It took a few seconds for it to sink in. She laughed and joked that she hoped he wasn’t that slow when it came to his work. She was so happy, excited by the idea of having a family together, how could he tell her that the idea of it made this huge lump press painfully against his breastbone, that the idea of being a father had never really been on his radar?
The more excited she grew, the larger the sense of doom that followed him around became. He would lay awake late at night and listen to her sleep, grieving for the life they were supposed to have and hating the misery he suspected was about to rain down on them.
He never wanted to be a father. He resented her for getting pregnant, for changing everything without so much as mentioning it to him.
His resentment grew and grew, but he somehow managed to keep it from her. And then the night she went into labor . . . the sight of her beautiful face twisted in pain pulled him out of his self-pity. All he could think about the entire eighteen hours she was struggling to bring Addison into the world was how much he loved her and how desperate he was to make the pain stop for her.
And then he held Addie in his arms, and it was like all that resentment, all the grief, all the anger, just dissipated like it’d been nothing but smoke. That was the happiest day of his life. Every night became his focus, a joy to come home to that beautiful baby and his lovely fiancée. He was so high up on his cloud that he didn’t see how miserable Ree Ann was until she had one foot out the door.
Calder’s mother believed Ree Ann’s decision to leave was sudden. It wasn’t. They fought for weeks before she left. He tried desperately to convince her that her feelings of inadequacy, her frustration, and exhaustion, would eventually pass. But maybe she knew herself better than he ever did.
She destroyed everything. But she left him with this gift that he would forever be grateful for.
Ree Ann was married now, to some executive with the law firm she’d joined out in California. They were happy, she said, committed to a childless relationship. He’d been married before, had two boys with his first wife. He was no longer interested in parenthood, but he knew all about Addie, saw the pictures he sent her every six months. He understood the choices she’d made.
Calder didn’t. He probably never would.
He looked at the picture of Addie he kept on his desk here at Mastiff and wondered how anyone could walk away from that beautiful face. Then he sighed, shifting to face his computer, pulling up the template for case reports. He’d no more than typed in Quinn’s name, his thoughts again going to the idea of that t-shirt and shorts she claimed to wear to bed when his phone rang.
“Calder Obre.”
“It’s Axel. I don’t think your case is as over as you’d assumed.”
“How’s that?” he asked, both annoyed and curious.
“She just called the operator downstairs. I guess someone shot at her downtown this afternoon. She’s at Lincoln Medical Center getting treatment as we speak.”
Chapter 7
Springfield, Illinois
Lincoln Medical Center
“Did you see the shooter?”
Quinn tried to shake her head, but the nurse was holding her head still as the doctor placed two careful stitches in her cheek.
“I didn’t. But the door exploded, so that implies a large caliber gun, right?”
“We don’t make assumptions,” the cop said. All she could see of him was his shiny shoes. She wished she could look at him and assure herself that he wasn’t rolling his eyes at her. But she couldn’t. “We have a patrol car down there. If there’s anything to see, they’ll find it.”
“They’ll find a bathroom door that’s been shredded by bullets.”
“Of course.”
It sounded like he agreed with her, but there was this undertone that suggested he was just indulging her and that was frustrating. The nurse turned her head so the doctor could get a good look at his work, a slight smile on his big lips.
“We’ll put a bandage on this and then you’ll be free to go, Dr. Naylor.”
“Thank you.”
She looked over at the cop, but he was gone. He hadn’t even bothered to reassure her that they’d find the asshole who’d shot at her!
What the hell was happening to her? She’d lived a nice, quiet life for the past ten years, avoiding her parents as often as she could, keeping her nose to the grindstone. She was a damn good doctor! Well respected, even loved among her patients. Why was she suddenly persona non grata? Was it really that easy to ruin someone’s reputation? Was it that easy to ruin someone’s life?
Then why hadn’t someone done it to Roan Naylor?
“If you’ll tilt your head this way.”
The nurse stood beside her, her eyes wide with curiosity. Quinn almost told her to go ahead and ask, but then the curtain was pulled aside and Calder Obre walked in.
There was something decidedly manly about that guy. He had this sort of presence that made every female within a few hundred yards stop what they were doing and turn to look whenever he approached. Even the nurse, all that curiosity dripping from her eyes, turned to assess him as he paused inside the curtain. Quinn was positive she even saw a light blush burn on the girl’s cheeks.
“Mr. Obre,” she said. “Nice of you to join us.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “They said you were all finished back here.”
“We just need her to sign her release forms,” the nurse informed him, turning back to Quinn to press the bandage she’d been holding to her cheek. “Then she can go.”
Calder didn’t respond. He was very quiet as he watched the nurse move nervously around the room and then leave, blushing even deeper as she was forced to walk passed him.
“Did you come to inform me that you were about to quit as my investigator?”
His eyebrows rose, but that was his only reaction. “I came to find out if you were really shot at.”
