Susan Peterson - Hard Evidence

“I simply came by to check up on Charlie.”

“So, you checked. Time to leave.”

He raised a single dark eyebrow, but didn’t move. I gripped the metal bed rail and hung on for dear life. He’ll leave soon. Just hang on, Killian.

“You look good. Mountain air seems to agree with you,” he said as if we exchanged such pleasantries every day. “Things going okay for you?”

“Just fine. Thanks ever so much for asking.”

He waited, the stillness of his body putting me even more on edge. I didn’t bother asking him how he’d been. There wasn’t any need. No one asked about the condition of perfection.

“How’d this happen?” I finally asked.

“I don’t really know all the specifics. But they’re calling it a hit-and-run.”

“What’s the matter, you aren’t in the loop anymore down at the station?”

His eyes stared into mine, and a flicker of something close to pain or regret flashed through them. But it was hard for me to tell because the emotion disappeared so quickly.

“I’m not on the force anymore, Killian,” he said. “I quit a few weeks after Pop was sentenced.”

I swallowed hard. Now that was a surprise. Jack loved the force almost as much as Pop, maybe more. I wanted to ask what he was doing with himself, but that meant admitting I might actually be interested.

“I joined the fire department. I’m working as a paramedic.”

“Interesting choice. Must be all that compassion and gentle caring you’ve got stored up, huh?”

Jack ignored my sarcastic dig. “I might not be part of the force anymore, but I know the guys will all be working hard to find out what happened. None of them will let it drop until they find the SOB.”

“Yeah, right. Just like all you guys worked your tails off to clear his name nine years ago.” I smacked my forehead with the palm of my hand. “Oh, wait, I’m getting that confused, aren’t I? It’s you who trashed Pop’s name and got him sent to prison in the first place, wasn’t it?”

“I gather from your tone that you’re still having a hard time getting over that, huh?”

I met his gaze dead-on. “I’d strongly advise against holding your breath if you’re waiting for any words of forgiveness from me, O’Brien. It ain’t gonna happen.” I glanced down at Charlie, my heart torn that he was the one getting the shaft again. “If you want to know the truth, I dream every night of you getting what you deserve.”

“And what exactly is it that you think I deserve?”

“Believe me, you don’t want to know. Now get out of here.”

I fiercely willed him to go away, but he wasn’t on my wavelength anymore. Once, not too long ago, people used to accuse us of being inside of each other’s heads, finishing each other’s sentences and laughing at jokes only the two of us heard. But Jack broke that thread when he’d incriminated Charlie to save his own skin.

“I talked with Elliot over at the Two-Four. You remember Elliot Standish, right?”

I nodded abruptly, concentrating on the rise and fall of Charlie’s chest as the respirator blew air into his lungs, breathing for him, keeping him alive.

“Elliot says that they have two eyewitnesses. They’re working from a sketch of the guy and a partial plate number.” He shifted a little to the right, as if trying to catch my eye, but I avoided eye contact. I had to avoid eye contact. Jack’s eyes had the power to reduce me to a puddle of emotion. I wasn’t taking any chances, not now. Not when I was already an emotional wreck. I needed my wits about me. I needed to figure out what had happened to Pop and who had hurt him.

“Give them a few more days and they’ll have something,” he said.

I smoothed a wrinkle in the sheet over Charlie’s chest, the starched fabric stiff and crisp beneath my fingers.

“Killian—?”

I glanced up. The angular planes of Jack’s face had arranged themselves into an expression of concern, but I wasn’t fooled.

Lie number three. Jack O’Brien was an expert at appearing concerned. It was another thing I had learned at Charlie’s trial.

“What?” I asked.

His eyes narrowed a little as he studied my face. The dark midnight blue of his eyes in the dim light of the room seemed to slice through the space between us, lasering into me and cutting a clean precise incision directly through the center of my heart.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine.”

He moved around the end of the bed, getting closer. It felt as though his powerful body was sucking up all the air around us, and I steeled myself against its influence. Closeness was not good. I needed to escape, get outside his circle of influence. But he didn’t move, and I was frozen.

“Where are you staying while you’re here?” he asked.

My fingers tightened on the rail of the bed, and bitterness rose in the back of my throat. “Pop’s apartment, if you can even call it that. It’s a certifiable hellhole.”

I shot him a look that let him know exactly who I thought was responsible for the fact that our dad was sleeping in a one-bedroom rooming house with a rat problem that would keep the entire pest control industry in Syracuse busy for the next five years.

Charlie had lost the family home at some point during his trial. A house that had been in his family for several generations. The money had gone to pay for his defense.

“I thought about getting a hotel room, but Sweetie Pie needs someone to take care of him.”

Sweetie Pie was the family pet, a fifteen-year-old Maine coon cat, half-blind, totally deaf and ornerier than a polecat trapped in a burlap bag while in fierce heat.

“You should have called. You could have stayed at my place.”

I stiffened. Was he really that clueless? Did he actually believe that I’d take the freight elevator up to his loft apartment ever again? Or was he simply demonstrating his total insensitivity to what had happened to us in the past?

Sweet, painful memories of those late-night elevator rides flooded my senses, making me slightly woozy. Nights when we’d barely make it onto the elevator, let alone into his apartment before we were tearing at each other’s clothes.

The elevator would chug upward, its gears and chains grinding and churning, as he’d press me up against the metal gate with his hardened body. His lips would travel over the pounding pulse in my neck and his clever hands would tear at my shirt buttons. My own hands frantically pulled and tugged at the waistband of his worn jeans.

We’d get to the top, push open the gate and stumble out, hobbling and hopping across the bare plank floor of his apartment, hanging on to each other and hampered by our clothing dragging down around our ankles.

Finally, we’d collapse onto the king-size mattress lying on the floor in the center of the loft. Jack didn’t have a lot of furniture in those days. Besides, a bed seemed to serve any and all purpose in his life at the time. Knowing him, it probably still did.

Even with that bitter thought, my mind drifted back to those crazy, hot, passionate nights. I’d lie on my back and suck in great gulps of air from the open skylight above, while his clever hands did wild and wonderful things to my body. And we’d lie there for hours, his powerful limbs entwined with mine, his lips whispering secret words in my ear as I screamed for a release I wanted so badly I could taste it even now.

My hands shook as I roughly pushed the thoughts aside, fighting to keep the emotions from ripping at my insides and showing on my face.

I met his gaze, and my anger heated to white when I saw the touch of sympathy sitting in the depths of those exquisite eyes. If there was one thing I didn’t want, it was to have Jack feeling sorry for me. I wanted him on his knees hurting worse than me.