Together With You

by Victoria Bylin

  “Carly?” the little girl asked as she flopped on her pillow, her hair damp and her eyes shining.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you read me a story?”

  She glanced out the window, saw the elm silhouetted against the royal blue sky, and shook her head. “I have to take care of Wild Thing. Let’s ask your daddy to do it.”

  “No. You do it. You make funny voices.”

  Carly was about to insist that she needed to leave, when Penny bolted upright, wrapped her arms around Carly’s ribs, and squeezed. Warmed to the core, Carly surrendered to both Penny and her own desire. She didn’t want to leave, not really. “You pick the book, okay?”

  Penny scrambled to the bookshelf, opened the bin that said “Bedtime Books,” and climbed back on the mattress. Snuggling against Carly’s side, she let out a big yawn as Carly opened the book and started to read. After just three pages, Penny’s eyes fluttered shut, and her breathing settled into the rhythm of sleep. Carly turned off the lamp, kissed her warm forehead, and went downstairs.

  The kitchen sparkled from top to bottom. Kyle and Eric were in the family room wrestling, literally, for the remote. Ryan was nowhere in sight until he came through the back door. “I took out the trash,” he said with a grin. “We did rock-paper-scissors. I lost.”

  Happiness welled in her heart. “You had a good time.”

  “Yes, we did.” He lowered his voice so only she could hear. “What you did tonight . . . it was amazing.”

  “You mean the pepper?” She laughed a little.

  “I mean everything.”

  “It’s just how I was raised. My daddy loves a good practical joke.”

  “I’d like to meet him.”

  She imagined Ryan and her father sitting down for a cigar and a debate on God, life, and everything in between. Sparks would fly, but in a good way.

  Ryan indicated the family room with a stretch of his arm. “Eric suggested a Jaws marathon. How about it? Want to join us?”

  “It’s tempting,” she admitted.

  “Then stay.”

  What harm would there be in staying just one night? She had clothes and toiletries in the nanny room, and Bette would be glad to feed Wild Thing. Wise or not, Carly wanted to bask in the warm glow of family a little longer. Family. The word echoed in her mind along with a hint of warning, because she could have changed family to Ryan. Even so, a happy shiver danced down her spine. “All right. I’ll stay. But I have to call Bette.”

  Ryan spoke in a husky voice. “We’ll wait for you.”

  Blushing a little, she went to the kitchen and lifted her cell phone off the counter. When Bette’s house phone went to voice mail, Carly’s brows pulled into a frown. Next she called Bette’s cell phone. A second round of voice mail turned the frown into a knot of worry. Bette was always home this time of night. If she’d been asked to work late, she would have called Carly. Maybe she was in the bathroom. Carly waited a few minutes, busying herself by wiping the shining counters yet again, then she tried both numbers a second time.

  Again, voice mail.

  In Boomer, she could have asked a neighbor to knock on Bette’s door. In Los Angeles, she didn’t have anyone to call. Jamming the phone in her pocket, she hurried to the family room where Ryan was seated on the couch with his arm stretched across the back. Eric was kneeling in front of the diorama to tweak something, and Kyle was seated in the recliner, a switch because Ryan usually sat in the big chair. The Jaws theme played a cruel reminder that danger lurked unseen in even the most tranquil times.

  “I have to leave,” she said in a tight voice.

  Ryan leapt to his feet, concern etched across his angular face. “What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t reach Bette.”

  “Try again,” he suggested. “Maybe the phone’s on silent.”

  “It’s not. I’ve tried twice now—both numbers.” Carly glanced at the boys. They were standing now, much like their father, and watching her with concern. The Tremaine males made quite a picture. “Have fun,” she said to them. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

  She went to the fridge, put the container of hash-brown casserole in a grocery bag, and headed to the nanny room to get her purse.

  “Wait.” Ryan caught up to her in the hallway. “I’m going with you.”

  “It’s not necessary.”

  “Yes, I think it is.”

  “You belong with the boys.” What if the sudden need to go home was God pulling her back from the mistake of becoming too involved?

