by Roxie Noir
Ellie laughed out loud.
“There’s no way that’s true,” she said.
“You see?” he said. “Another perfect example.”
“Fine,” she said. “It’s more like a mutant thing than a deformity, right?”
“Sort of,” Garrett said.
“And you can’t do it,” she said.
“Right.”
Ellie sucked in a breath.
“Instant healing,” she said.
Please let that be wrong, she thought.
“Nope,” Garrett said. “You’ve got one more and then you start paying for each guess.”
“Unless I walk away,” Ellie said.
“That’s no fun,” Garrett said, and winked.
She thought her heart might beat clear out of her body.
God, I hope I’m not wrong, she thought. If he just wants a dollar per guess or something I’ll feel like an idiot.
“X-ray vision,” she said.
“Not that either,” Garrett said.
He put one hand on her waist and pulled Ellie a little closer. She had to tilt her head back to see him.
“Keep going,” he said.
The teasing note was gone from his voice, replaced with something else, something earnest and rough, and it made Ellie feel warm starting in her toes and spreading upward.
“Your fingernails grow really, really fast,” she whispered.
“That’s super wrong,” Garrett murmured.
Then he bent down and put his lips on hers. His fingers tightened on her waist, and he paused for a moment. Shivers raced down Ellie’s body and she reached up, putting her hand on Garrett’s face and pressing herself against him.
His mouth moved against hers, and Ellie could feel a low rumble start deep in his chest.
Garrett pulled back half an inch, just enough for Ellie to catch her breath.
“Any other guesses,” he asked.
“Uh,” Ellie said, trying to think. “You have ESP.”
He didn’t tell her she was wrong, he just kissed her again. This time his mouth was more insistent, moving against hers and his hand had moved to her lower back, pushing her against him.
“Claws,” said Ellie, the next time he let her up for air.
Their lips met again and he swiped his tongue along her lower lip. Ellie tangled her tongue against his, feeling like she was falling through the air, totally lost to this wonderful moment.
She moved her hips against him, and suddenly she could feel his erection against her belly, thick and hard, and her eyes flew open for a moment.
This is the worst idea, she thought, even as her eyes fluttered closed again.
That must be why it feels so good.
Garrett’s mouth moved off of hers and to the spot below her ear. He kissed her gently there and she gasped.
“You still haven’t gotten it right,” he whispered.
Ellie closed her eyes and bit her lip.
“What if I give up?” she murmured. “Will you just tell me?”
“No,” he said, his lips on her neck.
Garrett’s erection pulsed against her body, and it took every ounce of Ellie’s self-control not to wrap her legs around him.
You can’t do this now, she thought. Partly because you’re working, and partly because you’re on the run and you can’t get distracted.
His lips were on the hollow of her throat, and Ellie bit her lips, forcing herself not to moan. One of his thumbs found her nipple through her shirt and brushed over it, making her shudder.
Don’t be dumb, Ellie thought.
“Garrett,” she whispered.
“Mmm?” he said against her neck.
“We can’t,” she said.
“I bet we can,” he said. His other hand moved down to cup her ass, and Ellie felt a bolt of desire shoot through her.
“Stop,” she said. “You’re still my client, and we can’t do this while we’re in the middle of running from someone.”
“They won’t find us here,” he said.
He pulled away from her neck, though.
“It’s a bad idea to get distracted like this,” she whispered.
Garrett licked his lips and looked at her, his gold eyes lit from within.
“I’ve been distracted as fuck since I laid eyes on you in your office,” he said. His voice was still that raw, needy growl that made Ellie’s toes curl.
“When you brought me trouble?” Ellie asked.
He grinned and took her chin in his hand, running his thumb over her lips.
“Yeah,” he said. “This was more what I had in mind.”
Ellie lowered her eyes.
“Come on,” she said.
“One more kiss?” Garrett asked.
Ellie closed her eyes and tilted her face up, and then his mouth was on hers hard and needy, and Ellie felt almost dizzy with lust, with the conviction that this was exactly what she wanted to be doing.
After much too long, she pulled away, breathing hard. She closed her eyes and forced herself to ignore what every fiber in her body wanted to do.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “Good night, Garrett.”
Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed her backpack and bolted upstairs, slamming the door to her room before she could change her mind.
9. Garrett
Ellie practically sprinted through the living room and up the stairs. Garrett followed her with his eyes, never taking them from her perfect form for a second.
Shit, he thought when she was finally gone.
He wanted her so bad it hurt, a deep gnawing ache in the very center of his body that wouldn’t go away, no matter what.
Not that kissing her on the balcony, the half moon above, in this romantic getaway house he’d rented, was making things better.
Garrett turned and rested his forearms on the balcony railing, looking out over the vast desert valley. A few towns glowed in the distance, but it was mostly dark, accented by moonlight on mountain peaks.
Don’t think about her getting naked for bed, he told himself. Don’t—
He squeezed his eyes shut, thinking about her soft curves, the way she felt under his hands. The way she tasted.
