Chapter Eleven
Every single part of Ronan ached and he felt like hell, inside and out. The worst was his head. It throbbed so hard, it felt as if it was on the verge of exploding into tiny pieces at any moment.
He’d forgotten just how miserable a hangover could feel. It wasn’t something he welcomed revisiting, especially after having been sober for close to an entire year.
A year. That was the last time he’d felt like this. On the day after the anniversary when he’d lost her.
Lost Wendy.
Damn. He thought he’d gotten better hold of himself than this.
He felt as if the room was on the verge of spinning around, which would only make things worse. He needed to open his eyes. If he opened his eyes and sat up, he was certain the brakes would come back on and the room wouldn’t start going around and around like a cheap ride at an amusement park.
Pushing his body into an upright position, Ronan forced himself to concentrate not on his swirling stomach but on getting his eyelids to open.
He felt as if he was prying them apart.
It took concentration and effort and it wasn’t easy because once he opened them, he’d officially be back in a world without Wendy in it.
A world that he had been partially sleepwalking through for two years now.
C’mon, O’Bannon, you’re made of tougher stuff than that, he upbraided himself. At bottom, you’re a Cavanaugh. Build on it.
His eyes opened, followed almost immediately by his mouth. For one split second he thought...he thought he saw her.
And then he realized that although he wasn’t alone, the woman sitting just opposite him in the upholstered chair—the one he and Wendy had found in that silly little garage sale—wasn’t Wendy.
It was Carlyle and it looked like she was dozing.
“What are you doing here?”
The harsh voice broke through the gauze-like haze surrounding her brain, stripping her of the last remnants of pseudo-sleep.
Alerted, Sierra grasped at the armrests and sat as straight as an arrow. Ronan’s question echoed in her head. She cleared her throat before answering him.
“Making sure you don’t choke to death during the night.”
“How’s that again?”
Shifting to the edge of the chair, she tried to explain. “I was afraid that you’d throw up and choke on your own—well, you get the idea. But now that you’re awake, I’ll just go—no, I can’t,” she realized as her scattered thoughts began to fall into a more coherent whole.
“You can’t?” he questioned, just going with the last thing she said. “Why not?”
“Because whenever you’re ready and feel up to it,” she told him in a patient voice that teachers used with slow learners, “I have to take you to your car.”
“My car?” he repeated. Wasn’t it in his driveway? He waited for an explanation.
“Yes, it’s still in Malone’s parking lot.”
Why couldn’t he remember anything? He began to shake his head and immediately stopped. He didn’t want his head to explode. “Why’s it there?”
“Because you were in no condition to drive home,” she said simply.
He opened his mouth twice to say something, changing his mind each time. Finally he said, “You don’t have to stay here. I can call my—”
His face suddenly turned a greenish shade of pale.
Her brothers had looked exactly the same shade during their college-rebellion days. “There’s a pail right by your foot,” she prompted, pointing.
Ronan valued his dignity and had he been able to walk out of the room and make it to the bathroom with some semblance of that dignity, he would have. But his stomach didn’t care about dignity and gave him absolutely no choice.
With the greatest sense of urgency, he made a grab for the pail and brought it up to his mouth—with less than a second to spare.
When he finally finished purging the swirling contents of his stomach, he put the pail on the far side of the sofa, as far away from either of them as possible.
Looking up, expecting to see a reproving expression on Sierra’s face, he realized that instead of looking judgmental or sickened by what she had just witnessed, she was handing him a kitchen towel, slightly dampened on one end.
“You might want to use this,” she suggested tactfully.
Ronan passed the damp side of the towel over his face and then dried it with the other end. “Sorry,” he murmured.
“For being human?” she quipped, making light of the situation. “Happens to the best of us. I know this recipe that helps with hangovers. It’s seen my brothers through some pretty bad bouts when they’d had too much to drink. I would be happy to whip it up for you while you take a shower.”
He looked down at himself, taking that to be a hint. “I guess I need one, huh?”
She gave him the most innocent of smiles. “Just a suggestion.”
He rose to his feet slower than he was happy about. It was a precaution just in case his legs weren’t steady enough to support him. The last thing he wanted was to fall right in front of this woman. Deciding that he could at least manage to walk away on his own two feet, he paused just before he began to head for the bathroom. “What about you?”
She assumed he was asking about her own state of sobriety. “I’m fine,” she told him. “I only had that one drink and it was mostly orange juice.”
“No, I mean did you get any sleep?” He felt guilty that she’d spent the night watching over him.
“I do well on catnaps,” Sierra told him evasively. He began to walk away when she brought his attention to something else. “Oh, and don’t forget to take that pail with you. I got it from your bathroom,” she told him just before she went into his kitchen.
She heard him groan as he picked up the pail.
* * *
HE TOOK AN extra-long time in the shower, letting the water hit him until he felt strong enough to face the rest of the day—and the world.
