Deadly Chemistry (Entangled Ignite) (13 page)

“What? Why?”

“As you know, the Pemberton Group funds not only your research project, but that of several other faculty members at Tuck U. Pemberton is threatening to pull all of their support immediately unless we disassociate you from the department, pending investigation of your involvement with the Devil’s Dust issue.”

“So, am I fired?”

Dr. Jerrold shook his head. “Not if you’re innocent. But until we have proof that you’re not involved, you’ll have to leave the Tucker University campus immediately.”

Well, crap on a cracker. She was so screwed.

Chapter Fifteen

Mike checked his phone on the way into the grocery store. He had just enough time to get the stuff he needed to make cheesy potatoes for dinner at Evan’s. He hoped that Dylan was actually going to show up to eat them. The kid hadn’t come home last night but had texted that he was staying with a friend and would see Mike at Evan’s later.

His choices for a shopping cart were between the one that looked like it had been drooled on—or worse—by every toddler in Tucker, and the one with a wonky front, right wheel. He chose the one with the wobbly wheel, because the tub of disinfecting wipes by the door of Food Giant was empty. Besides, fighting with a recalcitrant shopping cart gave him something substantial to wrestle. Something besides his own frustration.

It had been a long day of leaving voicemails, being on hold, and being ignored.

Mike had wanted to blow up Dylan’s phone, insisting on a meeting to get to the bottom of Dylan’s involvement in the Devil’s Dust situation, but Mike had wanted to get some more information from the task force in Cincinnati before he levied any more accusations at Dylan. The problem with
that
plan was that some of Lauren’s dried algae pellets had hit the street overnight—and sent a couple of people to the hospital, and the investigators were up to their eyebrows in dead-ends. He’d finally spoken with his old partner, Dan, who’d reluctantly shared that no one knew where the two kids who were in the hospital had gotten the stuff, and they weren’t talking. They might not be talking ever again.

And now he’d managed to arrive right in the middle of the Sunday afternoon grocery shopping happy hour. Who knew everyone in Tucker did their shopping at the same time?

His breath caught and his hands tightened on the handle of the cart when he noticed Lauren Kane. She didn’t notice him, which was good, because he stopped in his tracks and just…looked at her. An elderly man elbowed him out of the way, with a smirk and a “She’s a purty one,” as he went by.

Lauren was intent on snagging something from the ice cream cooler, balancing a rather large bottle of pink wine, an economy-size bag of salt and vinegar potato chips, Oreo cookies, and a box of Pizza Rolls. Wearing baggy faded jeans and an Ohio State Buckeyes hoodie, she tried to use her shoulder to brush a stray strand of hair out of her eyes. Before he knew what he was doing, Mike moved forward and took the bottle and the Pizza Rolls from her before she dropped them. And so he wouldn’t be tempted to stroke that hair out of her face. “I’ll share my cart with you if you tell me why you’re going on a suicide junk food feeding frenzy,” he said.

After such a crappy day so far, it was both stunning and refreshing to see her here, doing something as mundane as grocery shopping, because Lauren wasn’t the least bit mundane. She was energy and light and…he was in so, so deep.

She turned to look at him, and he saw that she also held a large, red apple under her chin. “I have an apple.” She put the wine next to his bag of frozen hash browns. “And I don’t have anything resembling cheese that doesn’t need to be refrigerated.” She pointedly put the cookies next to his block of Velveeta.

“My grandmother lived to be eighty-four and she ate Velveeta every day,” Mike said, taking the potato chips from her so she could get the tub of salted caramel ice cream she’d been chasing when he found her.

Lauren started to speak, then snapped her mouth shut.

Mike laughed. He was glad to see her. “Yeah, she probably could have made it another twenty years, but she went out happy and full of her favorite tater casserole.”

“That’s nice,” Lauren said, her expression soft. “You must miss her.”

Mike felt a little tightening in his throat. He coughed.

The ice cream landed next to the economy-size tubs of butter and sour cream he needed for his casserole. “Thanks,” she said, shaking out her fingers. “I was getting a hand cramp.” She didn’t meet his eyes, pretending to look for something between the frozen peas and brussels sprouts.

“So…What’s going on?” He hoped she wasn’t uncomfortable seeing him after what had transpired between them last night. He
hoped
she might be a little glad to see him, too.

“Did you see the news today?” she asked.

