrong, but they’re not going to let me have a whole lot of privacy for a while.”
“I’ll tell you what else is wrong,” he said as he tugged her closer and nuzzled her neck. “There’s too much space between us right now.” He pulled again, pressing her even closer.
“Mmmm.” She breathed out as her body seemed to fit to his in a perfect match.
The sound of the wall phone in her kitchen pulled her out of the daze he’d so swiftly wrapped her in.
“Ignore it,” He said.
She laughed. “I can’t do that. That phone means someone’s in the lobby, and that could only be my parents. If I don’t answer, they’ll have your whole department here in five minutes.”
Jarrod jumped up at that. “Not good. Can’t have those guys seeing you. They’re a bunch of pigs. They’ll try to steal you away from me.”
She laughed harder as she stood and went to the kitchen. His teasing felt good, normal. Nothing about her world had been normal lately.
“Yes, send them up, please,” she said into the phone, grateful the concierge had thought to call up before let
ting her parents in.
Jarrod came up from behind and wrapped his arms around her, kissing the side of her head. It was the kind of gesture that made her smile at his softness, even as her hands closed on an arm that was most decidedly not soft.
They walked to the door together and she opened it to reveal her parents, her father’s hand raised to knock.
Jarrod grinned and put out his hand to greet her dad. “She remembered me,” he said and Carrie laughed out loud at the relief in his voice.
“Apparently,” her mother said, but there was approval and humor in her tone.
Carried looked from her parents to Jarrod and back. “What did I miss?”
Her mom walked in and slipped an arm through hers. “This young man was in the hospital the whole time you were out, waiting not-so-patiently for you to wake up. Your dad and I knew there was something special there.”
Carrie looked over to Jarrod, who simply shrugged. She felt her eyes burn, but it wasn’t from the smoke damage this time. It was tears threatening as her mother’s words sunk in. He’d waited for her to wake up. He’d been in the hospital with her.
Her dad spoke up. “Since you’re here, Jarrod, do you have any updates on the case?”
Quiet settled on the group as Jarrod shook his head. “Not a lot, but I can fill you in on where we are.”
It took a few moments for Carrie to serve drinks for everyone before they sat to hear the news of the case. Carrie was jittery throughout all of it. Bits and pieces of memory began filtering through the haze in her head again, and her mom had to take over pouring the iced tea at one point when her hands started to shake.
Jarrod took her hand and sat beside her on a loveseat in the living room, squeezing it reassuringly. Her parents sat in wing chairs and focused all their attention on Jarrod.
“We don’t have any leads on William Tyvek’s location. He’s vanished, which isn’t surprising given the resources he has at his disposal. Even with his money, though, we’d expect to find a record of a plane flight or something. Anything.”
“There’s nothing?” Carrie’s father asked, leaning forward.
“No. No one’s seen him since he fled during the fire.”
“Wait,” Carrie looked to Jarrod. “You saw him during the fire?”
“Yes. He came back when I was trying to get you out of there. He tossed the keys for the locks at me and told me to get you out.”
They were all quiet for a moment. Carrie frowned, grasping at the threads of memories and pulling them close as they knit together to form a scene. “I talked to him. I talked to him the whole time about Victoria and everything I could remember doing with her when we were growing up. It was all I could think to do. I thought if I personalized things, he wouldn’t be able to hurt me.”
“That was smart. It’s probably what made him come back.” Jarrod lifted her hand and kissed the spot where their fingers intertwined.
Carrie’s mom was silent, but she wiped at tears on her cheeks and Carrie felt awful for making her mom listen to the memories of that terrifying day. She rubbed at her forehead as she remembered more and more of what had taken place in the lab.
“He didn’t seem like he wanted to hurt me. I don’t know, really, what made me think that, but it was the sense I got. Like he was struggling with it. He was talking to himself the whole time, almost arguing with himself, but I couldn’t make sense of much of it.”
Jarrod rubbed her hands between his own. “We think he was targeting Warrick Staunton. That all of this was an elaborate setup to frame Warrick.”
Carrie sucked in a breath. “He said something about leaving me there so that they’d have to arrest Warrick.” She remembered the moment Tyvek pulled the gun on her. “He came to my office to ask about the investigation.” She laughed. “Oh, I was so blind. I didn’t see what he was doing, so I tried to reassure him that you didn’t really think Warrick was behind things. I thought I was setting him at ease as a donor. But he was livid.”
“How did he convince you to leave with him?” Jarrod’s question contained no judgment or censure.
“The clinic. He said he would walk into the clinic and start shooting if I didn’t go with him.” Carrie knew she probably had to go with Jarrod to the station to make an official statement now that the memory was back, but she was grateful for the chance to relive this with him and her parents first. It made it easier being there, rather than in some cold interrogation room. “I thought I would run when he stopped at a light, but he chained me into the car.” A chill ran through, physically rocking her body. “I didn’t have any chance to run, and he seemed so…insane. Like he’d had a complete break with reality.