At least she hadn’t said no. She’d said not now, and that was different.
Worse, she was probably right.
Okay, Garrett thought. We’re gonna solve the fuck out of my parents’ death, get the bad guy, and then I get Ellie.
Garrett cracked his knuckles and went back inside to look over all the research one more time.
“Garrett,” a voice said. He felt like he was at the bottom of a well, and it took him long moments to surface. He knocked a piece of paper off his face and sat up, looking around.
Ellie was standing there, bending over him.
“I fell asleep on the couch?” Garrett said, trying to wrap his brain around where he was.
Gradually it came back to him: his apartment, running, the rental house.
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “You never went to bed?”
“I meant to,” Garrett said. “God, what time is it?”
“Six fifteen,” Ellie said. “What’s with the laptop? I thought those were trackable.”
Garrett looked at the coffee table.
“I took the wireless card out,” he said. “What? We had to have something.”
Her hair was down, and it fell to her mid-back, black and glossy. It looked like it would flow through Garrett’s fingers like water.
“Garrett,” Ellie said.
“Sorry,” he said, looking up at her. She sat on the couch opposite.
“We need proof,” she said, softly. “That your parents were killed.”
“We don’t even know they were,” he said. “I mean—”
Ellie held up one hand.
“Come on, you’re not paying me for nothing,” she said. “I don’t know what we’re looking for, exactly, but I know how to find it. I got a lot done yesterday.”
There was a spark
le in her deep brown eyes, and Garrett leaned forward, rubbing his hands together.
“You’re in charge,” he said.
Ellie dropped the Blanding phone book on the coffee table, and Garrett frowned.
By noon, they were in the car again. There was no sign of anyone following them, and that made Garrett suspicious.
Maybe they’re waiting for us in Blanding or Obsidian, he thought. Maybe they’re already there, and that’s why they’re not following you.
On Garrett’s lap was a list of people who’d been working in the hospital the day his parents were brought in, along with their addresses from the phone book. Some had died, some had moved, and plenty had retired, but it was something.
“What outlandish lie are we going with?” Garrett asked. “You gonna tell them you like their potato salad?”
“Stop it,” Ellie said. “That worked, didn’t it?”
“Seems like being a private investigator is mostly about lying to people on the telephone,” Garrett said. “That’s not so hard.”
“I promise I spend a lot of time digging through boring document archives on the internet,” she said. “I know my way around tax forms like you wouldn’t believe, looking for hidden money.”
“You’re convincing on the phone and you read tax forms like a champ,” Garrett said. “What can’t you do?”
Ellie rolled her eyes and pulled over. They were on a residential street on the outskirts of town, in front of a very normal ranch-style house. The lawn needed to be mowed, but not that badly.
“I think we should tell the truth,” she said, looking at the house. “That you’re trying to figure out why your parents died.”
Garrett looked at her, his stomach tightening.
“You’re the first person I ever told that,” he said. “No one else knows.”
“Not even your brothers?” she asked.
He just shook his head.
Ellie tilted her head. Her hair was still down, and a few glistening strands broke free and cascaded over her shoulder.
“I guess it’s time to come clean,” she said, and got out of the car.
That house was a bust. So were the next three. When they finally found someone who’d been at the hospital that day, she didn’t know a thing — she’d been in labor and delivery all day, but she was very sorry and wished she could help.
“This is like finding a needle in a haystack,” Garrett muttered.
“Welcome to the investigative life,” Ellie said. “And you thought it was all flirting with people in Delaware.”
Garrett stuck his tongue out at her, and Ellie laughed.
At the next house, a small, charming white cottage with lace drapes, a no-nonsense woman with gray hair and pink sweatshirt answered the door.
Ellie explained what they were doing, and the woman blinked a few times, then shrugged.
“Sure, I remember that day,” she said. “I was an ER nurse. That was at the old hospital, before they built the new, state-of-the-art one they got now.”
Garrett’s heart skipped a beat. ER nurse was good.
She looked from Ellie to Garrett again.
“The car crash victims were your parents?” she said, her voice a little softer now.
Garrett just nodded.
“You two should probably come inside,” the woman said.
Her name was Linda, and she made them chamomile tea and insisted that the two of them sit at her table before she would say anything.
“I do remember that day,” she said at last. “The hospital cremated those people who died in that terrible accident. I guess they were your parents. I’m so sorry, sweetheart,” she said, and touched Garrett’s forearm.
“Thanks,” he said.
Don’t get mad at her for saying the right thing, he reminded himself. That’s what people say in these situations.
“They were both pronounced dead on arrival,” Linda said softly, glancing at Garrett. “I don’t want to go into details, but it was pretty obvious. Right after they got brought in, we had a guy who’d cut three fingers off by accident on a table saw, and he got priority. So I’m afraid they were out on the autopsy tables for a while.”
Garrett frowned.
“There was an autopsy?” he asked.
Linda paused, and then frowned slightly.
