by Karen Rose
Jeremy had trouble signing because of the severe burns to his hands he had suffered in the car accident that ended his career as a surgeon. After the accident, he’d become a professor in the medical school.
Which was why he was standing in her living room. Diesel had asked him to use his med school contacts to find out who Laurel of LJM Industries was. From the sober expression on his face, he’d found something, and it didn’t appear to be good.
Dani briefly considered telling Greg to go downstairs, but her brother had grown up so much the past few years. Michael was going to need a friend, and that friend would need to be careful until the big bald killer was caught. Greg might not agree to the precautions if he didn’t know why. He was a lot like Deacon that way. Rules needed to make sense.
‘I’ll tell you when Faith gets back,’ she told Greg. ‘It’s a long story and I only want to tell it once.’
Jeremy gestured to Marcus to move so that he could sit next to Scarlett. Once he had, he gave her a frank appraisal. ‘Are you eating okay?’
‘Like a horse,’ Scarlett muttered.
‘Good,’ Jeremy said, patting her hand with his gloved one. ‘I want my grandchild to be healthy.’
Scarlett beamed at him, and Dani felt a pang of envy. She knew that it was medically possible – and safe – for her to have children, even with her positive status, which was a miracle on its own. But she’d decided that she didn’t want to be a mother again. As Greg had reminded her earlier, she’d raised him.
And of course, there was the issue of needing a father for a baby. Diesel would be a good dad, she thought, stifling a sigh. Just another reason he needed to find someone else.
Faith returned and sank to the floor, sitting cross-legged. Instantly she was flanked by her two dogs. ‘I’m here,’ she signed with a flourish. ‘Please begin.’
Greg rolled his eyes. ‘Is this about Michael? Shouldn’t he be here?’
Dani shook her head. ‘Not yet. I have other things to tell him, too, but he’s had a rough few days. I wanted him to have at least one low-stress day.’ But then she thought of the way he’d sobbed in Diesel’s arms. The kid wasn’t going to have any low-stress days for a long while.
She explained to the others what she and Diesel had found, careful not to say that Diesel had hacked into Brewer’s computer to begin with. ‘Based on some of the business names, I think her first name was Laurel,’ she finished, and looked to Jeremy expectantly, ready to interpret his reply for Greg.
Jeremy nodded. ‘You’re right. Laurel Jo Masterson. She graduated with her undergrad degree almost three years ago. She’d completed her first year of med school and had started the second. I didn’t know her, as she wasn’t in any of my classes.’ He gave Dani a respectful nod. ‘She did take Human Gross Anatomy and she did get an A minus. Having that information helped her HGA professor remember her.’
Delores looked confused. ‘Why didn’t you just ask the registrar for students with the initials LJM?’
‘They didn’t have enough for a warrant,’ Troy said, ‘and the university would require one. One of the reasons I came along. I might have flashed my badge a time or two to smooth the way.’
Scarlett was biting her lip. ‘I assume you haven’t told Deacon and Adam anything about this.’
Dani shook her head. ‘Not yet. We don’t actually know anything yet. Will you tell them?’
Scarlett frowned, then sighed. ‘I have to. But not until we know something solid that connects to an existing part of the investigation, so that we can legally start probing. Otherwise, anything we learn will be inadmissible in court. Jeremy, what did you find out?’
‘Laurel Jo Masterson dropped out of med school a month into her second year,’ Jeremy said. ‘She submitted the proper paperwork, but not in person. She mailed it to the office. When I finally got her name from her HGA professor, I called one of my old friends in the office and asked if she remembered her. She did, because Laurel’s brother came looking for her in January, at the beginning of the spring semester, when she didn’t return home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. The family had been receiving emails from her, but no one had actually talked to her and the brother was worried. My friend confirmed to the brother that the office had received Laurel’s withdrawal documents at the end of September. It was the first the brother had heard of it.’
‘Brothers Grim,’ Dani murmured. ‘Why didn’t her disappearance make the news?’
‘That’s what took me so long to find out,’ Jeremy said. ‘And why I asked Troy to come with Keith and me as we asked our questions.’