Though he would have preferred it, he knew he couldn’t call in sick. Not when he was just dealing with a hangover and not at death’s door. There was too much work to do on the serial killer case and besides, he wasn’t really sick, just miserable. And miserable would eventually pass.
Getting out of the shower, Ronan decided to forego shaving and just got dressed. He didn’t bother with the hair dryer, either, letting his wet hair dry on its own. It wasn’t as if he was trying to impress anyone, just get back to the business of living.
Dressed and probably feeling as good as he was going to feel today, he squared his shoulders and walked out of his bedroom, heading for the kitchen.
Sierra was still there, moving about in his kitchen. He hadn’t imagined her. For a few seconds there, he thought he might have. The way he sometimes imagined Wendy.
“What are you doing?” he asked her as he walked into the kitchen.
She turned from the counter, a dish with what looked like two slices of bread in her hand. “Making you something to eat.”
His stomach rebelled at the very mention of food, even as he took a seat at the kitchen table. “I can’t eat,” he told her.
Undaunted, Sierra placed the plate on the table in front of him. “Eat this. My brother Danny used to say that it helped him when he was trying to shake off a hangover.”
He looked down at the plate quizzically. “Toast?” he questioned.
“With honey. He swears by it.” Turning away for a second, she took a mug from the counter. He noticed it was steaming. She put it next to the plate. “And my brother Joey swears by chamomile tea, so I made you some of that, too.”
Ronan stared at the two things she pushed a little closer to him on the table. Where did she get these items? He tried to think.
“
I have honey?” he questioned. “And I know for a fact I don’t have tea.”
“You don’t have either one,” Sierra agreed, “but I do.”
He tried to make sense out of what she was telling him. “You carry this stuff around with you?”
“In my purse,” she specified. “I carry around a lot of things in case of an emergency,” she added. “You never know when you might need something. Now, go ahead, eat the toast and drink the tea even though you don’t want to,” she instructed. “I promise you’ll feel better.”
He contemplated the two items in front of him, weakening. “Well, I don’t think that I could feel any worse.”
“That’s the attitude,” Sierra told him, cheering him on.
He took a tentative bite of the honey sandwich, waiting for it to come back up. When it didn’t, he took another bite, chewing slowly and amazed that his stomach was cooperating.
“By the way,” he said, taking a sip of the tea, “what did you do to my kitchen?”
Watching him closely and holding her breath, hoping he could hold down the toast and honey, she wasn’t sure what he was referring to. Sierra looked around then recalled the condition of the kitchen when she’d walked in last night. There were dishes in the sink, things left out on the counter and in an overall general state of disarray.
“Oh, that. I cleaned it up. I had nothing else to do,” she explained. “This way, I figured it would be easier for you to find things. You wouldn’t have to waste your time looking for them.”
“I had a system,” he protested with just a touch of indignation as he took another bite of the toast and honey.
It took effort not to laugh at that statement. “Sure you did,” she said, humoring him. “The good news—for you—is that you’ll probably go back to that system soon enough,” she told him. “So, feeling any better?” she asked as he finished off the last bite of the honey sandwich, washing it down with the tea.
Ronan shrugged. “I guess. Now I only feel like death warmed over.”
“Progress,” she declared, pleased. “It happens in little steps.” Standing, she took the empty plate and mug over to the sink. “If you don’t feel up to driving in today, I’ll drive us in and then take you to Malone’s after the shift’s over. To Malone’s parking lot,” she stressed because she didn’t want him to think she was suggesting he stop at the bar for a drink.
“Stand down, Jiminy Cricket, I’m not about to repeat last night.”
“Never said you did,” she told him innocently. “I just wanted my meaning to be clear, that’s all. Sometimes I have a tendency not to do that,” she said with a quick smile.
He watched her rinse off the plate and mug, and it occurred to him she hadn’t had anything yet. “Don’t you want to eat anything?” he asked.
“Your cupboard is almost bare,” she pointed out. “I don’t want to rob you of the last of your provisions. Don’t worry, I’ll get something at work.” Drying off the two items, she put the mug and plate away.
“I guess I’m ready to go, then,” he told her, getting up from the table. And then he realized that something was missing. “Wait a second.” He looked around. “Where’s my weapon?”
“Don’t worry, you didn’t lose it. It’s right here.” So saying, Sierra opened his dishwasher.
He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “You put my gun in the dishwasher?”
“Well, I didn’t know where you normally kept it and I wasn’t planning on using the dishwasher, so I figured it was as good a place as any to store it.”
That raised a question in his mind. “Where do you keep your gun?”
“In the breadbox on the counter.”
“Where do you keep your bread?”
She offered him a wide smile. “In the refrigerator.”
Strapping on his weapon, Ronan shook his head and laughed. “You’re one of a kind, Carlyle.”
“Funny, my dad says the same thing,” she told him, “usually when he’s reading me the riot act.”
