Facing It (7 page)

He rested his mouth against the corner of hers, his eyes closed as self-recrimination flooded in. If everything hadn’t changed before, it sure as hell had now.

He’d screwed this up, screwed them up, by giving in to what he wanted instead of what they needed, of what she needed—

“Stop it.” Her mouth moved under his and her hold on him tightened. “Look at me, Beech.”

He obeyed, lifting his head. Her gaze remained steady and calm. She framed his face with her palms. “I wanted this, or I wouldn’t have kissed you. This is why I can’t be just your partner, Beech. I don’t
want
to be just your partner. It’s not enough any longer.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” he whispered. “Not as my partner, not as my friend, not as…”

Getting the words out was just too damn hard.

“Not as…?” She stroked a fingertip over his temple. “Tell me. Talk to me.”

“Not as a woman.” The syllables threatened to choke him. Shit, now he’d done it for sure.

A slow, very sexy, very female smile spread over her kiss-swollen lips. She linked her fingers behind his head and gave a slight wriggling stretch beneath him, a movement that shot desire through him. “What took you so long, Agent Beecham?”

He fought the urge to give in and grin at her playfulness. “There’s too much to lose here, Jen.”

She stilled, a frown tugging her neat brows together. “What do you mean?”

“Think about it.” He levered up to a seated position, breaking her easy hold. “We’re partners, friends. Are you willing to risk all that?”

Sitting up, she pulled her knees to her chest and linked her arms around them, a pose he’d seen her take dozens of times. With her bottom lip caught between her teeth, he knew she was thinking hard, formulating an argument. “I prefer to think about what we stand to gain.”

A frustrated growl tickled his throat. “Be realistic, would you?”

Eyes narrowed to glittering slits, she shook her head. “You think it would inevitably end, don’t you? In your head, there’s absolutely no way we could make a go of a personal relationship in the long term.”

“It always ends.” The words were out before he realized he’d even thought them. Shit, was he still carrying that old baggage around with him?

“Does it really?” She tilted her head to one side, watching him, assessing him. “What about your friends Calvert and Falconetti? They seem pretty connected. How long do you think they’ll last before that ends?”

“That’s different.” He waved, a dismissive gesture. He cleared his throat. “What time is your flight?”

“Stop trying to change the subject.” She leaned forward and he caught a whiff of her—no perfume, just the soft blend of soap and shampoo and Jennifer. He’d become intimately acquainted with that smell over the last few months. “How long do you think they’ll last?”

“Hell, I don’t know.” He shot up from the bed and rubbed his palm over his hair. The answer was easy enough. “With those two? Until it’s time to lay one of them in the ground.”

Jennifer hadn’t moved from her position on the bed. She rocked in a slight back and forth rhythm, watching him with a considering expression on her face. “So you do believe there are long-term successful relationships.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Hell, she’d obviously paid a lot of attention during her training in interrogation techniques. She was steadily pinning him down, cornering him, working him. “Why are we having this conversation?”

She wiggled her bare toes against the mattress. “Because you’ve turned into the emotional equivalent of an alien with two heads, you gave me an opening and I’m trying to figure you out.”

“Great.” Skin crawling, he turned toward the door.

“Walk out that door before this conversation is over, Beech, and I tell Weston to get me a new partner, pronto.”

Her steady voice brought him up short. He turned to glare at her. “That’s blackmail.”

“Technically, it’s extortion.” She shrugged. “And you’re such a pessimist. I prefer to think of it as fighting for what I want.”

He threw out his hands. “What exactly is it that you
do
want, Jen?”

“It’s simple really, Beecham. I want you, and I’m not willing to give you up without a fight.”

He stopped at the window. “Fine.”

His stance, the rigid line of his back, whispered of tense deception. The hair on her arms lifted, a wave of goose flesh traveling up her skin with a tiny chill. “What did Tick say?”

“Not much.” He’d paused too long, the brief stutter almost imperceptible, but Stephen had made her an expert at watching men, gauging their reactions. Her apprehension deepened.

She stepped into the room, glancing quickly at the room where her children slept. She crossed to his side. “What’s happened?”

“Nothing. You’re—”

“Stop lying.” She grasped his arm, just above the elbow. The muscles tightened dangerously under her urgent hold.

“Don’t touch me.” His fingers closed on her wrist with near-bruising intensity and he put her away from him, moving so quickly that he was halfway across the room before she realized it. A deep anger trembled in his voice and the incredible tension in his body spoke of fear.

Fear? How absurd. He had nothing to be afraid of, least of all her.

She took a half-step toward him and stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“That’s fine.” He shook his head, but his chest moved with uneven breaths. “I shouldn’t have snapped.”

“But you are lying to me.” She examined him, studying the way he avoided looking directly at her. “Chris, what aren’t you telling me?”

He lifted his ice-blue gaze to hers, discomfort flashing over his face. “Ruthie, I…” A shuddery breath escaped him and he rolled his neck, snapping his fingers. “I don’t know how to explain to you the situation. Tick asked me to… I’m supposed to watch over you and the kids, keep you safe.”