‘I went because I wanted Jeremy to have a witness,’ Keith explained. ‘He was talking to young female medical students in their apartments. It might have looked unprofessional.’
‘I was also nervous about Jeremy going alone,’ Troy added, ‘because, even though you didn’t tell him why the young woman was important, we figured something was up because Diesel was involved. And the kid you took in was accused of murder yesterday. I didn’t want whoever actually committed the murders getting to Jeremy and Keith because they were asking questions.’
Dani grimaced. ‘I’m sorry. I never intended to put you in danger.’
Jeremy shook his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’ve put yourself in danger by bringing the boy into your home. We didn’t end up having any trouble at all. At least not of the violent variety. I’m glad Troy came with us, because he was able to locate Laurel’s old roommate, who’d moved several times, moving up to a more expensive apartment each time.’
‘That’s not suspicious,’ Kate said dryly.
‘That’s what we thought,’ Troy agreed. ‘When we finally found the roommate, she told us that Laurel said she was leaving school to run away with her boyfriend, an older man she met at a party. She claimed that Laurel had emailed her that she was spending the holidays with this guy. The roommate said she told this to the brother, who was very upset and didn’t believe her. But CPD did believe that Laurel had simply run away and therefore did not open an investigation, even though the insistent brother was a Cleveland cop.’
Dani blinked in surprise. ‘A cop?’
Jeremy nodded. ‘The roommate said that the cop visited her several times, until she threatened to get a restraining order. He accused her of making up the story that his sister had run away, but she insisted that she’d never have done that.’
‘Do you have the name of the roommate?’ Dani asked.
Jeremy handed her a piece of paper. ‘I made notes of everything we found. You think that Laurel Masterson is dead?’
‘Yes,’ Dani said sadly. ‘And her brothers are out to get revenge against whoever killed her.’
‘One of her brothers is Grant Masterson,’ Marcus said, looking at his phone screen. ‘I just ran the search. A Cleveland accountant. Married with three kids.’
‘And the cop brother?’ Scarlett asked.
‘He introduced himself to my friend in the office as Wesley Masterson,’ Jeremy said. ‘It’s on that paper.’
Marcus was already typing the cop’s name into his phone. ‘Wesley Masterson is a detective with the narcotics department. He was written up in one of the Cleveland papers when he got a commendation after going undercover for three years.’
‘Is either Grant or Wesley big and bald?’ Dani asked.
Marcus shook his head. ‘Nope. Neither are bulky. Both about five-ten.’
Dani frowned, putting the pieces together in her mind. ‘He was undercover for three years? When did he come out from under?’
Marcus checked the article. ‘January before last.’
Dani sighed. ‘So he would have been undercover when she initially went missing. He didn’t know she hadn’t come home for the holidays until it was too late. Of course, he was frantic.’
‘And feeling guilty that he wasn’t there for her,’ Keith added quietly.
‘I would.’
Jeremy patted his hand. ‘I would, too.’
‘Ditto,’ Scarlett agreed.
Greg’s forehead was furrowed. ‘So if this LJM Industries bought Michael’s house, does it mean they killed his stepfather? That a Cleveland cop killed his stepfather?’
Dani shrugged. ‘Good questions. Maybe? We don’t know. But they connect somehow.’ She glanced at Scarlett. ‘Is that enough to tell Deacon and Adam?’
Scarlett nodded slowly. ‘The sale of the house will come out when they start searching Brewer’s financials, if they haven’t done so already. This case, what with the way Brewer’s body was dumped and Michael’s testimony about watching Brewer getting murdered, smacks of a hit. Running financials on the victims will be among the first things Deacon and Adam do. LJM will be on their radar soon, so yeah, tell them.’
A quiet rapping on the front door had the dogs barking again. Once again they were shushed. Dani looked anxiously at the stairs while Marcus opened the door.
‘Joshua can hear us if he wakes up,’ Dani murmured, still signing for Greg’s benefit. ‘Can you run up and check on him, Greg?’