“Yeah, I was gonna call, but…” He was gonna call, but hadn’t known what to say.
Hey, I see that another piece of your research project is out there making people sick
? No, he hadn’t planned to call her until he had something to tell her, like that he’d found the connection and made sure they were behind bars.

She fiddled with the strap of her purse. “Some kids are in the hospital from smoking those step one pellets. That’s even worse than the purified step two because of that toxin I mixed in.”

The pain in her eyes was a knife to his gut. “I know. I’m sorry.” Goddamn it.

She looked at him then. “What am I supposed do? This is my fault. If I hadn’t been so anxious to get more step two from the algae, I wouldn’t have mixed in the cell membrane disruptor—”

He cut her off by pulling her into his arms right there in the middle of the Food Giant on Sunday afternoon. He held her, trying to show her with the strength of his body that he wouldn’t let her fall apart. After a second, he pushed her away a little so he could see her face. “We’re going to get these assholes. I promise.” He hoped. “But first, you’re going to come to my house and help me make Grandma’s cheesy taters.”

“For dinner with Evan and Dylan?”

“Hey—how did you—”

She gave him a watery smile. “I saw Evan at the lab this morning. I hear there’s going to be pork roast, too.”

For a moment, all he could do was stare into her eyes, then it hit him. He’d invited a woman home to dinner. His stomach clenched. Oh God, what had he done?

…

Mike looked in his rearview mirror to see if Lauren was still following him. After spending the afternoon together, trying to convince her that Velveeta was a miracle food, and that, even though it was kind of gummy, you
could
cut it with a knife, he wasn’t sure she hadn’t bailed on him. Who knew that someone so good with all those scientific instruments would be all thumbs in the kitchen? Mike was more than a little surprised that they hadn’t ended up at the Tucker Community Hospital Emergency Room for wound care.

Instead, they’d spent a couple of hours laughing and talking and pretending that Lauren hadn’t been suspended from her job, though they’d both jumped every time either of their phones buzzed with incoming emails, none of which had any news about the Devil’s Dust or the smokable algae.

There were now two careers on the skids because of the Devil’s Rangers. Mike prayed that he’d find something—anything—that proved that Dylan wasn’t involved. The only thing he held on to at the moment was that he didn’t have a living link between Dylan and the Rangers. Just circumstantial shit from the lab, which was pretty damned convincing.

When he saw Lauren connect gazes with him through the rearview mirror and wave, he proceeded down the next street. Evan lived in a little subdivision half a mile outside of the old city limits. Mike wasn’t sure that Tucker had suburbs, but this area might qualify. The houses here were newer—1980s—than the 1930s and 40s vintage in town. Mike turned his truck onto Evan’s street just in time to see that same little black car from last night pull out of the driveway and speed past Lauren, who was parking a block up from Evan’s house. The driver stared right at him, recognition shocking both of them.
Oh, hell no
. If he wasn’t mistaken, that was Angela Romain. He thought about giving chase, but considering Dylan was standing, frozen, on Evan’s front stoop, he didn’t need to. He had his connection to the Devil’s Rangers.

“God
damn
it.” He threw the truck into park and grabbed the pan of potatoes. He thought about tossing the whole mess at his brother’s head, but Lauren had caught up to him.

“What. The. Fuck.” He stomped toward Dylan.

The kid stood his ground and met Mike’s eyes. Lauren edged next to Mike, her presence the only thing keeping him from totally losing his shit. He already knew the answer, but he needed to know if Dylan would tell him the truth. “Who was that?”

“Angela.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck,
fuck
. “Angela.”

“Yes,” Dylan said.

“Angela Romain. Sister of Dino Romain, leader of the Devil’s Rangers. Your ex-girlfriend. The one you promised me you’d broken up with ages ago.”

“Mike, it’s not—”

“How can it not be?” Mike paced. The front door opened, and Evan stepped out. “After everything we went through. After everything
you
went through with those assholes—”

“It’s not like that!” Dylan was practically quivering with frustration, but Mike didn’t give a shit.

“The one thing you swore to that judge was that you’d stay away from anyone associated with the Devil’s Rangers!” He registered Evan standing in the doorway, arms crossed, and Lauren, looking between the three men. His mind raced. How had he so completely lost control of everything? His own life was one thing, but the family that he’d sworn to take care of was falling apart—had probably already shattered.

Evan didn’t look as disturbed as Mike thought he should be, which raised his stress another couple of notches. He waved the pan of potatoes at the door, and a drop of oily cheese dripped from under the foil.

