Chapter 29

Although the prescription strength ibuprofen had taken the edge off, Melender’s cheek still ached. She climbed from her car at the Trents’ and scanned the assortment of vehicles parked along the curb. Brogan’s SUV wasn’t among them.

After unlocking the front door, she nearly stumbled over a package wedged between the storm and front door. With the small cardboard box, she entered the quiet house, remembering Mr. and Mrs. Trent volunteered at a recovery meeting every Monday evening. Normally, the emptiness would be welcome, but tonight, she was glad Brogan would be arriving soon. A desire to feel his strong arms wrapped around her nearly overwhelmed her senses. Get it together. Don’t throw yourself at him like a lovesick puppy.

Setting the package on the kitchen counter, she spotted her name written in thick black letters on the outside. No return address or other information appeared on the plain brown surface. Had Brogan said something about dropping off a package for her? She couldn’t recall for certain. Using the kitchen scissors, she slit the tape and opened the flaps.

A knock at the front door distracted her from investigating further. Crossing to the door, she opened it to see Brogan standing there, a puffy pink mark on his cheek. “You’re hurt.” She stepped aside to allow him to enter the house.

“Not as bad as you.” Brogan raised a hand as if to touch her cheek, then dropped it to his side. “Are you okay?”

She tried to smile but winced as the skin pulled at her stitches. “Four stitches, but the doctor thinks it will heal without a noticeable scar.”

“Before I came here, I called Detective Livingston and asked him to stop by.” Brogan stared at her intently as if trying to gauge her reaction.

“Why did you call him?” She sounded huffy but didn’t care. At the time of her arrest, Livingston had been the only one who had attempted to keep an open mind about her involvement. But in the end, he appeared to agree with the conclusion she was responsible, like everyone else.

“Because I think he still has questions about the kidnapping aspect of the case.” Brogan crossed to the kitchen. “What’s this?” He pointed to the open box.

“You didn’t leave it for me?” She joined him at the counter, unease snaking up her spine. “It was wedged between the doors when I came home. There’s no postage, but it has my name on the outside.”

Brogan angled his head to read the block letters on the open flap.

“I was just opening it when you knocked.” Melender reached for the box, but Brogan touched her wrist to stop her.

“In light of what just happened to both of us, let’s leave it until Livingston arrives.”

His tone ratcheted up her unease. “You think it’s connected to the attacks.”

In reply, he tugged on her arm to move her away from the counter. “I don’t know, but I think given what’s happened today we should wait for the detective to proceed.”

The events of the day crashed over her, and she swayed into Brogan.

“Hey, steady there.” He dropped her wrist and wrapped his arms around her, snugging her against his body.

With a sigh, she gave into the offered comfort and allowed herself to relax. She laid her head on his shoulder as he rubbed her back in a slow, rhythmic motion. After a moment, she lifted her head. The pinkness of his right cheek attested to his own brush with danger. Because of her, this man had been hurt. Without thinking, she laid her hand gently along his jawline right below the mark. “Brogan, I’m so sorry you were attacked today. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. I just want to find out the truth.”

“Shh, it’s okay.” Brogan brought a hand up to brush away the tears that had spilled onto her cheeks, carefully avoiding her bandage.

Her eyes widened at his touch, and she closed her eyes, inadvertently squeezing out more tears. His hand on her face quickened her pulse. How could so small a gesture make her feel so safe and secure?

Then his lips touched her damp cheek, the softness of his mouth teasing a sigh from her. She met his gaze. The banked passion in their depths ignited her own like a match to kindling. So this was what the romance books meant, this feeling that your world might explode as your blood pumped faster through your body. She’d never quite understood the passionate feelings described in books, but now, everything made perfect sense.

* * *

Brogan’s lipstingled from the contact on her smooth skin. The brief encounter made him want to kiss her properly, to place his mouth over hers and taste the saltiness of her lips now dampened with tears.

“Oh. You kissed me.” Melender sounded breathless. “Why?”

Why, indeed. How to explain the need he had to protect her, to care for her, to show her the love she’d been missing for years. Instead of answering her question, he addressed the one she hadn’t asked. “That wasn’t really a kiss.”

She wrinkled her nose. “I think it counts.”

With a shake of his head, he negated her comment.

“It doesn’t?” The slight wobble to her voice coupled with the sweet innocence in her eyes undid the last of his resolve.

“Melender.”

She obligingly raised her face to his again. “Hmm?”