“You sound like the cops.”
“They say they haven’t had a chance to corroborate your statement.”
“Corroborate my statement? You mean, they haven’t had a chance to prove I’m lying.” Quinn reached up to brush her fingers over the bandage on her cheek. “I suppose they think I gave myself this cut, too. And that the busted door on the bathroom downtown was just a coincidence.”
“It’s routine, Dr. Naylor.”
She shook her head, tired of people telling her what was routine and what wasn’t. She was always very careful not to use that kind of language with her patients. God knows she’d heard it often enough when she was a kid.
How many times had she told a story to a sympathetic teacher, a kind nanny, a capital police officer, only to be told that her father had informed them that she had a wild imagination and that she shouldn’t tell awful stories like that about such a good man?
They didn’t know shit!
She climbed off the exam table and grabbed her bag, slinging it roughly over her shoulder before barging her way through the curtains around the treatment cubicle.
“Where are you going?” he asked, calmly walking beside her.
“Home.” She danced around a gurney coming their way, determined to get as far from this place and the people in it as possible. “It’s been a really bad day.”
“I can imagine.”
“I just want to go home and climb into a hot bath. Is that so much to ask for?”
He kept right up with her even though her little legs were rushing through the busy emergency room; he was there beside her to wave his hand at the automatic door and to gesture for her to walk through ahead of him.
She hesitated on the sidewalk, suddenly remembering that she’d left her car downtown. It had seemed more prudent to take a cab when the bathroom door suddenly exploded. She didn’t want to be alone, unarmed, and unprotected on the street as she tried to find the parking lot where she’d left her car. It was just her luck that a cab happened to be less than three feet from the bathroom door when she got up the courage to slip throug
h. But now she was stuck.
“This way,” Calder said without asking why she’d stopped. He seemed to know already. He led the way to a truck parked at the curb a few yards from the emergency room entrance. It looked like the kind of truck a farmer might be proud to use to navigate his fields, but this one was waxed and polished, a beauty that was clearly well cared for.
She climbed into the passenger side of the bench seat, using his hand as leverage. He didn’t pull back right away, but let his hand linger against hers. She studied the back of his hand, the fine hairs and the tan skin, the long fingers that belonged on the hand of a pianist rather than a cop. It was a nice hand, a strong hand. She liked that it was warm, that he was confident in his touch. She liked his touch.
He pulled away and closed the door without saying anything, walking around the back of the truck to gain entrance to the driver’s side. Quinn pulled on her seat belt, trying to busy herself with mundane things so that maybe her thoughts would go back to normal. The last thing she needed right now was an adolescent crush on the guy who was supposed to be finding a way to fix her current situation.
He started the truck in a roar of engine power, drowning any possibility of conversation. He looked over at her once, his eyes resting on the bandage that marred her cheek. Quinn leaned forward and pulled down the visor, revealing herself in the mirror hidden there. The bandage came off easily, revealing the ugly stitches that held her cut together. She touched them, not pleased with the doctor’s work. But emergency room doctors were rarely artists. That’s why they were in the emergency room.
Quinn could fix it when she got home.
“That’s quite a cut you’ve got there.”
“It’s splinters from a door that’s probably more solid than anything made these days.”
“Yeah?”
She glanced at him. “It was at the Lincoln House.”
“Why were you downtown?”
She took a deep breath, not really happy with this interrogation even if he was doing it a little friendlier than he had their conversation the night before.
“I was meeting with my lawyer. And then I got pissed and left. I ended up at the Lincoln House.”
“Meeting didn’t go well?”
“I fired him.”
He smiled as he glanced over at her. “Yeah. Why?”
“Because he was useless. He wouldn’t do anything about the hospital suspending my privileges.”
“They did that?”
“Last night.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged, trying to hide the fact that his apology hit her hard in a place that wasn’t used to feeling much of anything around grown men. A child who smiled at her despite being in incredible pain, that could still get to her. But a grown man? No.
She’d built a pretty strong wall around her heart a very long time ago.
Quinn stared out the window, vaguely aware of her surroundings. And then she realized where they were.
“What are you doing? Are you trying to stir up trouble?”
“I want to see the door.”
He pulled to the curb not three feet behind a police cruiser. Quinn could only watch as he climbed out of the truck and sauntered over to where the cops were discussing something that more than likely had nothing to do with the visible bullet holes in the public bathroom door. She saw Calder touch one of the holes and looked at the cops. They suddenly snapped to attention, moving closer to him as they all became engrossed in a deep conversation. She was almost curious enough to get out and go join in, but not quite.
“What did they say?” she asked when he got back into the truck.
He waited until he’d put the monster truck into gear and had them halfway down the block before he answered.
“You were shot at.”
“They said that?”
“I say that.” The emphasis on the word “I” wrapping her in a cocoon of safety she hadn’t known in a long time. “They’re idiots who think . . . doesn’t matter what they think.”
