Trouble Comes Knocking (Entangled Embrace) (3 page)

Other than a wall of computer monitors and what appeared to be a kick-ass sound system, it looked more like a guest room he stayed in temporarily. I tried to push my spidey sense back; we’d had way too good a time tonight for me to ruin it with my brain.

Hanging up the phone, John sat on the bed next to me and rubbed his hand across my thigh. He wouldn’t look at me, though. “Lucy, I need to go.” He hesitated. “One of the VPs was found murdered at HGR, and they’re calling all hands in.”

“That’s horrible. What happened?” My stomach tightened at his news. What kind of place did I work at that someone could waltz in and kill another person? Or worse, if the killer worked there, too, how would any of us feel safe going back? A shiver went down my spine.

John already had on a pair of slacks and his white shirt. “Don’t know yet. Nothing like this has ever happened. I can’t believe it.”

I closed my eyes and pushed away images of every murder I’d ever seen on TV. And the one dead body I’d seen in real life.

“Lucy,” John said, pulling me out of my head. “Do you want to stay here and wait for a taxi, or go with me and I’ll call for one from there?”

I imagined his mom waking up and finding me sitting on their couch.
No, Mrs. Poole, John isn’t here. Who am I? Oh, just someone he works with and someone who likes him and who almost had sex with him tonight
.
Yes, in your house. Oh, is your room right next to his? I wasn’t aware. Protection? Um, we didn’t get that far before we were interrupted…
“No, I’m going with,” I said, all previous sexual excitement banished at the word “murdered.” I pulled my sweater back over my head and straightened my skirt. John reached forward and took me by my hips. We swayed for a moment or two. I leaned my head on his chest. “This really is awful.”

He placed his index finger under my chin and moved my head up until our eyes met. “I had a great time.” He gently kissed me and then cleared his throat, looking away.

I didn’t want the night to end. Not like that, not so quickly. My shoulders slumped at the inevitable, and I finally asked, “Who died?”

He looked back at me, his eyes soft with tenderness. “Simon Winters.”

Chapter Two

Officer Len rubbed a finger across the bridge of his nose and wrote something down. He took a sip of coffee and wrote some more before looking up at me. “So Mr. Winters died, and you and Mr. Poole went back to HGR.”

“Where are your glasses?”

His eyebrows scrunched together. “What makes you think I wear glasses?”

“You rubbed the bridge of your nose where they normally sit. Plus, you’ve been squinting at the paper you’ve been writing on all night.”

He cleared his throat. “Broke. Earlier today.” He looked at me for a second. Then two. Cleared his throat again. “Is that when you became involved with the police department?”

“Sort of. I met Detective Reyes, Eli, that night…”

When we got to HGR things were crazy, people shuffling everywhere. Because of the nature of their work, all their secrets and confidential information, the security department worked double time trying to make sure the people coming in needed to be there. And no one was allowed to leave before talking to the detectives. I went in with John, but when I tried to explain that to Detective Reyes, he didn’t listen.

“Ms. Carver, you said you talked to the victim today. What was the nature of your conversation?”

“Really, I only came back with John. We were on a date tonight, and he was called in.” The detective waited, so I felt like the only way I’d be able to get my taxi home was to go ahead and answer. “I found some information missing in the data I entered. John told me to go see Mr. Winters. We talked; he said his department wasn’t involved.”

The detective wrote, and I bit my lower lip. If I thought hard enough I could still feel John kissing me. I didn’t want that killed by some late-twenties Spanish Channing Tatum-looking guy who didn’t understand why I was there. Not my type, but definitely eye candy. Dark hair, neatly cut, equally dark chocolate eyes. Sharp cheekbones and not a touch of stubble. Trim and tight inside a button-down white shirt, sitting with one leg casually tossed over the other.

He looked up from his notepad, closed it, and leaned back in his chair, causing his shirt to pull even tighter. “Make me understand.”

All my experience living with what I do, what I can’t control, taught me that eventually I’d probably end up in jail or dead because of it. People don’t like to have their thoughts invaded without their consent. “What am I supposed to explain? We talked; he was nice. Offered me pizza, and then he said they weren’t involved. Look, I’m really not a part of any of this. I just started this job. I really have no idea who the man is, and I only talked to him once. Can I go home, please? I’m supposed to work tomorrow morning.”

“Work should be the least of your concerns. A man is dead. A man you spoke to about a serious allegation on his last day of life. If there is some reason something you said might have gotten him killed, we have to know about it. This is a murder investigation, Lucy.” He paused. “Do you mind if I call you Lucy?”

“That’s fine.” I shrank in my chair. Jail, it seemed. My world closed around me as I imagined how guilty I must look for something I didn’t do. I didn’t mean to find problems, and I doubted my information killed Mr. Winters, but who’s to say? Half a million is a lot of money.