“And not tell me what’s going on.” Mentally, she kicked herself. Yes, Tick was the best option in terms of helping her, but how had she forgotten his tendency to attempt control of all situations?

“Yeah.” One corner of Chris’s mouth hitched up in a wry smile.

“Do you agree with him, that I shouldn’t know what’s going on?”

He shook his head, a soft negative motion. “No, I don’t.”

“Then why don’t you simply tell me what’s happened?”

“Hard to explain.” He shrugged. “He’s my SO.”

She fixed him with an inquiring look. “SO?”

“Superior officer.” Another loose roll of the neck. “And my friend.”

Muted frustration trickled through her. She had nothing to play against that. “At least tell me this—is Stephen in the state?”

He cut his eyes away from her. “I don’t know.”

“Okay.” This was getting them nowhere fast. Her shoulders aching with renewed tension, she reached up to release her hair from its loose knot. She pushed both hands through it. “Tell you what. We’ll sleep on it. In the morning, if you still feel like you can’t tell me, I’ll acquiesce and not ask again, all right?”

He nodded. She turned away, but before she reached the bedroom she would share with the children, his torn voice stopped her. “Ruthie?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I. Good night, Chris.”

In the bedroom, she closed the door behind her with a quiet snick.

She’d failed. He’d walked out on her.

The stunned surprise lingered with Jennifer, attempting to distract her from the job at hand.

Needing to get out of her hotel room, with its memories of that kiss, she’d sought refuge at the Chandler County Sheriff’s Department, where a command center for the search had been set up in the adjacent parking lot. Being there let her keep her finger on the search’s pulse and she’d hoped it would provide her with something to think about
other
than the bleak expression on Beecham’s face before he’d turned and left the hotel room.

How the hell could he have done that? Angry hurt washed through Jennifer’s veins, poisoning her with bitterness. Damn it, he wasn’t leaving her any choices. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be.

She busied herself handing out cups of hot beverages and bagged sandwiches to an incoming wave of weary volunteers. Their grim expressions made it plain that there’d been no positive progress in the hunt for Lenora Calvert.

Their rental car pulled to a stop before the sheriff’s department building, mere seconds behind Calvert’s dusty pickup. Calvert was out of the vehicle and running up the steps, a taller man unfolding from the passenger seat and moving toward the officer in charge of the command center. Beecham left the sedan and scanned the parking lot, his shuttered gaze finally settling on her. He jogged toward her and nervous excitement warred with a bone-deep disappointment. She cast a quick look around. She didn’t want to talk to him with so many others nearby. Setting the cups she held aside, she hurried to meet him.

Damned if she wouldn’t look him straight in the eye, either. He might not want to take a chance on them—no way he could deny wanting her, not after that kiss and his admission—but she wouldn’t let him see how badly she hurt over that. She wouldn’t let him see her confusion.

When she reached the sidewalk, she tilted her head toward the sheriff’s department. “What’s up?”

“They’re suspending the search for a couple of hours.”

“Why?”

“For one, the area along that river is hazardous in daylight. It won’t help anybody if we lose someone to those waters in the dark.” He cleared his throat and tugged his FBI-emblazoned cap lower on his brow. “For another, dispatch here just got a call from an emergency room in Perry in response to the APB they have out on Calvert’s mom. They have a Jane Doe brought in tonight, found abandoned behind a motel up there. Unconscious, head trauma, meets her description.”

Jennifer tucked her hands in her back pockets. “So you’re going with him?”

Beecham nodded. “He has a friend with a small plane and a pilot’s license. We can fly up in about a half the time it would take to drive. If it’s her, I want to be there when he talks to her.”

“Sounds good.” Unhappiness shivered through Jennifer in a cold frisson, but she refused to wrap her arms around herself. Already, they were separate, with the ease of partnership between them no longer. What if she hadn’t kissed him, hadn’t told him how she felt?

Hell, she’d probably have lost him anyway. Maybe it was inevitable, just as he said. Maybe the end had been coming ever since the first day she’d put on that ring and entered a sham marriage with him. What was that old verse? A house built on sand couldn’t stand.

She compelled a bright smile to her lips, still a little swollen and tender from his hard kiss. “Maybe by morning you’ll have something Weston and I can use with Chason.”

“Maybe.” Behind him, the glass door to the department shot open and Calvert clattered down the steps.

“Is Falconetti going with you?” Jennifer strove for an even tone.

He shook his head. “Plane’s a four-seater and Calvert’s brother wants to go. She’s seeing to their little boy.”

The small talk bordered on painful and she was almost glad when Calvert called his name, a note of impatience in his deep drawl.

Jennifer cupped her hands around her elbows. “Call me when you know something.”

He gave a sharp nod, still not meeting her eyes. “Will do. Here, you’ll need the keys to the rental.”

