Lotus Effect

by Trisha Wolfe

A hospital file directly from the source. Not one doctored to keep a secret.

  Because that’s the only explanation that I can reason.

  Before I make that painful call to my parents, I want proof. Like a good detective needs evidence before they issue an arrest, I have to have chain of evidence in place. And my prime suspect pinned without doubt.

  As I stand at the entrance to the hospital, the rain beats down, drenching my clothes. My phone vibrates in my jacket pocket, and I wipe the soaked strands from my face as I pull the phone free.

  Rhys’s name illuminates the dark screen.

  A hollow ache collects around my heart. I send the call to voicemail and walk through the glass doors.

  By the time the receptionist has paged the doctor to meet with me, I’ve worked myself into an emotional state to match my wrecked appearance. For me, that’s a rare state, and I’m trembling when Dr. Lawrence approaches.

  “Do you remember me?” I ask.

  Dark hair streaked with silver, bronzed skin lacking the wrinkles to match his age, he’s just as I remember him. That memory is unaffected.

  He tilts his head, studying me. “I do, Ms. Marks. How can I help you?”

  I swallow the ache. “Why did you doctor the hospital file of my attack? Who asked you to do it?”

  I learned this technique from Rhys. Most people want to tell the truth, if you give them a way to pass the blame. Ask the question you want answered, then show them the way to deny culpability.

  For Dr. Lawrence, this tactic may not work. His intelligent gaze narrows in confusion. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what—”

  “I was pregnant at the time of my attack,” I interrupt. “When I recovered, I wasn’t. I’ve read my chart. Many times. There is no mention of a pregnancy.” Tell me I’m not crazy. “So, I was either pregnant, or I wasn’t. Which one is it?”

  His sigh stretches out between us. “Ms. Marks, I’m a healer. I took an oath to do no harm. However, you have to understand that sometimes, the line of what constitutes as harm can blur.” He waves his hand, ushering me toward a bank of seats.

  When we’re out of earshot from the hospital staff, he continues. “After your parents consulted with a psychologist, they felt it was in your best interest, for your state of mind, not to know the details of the pregnancy right away.”

  The pregnancy… Fear confirmed, my lungs cease to accept air for a brief moment.

  “As you weren’t far along,” he says, “I presumed you may not have even known about the baby. But—” he stresses “—I was told that you’d be made aware during rehabilitation. So yes, I went along with another doctor’s recommendation based on your mental sate and recovery. But I did not doctor your file, nor did I recommend that your parents keep this from you.”

  I shake my head. “But Detective Dutton? Wouldn’t he have to know the truth? For the investigation?”

  His kind eyes darken. “As you were my patient, the only details the case workers were privy to were the ones we discussed beforehand.”

  Hell. Doctors are not law enforcement. They don’t think in terms of motive. Without the knowledge of my pregnancy, I couldn’t agree to the detective learning of the baby.

  It’s a deplorable catch twenty-two banded in red tape.

  Dr. Lawrence cups my shoulder. “I can have your original file sent to you via email, if you’d like. Just fill out a request form with Julia at reception.”

  My parents impeded the investigation. By keeping the pregnancy from Detective Dutton, they inadvertently hid a motive for my murder.

  But no matter how upset I am with them, when I leave Silver Lake Memorial, there’s only one person I want answers from.

  The rental car idles in the hotel parking lot. The heater vents on low, fogging the windows, as rain sheets down the windshield. Outside is dismal and gray, masking the sky in an inky cloud coverage that makes it feel later than the clock reads: 7:24 p.m.

  I’m afraid to leave the safe confines of the car. So much has transpired, has been revealed… Has it really only been a day?

  Again, time seems to mock me.

  Rhys has called three times. Left three messages. I haven’t checked them, fearful that the familiar, trustful sound of his voice will weaken me further. Somewhere between the drive from the hospital to the hotel, the anger—completely justified anger—I felt toward him ebbed, as if the storm stole my thunder.

  Now I’m damp, cold, hungry, and just…exhausted.