“Well, there was supposed to be an autopsy,” she said, hesitating. “You didn’t know?”
“I was fifteen,” Garrett said. The old, familiar flame of anger started to flicker inside him again. “No one told me much of anything.”
She shook her head, then looked into her mug of tea.
“The police wouldn’t say why at first, but they wanted autopsies done, which was strange because they also said it was just a car crash. But, you know, sometimes they hold something back if there’s suspicious circumstances. We called the coroner — there aren’t a lot of autopsies around here so he’s just on call — and he started the autopsy.”
Garrett swallowed. He felt like there was a rock in his stomach, and part of him wanted to stand up and storm out, go shout at the desert.
“Who’d he start on?” he asked.
“Both,” she said. “He just did the part where he —” Linda paused and took a deep breath. “I’m so sorry, honey, but he sort of rearranged them, described their injuries into the microphone, cleaned the blood off. That kind of thing. I was in and out, and honestly, I wasn’t paying a lot of attention just then. But then, before he really started the autopsy, he left. I think he got called away, but I really don’t remember.”
We were eating hot dogs in front of the TV then, he thought. I remember being glad they were late, because Wild Things was on, and I knew they’d never even let us watch the censored-for-television version.
“Around midnight, just when I was about to get off my shift, I saw that they were still on the tables and the coroner wasn’t back. So I went in to see what was happening, and I noticed that their toe tags were wrong. They’d been swapped with the tags from a very nice elderly woman who’d died a few days before and a man who’d had a heart attack hiking. I grabbed the chart off the wall and was going to double-check and switch them back, but the hospital’s chief of staff came in and told me to just go home.”
I was right, Garrett thought. I’ve been right all along.
It felt terrible.
“Now, you can bet the administrators there never stayed a minute past five o’clock. Midnight? Forget it. But I liked having a job, so I told him what had happened, and he said he’d get it fixed.”
She thinned her lips together for a moment.
“As I was walking out, I saw him talking to a man I didn’t recognize. He was wearing a black suit. An expensive looking one. And I remember thinking it was strange, but I kind of shrugged it off. I thought they were telling me to go home because they didn’t want to pay overtime, honestly.”
Linda half-laughed at that.
“Anyone would think that,” Ellie said, leaning forward over the table.
Garrett felt a hand on his knee, squeezing it. He swallowed and covered it with his own, and a warm buzz of something like relief trickled down his spine. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear a hum.
It’s a truck on the highway, he thought.
“The next day, your parents got cremated instead of the other two,” Linda finished. “I tried to bring it up a couple of times to hospital leadership, but I got shut down. They told me mistakes were made, that sort of thing, and they were right, of course. A few months later, they announced that an anonymous donor had offered to fund a brand new hospital, state-of-the-art facility. Best of everything in Southern Utah.”
Linda looked at Garrett, and smiled regretfully.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said. “I just dropped it.”
“It’s not your fault,” Garrett said. He squeezed Ellie’s hand on his leg, and she squeezed back.
The hum got louder.
The interstate isn’t that close, Garrett
thought.
“I wish I’d pushed harder,” Linda said.
“Do you remember what the strange man looked like?”
Linda took a deep breath, and her eyes focused on the far wall, like she was remembering.
“Not very much,” she said. Now she had to raise her voice over the hum, which was becoming a roar. “It’s been a long time, but I think he was going bald. He seemed pretty out of place here, to be honest.”
Now all three of them were staring at the ceiling.
“What on earth is that?” Linda said. “Sounds like the second coming all of a sudden.”
Ellie was up and leaning over the sink, looking out the kitchen window.
“I think it’s a helicopter,” she said, her voice tense.
Garrett stood and paced to the door, peeking out.
“Shit,” he said. He turned to the woman at the table.
“Linda, thank you,” he said. “You’ve been so helpful.”
“I wish I could tell you more,” she said. “It must have been awful for you.”
“We should go,” Ellie said.
“Is that them?” Linda asked, her voice quiet.
Garrett looked at her quietly serious face.
“I think so,” he said.
“We have to get a different car,” Ellie said. “They know yours.”
“Wait,” said Linda, and she stood and disappeared, leaving Garrett and Ellie alone in the kitchen, the whirring roar overhead.
Garrett could feel the sweat make its way down his neck and onto his back.
I’ve got no plan for this, he thought.
“Where’d she go?” Ellie whispered.
“I don’t know,” Garrett said.
She slipped her hand into his, and he squeezed it
Through the kitchen window, a helicopter emerged. It was shiny and black and heading toward town, slowly and evenly.
As they watched, it circled once, then hovered over a three-story concrete and glass building.
“Those assholes,” said Linda, behind them.
Ellie and Garrett turned.
“Pardon my French,” she said. “But that’s not a medical helicopter, it can’t land on the hospital.”
It landed on the hospital roof slowly, like it was taking its time. Garrett felt like his heart was pumping sand with every squeeze, the fine grains laboring through his veins.