  Leaving Ryan, she fetched her purse and charged back down the hall. Going full tilt, she hurried out the front door before Ryan could catch her. She didn’t want to ruin his night with his sons, especially when she was probably overreacting to a phone glitch. And especially when she longed to say yes to his offer to accompany her—not because she needed a man to steady her, but because she wanted to be with him.

  She climbed into her Cavalier just as Ryan strode out of the atrium with Kyle and Eric behind him.

  “Carly,” he called. “Wait up.”

  Pretending not to hear, she turned the key in the ignition. Instead of roaring to life, the engine groaned and died. She turned the key again, heard an impotent click-click-click, and slumped against the seat.

  13

  As Ryan opened Carly’s door, the boys came up behind him, crossed their arms, and stood like soldiers waiting for orders. Pride swelled in his chest. When he’d gone after Carly, Kyle had said to Eric, “Come on, let’s help Dad.” This is what men did for women. They slayed dragons and fixed cars, and they didn’t let vulnerable, hardheaded females drive alone in bad neighborhoods after dark.

  Carly looked up at him and sighed. “It’s probably the battery. Could you give me a jump? I have cables.”

  He pulled the door wider and offered his hand, the gesture issuing an order while his eyes bored into hers. “I’m not about to let you drive off with a dead battery. I’ll take you home to check on Bette. That’s final.”

  She glanced at his fingers, then looked into his eyes. Ryan lowered his chin. “We’re wasting time.”

  She grabbed her purse and the grocery bag with one hand and accepted his help from the car with the other. When she pressed her palm tight against his, the heat of worry shot up his arm.

  Kyle interrupted. “I’ll keep an eye on Penny.”

  “Me too,” Eric added.

  Carly beamed at the boys. “Thanks for helping. It means a lot to me.”

  It meant a lot to Ryan, too. Seeing his sons act like men puffed up his chest, and he gave a mental salute to both Carly and the effectiveness of the SOS list. “Eric, would you get my phone and keys, please?”

  His son nodded once and took off for the house.

  “Kyle,” Ryan continued, “make sure to lock up.”

  “I will.”

  “And check Penny a few times.”

  Widening his stance, Kyle propped his hands on his hips. “I’ll stay up until you get home.”

  “Good. It shouldn’t be long.”

  “About an hour or so,” Carly added.

  Eric returned with the keys and phone. The boys went back in the house, and Ryan guided Carly to the main garage with a hand on the small of her back. He opened the overhead door with the keypad, helped her into the passenger seat, and backed out of the driveway.

  The fading sunset turned the trees to silhouettes, and the night air sharpened the scent of Carly’s skin lotion. Being with her felt like a date, except her foot tapped nervously on the floor mat and she tried a couple of times to call Bette. He didn’t know where she lived, so in between worrying out loud, she gave him directions.

  As they approached her neighborhood, he spotted a rundown strip mall. A liquor store with bars on the windows sat between a bail-bondsman office and a cheap haircut place, and the only car in the parking lot was on blocks. A fluorescent light flickered in an empty Laundromat.

  “Turn here.” Carly pointed to a quiet street full of 195
0s-style apartment buildings, the kind built in pairs to make an open courtyard. Fresh paint battled some of the decay, but it failed to hide torn curtains behind burglar bars.

  He braked at a four-way stop. “Straight?”

  “Go left.”

  The instant he made the turn, flashing lights smacked the windshield. Glare from a fire truck, an ambulance, and four police cars flooded the interior of the Honda. With adrenaline pumping, he braked to a stop. Carly’s hand flew to her chest, and she gasped.

  Intending to turn around, Ryan glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll go another way.”

  “No!” She snatched up her purse and flung the door open, leaving the bag with the casserole. “That’s my building. I have to find Bette.” She leapt out and ran to the crowd gathered four buildings away.

  Ryan slammed the Honda into reverse, parked illegally up a curb, and ran after her. The police helicopter beamed a spotlight on him, and he stopped. Blinded, he raised his hands, then his face to give the officers a clear view. If they were looking for a thirty-something white male, six-foot-three, 190 pounds, he was in trouble.