  I want to curl up in the hotel bed sheets and blot out the world and all its misery—but that means facing Rhys.

  And I’m just not that strong right now.

  I turn off the engine and recline the seat, deciding to sleep right here in the car. Only my mind churns details of my case like the raging storm outside the car, keeping me awake.

  This is the reality I didn’t want to confront yet. I haven’t reconciled the loss of a child I will never again be able to have. Not only did my killer take that baby away, they took away any future chance of being a mother.

  That pain is far too acute to feel in this moment.

  I’m scared I’ll stop breathing.

  Instead, I pull from the depth of my anger, latch on to that spite, and dig in my heels. Anger is the easiest emotion to govern when reaching for control. I think of the murder board I covered, of the names branched from the event.

  I want to believe that a secret this monumental would be impossible to keep—and yet, I know that to be untrue. The darkest, most shattering secrets are the ones that are begged to be kept, even when they’re slowly killing you.

  So, who all knew? Who was able to keep a secret like this?

  My parents. The ones who convinced my doctor to honor doctor-patient confidentiality.

  Drew. Who would not breathe a word of the pregnancy. Makes sense. Most likely his lawyers instructed him that a forgotten pregnancy was the best thing that could’ve happened to him.

  Chelsea. Who, in order to support her future husband, would have no qualms in denying any rumors of a pregnancy. Less scandal to contend with.

  Cameron. Did she know?

  I search my memory bank. The hours surrounding my death are still fuzzy, and I can’t trust any recovered memories.

  If Cam knew, she took that secret to her grave. Maybe that’s why she was nervous when I was at her home, demanding she tell me about the day in the hospital.

  A pang of guilt resonates deeply. Maybe if she’d told me long before this point, I could’ve protected her. She might still be alive.

  Now, I can’t ask her.

  But the question remains: Does Rhys know?

  Maybe my parents and the doctor and those being looked at during the investigation could keep this a secret from the Leesburg PD—but I find it impossible to believe they could hide it from an FBI agent.

  With a resigned breath, I open my eyes and dig out my phone, stare at the dark display. I’d rather look into Rhys’s eyes when I ask my questions, but I’m scared I’ll falter—that he’ll use some rationality to try to defend himself…or he won’t defend himself at all. I’m not sure which would hurt worse.

  I open my call log and tap his name just as a knock sounds on the window.

  My heart rams my chest, and I drop the phone.

  Rhys stands on the other side of the fogged glass. “Hale, Christ. Where have you been?”

  I clutch the phone and, all fear replaced with the wrenching pain of betrayal, I shove the door open. He quickly backs out of the way.

  The rain falls straight down in heavy pellets. His dress shirt is soaked, his wet hair matted and darkened by rain. He’s my partner. He’s my friend. He’s beautiful…the one person I let myself trust after the attack, and the doubt I see brimming in his slate eyes kills me.

  Rhys is an expert at reading people. He’s reading me now. “You went to see Drew.”

  I don’t answer. I want to ask the questions. “You knew I was pregnant.” Not a question. I just need to hear him admit the tru
th.

  His lips thin, rivulets of rainwater drip down his face. “Yes.”

  “All this time…” I trail off, the ache burning my throat. “You led me to believe that Drew had no motive. But you kept looking at him, didn’t you? He was always your number one suspect.”

  He nods slowly. “Yes,” he says again. “I kept looking at him.”

  His clipped, direct answers infuriate me further. “How could you keep this from me?”

  He swallows hard, throat dipping with the force. “When I came down here the first time, I spoke with your therapist. She felt your memory loss was your mind’s way of protecting you.”

  Not loss—false memory. I didn’t just forget I was pregnant; I built a whole other memory, trading places with Chelsea. That’s an even worse punishment.

  “And I agreed that telling you wouldn’t further the investigation,” he continues. “It would only hurt you and might set you back psychologically. It wouldn’t change anything.”

  Each breath is a sharp object scraping my chest. “It changes everything.”

  He pushes a hand through his wet hair. “I tried to tell you, Lakin. I did. So many times. But I just…couldn’t.”