“This is a kiss.” He slid his hand into her hair, tilted her head slightly to one side, and gently brought his lips down on hers. He’d meant it to be a chaste kiss, a peck really, but once his mouth connected with hers, all thoughts of disengaging fled his mind. The softness of her lips, the responsiveness of her body to his touch fanned a flame within him that threatened to engulf them both. Without considering the consequences, he deepened the kiss, sliding his hand to her back and rubbing her jawline with his other thumb. All his thoughts, his breath, his very being centered on the woman he held in his arms.

With a sigh, he raised his head enough to rest his forehead against hers. Her eyes, dark with passion, gazed into his only inches away.

“Oh, my.”

He chuckled and brushed a strand of hair from her flushed cheek. “That’s one way to put it.” Brogan leaned down to drop a kiss on her forehead, but she pulled out of his embrace and took a step back.

“We shouldn’t, this isn’t…” She paused before finishing her thought. “It’s complicated.”

Brogan stared at her as she stood in front of him, her head lowered. His insides churned, and she had to add to his anxiety by telling him something he already knew. He knew all the valid reasons why he shouldn’t have kissed her, but rather than articulate those, he agreed with her. “Yes.”

The doorbell rang. Probably Livingston. With a sigh, Brogan yanked open the door. The detective stood on the doorstep.

“Thanks for coming by.” Brogan waved the other man inside, then shut the door. “Would you like coffee or something cold to drink?”

“Coffee would be great. Caffeinated is fine, with one of those little pink packets if you have them.” Livingston paused to peer closely at Melender’s bandaged cheek. “Ms. Harman, I heard two men attacked you outside of your work today.”

Melender avoided Brogan’s gaze, focusing instead entirely on the detective. “That’s right.”

“Melender, did you want some coffee too?” Brogan asked.

She pointed to a water bottle on the counter. “I’m good.”

“I know you’ve already talked to other officers, but would you mind recounting the incident for me?” Livingston pulled a notebook from his pocket and clicked his pen.

Brogan busied himself with inserting a pod into the Keurig as she went over the attack. His heart hammered. She might have come to suffering even more harm, if not for the timely appearance of her colleague. Isadora Alonso’s warning about Melender being in grave danger flashed across his mind.

With the detective’s mug on the counter in front of him, Brogan selected a decaf pod for himself. He lost the thread of their conversation as he replayed the kiss in his mind. Never had a kiss affected him as much as this one had. His brain scrambled to make sense of the whirlpool emotions. Then the swirling coalesced into one, crystal-clear thought. He was falling in love with Melender. His growing desire to prove her innocence had less to do with the potential for a blockbuster story and everything to do with freeing her from her past so she could embrace her future. A future he could see himself sharing with her.

The machine signaled the brewing had finished, drawing him back to the present. He mechanically doctored his coffee, his heart lighter but his thoughts heavier. He was falling in love with Melender, and he had no clue what to do about it.

“Brogan?” Livingston’s tone alerted Brogan that it wasn’t the first time the detective had tried to get his attention.

“Sorry, lost in thought.” He picked up his coffee.

“Ms. Harman was telling me about the box.” Livingston set down his cup and pulled a pair of latex gloves from his back pocket. “I’m glad you stopped her from further investigation into the contents. With the attacks on both of you today, an anonymously delivered box is likely not a friendly gesture.”

Brogan stepped closer to the counter as the detective eased back the flaps to reveal a mound of white tissue paper. Livingston gently removed a handful of paper to reveal a furry blue object still half hidden by the remaining paper.

“Oh, no!” Melender stumbled back from the counter, her complexion pasty, and her eyes huge. “It can’t be.”

“Can’t be what?” Livingston asked.

She wrung her hands together. “It’s not possible, it’s simply not possible.”

Brogan hadn’t thought her face could lose anymore color, but the shade dropped alarmingly whiter. He moved toward her.

In her eyes, the misery and pain in their depths punched him in the gut. Without a second thought, he drew her trembling frame into his arms. “Shh. It’s okay.”

“Ms. Harman. Melender.” Livingston removed the object, which Brogan now recognized as a child’s stuffed rabbit with floppy ears and a faded blue ribbon tied in a bow around its neck. “Do you recognize this?”

In Brogan’s arms, Melender shuddered. She buried her face in Brogan’s shirt, her fists clutching the fabric. He rubbed her back and sent up a prayer for her to weather yet another storm. “Hey, I’m here. You can do this.”

She raised her head to meet his eyes. “It’s…” That’s all she could squeak out. With her eyes closed, she rested her forehead on his chest. Then, drawing in a deep breath, she turned her head to look at the bunny with the missing eye Livingston held in his gloved hands. “It’s Jesse’s blue bunny. He took it everywhere.”