  The silver light pinned him in place for ten long seconds, each one marked by stark fear for Carly, until the chopper roared away. Blinking away the blindness, he ran to the crowd gathered at the building cordoned off by yellow tape. He didn’t see Carly anywhere. Some faces were black or brown; others were white. Some were old and wrinkled; others belonged to babies in their mothers’ arms. Conversations in Spanish, English, and Vietnamese blended in a cacophony of rumor, supposition, and only the most obvious facts. Something terrible had happened. Something violent.

  Leveraging his way through the crowd, he shouted Carly’s name until she cried out, “Over here!” Her pale arm stuck up from the throng, and she waved.

  Muttering apologies, he made his way to her side and pulled her into his arms. She sank into him and held tight. “I can’t find Bette.”

  “We’ll keep looking. It’s a big crowd.”

  “Yes, but she’d be here. She’s nosy like that. She—” Carly’s voice cracked. “I-I’m hearing terrible things.”

  “Maybe she’s talking to the police.”

  “That could be.” Carly took a steadying breath and pulled out of his arms. “I want to know what really happened, not what people are saying.”

  “Do the police know you live here?”

  “No, and I can’t get anyone’s attention. I tried to get to the front of the tape, but the crowd’s too thick.”

  Ryan was six inches taller than Carly, far more arrogant, and dead set on helping her. With his arm around her shoulders, he maneuvered her to the stretch of taut yellow tape where a uniformed officer stood on the other side. Ryan called out to him.

  When the man turned, Ryan indicated Carly. “She lives here. She might know something.”

  The officer nodded, then spoke into his radio. A minute later, a jowly man in his fifties, presumably a detective, spoke with the officer, who pointed at Carly.

  The detective approached them with his mouth in a grim line. “Your names, please.”

  “I’m Ryan Tremaine. This is Carly Mason. She lives in the building.”

  “Apartment Five,” she added. “I’ve been trying to reach my neighbor, Bette Gordon. She lives in Six.”

  The detective lifted the tape a few inches. “Come with me.”

  Carly went first, and Ryan followed. The officer led them to a patch of dead lawn about ten feet from the crowd but in full view of the rescue vehicles. After introducing himself as Detective Hogan, the man tucked his notepad into his coat pocket. “I’m sorry, Miss Mason. Bette Gordon was murdered this afternoon.”

  Ryan placed his hand on her back. He expected a shriek, a cry, for her knees to buckle. Instead, she clamped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. Death in its natural forms traumatized the living. Murder struck Ryan as a macabre kind of tyranny, mankind run amuck like rats eating one another on a sinking ship. A bitter rage pulsed through him. Some things in this life were just plain cruel—murder, cancer, car accidents, FASD.

  Carly lowered her hand. With her eyes glazed, she focused on the detective. “When . . . when did it happen?”

  “Around four o’clock. What do you know about Ms. Gordon’s habits?”

  “She works at . . . worked at—” A cry strangled her, but she held it back. “She worked at the Vons bakery. She came home at three-thirty every single day.”

  The detective wrote on his notepad. “Have long did she live here?”

  “Over twenty years.” For the next several minutes, Carly answered questions about Bette’s life, the building, anything suspicious she might have seen. With each word, she sounded more Southern and more frightened.

  Metal wheels rattled in the courtyard. Spotlights lit up a gurney draped with a white sheet, a body evident beneath it, as a pair of men in coroner uniforms maneuvered the gurney down the walk. Ryan drew Carly into his arms to shield her eyes, but she stood ramrod straight, pathetically small compared to the vastness of the heartache.

  She gasped, steadied herself, then turned back to Detective Hogan. “What exactly happened?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is an open investigation. I can’t share the details.”

  “I know about the home invasion a few blocks from here. Was she shot?” Carly’s voice rose an octave. “Beaten to death? Raped?”

  Hogan gave her the respect of an almost imperceptible nod, and silently Ryan thanked him. Not knowing was worse than knowing too much.