  I blink against the rain, letting the memory resurface. Rhys took me to the Dock House to try to jog my memory of the attack, yes, but there was more to it. He wanted me to remember the pregnancy. That was the sadness I saw in his eyes that night. The reason he kissed me, comforted me.

  His guilt.

  “You tried to make me relive my murder so that you wouldn’t feel guilty over keeping such a vital secret from me,” I say, as the realization occurs. “Every day that we worked together, every day that you looked me in the eyes…and just knew. You kept a piece of me from myself, Rhys.”

  His gaze flares as he steps forward. “Just like you hid the note from me?”

  Insult wounds deep. “No. No—you do not get to flip this around on me. You let me believe a lie!”

  He moves in closer. “I was wrong. Okay? I admit it. I should’ve told you that night on the lake. I’m wrong for being too weak, not strong enough to bear your pain. I was selfish. But, dammit, so were you. You kept the note hidden. Did it ever occur to you that that might be a vital piece of the investigation?”

  I shake my head, then turn away. “I’m done, Rhys.”

  He stops me. His hand circles my arm, forcing me to face him. “You thought it was from him.”

  The accusation in his tone affronts me. I can only stare up at him. Shocked. Wounded. “Do not go there.” I try to pull my arm free, but his hold is stone. “I can’t believe this. You never acknowledge that my hallucination is anything but. Now you want to bring it up and weaponize it, to use it against me?”

  “That first note…,” he says. His voice lowers as his grip softens. “Yes, it could’ve been from the perp. But if analyzed another way, could’ve been from a witness. I know who you’re waiting for. The man you believe saved you, Lakin. You write about him. Think about him. You dream about him. Real or fiction, it doesn’t matter to you. You’ve shut yourself off completely. Only one man—this hero you’ve conjured—is good enough.”

  “What? Are you jealous?” How did this argument get so derailed? “Stop twisting things. You lied to me. What’s more, how can you even say this to me? How can you judge me? Knowing what I’ve suffered? What I now know was taken…”

  For the second time today, I feel the fiery ache of tears sting my eyes, and I release a harsh curse. All these years, all the torment, and not one single drop. Now, in the rain, the dam bursts.

  Rhys sees past the rain, sees down to my marrow. He places his hand on my cheek, letting his thumb trace the track of tears.

  “I’m not judging you. I’m judging myself.” His other hand cups my face, holding me too close to him. Where I can’t escape. “I never closed your case. It’s not a cold case to me; it’s always active. I’m always working it. Damn right I’m jealous of him. Because I want to be the one who saves you.”

  My heart drums. “Rhys…”

  The storm has come. We’re standing amid the fury of it. Our gazes lock, that dare we’ve been dancing around simmering the air between us, challenging one of us to take the risk. Rain sheets down in a torrent equal to the thunder resounding inside me, my pulse an electric web of lightning striking and setting my blood aflame. I’m pulled under the swell as his mouth descends on mine, rendering me powerless, his.

  27

  Collide

  Lakin: Now

  Rhys doesn’t kiss me; he consumes me. Devouring any barrier in his way.

  The air around us, the oxygen in my lungs, the atoms we’re made of. Every molecule implodes into that kiss, and I’m a part of the undertow pulling us beneath the current. I latch on to him, my hands seeking to anchor me to his solid embrace.

  His lips make a study of mine, as if he’s wanted to explore this forbidden question between us for far too long, and now he’s desperate for the answer.

  My thighs hit the car behind us, and Rhys lifts me up against him, seating me on the hood to get better access to all of me. I tug at his wet shirt, gripping the collar to bring him closer.

  Too soon, he pulls away, breaking the kiss. “Don’t,” I whisper. I can’t conjure any other words. He just can’t stop, because I’m scared to let our logical minds catch up with our hearts.

  He rests his forehead to mine, easing out a breath. “I never meant to hurt you,” he says. I can hear the anguish in his voice, and I believe him. Still…

  I’m fighting my desire for him and my need to know. “Then why?”