Greg gave her a sideways look. ‘You’re trying to get rid of me.’ But he got up to do as she’d asked.
Marcus was letting Stone into the house and Stone had been with Diesel. Dani craned her head to see if Diesel would follow him in, but he didn’t.
‘He’s at his house,’ Stone told her without her having to ask.
Disappointment swamped her, leaving her stammering for words. ‘Is he . . .’ She cleared her throat, viscerally conscious of the quake in her voice, because everyone was watching her. ‘Is he coming back?’
Stone nodded. ‘Later, yes.’ He turned to Delores. ‘I told him we’d stay here until he came back.’
Delores just smiled, and leaned up to kiss his cheek. ‘I figured we would. Are you hungry? I’ll fix you a plate of lasagna,’ she went on without waiting for his answer. ‘Scarlett, Kate, Faith, wanna help me out?’
The three women looked from Dani to Stone and back to Delores. ‘I guess we do,’ Kate said.
‘I could eat,’ Scarlett added with a shrug.
Greg came back downstairs, looking troubled. ‘Joshua’s sound asleep, but Michael’s sleeping on the floor next to him.’
‘He did that last night, too,’ Dani said. ‘He will until he feels safe.’ And then he’ll be shipped off to someone else.
Temporary. Dammit. She was becoming more determined to change that every time that damned word entered her mind.
Delores waved at Greg to get his attention. ‘Can you walk all the dogs, Greg? And Marcus, can you go with him to keep watch? Decker, can you do a perimeter check?’
‘I did one,’ Troy said. ‘When we got here.’
Delores merely smiled. ‘Then Decker can go with Marcus, Greg, and the dogs.’ She merely lifted her brows at Jeremy, Keith, and Troy, who wordlessly stood and followed her into the kitchen.
A minute later, Dani was looking around at the empty living room, bewildered. ‘They’re all gone.’
Stone chuckled. ‘People underestimate Delores because she’s little and sweet, but she’s a dynamo.’
His whole demeanor softened when he talked about Delores, and Dani’s heart squeezed. Diesel looks at me that way.
So why was she fighting this so hard? Oh, right. Because I’ll break his heart. She thought about the look on Diesel’s face when he’d walked away. I already did.
‘How is he?’ she asked quietly.
Stone sighed, the softness in his face transforming into worried sadness. ‘Not great. I don’t know what happened between you and I don’t need to know, but he thinks you don’t want him.’
She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, not sure of what to say.
‘Is it true?’ Stone murmured.
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered, unable to lie any longer.
‘Then I assume you have a very good reason for making him think so.’ He hesitated so long that she opened her eyes to find him looking at his hands. ‘When I met Delores, I . . .’ He trailed off, his cheeks growing ruddy. ‘I’m a recovering addict. You know that, right?’
Dani knew it. It was common knowledge in their circle of friends. ‘Yes.’
‘Did you know it was Diesel who stuck with me when I went through detox?’
‘No, but I’m not surprised to hear it.’ Diesel had sat with Meredith as she’d recovered from her injuries the year before. He possessed a gentleness that made Dani’s heart hurt. ‘He’s loyal.’
Stone’s nod was fierce. ‘He found me delirious and seizing with withdrawal. Got me into rehab. And never told a soul. I’d be dead if it weren’t for him. So would Marcus. Diesel took a bullet for him in Iraq. Still carries it. Right here.’ He thumped his chest with a meaty fist. ‘VA docs said they couldn’t remove it. Said that someday it would . . . slide. Just a smidge. And pierce his heart. He’s been a dead man walking for years.’
Dani’s breath froze in her lungs as her blood ran cold. ‘What?’ The word was a soundless gasp.
‘He doesn’t talk about it. But he won’t go to any more doctors about it.’
‘Because he hates white coats and hospitals,’ she whispered.
‘Exactly. You know that song, “Live Like You Were Dying”? That’s what he does. He builds houses with Marcus for women and their kids after they’ve run from domestic violence. He coaches the Pee Wee leagues. He volunteers all over the city, trying to make the lives of kids better. He works overtime at the Ledger, finding dirt on lowlifes who’ve slipped through the justice system. He never sleeps, Dani.’
