by Regan Black
Out of excuses and time, Lissa opened the bedroom door. Carson was standing at the window overlooking the street, the sunlight streaming around him. His back was to her, thankfully, so she had a moment to gather the thoughts that scattered at the sight of him in his dress clothes. The crisp white shirt highlighted his shoulders, tapering to his trim waist and the dark slacks skimming over his long, lean legs.
He had a presence that filled the small apartment, although aside from her fascination with him, she couldn’t point out a single thing as overwhelming. Yet having him here seemed to put everything off kilter. Not in a bad way, if she disregarded the circumstances, just a different way of seeing her space and her life.
She moved and he swiveled around, his hazel eyes pinning her in place. “Hungry?” he asked with an easy smile that made her heart ache. Maybe the overwhelming factor was his infinite patience with her. He had every right to snarl and snap at her, but that steady smile remained in place.
Today would surely drag his recent loss right back to the surface, and she felt terrible about not taking that into consideration when she’d begged him to stay last night. “You don’t have to go with me,” she blurted into the charged silence. “There will be plenty of people around, so I’ll be safe.”
His smile faded. “None of those people have an accurate description of the man you saw yesterday.”
She didn’t know what to do with her hands, and she fiddled with the tie on her skirt. “I don’t want this mess to be any harder on you than it has been.”
“I won’t panic again, Lissa,” he replied. “You can count on me.”
Her attention snapped to his face, caught the muscle jumping in his freshly shaved jaw. “That’s not what I meant.” She didn’t know how to articulate her thoughts. They were such a jumble.
One eyebrow lifted in challenge as he moved past her to the kitchen. “Let’s just eat,” he suggested.
She took the hint and dropped the subject. It wasn’t her place—they barely knew each other—to change the path he was walking to get over the loss of his best friend and partner. Her mouth watered as he pulled a tray of biscuits from the oven, along with a casserole filled with sausage gravy. “Whoa. My hero,” she whispered. “How did you manage this? I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t even smell it while you were cooking.”
“It was early,” he admitted, serving them both.
At the table, the hearty comfort food did wonders for her mood, and she didn’t feel quite as jittery. “I’ve stuffed my purse with tissues, and I’m hoping like crazy her parents aren’t expecting me to say anything at the service.”
“What you expect from yourself is more important today.”
“She was their daughter,” Lissa pointed out. “They’re wonderful people.”
He shrugged and dragged a bite of a golden biscuit through the last of his gravy. “Yes, and you being there will be a comfort to them, but don’t cheat yourself out of what you need in order to have closure and say goodbye.”
She knew he spoke from a much too recent experience. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
He studied her over the rim of his coffee cup. “You might also keep in mind,” he said, replacing the cup on the table, “grief changes people.”
She sensed a deeper warning, a cautious undertone that had nothing to do with his personal pain about Sarah. “You’re worried about me.”
“Yes, I am.”
“Because?”
“Yesterday, the roof, the attack on Friday are all enough factors to put anyone on guard.” He folded his arms at the edge of the table and leaned in. “Noelle’s parents may be the nicest people in the world, but they’ve lost a daughter, and you were the last one to see her alive.”
“And I haven’t even called them.”
“You weren’t in any condition to do so,” he reminded her. “And you’re still recovering. I don’t want you to feel pressured by them, the situation or anything else that might crop up.”
He meant her lost memories. She blotted her lips with the paper napkin and then balled it up in her fist, squeezing it tighter and tighter. “You don’t want me to go at all.”
“That isn’t true. I wish the circumstances were different. The service is important, but I want you to go in there, eyes wide open.”
“I promise.”
His warning followed her through the morning. No activity before they left the apartment distracted her enough to drown it out. Not even the shoes biting into her heels as they walked into the funeral home could keep that advice from swirling back to the front of her thoughts.
As they joined the receiving line before the service, Lissa stared at the closed casket and the beautiful pictures of Noelle enlarged for display. Her pulse tripped each time the line advanced, knowing she would soon face Dr. and Mrs. Anson, the couple who’d once offered her the simple gifts of acceptance and time her parents had never spared for her.
Suddenly the line cleared and she faced Noelle’s parents. She felt Carson at her side, his hand light and warm at her back. She could run if she wanted and he’d help her get away. If only she could take that last step and offer the Ansons a better answer than “My brain won’t let me remember who killed your daughter.” But her feet were rooted to the carpet, her nose about to burst from the fragrant assault of so many flowers. “I’m so sorry.”
Mrs. Anson inhaled sharply and shook her head, drawing Lissa into her arms. “Sweetheart. Oh, sweetheart. We’ve been worried about you.”
Over the older woman’s shoulder, Lissa saw Dr. Anson brush tears from his eyes as he came forward and joined the embrace. “You’ll sit with the family.” His tone left no room for debate.
As sniffles subsided, she reached for Carson’s hand. “This is Carson Lane. He took care of me...after.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. Anson covered his hand with both of hers. “We’ve been so worried for Lissa since the detective called.”