She knew what they thought. They thought she was a poor little rich girl who was imagining things. That’s what people like that had thought since she was a child. And sometimes they were right.
But not always.
“Now what?”
“Now I take you home and stay with you until we can arrange a protection detail to sit on your house.”
“You think it might happen again?”
Quinn had been so wrapped up in her anger that it hadn’t occurred to her that she was in actual danger.
“It’s a possibility.”
“But who? Why?”
He shook his head, his hands gripping the wheel of the truck hard enough that she could see how white his knuckles were. He glanced at her as they pulled to a stop at a red light.
“Is it possible someone was in the car with you the night of the accident?”
Quinn shook her head. “I don’t know. I suppose so.”
“Is it possible someone made you do what you did? And then injected you with something that caused you to forget?”
“I don’t know.” She ran her fingers through her hair, her eyes moving to the side window as she wished—not for the first time—that she had a better memory of what had happened that night. “I remember leaving the house. I remember seeing my car on the curb.” She stopped, the impression of a shadowy figure slipping through the edge of her memory. But she couldn’t bring it into focus, couldn’t remember for sure if there was really someone there. “I don’t know.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
“If there was?”
“That person could be coming after you again. Maybe they’re afraid you hired Mastiff because you remembered something.”
“But I don’t. I don’t remember a damn thing!” She smacked her hands on her thighs, smoothing her palms over the smooth cotton of her slacks. “I so wish I did, but I don’t!”
He reached over and pressed a hand to the back of hers. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
She looked up at him. He was watching her, those perfect blue-green eyes glowing in the dimness of the street light. But then it turned green, and he let her go, moving his hand away in favor of gripping the wheel again.
Quinn leaned forward a little, trying to take a few deep breaths. She felt like she was suffocating. When they pulled into her driveway, she opened the door and swung her legs around. Her foot caught on something that squeaked in the floorboards of the truck. She reached down and picked up a little plastic toy, one of those squeeze toys that children found just as fascinating as puppies did. She smoothed her thumb over its ear, wondering if it was a child’s new teeth that had scraped the paint away or a puppy.
She would wager a child.
“Niece or nephew?” she asked when he came around to help her out, holding the toy up where he could see it.
He slipped it out of her hand, popped open the glove box and tossed it inside. Then he held out his hand, clearly not interested in answering the question.
“I always wished I had siblings. I wanted a brother or sister, wanted someone to share the . . .” She stopped herself, realizing she’d about to say pain. She wanted someone to share the pain with. What would he have thought of that?
“Do you have siblings?”
He was quiet for a long moment as he led the way to her front door. She thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then, as he opened the door and brushed his hand over the small of her back to push her through, he said, “I had a sister.”
“Had?”
“She died. Years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t respond. He gestured for her to stand against an inner wall of the living room while he walked around, checking the rooms on the first floor. She watched, finding it almost enjoyable to observe the graceful way his body moved, the way his hips swung just slightly, the long gait of his legs as he moved from one spot to another, the way that long ponytail swayed against his back with
every step. She wondered what would make a man like him want to have hair like that. It was so much longer than hers but thick and luscious, the kind of hair she would want if she was inclined to wear her hair that way.
When he was done with the bottom floor, he took hold of her wrist and led the way upstairs, checking each of the rooms that led to her bedroom door. He stepped inside once more, his eyes instantly moving to the uncovered windows.
“I don’t like this,” he said. “Anyone can see you in here. A sniper could set up in that tree over there,” he pointed toward the back of her yard, “or down in the rose bushes, and you wouldn’t know he was there until it was too late.”
Quinn frowned, her heart jumping into her throat. “I never had to worry about that before.”
“Yes, well, if you have some blankets or something, I’d like to cover them up.”
It hurt her, physically hurt her, to think about it. But she did as he asked, taking blankets from the hall closet and holding a chair still as he used heavy tacks to secure the blankets over the windows. She couldn’t sleep hours later with all the darkness the new covers created.
Someone knocked on the door just as he was finishing up.
“Must be the detail.” He turned to Quinn and studied her face a long moment. “Do not go anywhere, understand? Do not leave this house until I arrive in the morning.”
“Yes, sir.” She snapped a little salute and then smiled when the corners of his mouth twitched. “There is a sense of humor in there somewhere!”
“A small one.”
He came to her, took her shoulders in his hands. “Please do as I ask. And I will do my best to figure out what happened today, what happened that night. I will do everything I can to figure out who’s doing this to you.”
“Thank you,” she said softly.
He nodded, moving back a few steps. “It’s my job.”
He left before she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. But she was pretty sure that last little bit was just an awkward way of covering up the slip of his mask there, a minute crack that proved he wasn’t as inhuman as he wanted her to believe.
“Good night, Calder,” she whispered under her breath.
Mastiff Security: The Complete 5 Books Series Page 27