She accepted them, clutching the metal until its ragged edge cut into her palm, and watched as he left with Calvert without looking back. She glanced over her shoulder at the command center, where a few straggling groups of volunteers remained. Really no reason for her to stay here.

The fact she felt completely lost made no sense and didn’t sit well. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. Did he think she’d give up simply because he’d turned away? She wasn’t a quitter. Damn if she’d quit on Harrell Beecham.

Their hushed footsteps sighed on the tiled floor of the hospital’s nearly deserted emergency waiting area. Harrell hung slightly back as Tick and his brother Del approached the intake desk. The nurse tapped a few keys at a computer there, frowned, then looked up. “I’ll find Dr. Taylor for you.”

She disappeared through the doorway behind the desk. Del waited, drumming a finger on the Formica countertop, while Tick paced a short back-and-forth path before the counter with tense, tight strides. The waiting had to be hell, maybe even worse than the not-knowing they’d experienced most of the night.

Dr. Taylor appeared, a pretty petite blonde in a turquoise scrubs under a white lab coat. “Investigator Calvert?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Tick stopped pacing and stepped forward, Del on his heels.

“She’s sleeping. She was quite distraught when she regained consciousness, which can only be normal in a situation like this. We have her under observation—”

“How is she? Can we see her?”

“Is it our mother?”

The brothers spoke together and the doctor’s expression softened. “She did identify herself as Lenora Calvert when I talked with her and she fits your description, so I have every reason to believe that yes, she is your mother. She’s stable, in good condition other than an elevated temperature, with only minor contusions and lacerations in addition to the head injury. She’s understandably agitated, and we’re watching her for signs of concussion.”

“Contusions and lacerations?” Tick asked, his voice hard. His jaw tightened, a nerve flicking in his cheek.

Dr. Taylor nodded. “Some defensive wounds to her hands, mostly around her knuckles, what looks like gravel scrapes on her palms and knees—”

“As if she’d been pushed from a car,” Harrell theorized. The doctor’s curious gaze shifted to him.

Tick tilted his head in Harrell’s direction. “Agent Harrell Beecham, FBI.”

Dr. Taylor acknowledged him with a quick bob of her head. “Yes, you can see her tonight. I’d like to hold her until morning, just to monitor her condition, but I don’t foresee any complications at this time.”

Del closed his eyes on a whispered prayer of thanks. Tick rested his hands at his waist. “Did she say anything? Tell you what happened? Say who’d done this to her?”

“No,” she replied, her tone regretful. “I’m afraid she appears to be suffering from retrograde amnesia at this point.”

Del’s head jerked up, his eyes flying open. “What does that mean?”

“It means that as far as we can tell, her last cognizant memory is of getting ready for bed last night. She’s apparently lost several hours of her recall, which can be quite common with a head injury, even a minor one, not to mention the possible overdose of scopolamine.” The doctor’s voice gentled. “Please don’t think it’s a cause for alarm.”

Harrell frowned. “Do people with this…retrograde amnesia?” The doctor nodded at him. “Do they often regain those memories?”

“I’m sorry, but usually the memory of the lost hours doesn’t return.”

“Scopolamine overdose?” Tick’s voice emerged with the harshness of ground glass.

“Yes. We ran a tox screen and turned up nearly three times the dosage in her bloodstream.”

“Son of a—” Tick bit off the words and flexed both hands, fisting then relaxing. No tension drained from his posture.

Del’s brows dipped. “What is scopolamine?”

“It’s normally prescribed for relief of motion sickness,” Doctor Taylor replied. “The patient indicated it wasn’t one of her prescriptions, so I can only assume her attacker administered it.”

“Why?”

“It interferes with memory creation.” Tick jerked a hand through his hair. “Criminals use it to spike tourists’ drinks in some South American countries, and every so often, you’ll see it turn up in date-rape drugs.”

“The CIA investigated it as a truth serum too.” Harrell expelled a breath. “No conclusive evidence that it worked, but if he turned up that little tidbit on Wikipedia, he might have thought he could use it to get Ruthie’s whereabouts out of your mother. Interestingly enough, our background data on Chason included the info he suffers from extreme motion sickness when flying and guess what
was
one of his prescriptions?” “Scopolamine.”

Harrell caught Tick’s gaze and saw his frustration mirrored there. If she didn’t remember what happened and Chason was back in South Carolina…twenty bucks said he’d already covered his tracks. The knot of tension gripping the base of Harrell’s neck grew tighter.

Damn it
.

“You can see her now,” the doctor was saying and Harrell shook himself back to reality. “But only for ten minutes.”

Tick cast an earnest look at Harrell. “Would you give the department a call, let them know it’s her? And Cait?”

“Will do.” Harrell watched Tick and his brother follow the doctor beyond the door marked
No Admittance
. A sign forbidding cell phone usage in the hospital loomed over the counter, so he walked into the cool night air outside. He followed a quick call to the dispatcher with a slightly longer one to Caitlin, her relief palpable over the line. Once she’d hung up, he rubbed his fingers over the edges of his phone.