  “I didn’t trust myself,” he admits. I pull my swollen lip between my teeth, and Rhys answers my unspoken question. “I couldn’t keep the truth from you forever, I knew that. But once I knew the truth, I became obsessed with finding evidence to prove it was Abbot, and that’s why I couldn’t be the one to tell you—I didn’t want you to suffer that same devastating frustration.”

  What’s worse than never solving a cold case and finding the killer? Finding the killer and watching him roam free.

  Rhys and I both understand this. I know that, in our profession and as partners, as friends, his protective nature wanted to shield me from a dark rabbit hole, but: “I’m stronger than you think, Rhys.”

  He cups my face, the rain becoming a mist around us. “I know you’re strong. My failure has nothing to do with the way I see you, Lakin. This is my weakness; you’re my weakness. There would’ve been no way for me to keep a professional distance from you if I had to watch you break.”

  Now that his words are out there, and we’ve proven the professional distance between us has disintegrated—what does it mean? Is he simply filling the void after his own accident? Or does the discovery of my shattering truth do just as he claims: make it impossible for him not to feel for me?

  What will we feel tomorrow if we cross this line?

  An anxious flutter bats to life in my chest. “Is this some kind of lawyer logic?” A rare smile twitches at my lips.

  With Rhys, I never have to pretend to know how to respond to a torrent of emotion. I can feel the overwhelm and process it in my own way, and he allows me this. Always accepting.

  His answer is a deep and sensuous kiss that steals my breath, making me forget, for just a moment, the cruel truth of my past. The parking lot vanishes. The rain isn’t a burden. We’re within our own world, safe. Sheltered.

  And when the kiss leads us inside his hotel room, our drenched clothes peeled from our bodies in urgent need to be closer, skin-to-skin, I don’t fight the tide. I let the rush of emotions break through every defense. Rhys’s touch sears me in a way that chases my darkest fears away.

  Right now, Rhys is the light I want to cling to, to reach for.

  Our soaked clothes pooled on the floor around us, I stand before him bare and vulnerable. The dim nightlight of the bathroom exposes every scar on my flesh. The ache to close my eyes and hide from this moment stirs beneath my skin, the sca
r slashed across my chest an enflamed ember of doubt.

  But my eyes remain open, even when I start to tremble. I let my gaze roam over Rhys. His scored body mirrors my own. The wounds he’s suffered in the field as an agent, the damage he sustained to his leg. The white scar drags down his thigh; the multiple operations to correct the injury.

  He takes me by the nape, closing the distance between us. His coarse palm trails my neck, feeling his way over my shoulder, casting rising gooseflesh along my skin. He maps a path down my arm…stopping when he reaches the rubber band that always shackles my wrist.

  His finger dips beneath the thin band, he drags it over my hand. “Tonight, with me, you won’t need this,” he says. As he sinks to his knees, his hands cup my hips.

  I try for even breaths, but they’re ragged and clipped as they escape. I let my hands rest on his shoulders as he tenderly kisses my belly, my chest, my scars. One by one, every scar he memorized working my cold case, he caresses affectionately, lovingly.

  The acceptance of our bodies, of our pain—this is the only way for us to make love.

  I lower myself before him, draping my legs around his hips as he seats himself on the floor. We move fluidly together, like a dance that guts you to watch, it’s so beautiful. We make love on the hotel room floor. We fuck in the bed on top of the tacky floral bedspread. And when Rhys notices the pain breaking through, my mind wandering to what was stolen from me, and every betrayal I’ve uncovered…he won’t allow it to tear into our night. He makes love to me again. And again. Until I’m too spent to think.

  We become a tangle of languid limbs on the bed. I don’t know what time it is, and I don’t want to know.

  We talk about the revelations of the case. We’re still partners; this comes naturally to us. In this sense, nothing has changed. I still feel as open as ever with Rhys, even while his thumb traces the lines of my palm.

  “Did you locate Torrance?” I ask.

  Rhys stirs next to me. “No. I felt like Rixon was putting me off.” He exhales heavily. “I wanted to ask Torrance about his knowledge of you and the pregnancy. Try to nail down why he lied to the police about being with Cam.”