She covered her mouth with her hand, horrified. Yet . . . it made sense. It all made sense. He was a man living on borrowed time.
Which was the first thing she’d address. ‘How long has he been carrying the bullet in his chest?’
‘Ten years.’
She squared her jaw. ‘That will change. I’ll find a doctor to take it out.’
‘He won’t go. And that isn’t why I told you about it. He doesn’t want you to fix him, Dani. He just wants you to want him. That’s all he’s ever wanted – to be wanted. We do – our family, I mean. We want him. We love him. He’s one of us. We’re all a little broken. You’re not the only one who travels with baggage.’
‘I know,’ she managed.
‘Do you? Do you really? I’m an addict. Heroin. I am a fucked-up man. And not always a nice person. When I met Delores, I told her that I was fucked up, a real SOB. I told her that she’d be better off picking someone else.’
Oh. Stone’s true message finally broke through. ‘What did she say? Clearly she didn’t listen.’
He smiled again. ‘Like I said, everyone underestimates Delores. She’s sweet, but the woman has a spine of steel. She told me that it was her choice. Got right in my face and informed me that I didn’t have the right to tell her what to think or who to love. That if my addiction was a problem, she’d tell me so, but it wasn’t.’ He shrugged self-consciously. ‘I still have bad days, but she stays. She loves me. I don’t deserve it, but it doesn’t make it any less true.’
Dani swallowed hard. ‘How did you know?’ she asked hoarsely.
His smile became sad. ‘That you feel like you don’t deserve him?’
She nodded, unable to speak for fear of losing it for the second time that evening.
‘I didn’t,’ he said. ‘Not until this minute. But I suspected. I’ve watched him watching you for months. I’ve watched you watching him when you thought no one was looking. You want him, but you tell him no. You’re not stupid and you’re not mean. I can only assume there are other issues in play. Your HIV status?’
‘That’s one,’ she allowed. He was wrong on the mean, though. I am not a nice person, either.
‘Well, I’m not a doctor or a s
hrink or even a nice guy, but I am a good judge of people, and I think you should talk to him. Tell him what’s standing in your way. And then take a page out of Delores’s book and let him make his own choices. He’s a big boy, Dani. He can deal, one way or the other.’
She drew a deep breath. ‘Okay. I will. When he comes back.’ Because he would come back, if only for the boys.
Stone tilted his head, studying her. ‘Good. Oh, and by the way, we got the name of the big bald guy and gave it to Adam.’
Dani’s jaw dropped. ‘What the—’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘What happened?’
‘We were in the casino on the Lady of the River and a fight broke out. The manager mistook Diesel for the security manager, whose name is Scott King. Diesel’s tracking him now.’
Dani ground her teeth. ‘And when Diesel finds him?’
‘I don’t know, and that’s the truth.’
She shook her head, exasperated. ‘You couldn’t have led with that?’
‘You didn’t ask what we found,’ he pointed out. ‘You asked how he was. I simply answered your question.’
She scowled. ‘Is he planning to do something stupid, like go after this King guy all by himself?’
Another shrug. ‘Diesel’s gonna do what he’s gonna do.’
She exhaled carefully, working to keep her cool. Diesel might think he was going after Brewer’s killer by himself, but that was not going to happen. ‘You say he’s at his house? Where is that?’
‘I’ll take you to him,’ Stone said. ‘Not a suggestion,’ he added when she opened her mouth to protest. ‘Big bald guy is out there and I’m not getting on Diesel’s shit list because I let you drive alone.’
Let me? Really? She was tempted to argue, but decided to leave it for later. Mainly because he was right. ‘Let me grab my coat.’ She turned for the closet, but stopped. ‘I can’t leave the boys.’
Stone rolled his eyes. ‘They’ll be safe. Scarlett’s a cop, Marcus was a US Army Ranger, and Keith was a Marine. Kate, Decker, and Troy are Feds. Kate’s a goddamn sniper.’
‘Okay. You’re right.’