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“He took me by surprise. And he’s my father.”
“And I’m the goddamned Sheriff. I had a right to know. And it doesn’t matter that he’s your father. I have a duty to bring him in. The law is the law.”
“Easy how quickly you become the sheriff instead of my partner,” I said, going cold inside.“And I’m not trying to break the law. I just needed a few fucking hours to wrap my head around the fact that the man I buried two years ago is alive and well. So fuck you and the law. Really, I appreciate you taking the time to ask how well I’m dealing with all this instead of jumping straight into telling me you’re going to hunt him down and arrest him.”
My face was hot with anger and my hands shook. Short breaths made my lungs heaveand I wanted nothing more than to throw the coffee cup across the room and watch it smash into a million pieces.
“Jaye—” he growled and rubbed his hands through his hair like he always did when he was agitated.“Fine. You’ve had your few hours to get used to it. I’ll even put the law aside for the moment. But you should have trusted me enough to tell me the minute I drove up to the house.”
“Why, so you could pull your high and mighty sheriff routine?”
“Don’t push me right now. I need you to fill me in on the details so we can start a search in the area.” He grabbed a notepad and pen from his bag, and the notepad slapped against the table where he dropped it. “It looks like I won’t be taking that vacation after all.”
I jerked back against the counter and my shoulders stiffened with pride.I guessed if he wasn’t taking a vacation then that meant that we weren’t getting married either. Too many emotions were pounding away inside of me, and I knew I was only seconds from not being able to function at all. Blood pounded in my ears, my breath caught in my throat, and I was blinded by gathering tears.
I turned my back on Jack andsat the coffee cup down with more control than I knew I had. And then walked out of the room to the sound of Jack’s voice calling at my back.
CHAPTER SIX
The mid-afternoon sunlight beat down through the windows in the upstairs bedroom Jack and I shared—the same bedroom we’d made love in only hours before.
I stripped out of my clothes and tossed them into the hamper. The cloying smell of death and my lab still clung to them, though I hardly noticed. My movements were mechanical as I got into the shower and turned on the hot water. I stood with my hands braced against the wall and let the spray hit me in the face.
Something horrible built and built inside of me untilthere was no choice but for it to break free. The sound that escaped my throat wasn’t human and I pounded my fist against the wall in frustration. I couldn’t even scream right. Choked sobs took me to my knees and I curled into a ball, letting the hot water pulse against my back.
I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I’d never had to deal with this loss of control before. I’d always been the type of person to know exactly what I wanted andthen I went for it. I didn’t let emotions get in the way of my personal goals. I had friends and lovers, a career I’d worked hard for, and a family I didn’t understand—but I assumed that was normal for everyone. It didn’t mean I didn’t love them or wouldn’t give them a kidney if they’d asked for one. They were my family.
But there were all types of families. Jack, Vaughn, Dickie, and Eddie had been both my family and my friends. Things had changed between us over the years—as marriages, divorces,relationships, and children had taken root. But we were still family. Only now I didn’t feel as if I really belonged anymore. Didn’t feel as if I belonged anywhere really.
I don’t know how long I stayed on the shower floor, but the water turned cold and I shivered beneath the icy spray. I reached up blindly to turn the faucet off and dragged myself to a standing position by using the towel bar to support myself.
I half-heartedly dried my hair and wrapped the towel around me, and then I stumbled into the bedroom and fell face first onto the bed. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.
***
“Wake up, Jaye. We’ve got to move.”
Jack’s exact words barely cut through my sluggish brain, but I heard the urgency in them. I’d spent too many years as an ER doctor to not be able to spring out of bed and pull on clothes before my brain was fully functional. In fact, as I did so now I was reminded of those days.
I had on clean jeans and a lightweight black sweater before I asked Jack what the emergency was.
“What’s wrong?”My voice was hoarse—barely discernable—from the crying jag I’d had earlier and Jack looked at me sharply. My eyes were probably puffy too so I kept my gaze averted and slipped on black boots. I headed down the stairs and grabbed my medical bag, and I heard Jack’s footsteps behind me.
“We’ve got a mess on our hands. Ben Carver just called me.” Jack took the keys from my hand and he instead led me to his police cruiser. Whatever was going on he wanted to have an official presence.
“If there’s a body I need the Suburban. I can follow you to the scene.”
“There’s no body.” He didn’t say anything else until I was seated in the passenger seat of his cruiser and belted in. He hit the sirens, did a U-turn, and sped out of the long driveway and onto the main road.There was still tension between us and my hands were clasped on the handle of my medical bag so my knuckles were white with strain.
“What did Ben want?”
“Colburn ran the prints we took today, and when they went through the system they sent up all kinds of red flags. Carver was giving us a courtesy call to let us know we’re going to have the FBI breathing down our neck in the next few minutes.”
I jerked in my seat and had the urge to jump out of the car and run back to the house so I could hide the boxes we’d left out on the table.
“I put them in the safe,” Jack said, and I relaxed a little. “I warned Colburn to be ready for them and to cooperate, but I thought you’d want to be there when they serve the warrant to retrieve the body from your lab.”
“Warrant? Are they going to search the whole premises?”
