“Like the concrete and I had a really bad first date. But…I’ll live. All good. The cast is mostly dry, at least. How long am I in this one?” She held up the air splint, almost like a barrier between them.
“A week or so. You need to wear the sling on the cast, though. Above heart level.” He frowned. A woman in two casts with bruises everywhere was going to stand out. They were going to have to keep her hidden for a while. “You do have a concussion, but Rafe and Nikkie Jean believe it’s a mild one, at least. Should fade to a mild headache by tomorrow morning, I’d say.”
“My head hurts, but not as much as the arm. I was most likely out of it thanks to the sedative. That stuff always knocks me for a real loop. Sorry about that. I’m sure I wasn’t much help as a drooling mass of potato with legs.”
“You didn’t need to be. I had things under control. You have people who were doing the best possible things they could to make sure you stay safe.”
She stared at him for a long moment, dressed in his old sweatshirt he’d always kept in his trunk for when he needed it and pale-pink scrubs that were borrowed from Rafe’s wife’s locker. “Well, what do we do now?”
“Easy. We survive.”
“I didn’t realize you were this melodramatic.”
Allen smiled at her. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Izadora the First. Now’s your chance to find out what.”
59
Jennifer liked to hold his hand, but only when Reggie slept. He wouldn’t tolerate it otherwise. Not her big, strong, masculine son. She’d loved to hold his hand when he’d been a boy. He was a dream child. He always had been.
Jennifer should have seen through Dennis Lee. Should have known how corrupted that sonofabitch was.
Hell, Jennifer had. She’d known and enjoyed it. She never would have expected him to turn on her like he had. To take her Reggie, her son, from her like this. Her son had once been strong, fit, muscled. Healthy. He was a pale shadow of himself, hooked up to machines. Half as many as the week before, but…he hadn’t deserved this.
Someone knocked on the doorjamb softly. She turned.
Kyle stood there. Kyle—he was all she had left besides her son. He’d been her assistant for the last ten years.
Her lover since the night he’d turned twenty-one—eleven years ago.
Not all the time. Just on occasion. He’d been there for her now. He’d found him. He’d found Reggie and gotten him the help he needed.
She’d always love him for that.
“It’s time, Jen.”
She stood. “I’m…ready.”
There was yet another meeting with the attorney today. For Wallace. She hadn’t wanted to go, but Kyle had convinced her it was the right thing to do.
Technically, she was still married to Wallace, after all.
He was Reggie’s father. She owed it to Reggie to be there for Wallace when Reggie couldn’t. Especially now.
What had happened to Reggie had been a massive blow to Wallace. A blow Jennifer would never have meant to cause. But she had.
Wallace loved Reggie so much.
Jennifer had to know what had happened. She had to.
Reggie had nearly died. Dennis Lee, that selfish bastard, had died. And Carl…she bit back a sob.
Of all the men she had ever loved, Carl Buchanan had loved her the most. Even more than Wallace.
She hadn’t appreciated that until he was taken from her.
Jennifer had taken advantage of him so many times. She’d known Carl had loved her, had been waiting for her to leave Wallace for him. She’d abused his love and devotion.
Carl hadn’t been exciting. He’d been steady, stable, reliable. She had always been able to count on him. Now, she was losing him.
She prayed so hard for Carl every night.
Jennifer had stopped by his hospital room first. She made a point of going to sit with him every second or third time she visited Reggie.
She couldn’t let her relationship with Carl get out there in the public eye. An affair with a married woman would destroy Carl. If he ever woke up from what Dennis Lee had done to him.
She had known they were brothers. Just how much hatred there was in Dennis Lee’s heart—she had missed it.
She didn’t know what she would have done if she hadn’t, though.
Her entire relationship with Dennis Lee had been one of avarice. Self-serving.
Karma was on her footsteps now. Karma wearing Jake MacNamara’s face.
Jake MacNamara’s goons were getting deeper into her business. Her life.
It was only a matter of time until he found those idiots who’d failed to get rid of his niece like Jennifer had ordered them to. She’d thought…Dennis Lee had used them for just about everything. Those TSP officers had come in handy for both her and Dennis Lee so many times before. She’d trusted them.
They’d failed. Because some other man had stopped them.
She’d give her right arm to know who that other man was. To know what was in it for him.
Nerves had her pacing around Reggie’s room. She needed to get out of there for a while. Find a way to calm herself.
She’d go check on Carl. To sit with him, talk with him.
Let him know that, regardless of what happened, she loved him. As much as she loved Wallace. They hadn’t built a life together, she and Carl. They could have. She’d considered doing that so many times before.
Maybe she should have. Left Wallace and married Carl instead. Maybe then none of this would have happened to the men she loved.
A part of her felt like she was somehow trading Carl’s life for Reggie’s. Like she only deserved one of them surviving, if either. Because of how she had lived her life this far.
It would have to be Reggie. She…her son was young. He deserved to have his life ahead of him.
Guilt was a horrible bedmate. If she hadn’t fucked around with Dennis Lee, none of this would have happened.