“Can you think of anything he said? Did you make out any of it?” Jarrod asked.
Another piece clicked into place as the memories became whole. “Victoria’s journal. He said he found her journal and he blames Warrick for her death.”
“Oh, that’s awful,” Carrie’s mom said. “Warrick loved that girl with all his heart.”
Jarrod turned. “You guys knew Victoria growing up right?”
“Yes.” Her mom nodded. “Vicki was a sweet girl, but she had problems. I don’t know if she was ever officially diagnosed with a mental illness, but everyone other than William could see she needed more help than he was getting her.”
“He said she saw a doctor,” Carrie said.
Her mom nodded. “She did, but only for a few months after her mom died. I always got the sense her dad was okay with that because it was expected to need trauma counseling after something like that. But having her see someone long term? Getting her on medication, if that’s what she needed? That wasn’t okay.”
Her dad chimed in. “It wasn’t done. I was surprised when he sent her to rehab. I always suspected he wasn’t given a choice in that matter. I don’t know for sure, but she’d had some run-ins with the police, and I think he had to accept rehab as part of a deal.”
“I can see if there’s a juvenile record,” Jarrod said. “Did Tyvek say what Victoria’s journal said to make him blame Warrick for her death?”
“They were trying to have children. I guess she wanted to adopt and Warrick didn’t want to,” Carrie said.
“Warrick told me about that,” Jarrod said. “I’m pretty sure we won’t know any more until Tyvek’s caught, though. Right now, too much of this is a guess.”
“And there’s no sign of him anywhere?” Carrie’s mom sounded strained as she asked the question.
“No. We’re interviewing the people he worked with and people he was close with. We talked to Edward Ball.”
“They were close,” Carrie’s dad put in.
“According to Edward, their friendship had been unraveling lately, but he claims he never saw this coming. I think that’s how most of the people around Tyvek are feeling. From what we can piece together, Jonathan Simms called Tyvek when Staunton cut his funding for his heart drug. He spoke with Tyvek and showed him some of the research. Enough that Tyvek knew how to make the drug. Alan Sykes was fired from Simms Pharmaceutical soon after that, and Tyvek jumped on him. We believe Sykes was making the drug at the old Simms Pharmaceutical lab and they’d convinced Dr. Coleman to administer the testing.”
“Do you think Carrie is still in danger?” Carrie’s mom asked the question they’d most likely all been thinking.
“I don’t think so, but I’ll be close by her for the foreseeable future. I’m not willing to take chances.” Jarrod looked at Carrie with a look that told her how he was feeling. Her heart skipped a few beats.
“What if there were other people working with Tyvek? Or he comes after her again?” Carrie’s mom asked.
Carrie understood the fear, but she had a feeling Jarrod was right. She felt like her part in this had been a last desperate plan for Tyvek. He’d abandoned that plan when he came back to bring Jarrod the keys to get her out of the fire.
Jarrod sounded confident when he answered and his calmness helped Carrie feel safer. “I do
n’t think there are. We’re going to keep digging, or course, and we’re going to find him and bring him in, but there’s no evidence he has more people out there in this. If he did, they’d have no motivation to come after Carrie. She doesn’t know anything and isn’t involved. My guess is that Tyvek saw grabbing Carrie as a last ditch effort to frame Warrick. In his warped mind, if he could make it look like Warrick had killed Carrie out at the old lab, the police would have to believe all the evidence he’d stacked up against Warrick. When Carrie talked to him about her childhood memories with Vicki, I think she got through to him on some level. He no longer has a reason to go after her. He’s either going to run or he’s going to go after Warrick, but he won’t go after Carrie again.”
“Poor Warrick.” Carrie’s mom shook her head. “That man has been through so much. He’s buried himself in the business since Vicki died, and I bet the company is going to take a hit from this.”
Jarrod nodded. “I wish I could say you were wrong about that. We tried to get around getting a warrant so none of this would go public, but we had no choice in the end. Sadly, I think public opinion won’t remember that Simms Pharmaceutical wasn’t guilty in the end. What they’ll remember is that a Simms drug was used to kill a lot of people. One of the papers managed to dig up information about the initial FDA trial on the drug.”
“So Tyvek managed to succeed after all? He may very well have ruined Warrick?” Carrie asked, feeling anger build in her.
“I don’t think we’ll know for sure for a while, unfortunately. I think we’re in a wait and see pattern there, but for now, my focus will be on getting Tyvek off the streets. He’s unstable and dangerous.”
Carrie nodded, her thoughts going back to the man who’d locked her to that chair. He hadn’t looked or sounded at all like the man she’d grown up knowing. Whatever had caused it, William Tyvek was forever broken.
Chapter 33
Four dates later, Carrie knew she didn’t want to wait four years to start a life with Jarrod. He’d seen how he was with his mom, and with his nephew. He might not have money, and his dad might have left them early in his life, but family was everything to Jarrod. She could see that.
