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His shoulders are slumped in defeat, and I can’t stand seeing him this down. I stride across the kitchen to wrap my arms around his waist. My chin rests on his shoulder while Carter’s hands rest on the counter.
“You’re the furthest thing from worthless. It doesn’t matter what your brain does or does not remember. The fact that you came out on the other side of something this horrific is all that matters—especially to me.”
Carter turns in my arms to hug me back. “Logically, I know what you’re saying is true. It’s just not that easy to make my brain believe it.”
“Then I’ll keep telling you until you’re so sick of me saying it, you’ll have to believe it.”
Carter chuckles. Before he can say anything more, the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get the door. You go sit down at the table.” I rub Carter’s arms before I step away to let Jeffery in.
He’s exactly what I pictured. His hair is closely cropped, with more salt than pepper sprinkled in there. He’s as tall as I am but not quite as broad in the shoulders.
“Jeffery, it’s good to meet you in person. I’m Sam.” I step back from the doorway, letting him walk inside.
He holds his hand out to shake mine. “Please call me Jeff. It’s good to meet you, too, Sam.”
I lead him into the dining room. Carter starts to stand, and Jeff stops him. “Please, don’t get up on my account. It’s good to meet one of Adam and Matthew’s brothers. You look incredibly alike. It’s a little weird.”
Jeff’s joke takes the tension out of Carter’s shoulders. “We get that a lot. Our teachers in high school always got us confused.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.” Jeff sits down at the table, placing a tablet in front of him. I sit across from him, next to Carter. “Okay, your email mentioned you wanted me to dig into the attack a little more. Do you have anything specific you want me to explore, or am I looking at everything?”
“Unfortunately, I think it’s the latter. I don’t remember much about the attack other than the guys feeling like hired thugs.”
“Well, that’s something to look into. That type of list isn’t as long as people would believe.”
“What about your job?” I ask.
Carter cocks his head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Remember when you told me about the woman on your team who got the weird vibe from that researcher? I’m just wondering if it’s something Jeffery could look into.”
“I’m able to look into anyone you want me to. That’s the beauty of being a PI.”
“Except, I wasn’t a part of that interaction. Why would it connect back to me?”
“It’s pretty easy to create a link with just the fact that she works with you.” Jeffrey opens his tablet to take notes. “What’s your coworker’s name, and who was bothering them?”
“My coworker is Inez Kilpatrick, and Dr. Richard Hutton is who was behaving oddly. He’s the lead researcher for our lymphoma team.”
“Got it.” Jeffery asks several other questions similar to what the detectives asked. We also send him the security footage and explain what the security company found.
“The alarm was turned off as if I’d entered the code into the pad. Assuming these guys are the same ones who broke into my house the first time, there’s no way they would’ve known the code. I didn’t have the system installed until afterward,” Carter says.
“Could it have been hacked?” Jeffery asks.
“Potentially. It’s running on my Wi-Fi, so someone with the proper skills could probably turn it off that way.”
“Then I think it might be prudent for you to send me a list of your team members, as well.”
“I’ll get you whatever you need.” Carter nods. His phone rings, and when he looks at the caller ID, he frowns. “Sorry, I need to take this.” He answers the call. “Hey, William. Everything okay?”
Jeff and I sit in silence as we watch his concern morph into confusion.
“Hang on a second.” Carter turns to us. “I’m sorry. This is a bit of a work emergency. I need to deal with this right now. I can email over anything else you may need or answer any further questions we didn’t get to today.”
Jeffery waves him off. “I’m good. I’ve got a starting point. I’ll let you know if I need anything else from here.”