Evan’s brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?” He came outside, looking for all the world like Mike was the crazy one, completely ignoring the splotch of food marring his perfect doormat. “Mike, come on inside. The neighbors—”

“Do you have any idea what’s going on with Dylan?” Mike glared at him. How could he not know?

“Come on, let’s all go inside,” Evan commanded, holding the door and jerking his head at Dylan. “You, too.”

Something in his tone… Mike had never known Evan to have a take-charge attitude outside of the lab.

Mike went inside. Rosemary and garlic perfumed the air, and something else…fresh, yeasty bread. A whiff of rationality slowed his heart rate—a little. Striding through the living room to the kitchen, he plunked the potatoes onto the counter next to the stove. Another drip. Lauren brushed past to grab a dishcloth from the edge of the sink and wiped up the mess as she scowled. He didn’t blame her for being unhappy. He’d promised her not two hours ago that he was going to help her, and he was proving right now that he’d already let everything slip out of his control.

“You want to tell me what this is all about?” Evan asked.

“Maybe you should start. Did you know that Dylan was still involved with the Rangers?”

The look on Evan’s face would have been worth a lot of money if he were in Hollywood, because he was a great actor. “What are you talking about?”

“You’re letting him meet her here? Angela?”

“What?” Evan looked at Dylan, who had the grace to appear chagrined.

“It’s really not what it looks like,” Dylan said. “Angela’s been helping me—”

“I know how she’s been helping you,” Mike interrupted. “Lauren caught her ‘helping you’ outside of her house last night, didn’t she? What were you doing? Waiting for Lauren to go to sleep so you could go steal more of her drugs?”

“No, Mike, that’s not what we were doing. And if you’d just listen—”

“I’m done listening. You’re going to call whoever you’ve been working with, and we’re going to go meet them and—”

“We’re not going to do anything right now,” Evan said. “Nothing but sit down and eat dinner.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dylan said, staring at his brother. “I’m not staying here to pretend to be a nice, happy family.”

For once, Mike agreed with Dylan. “You can keep the potatoes,” he told Evan. “I think Dylan and I need to go take care of some things.”

“Mike, can I have a minute?” Lauren wrapped her hand around his arm and tugged.

Because he knew he was about to blow and needed to count to ten, he backed away from Dylan and followed her down the hall. When they were around the corner, he said, “What?”

Brown eyes filled with concern, she stroked her hand down his arm and said, “I think you might want to back off a little, give this some space.”

He shook her off—mostly because her touch felt too good. “Not your problem.” Which was, he realized as soon as it was out of his mouth, the wrong thing to say, but he didn’t have the time to rephrase it nicely.

“Seriously?” she asked.

“Yeah. I got this.” He would have to find a way to take care of this for her. He’d failed to keep Dylan safe and out of trouble, but he did recognize that Lauren had a major stake in this situation.

“Dylan, wait!” Evan called just as the front door slammed.

“Stay here. I’ve got to talk to him.” Mike turned away from Lauren, but not before he saw the hurt cross her features.

He opened the front door to follow Dylan into the fading light.

Behind him he heard Lauren call out, “Damn it, Mike! Wait for me!”

But he was already gone.

…

Lauren looked at Evan after the door slammed behind Mike. “He left me here!” She caught herself before she stomped her foot, but
Jeez
! She’d followed Mike home, indulged part of her fantasy that involved a hot guy in an apron—the cooking part—then had come over to his brother’s to have a family meal, only to watch him flip out at his baby brother and take off. Some date. That is, if you could call it an actual
date
if you’d been picked up in the frozen food section of the Food Giant.

Evan sighed and lifted the corner of the foil covering the casserole dish. “Would you like to join me for dinner?”

“What? Aren’t you going to go after them?” Lauren was aghast. Her…uh…almost boyfriend? Sort-of lover? Her guy-who-spent-an-otherwise-shitty-day-making-her-laugh? Anyway, whoever, or whatever Mike was to her had just run out of the house, chasing after the brother he’d accused of drug dealing, and Evan was just going to sit down and eat like nothing had happened.

“I’m sure Michael will handle himself with the appropriate restraint.” Evan led the way to the kitchen, dropping Mike’s casserole on the already-set dining room table on the way. He took two wine coolers from the refrigerator and unscrewed the lids, handing one to Lauren.