“She’s well?” Dr. Anson asked as if she wasn’t standing right there, in one piece, the last of the bruises hidden under her makeup. “No one would give me the name of her doctor or even the hospital,” he grumbled.
“We tried to call and it went to voice mail,” Mrs. Anson said.
“My phone and I got separated,” Lissa explained.
Carson smiled at her as he addressed the couple. “She’s recovering well. Just a short-term amnesia,” he explained.
She could’ve kissed him for leaving out the rest of the details of her arrival at the club. Noelle’s parents had more questions, but they’d stalled the line for long enough. “We’ll get out of the way,” Lissa said. She didn’t want them to have this discussion here, or anywhere, really. The Ansons would only be disappointed in her faulty memory. Dr. Anson moved with them at his wife’s nod. “You’ll fill us in later,” Dr. Anson said. He motioned them to take seats in the front row, reserved for immediate family. “Thank you both for being here. It is a comfort and a relief to both of us.”
“That went better than I expected,” Carson murmured, handing her a small order of service from the stack on the aisle seat.
“The Ansons are wonderful people.” Lissa was baffled by the warm reception. Could it really be that they didn’t blame her? She wished she and Carson had been allowed to sit further back, but she wouldn’t move even though it felt as if she was on display and everyone was staring at her.
“My apologies if I made you nervous about it,” Carson said.
“No.” She swallowed a fresh wave of tears as she watched the funeral director cut short the line to start the service. “It’s not that. You helped me be ready for anything. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, right?”
As the funeral director deftly prepared for the service to begin, Dr. and Mrs. Anson approached, holding hands, their smiles wobbling. Dr. Anson seated his wife next to Lis
sa, taking the aisle seat. Mrs. Anson surprised Lissa again by reaching for her hand.
Lissa tried to concentrate on the service, on the messages designed to celebrate Noelle’s life. Hemmed in by Carson on one side and Mrs. Anson on the other, she managed not to lose her composure entirely as a few of Noelle’s coworkers stood up to share special memories. It helped to keep reminding herself that her pain and heartache were merely a fraction of what the Ansons were coping with.
Finally they were standing for the last hymn. An organ played as the pallbearers came forward to guide the casket out. Her shoes irritated the blisters on her heels and pinched her toes, and Lissa was grateful for the trivial discomfort as she peered at the beautiful photos of her friend for the last time. As part of the family, she and Carson filed out with Dr. and Mrs. Anson behind the casket.
Noelle’s casket was loaded into the hearse and would be transported to her hometown, where her parents would endure more sympathy at one more service tomorrow before they could bury their daughter. The finality of it covered Lissa from head to toe, threatening to smother her. Her friend was gone and the killer free because she couldn’t remember anything helpful.
The sunlight felt too bright for the sorrow and waves of black-clad mourners pouring out of the funeral home. At the limo designated for family use, Carson’s protests were honored once he promised he would bring Lissa straight to the luncheon at a nearby restaurant.
“How can they bear it?” she murmured when they reached the privacy of Carson’s truck. “Why are they being so nice to me?”
“They seem to think of you as their own.”
It was a strange concept. “I love them, Carson. They were so kind to me and the example of the kind of family I want to create some day. More than anything, I want to be sure Noelle’s killer is brought to justice.”
“I understand.”
She turned at the hard edge in his voice, studying his profile. He did know exactly what she was going through. “Thanks for sticking it out with me.”
“I’m glad you could say goodbye here.”
“My boss would probably let me go to the interment tomorrow, but I don’t think I can.”
“Your decision.”
“I’m rambling again and you’re—” She broke off, startled when he veered out of the line of cars headed to the luncheon and circled back to the funeral home. “What is it?”
“The man who bumped into you yesterday was at the funeral. I spotted him as we left the chapel.”
“Really?” She’d completely forgotten to look for him. “I’m a horrible friend.”
“You’re grieving.” He rounded the block, the truck rocking a little on a sharp right turn. “One more reason for me to be here today.”
“What are you planning to do?”
“If we’re lucky, he hasn’t left yet and we can get some useful information from his car,” he said.
“Oh.” She was so far out of her element with all of this, overwhelmed by unceasing currents of emotion. She decided to stop being useless and studied the people milling about in the parking lot as Carson cruised through the center row. “I tried to put a name to his face last night or put his face into context, but only managed to keep myself awake.”
“I know what you mean.” Carson’s fingers drummed along the top of the steering wheel. “I was sure that Werner would’ve figured out the name that goes with that face by now. There!” He kept his hand under the dash as he pointed. “That’s him, right?”
She considered the man Carson pointed out. “Climbing into the blue sedan, yes.” She opened her purse to write down the plate number but found only tissues, a small tin of mints and the bulletin from the service. “Do you have a pen?”
“Glove box,” he replied. “What are the odds we can get a full ID on this guy?”