As the thought hit my head, so did another. “Am I in danger?”

Detective Reyes sat up. “Should you be?”

That’s when I spilled it, all of it. And to his defense the detective held his mask of intent, listening through my entire story.

“So you’re saying you have a photographic memory and you happened to observe the loss of a great deal of money on the same day Mr. Winters died. Mr. Winters, the head of the accounting department and probably one of the top suspects were this loss, if there is a loss, to come to light.”

I’d been excited at first that he understood, but as he spoke further, that excitement faded as I caught the sarcasm in his tone. “Eidetic,” I said, in defense of what I can do. “The proper term is eidetic memory.”
Jackhole
.

He stood and motioned for me to do the same. “Ms. Carver, Lucy, we’ll be in contact if we need anything further from you. Most likely HGR will not be opening tomorrow, so you should talk to your manager about when to come in next.”

I left, shoulders straight, in search of John. What did I care? I mean, sure I cared that someone lost his life, but the loss of money at a company I just started at shouldn’t be my concern. Without my abnormal brain, I wouldn’t have even seen the problem to begin with. Detective Reyes didn’t believe me, and I didn’t need him to. I simply needed to get a ride home, forget about tonight, and try to do a better job of keeping my head down next time.

Right, likely.

“Have you seen John Poole?” I asked John’s coworker, Ben, when I made it downstairs.

“Yeah, he left twenty minutes ago,” he said.

Well, that sucked. I didn’t have his number, we’d only talked through work, and I was sure my purse was either in his car or still at his house. And with cab fare tucked neatly in my wallet I either had to call my aunt at one in the morning to get home, or walk. I took my phone out of my pocket and Google mapped it. Three miles.

God, I need a cigarette.

Halfway home it started to rain, and I somehow pulled a butt muscle. I limped the rest of the way and vowed over and over to start looking for a new job. “Come to work, he said. I’ll get you a cab, he said. Yeah, I bet he has some beautiful ocean-view property in Arizona to sell me, too.” It didn’t matter how good a kisser the guy was, John should never have left me alone at a crime scene involving a dead body on our first date.

“So you stuck your nose in again and now you’re gonna have to find another job.” Aunt Dolores bustled around the kitchen as she lectured. She slammed a pot on the stove and went about making chicken noodle soup.

I’d caught the sniffles during my limp home in the cold October rain and sat uncomfortably bundled in a bathrobe and slippers with a tissue pressed firmly against my nose. I’d called out sick for the rest of the week but hadn’t “officially” quit yet. After having the job only three days to begin with, I probably didn’t need to make it all that official. Even for me this set a new record.

“I didn’t mean to stick my nose in,” I said, sniffling. My head threatened to split, but at least I didn’t sound as horrible as I felt. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Drink your tea.”

I took a drink, not wanting to argue, and certainly not wanting to make things worse. I knew she was pissed. I’d done this before and had to quit jobs, but this was the first time it involved the police. The first time for anything this serious. She didn’t have to tell me how awful it was. My stomach twisted into knots.

I still didn’t know if I was at fault, but it certainly wasn’t great that I was on record ranting about my crazy ability. And crazy I must have sounded. The more I thought about Detective Reyes, the more I felt completely foolish for telling him so much.

“I can’t keep supporting you like this, Lucy.” Aunt Dolores added the carrots and celery to the pot of chicken and set it to simmer. She turned to face me. Her shoulders slumped.

At sixty-two Aunt Dolores was by no means ancient, but certainly not a spring chicken, either. Her hair thinned at the front, and she hadn’t dyed it in several months, leaving wisps of white around her face. For some reason, until that moment, I hadn’t seen the mesh of lines across her cheeks or the dark circles under her eyes. She would work double shifts until the day she died if that’s what it took to support me.

I couldn’t let her do that.

“I’m sorry, Dee. I’ll find a job to keep.” This time I knew I meant it. It wasn’t fair to her, and it certainly wasn’t fair to me to keep stalling my life. I might hate what my brain does, and though I can’t control it, I could certainly control my reaction to it.

I went upstairs to lay down but couldn’t get my eyes to close. I called Ana, my best friend, but got her voice mail. She’d been out of town on a photo shoot. “Call me when you get a chance.” I sighed and tossed the phone onto my dresser.

Ana had been my first friend when I came to Fort Worth. My first friend ever, really. I moved in with Aunt Dolores at sixteen and had no idea what life was like outside of the farm. My entire knowledge of the twenty-first century came from books. I’d never seen a cell phone, never actually used a microwave, never laid hands on a computer. I emerged like a person who had been serving out a life sentence in solitary and then suddenly been paroled.