  “Why?” Carly pressed her knotted hands to her chest. “She didn’t have anything. Not even a decent television. All she had was her cat.”

  Hogan’s eyelids drooped a little lower. “Home invasions don’t always make sense.”

  “This is pure evil!” Carly cried.

  The detective let the remark hang, as helpless as Ryan and every other human being to fix this big ugly broken world. The air thickened with the frenetic hum of the crowd, the smell of food cooking in a nearby kitchen, the rumble of the fire truck leaving the scene. In the presence of death, life asserted itself with the tenacity of a hungry child.

  The detective shoved the notebook inside his coat. “Do you have a place to spend the night?” he asked Carly.

  Ryan answered for her. “Yes, she does.”

  “Good.” He aimed his chin toward the courtyard where police personnel seemed to be everywhere. “We’re going to be here a while. Do you need anything out of your apartment?”

  “My cat—” She choked up. “And Bette’s cat.”

  Hogan indicated they should follow him. “I’ll check for Ms. Gordon’s cat while you gather what you need for the night. I want to prepare you. There are pry marks on your door.”

  “My door? Do you mean—”

  “Were the marks there before tonight?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s likely the suspects tried to enter your apartment before they targeted Miss Gordon. Having two deadbolts paid off tonight.”

  Carly grabbed for Ryan’s hand and held tight. He squeezed back, then squeezed even harder when he saw the raw, splintered wood on the doorframe. He considered himself a rational man, but the sight of those gashes burned through every ounce of civility in him. If anyone dared to harm Carly—beat her, rape her—he’d be as capable of murder as any man.

  Detective Hogan said the outside of her apartment had already been examined for evidence; then he asked Carly for her key, opened the door, and stepped back. After a long look at the pry marks, she led the way inside. Hogan excused himself, and Ryan followed Carly into the dimly lit room and closed the door.

  With a sweep of his eyes, he took in the apartment that was smaller than his bedroom. A desk and a chair were pushed against the wall closest to the door. The kitchen cabinets were a dull white and thick with multiple coats of paint. A set of cheap shelves held books and photographs he presumed were of her family. A twin bed was wedged in the corner and covered with giant
green throw pillows to make a sofa of sorts. With the A/C turned off—a cheap wall unit—the room was stifling.

  Somewhere inside, a cat meowed frantically.

  “Wild Thing!” Carly hurried to the bed and crouched to pull the feline into her arms, but it bolted out of reach.

  Standing straight, she hugged herself hard, hung her head, and shuddered. Ryan crossed the room in two strides. With his hands gentle on her biceps, he pulled her against his chest and held tight with his cheek against the top of her head. The long strands of her hair wisped against his hands and tickled, but what overwhelmed every other sensation—the heat in the room, the smell of her skin—was the tremble passing from her aching heart into his.

  “I’m so sorry,” he murmured.

  She clutched his shirt in her fists, knotting it so that it pulled tight over his shoulders. Her chest heaved, once, twice, then she collapsed into bone-wrenching sobs. With the pain pouring out of her, he held her as tight as he could. She wept for several minutes, clinging to him with her face pressed against his chest and her tears soaking into his shirt.

  For now, he was a port in a storm, but somewhere in his heart, maybe his soul, he wanted to be more for her. It was a dangerous admission, because being more meant risking what they had now. Common sense told him to deny his feelings with the full force of his will, but something stronger than logic, something dangerously close to love, dared him to kiss away her tears.

  His breath quickened to match hers. With their chests heaving in perfect time, he inhaled the shampoo scent of her hair, bent his neck, and brushed a kiss on her cheek. But then he stopped. If he kissed her mouth, the landscape between them would change irrevocably from level ground to high mountains and deep valleys. Never mind the ache in his chest and the longing to kick death in the teeth. Carly didn’t need a reckless kiss in the midst of this broken night. She needed the security of a friend.

  Swallowing hard, Ryan raised his face to the ceiling and away from hers. More than anything, Carly needed to feel safe with him, because she was moving into the nanny room permanently. This time he wouldn’t take no for an answer.