He could see her being a real pain. But for some reason the thought made him smile. “Does that happen often?”
“Not as often as it used to,” she replied. And then she added, “I think he’s getting less crusty in his old age.”
Ronan laughed. “He probably thinks the same thing about you.” He stopped short just before opening the front door and going out. “Hey, what did you slip me in that funny tea?”
“Nothing. Chamomile just looks like that,” she assured him.
“No, I’m not talking about the way it looks.” He locked the front door, slipping the key into his pocket. “We’re talking.”
Sierra disarmed the alarm on her car and then got in. “I noticed that.”
Ronan got in on the passenger side, closing the door then putting on his seat belt. “I don’t do that,” he pointed out. “Talk,” he added in case she didn’t understand what he was referring to.
She patted his shoulder and smiled. “Maybe it’s just been building up in you all these years.”
He sincerely doubted that. Things felt strange and unsettled in his head. Bits and pieces of last night began coming back to him, not in any sort of order, but enough to make him wonder if he’d been like this last night, talking too much.
He looked at her as she started the car. “Did I say anything last night?”
“You said a lot of things last night,” Sierra answered.
He frowned impatiently. “No, I mean to you.”
“So did I,” she answered brightly. Pulling out, she guided the car out of the development.
“Did I say anything...unusual? Or, um, do anything unusual?” he asked, feeling incredibly uncomfortable talking about this—whatever “this” was.
It was just that something felt...off. Something was teasing his brain, whispering just along the very perimeter of his mind but not materializing enough for him to be able to put his finger on it.
“I guess that would depend on your definition of unusual,” she told him, keeping her eyes on the road.
He’d dreamed of Wendy last night. Small, fitful, unformed fragments that refused to be pieced together into even a semblance of a whole. He remembered holding her and kissing her, and that everything had felt right for just a tiny, tiny moment.
But that had been just a dream, right? He hadn’t actually done that because Wendy was gone. Yes, Carlyle looked a little like her at first glance—maybe even at second—but he knew the difference. There was no way he would make that sort of a mistake.
Would he?
He looked at Sierra’s profile, growing progressively more uncomfortable as doubts began to pop up in his mind and haunt him.
“Then I didn’t—make a move—on anyone?” Ronan emphasized the word.
He just couldn’t get himself to say “a move on you.” But he knew she’d correct him and tell him if he’d overstepped his boundaries with her.
Without fully realizing it, he held his breath, waiting for Sierra to give him an answer.
“Not that I could see. You sat at that table with me until we left, so if you’re worried that you made a move on some unsuspecting woman at the bar, you didn’t,” she told him.
Ronan sighed, relief flowing through his veins. One concern put to rest.
“That’s good to know, because I just wouldn’t have wanted anyone to misunderstand and think that I was putting moves on them.” The next second his words echoed back to him in his mind. “Damn, I shouldn’t be telling you this,” he said, upbraiding himself.
She smiled then. “Haven’t you heard, O’Bannon? They say that confession is good for the soul.”
“I don’t have a soul,” he grumbled.
“Well, on the outside chance that it might turn up again, confession will be good for it,” she
said with a laugh.
His answer to that was something unintelligible and she decided it was wiser to just leave it at that and not ask any questions.
On the bright side, if it could be seen as that, she silently noted, it looked like O’Bannon was back to his old surly self.
Chapter Twelve
“So, I don’t suppose anyone came forward between last night and this morning with anything that remotely could be mistaken for a lead?”
The question came from Carver. The lieutenant had come out his office and crossed to Ronan’s desk the moment the detective walked into the squad room.
“Have a heart, Lieutenant. We just got here,” Sierra said, going to her own desk and trying to deflect Carver’s attention away from his prime target.
“So, what, she’s doing the talking for you now, O’Bannon? When did that happen?” Carver asked. He took a closer look at the lead detective and frowned. “You look a little green, O’Bannon. You sick?”
“He had a touch of food poisoning,” Sierra spoke up again. When the lieutenant glared at her, she pretended not to notice as she continued. “We rode up in the elevator together and he told me about the food poisoning when I commented on his pale coloring, same as you, Lieutenant.”
Carver made a disparaging noise, as if the lead detective’s bout of food poisoning had occurred simply to annoy him. And then he said, “If you’re not feeling well, go home, O’Bannon. We can’t have you throwing up all over the squad room.”
“I’ve got it under control, Lieutenant,” Ronan told him, finally managing to get a word in edgewise.
Carver seemed unconvinced. “Doesn’t look that way to me,” he commented. “But if you say so, carry on. And find something,” he demanded. “I’m getting pressure from above on all sides. We’re supposed to be a safe city, not a city where some crazy serial killer’s running wild, playing judge, jury and executioner.”
“We’re trying to follow up some possible leads, Lieutenant,” Ronan answered.
“Well, follow up faster,” the man ordered before turning on his heel and returning to his office.
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