Back then Ana’s parents lived across the street, yet she spent more time living with us than at home. And I loved having her. She was my tour guide into a brand-new world of tampons and texting and my guardian angel all wrapped up into a Red Vines-chewing, braces-wearing little package.

The braces were long gone, and she gave up chewing on Red Vines once we started kissing boys. Sometime over the years she became more my sister than my friend. So much had been happening, I needed her more than ever. I closed my eyes and tumbled into a fitful sleep.

A knock sounded at the door, waking me hours later. I waited a few moments for my aunt to answer, but when she didn’t and the knock repeated I pulled myself from under the covers and shuffled downstairs. From the peephole I saw Detective Reyes in street clothes but with his piece still holstered at his hip.

I opened the door a crack. “Detective Reyes, I didn’t expect to see you again.”

“May I come in?”

“Do you have a warrant?”

“Do I need one?”

I frowned. “Thought you might somehow have decided I was responsible for the murder.”

“I know you aren’t.”

“Good, because being accused of murder after being called crazy would have been a real drag.”

He took a breath. “I’m sorry. I’m here to apologize.”

I stood my ground, not nervous about his being there but not quite certain if I wanted him in my house, either.

“May I come in?” he prompted.

“Fine, but only if you use the magic word.”

His jaw clenched. “Please?”

I stepped back and opened the door.

As he walked past, I smelled a lingering hint of Acqua di Gio—my favorite cologne on any man—and a faint tang of peppermint. I motioned for him to continue to the kitchen, and as I walked behind him, I openly ogled the tight muscles flexing in his blue jeans. He walked with an air of confidence that came from someone driven toward success.

In the kitchen, I motioned for him to sit at the table while I set two cups in the microwave to heat up some water. Our coffee-maker-slash-hot-water-heater broke over a month ago and, why replace it when we had a perfectly good working microwave? “Do you want tea or coffee?”

“Coffee is fine. How are you today?”

“You aren’t here to make chitchat.”

His lips pursed, and he sat up a little straighter, visibly insulted by my cutting to the chase. “No, I’m not. You just don’t look that great so I thought I should ask.”

“I’m a little under the weather but fine.” I sneezed and grabbed another tissue. He didn’t have to be kind; I knew I looked atrocious. I’d caught a glimpse of myself on the way to the door: hair poking up every direction, black smudged under my eyes, my nose puffy and red. I’m already rail thin, but when I get sick I somehow seem to look even skinnier. Basically, I looked on the verge of death.

“About last night…”

I stood by the counter, arms folded, ready for a fight.

“I shouldn’t have been so quick to dismiss you.”

My insides vibrated and an unwanted quaver crept into my voice. “No, you shouldn’t have. But it doesn’t matter. I know you’re here to tell me you found out what I said was true, and now you’re afraid your captain will look poorly on you because you dismissed a lead. But I don’t plan to stay at that job so I’m no longer a lead. Take whatever information you found and do your own work.”

He tapped his thumb on his thigh and leaned slightly forward. “You’re right. All of that is right. And I wouldn’t blame you for leaving. But thing is…”

“This is an active investigation and now you need my help.”

“Yes but—”

“But you don’t want to bring a kook into your investigation.”

“I wasn’t going to say—”

“No, you may not have used those exact words, but the gist is there, right?”

“Will you stop doing that?”

“What?”

A tic formed by his jaw. “Finishing my sentences.”

My voice came out steadier now. Strong. “Anyone who’s ever seen a cop show would know why you are here.”

The microwave beeped giving me an excuse to turn away. I don’t even realize when I do things like that, like finish people’s sentences or come off as a know-it-all. I just do them. And then I get defensive because I’ve been doing them. It’s a cosmic-circle pain in the ass, really. With Detective Reyes it felt good, though, to finally have the upper hand. “Coffee, right?”

“That’s fine.”

“Black?”

“Yes.”

With a button-down detective trying to prove his way in the world, it’s a good guess he isn’t a froufrou coffee kind of guy. Him coming to my door in street clothes with no other officers meant he’d realized he’d made a mistake and wanted to make it better.

But it didn’t mean I had to forgive his treatment.

Or help.

But even as I made his coffee and my tea, I couldn’t stop seeing Mr. Winters’s face. I wasn’t supposed to have seen the body, but when the coroner uncovered him, presumably to collect evidence, I did. A glimpse, not long enough to scar me for life but definitely enough to imprint on my memory. He’d been strangled, or at least that’s what they were saying at the scene. His eyes bulged from his slightly purple face. The gray slacks he’d been wearing that day were wet from when he lost his muscle control, and I saw a circle of blood on the floor from where he’d fallen.

He’d been nice to me. Loyal to his team. Proud of his company.

People shouldn’t die like that. Especially not someone as nice as Mr. Winters.