She had to accept that. She should have left Wallace and married Carl. They could have lived in that beautiful home of his and raised Jason together. It would have been a beautiful life they would have made together, with the bonus of another child for her to love.
How had she missed what she could have had?
But she…she had been as weak as Wallace. Needing more than her husband could give her.
She was just as horrible as Wallace.
Maybe she had deserved all of this. Deserved to lose them all.
That damned nurse of the mayor’s had said in a statement that Carl and Dennis Lee were brothers and were arguing over a woman. It was only a matter of time before it got out there that the woman in question was her. People would dig, would want to know every nasty, sordid detail.
They already blamed her for Wallace’s actions. It was certain she was about to be blamed for Dennis Lee’s, too.
To the bottom of her soul, she half wandered if maybe she deserved that for her sins.
Dennis Lee wouldn’t have gotten angry with her. He wouldn’t have gone after her son. He wouldn’t have done this.
She had pushed Dennis Lee to this.
If Dennis Lee hadn’t comforted her fourteen years ago after she’d caught Wallace having yet another affair, they wouldn’t be here now.
Her weakness back then had destroyed her son’s life now. She wasn’t much better than Wallace. That was something she was going to have to deal with, reconcile with eventually.
It was going to take her a while to forget that. To forgive.
To forgive herself.
60
He probably smelled to high heaven. He was too tired to care.
All Jake wanted was to file his paperwork, catch a damned shower somewhere—he wasn’t too particular about where that happened this morning—and reheat some of whatever Izzie had in the refrigerator.
Then he’d fall into his bed and sleep from six in the morning until about six p.m. He’d leave a note for his niece not to disturb him under threat of death
. Twelve hours should about do it.
He had no idea where she was at the moment. After his paperwork, he’d text her. Make certain she wasn’t headed off somewhere first and needed him to be responsible for that cat she adored or something.
Jake did what he had to do, taking a few moments to speak with A. J.—Chuckie’s partner in the lab—about the evidence the two of them had been analyzing for him. There was a bright, flashy ring weighing down her left hand that hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen her. He couldn’t resist teasing her about it.
Apparently, Detective Callum had gotten around to popping the question the night before.
Finally.
Sean Callum and A. J.—otherwise known as Autumn—Evers had been stuck together underneath the heavy conference table when the tornado had destroyed the TSP. Jake had crawled his own way out in time to see a woman from search and rescue pulling A. J. free.
The ring hadn’t surprised Jake in the least. Anyone who had seen the two together knew they belonged together, years ago.
Callum joined them as she was handing over the last of the evidence reports. It was damned early for Callum to be in, but they were TSP. Time didn’t mean much on this job. “MacNamara, Marshall is looking for you. Sounds pretty serious.”
Jake tried not to wince. He wanted nothing more than a damned shower. That was going to have to wait. A summons from the chief of the Finley Creek TSP himself at six a.m. meant something seriously wrong had happened.
He mentally ran through the half-dozen pressing cases he still had yet to get to the files for. There was no way he could juggle another right now.
Jake suspected that was exactly what was about to happen.
“I’ll head up now. A. J., you ever decide to throw this ass over, you have my number. I’m so much nicer looking than he is.”
“Just as modest,” A. J. said, sending him a wickedly beautiful smile. “Both of you two are far too pretty for your own good. It’s going to get you into trouble one day. Especially you, as Sean has me to protect him now.”
Callum was a damned lucky man and far braver than Jake would ever be. Still, a woman like A. J. would almost be worth the risk. That’s what kind of woman he wanted some day. One who understood the TSP life. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s what all the girls say. I’m going.”
The TSP was now operating out of an empty warehouse that had been donated by Barratt-Handley, two blocks from the original TSP location. It was Barratt’s attempt to foster goodwill after all the shit his father had been involved in. Shit that involved Elliot Marshall’s family, especially his younger sister-in-law. Jake knew her. She had once worked in the computer forensics department.
She and the chief’s wife and Barratt’s wife were good friends of Izzie.
Izzie.
Every instinct he had told him something was wrong. That it had to do with his niece. He couldn’t get Izzie out of his head today.
That was never a good sign. Usually when that happened, the kid was up to no good. Or trouble was finding her.
Marshall was waiting for Jake in the lobby when he finally found him. He had a somber expression on his face. It wasn’t all that unusual, but when Marshall said his name, Jake tensed.
Last time Marshall had looked at him like that Izzie had almost died. “What’s going on?’
“Izzie was at W4HAV the evening before last.”
Jake tensed even more. He’d just known it had to do with Izzie. “Where is she now?”
Marshall held up a hand. “She’s going to be fine, Jake. Bruised, and I believe she has at least one broken bone. A concussion. But she’ll recover fully. I saw her myself after it happened.”
“FCGH or County?’
“Hold up,” Marshall said, keeping pace with Jake as he headed toward the doors. If Marshall had more to say, he would damned well do it in the car. “She’s not at either hospital.”
That most likely meant she’d been discharged. She was probably with her buddies somewhere, getting coddled. Some of his tension lessened. Annie and Nikkie Jean would keep an eye on her. “What in the hell happened?”