Lissa didn’t answer the rhetorical question as Carson cautiously trailed the blue sedan. She agreed completely with his decision. Noelle’s parents wouldn’t be happy if they missed lunch, but if this man was even remotely related to Friday’s trouble, Lissa wanted to know sooner rather than later, so the Anson family could have peace.
* * *
Carson remained several car lengths behind the sedan as it headed for the west side. He’d expected the driver to aim for the Penn campus, where the crime on Friday had likely started. Assumptions like that one made it clear why he was a paramedic and not a cop. He leaped to conclusions without enough evidence and let his opinion cloud his judgment.
“Where does Dr. Anson practice?” he asked Lissa.
“He’s a surgeon in Allentown. Well respected.”
“Have you always been afraid of hospitals?” He kept his eyes on the blue sedan as he waited for her answer.
“No. My recent resistance must be related to where and how those men came after us. I don’t recall any other reasons to detest hospitals or doctors.”
She believed that by now, if Dr. Anson had been any cause of that, she would have remembered it along with her other memories of Noelle’s family. “How do you think this man is connected? Assuming he’s connected.”
Carson shifted in his seat, the suit jacket bunching behind him. “He must have known Noelle or the family somehow. He appeared to be alone at the service. He left alone.”
“Are we going to follow him all day?”
Carson wanted to say yes and knew it was the wrong answer. He’d been hung up on resolving this since Werner had mentioned the matching bullets. He couldn’t bear the idea that Noelle would be targeted by a violent gang that had successfully avoided prosecution too many times to count.
“No.” He goosed the gas pedal. “I’ll get close enough to read the license plate, and then we can head back to your place or the luncheon. Though I’d vote for your place. I want to get out of this suit.”
“Me, too.” She laughed. “I mean, I want out of my funeral clothes, too.”
“Got it.” Though now that image was dancing in his head. He couldn’t deny the sparks that went off under his skin when she’d caught him in the towel, but this was the wrong time.
Carson accelerated a little more, and Lissa wrote the plate number on her hand and then called and left a message for the detective. Carson eased back again and took the next available exit from the expressway.
“They’re expecting us at the luncheon,” Lissa reminded him. “As much as I’d rather skip it, I feel obligated to show up.”
“We can do that.” He navigated the exit ramp and the lights, pulling back onto the expressway and heading to the luncheon. “We should probably brainstorm some excuses for being late.”
They tossed around a few ideas on the way but didn’t have a chance to use them. Carson’s phone rang, and when he answered, Grant’s voice filled the car. “Is Lissa still with you?”
“Yes.”
“Right here,” she said. “What’s happened?”
“The team watching the house saw a woman dressed in black go into your apartment a few minutes ago. Now there’s smoke pouring out of the kitchen window.”
Lissa clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes hot with temper.
“I was sure you hadn’t dropped her off,” Grant said.
“Not a chance,” Carson confirmed. He reached over and clasped her free hand. “How bad is the fire?”
“Small and nearly out. The man on-site called it in immediately. PFD is on scene. I get the impression it’s not a total loss.”
“We’re on our way,” Carson said.
He slid his fingers up, cuffed her wrist and felt her pulse going haywire under his fingertips. “Not a total loss,” he reminded her, a little worried now that she’d stopped speaking.
“Right,” she agreed. “I’m okay.” She picked up his phone from the console and searched for the restaurant’s number from the navigation app
he had open. “I’ll call the restaurant and ask them to give the Ansons a message.”
He listened to her fib about tire trouble. “Well done.”
She pushed a hand through her hair, dislodging the combs holding the long tresses up off her neck. “I’ll call them once I know they’re home tonight,” she said as she struggled to fix her hair.
When she gave up and just shook out that mass of sable silk, he was grateful for the distraction of keeping the truck on the road, in his lane. Down, boy. In almost any other situation, he could have given in to the sensual allure. And destroyed her trust in him. He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Carson.”
He shot her a look when her voice cracked on his name. Had she figured out where his mind had gone? “What?”
“I just realized the killer must have gone through Noelle’s apartment.” She broke off on a sputter of fury. “I should’ve gone there first.”
“You were incapacitated, Lissa. The police would have done that by now.”
“It doesn’t matter. I have to figure out what happened.” She sucked in a quick breath when he made the turn and she saw the collection of emergency vehicles outside her house. “I can’t take this.” She curled forward as far as the seat belt allowed and cradled her head in her hands. “I have to remember all of it.”
Whatever memory or misplaced guilt had set her off, the curses were flowing in earnest. Better than tears, he hoped, parking as close to her place as he could manage. He hurried around to her side of the truck and opened her door, drawing her into his arms.
She pounded her fists to his chest, then just wrapped herself around him. The woman was a wreck, and he was helpless against the natural progression of grief compounded by the continued violence aimed at her. While he’d been through something equally traumatizing eight months ago, the men who’d robbed the ambulance and killed Sarah had disappeared. Whatever Lissa had witnessed, they were determined to cause her as much grief as possible before they finished her off.