* * *

Jared Thompson fiddledwith the empty paper coffee cup and glanced around once again at the bare walls of the interrogation room. He’d been cooling his heels for several hours. Although he’d been read his rights, Jared hadn’t demanded to call an attorney. Better if he handled this on his own without alerting his father to his whereabouts. But as the minutes slipped into hours, maybe he had miscalculated what the police had on him.

The door opened, and the two detectives who had brought him in entered, each carrying a folder. The man, who looked familiar, closed the door, and then each took a chair opposite Jared. The woman crisply stated the names of those present, informing Jared the man’s last name was Livingston and the woman’s Collier. “Monday, September 2, eight o’clock in the evening.”

She stared at Jared. “Do you know why you’re here?” She could have been asking if he knew the weather forecast, so bland was her tone.

Jared shrugged. “Something to do with that drug dealer’s death, I suppose.”

Livingston drilled him with a hard stare. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Again, Jared moved his shoulders up and down. “All you detectives look alike to me, you know?”

“I worked your younger brother’s disappearance,” Livingston said.

Jared froze. He swallowed hard to regain control over his spiking panic. “That so. I would imagine a lot of people worked on that case. I can’t be expected to remember each and every one.”

Livingston continued as if Jared hadn’t spoken. “Back then, I had pegged you as a lowlife drug user, someone willing to sell out his family for a hit.” He tapped the folder in front of him. “Turns out, I was right.” After flipping open the folder, he picked up a single sheet of paper. “Twenty thousand dollars in cash was found on your former drug dealer.”

In an attempt to appear nonchalant, Jared used his thumbnail to rub at a spot on the metal table. “What’s your point?” The question came out shakier than he would have liked, but he repeated to himself that there was no way they could tie the money to him. He had been extra careful in wiping the bills clean of any fingerprints.

“The point is that we’ve been able to determine the cash came from the ransom for Jesse Thompson,” Livingston said.

“How’d you figure that? It’s been nearly twenty years.” Jared didn’t bother masking the surprise in his voice, figuring it was a natural question someone innocent would ask.

Livingston leaned back in his chair. “Your father cooperated with the Feds on the ransom, which meant the serial numbers of all those twenties were recorded. Then those numbers were uploaded to a national database. Whenever we come across money in the course of our investigations, we run it through one of those bank machines that checks for counterfeit bills and scans the serial numbers.” The detective raised his hands. “Imagine our surprise when the bills matched the Thompson kidnapping case.”

“I still don’t know why you think I had something to do with Snake’s—Williams’—death or Jesse’s disappearance.” Jared tried to project an I’m-innocent-why-are-you-bothering-with-me attitude, but one look at Livingston’s cold eyes told him he wasn’t succeeding.

“You know what I think?” Collier interjected into the silence, but she didn’t wait for Jared to answer. “I think you saw a chance to profit from your little brother’s disappearance and engineered the ransom note and drop. You had expensive habits and a father who was fast losing patience with your debts.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jared crossed his arms, not caring if it made him appear uncooperative.

“It must have been quite a blow when you realized you couldn’t spend a dime of the money,” she continued. “So you had to hide it. Then Melender was arrested and convicted. Must have been a huge relief to you that the search for the ransom money was over.”

“It was.” For the very reason Collier had said, but he quickly added, “After all, she killed Jesse.”

“But you were the one who sent the ransom note.” Livingston picked up the interrogation. “And you were the one who planted the money on Williams.”

Jared shook his head. “You guys are barking up the wrong tree.”

“Three witnesses picked your photo out of a lineup as talking with Williams the night he was killed,” Collier said.

“I wasn’t there,” Jared repeated, unable to stop his leg from jiggling up and down under the table.

Livingston opened a folder but shielded Jared’s view of the contents with his clasped hands. “It’s time you stopped lying about what happened that night and tell us the truth.”

“I’m telling you the truth. I had nothing to do with the murder!” Panic clawed at Jared’s throat as he glanced from one to the other.

“And I believe you. We know you didn’t kill Williams.” Livingston’s words should have soothed Jared, but instead, they only heightened his sense of impending doom. The detective extracted a stack of photos from the folder. “But, as we said before, we’re not asking you about the murder. We’re asking you about the money. We were hoping you would come clean, but since you refuse to do so, well, see for yourself.”

He slid one picture across to Jared. “This is you meeting with Williams.”

Even in the dim shadows of the trees, Jared easily recognized himself and Snake.

Livingston handed over another photograph. “This is you handing Williams the stack of money.”

Jared didn’t care that his hands shook as the detective added four more photos to the pile, each one clearly showing Jared talking with Snake. For a long moment after receiving the final photo, Jared stared at the table, the pictures spread out before him. Then he straightened and met Livingston’s gaze. “I want a lawyer.”