“Abduction attempt. As far as we can tell. In the struggle, she was shoved hard to the concrete. The abductors got away while Allen Jacobson was tending to Izzie. He and Rafe Holden-Deane interrupted the attempt and chased off the attackers.”
His blood froze.
He’d always hated that expression, but it was the most accurate at the moment.
“Where is she right now?”
His gut told him it had to do with him and the handful of cases that only he and Dan and the chief knew about. There had been threats against all of them before.
Even against Izzie and against the chief’s wife. It had just made Jake more determined to find the bastards responsible.
Marshall held up a hand toward his own car and driver. That was one of the perks of the job for Marshall. An armed driver. “They smuggled her out of the hospital.”
“Who?” Jake fought the impatience. “Who are they? Why?”
“Just listen. They smuggled her out of the hospital that night. She has left the city. I don’t know where she’s been taken. We don’t know when she’ll get there or be back. The only ones that know about this are you and me, Rafe, Nikkie Jean, Jacobson, and Izzie. We’re going to keep it that way. Until we know exactly who is responsible. I’ve already sent Gabby and Brynna off with Brynna’s sister Mel. Just to be on the safe side.”
“Who is Izzie with?” He honestly didn’t give a damn at the moment about anyone else. His niece had been hurt. And he couldn’t get to her.
“In the car. We’ll discuss it more in private.”
Jake nodded. They both knew corruption was still rife within the TSP ranks. Statewide. He and Marshall and Dan were working to fix that. It was a damned dangerous task.
There had already been casualties. People Jake knew and respected.
They were in the car with the partition between them and the driver in place before Marshall gave him more details. “I know you don’t care for Jacobson, but he got her out of town quickly. He’s qualified to take care of her during her recovery. He was the best choice.”
“I don’t trust him. There is more to what’s going on with him than him just being an unlucky bastard right now. Hell, he could be the link to the hospital we’re looking for.”
Marshall told him the rest of the details. Jake didn’t have to like it, but it made sense. Jacobson had been the fastest choice.
“He’s fond of Nikkie Jean, Jake. I don’t think there’s anything he wouldn’t do for her. Jacobson was the quickest, safest option to get Izzie to safety. Nikkie Jean was insisting Izzie go home with her. With the kids there…well, that wasn’t going to happen. I honestly don’t think he’s involved in what’s going on. Rafe trusts him, and has said so rather vocally. Told me he’d trust Jacobson with Jillian’s life in a heartbeat. That’s the highest praise he could get.”
Jake had to agree on her not having gone to the Alvaros’. That was not something Izzie would have wanted. She’d never put those kids in danger. Not even for a heartbeat.
“That frees you up to go hunting now.”
It was time to go hunting, all right. That was exactly what Jake was going to do. This…this had made things all the more personal. “So where are we headed now?”
“W4HAV. I want to see where it happened. See if there’s anything the evidence teams may have missed yesterday in the rain.” Marshall sent him a significant look. “I’m taking a personal interest in this case. My wife was inside W4HAV with my sister-in-law and my brother’s baby when this happened. They’d decided to stay inside and wait out the storm because of my sister-in-law’s fear of storms. Had they not…I don’t take that lightly.”
Of course, he didn’t. His wife and his brother’s family were all the family Marshall had in the world. Elliot was going to be hunting the devil now.
Jake would be right there at his side.
No one messed wi
th Jake’s family. No one.
61
Kyle knew it was a stupid mistake. These kinds of things took more planning, more stealth. You didn’t blackmail a trio of lowlife thugs into killing a woman because you were angry at your husband. Nor did you send a sharpshooter out after two high-ranking members of the TSP. Not without weighing all the ramifications.
Damn it. She should have known better.
This would rise up and bite her in the ass. He had no doubt about that.
Kyle bit back the anger. Jennifer had always reacted to anger with pure stubbornness. “What was your reasoning?”
“I need that bastard MacNamara out of the way!” She was storming all around the room. “He sent that Callum after me. Now they are digging into Reggie’s business. I wanted that girl to stop making problems for Wallace. I just need control. I’m losing control, Kyle, and I can’t stand it.”
That was enough to give him pause. Kyle was a silent investor in Jennifer’s son’s business. A position he’d used with Dennis Lee Arnold to his advantage when it had been needed.
If the TSP started digging too deeply, that could make problems for him as well as Jennifer. It bore him paying attention to this now.
Preemptive was his game plan in almost everything.
She had gotten herself far too openly involved with that fool Arnold. Her fingers were in Arnold’s business everywhere.
Kyle was doing his best to clean those fingers out, but it was going to take him some time to accomplish that.
“I’ll handle it.” He needed something to distract MacNamara from Jennifer and Dennis Lee Arnold. Perhaps Jennifer had been on the right track—she’d just taken the wrong turn. She should have come to him first. Then she wouldn’t have fouled it up so badly. “I need some time to think, Jennifer. But…I’ll handle MacNamara. You…with what happened with the man’s niece—” The odds of that happening had been so slim, damn it. It was the truth. “Stay away from anything to do with her. You’re too much of an obvious choice. I’m surprised the TSP hasn’t already been at your door asking questions.”
We All Sleep Alone Page 18
