told you I didn’t need them.”
“There were perfectly good things in there!”
Jax held up a hand. Even though their bickering was good-natured, she didn’t like it. And she supposed it was silly, after all this time, for her to still be afraid they’d end up splitting like so many couples did after a tragedy. But silly or not, she did worry. Her mother seemed to have recovered, for the most part. But her father—God, there was still something dark and enormous that haunted her father.
Those two had lost a daughter. They’d survived her father’s lengthy prison sentence. And yet they’d stayed together. But they were not the same. Neither of them was.
Jax wasn’t, either. She’d been the youngest daughter, a tough little hellion, but still…She had become the oldest, abandoned by her big sister, and by her dad, whom she’d thought would always be there for her. She’d become a caregiver to her mother—and there had been no one left to be a caregiver to her. So she’d grown up and she’d done it fast. Hadn’t done her a bit of harm, either, she reminded herself, just in case a hint of self-pity tried to creep in. She didn’t believe in that kind of garbage.
Hell, it amazed her how solid her parents’ relationship must be to have weathered so much. And yet there was something lurking underneath. Something waiting, ready to pounce and ruin it all. And she thought they both sensed it, even if they didn’t know what it was.
“I’ll be glad to take those things for you,” she said, breaking free of the silence into which she’d fallen. “Really. It’s no trouble.”
Her father frowned. “Only if you’re sure.”
“Do you need me to phone Frankie for you, hon?” her mother asked. “I could explain you might be a few minutes late.”
Jax laughed. She couldn’t help it. She lowered her head and laughed.
“Well…what did I say that’s so funny?” Mariah demanded, sounding defensive.
Ben patted her hand. “Honey, our daughter is a grown-up woman. She doesn’t need you to write an excuse to her teacher.”
Mariah pressed her lips together.
“It’ll be fine, Mom. If I leave right now, I can still make it on time. That Taurus knows what to do when I stomp on the gas, and the roads are blessedly bare.”
“Don’t you even think about breaking any speed limits, Cassie,” her mother warned.
Jax got to her feet, gave her mom a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for breakfast. It was fabulous.”
“You barely touched it.”
One egg, two sausage links, a scoop of home fries and a pancake were apparently her mother’s idea of barely touching. “I’ll see you later, Mom.”
Her father grabbed the ice chest and carried it out to her car, sliding it into the back seat. Jax carried the box of clothes, and even as she loaded them in and closed the door, she knew she wasn’t going to take them to the Goodwill in town.
She was going to leave them on the porch of her home, right beside the cooler of food. It was stupid. The scrawny hunk was long gone, and she would probably never see him again. Then again, she couldn’t very well justify leaving a warm bed and food for a stray dog and not doing as much for a stray human being. Particularly one who’d saved her life.
Dr. Ethan Melrose stood over the slab in the hospital morgue and waited while the attendant pulled a sheet from the dead man’s face. They needed to do a postmortem. And since he was both River’s doctor and his best friend, he wanted to oversee it personally.
But as soon as he looked at the body, he knew something was wrong.
“How did he do that much damage to his face with a simple fall?”
The attendant flipped open a metal folder, reading from a chart. “Hit the toilet, facefirst.”
“No way in hell,” Ethan said. “Get this cleaned up. I can’t even see him, much less examine him.”
He paced the room while the attendant worked, but when he turned again and saw more of the corpse’s face, he thought his heart flipped over in his chest. It was pummeled, yes. The nose broken, maybe a cheekbone, too. But he was certain of one thing.
“That man is not Michael Corbett,” he said.
“What?”
Lunging forward, Ethan grabbed the dead man’s wrist, lifting it. “Jesus, where’s his wrist band? Didn’t anyone even bother to check his wrist band?”
“Oh, God,” the attendant muttered. “He…the patient’s room was locked. He was the only one inside. No one even thought to question—Doctor, if this isn’t Michael Corbett, then who the hell is it?”
“I don’t know. But I think we have a more pressing question to answer right now. If this isn’t Michael Corbett, then where the hell is he?”
“Jesus, he escaped.”
Ethan nodded. “Better call the state police. And find out the name of every male staff member who was on duty last night. See who’s not accounted for.”
He walked out of the room, but had to stop halfway down the hall, because his knees were shaking so badly he thought he might fall. He braced his arms against a wall, lowered his head between them. “Dammit, River. Where are you?”
“Welcome to the Blackberry Police Department,” Frankie said, beaming a smile at her as Jax walked through the door. The police department took up fully half of a neat brick building with a huge parking lot that rolled out in back of it. The other half held the town post office.
The first room was a reception area, more or less. It held a desk, where a pretty brunette with a nameplate that read Rosie Monroe jumped to her feet as soon as Jax entered the room.
“Hi, Lieutenant Jackson,” she said. “I don’t think we really met last time you were in town.”
“Well, there was a lot going on last time I was in town,” Jax said, extending a hand. “Chief Parker tells me you practically run this department.”
Rosie shrugged, shaking, her grip entirely too gentle, her hand cool. “I’ve been here ten years. It’s kind of second nature.”
Jax released her hand and looked around the room. Besides Rosie’s desk, this end held a small sofa and love seat in fake green leather. Between them was a stand with a coffeepot, creamer and sugar containers, and a large white box that she guessed, from the aroma, contained fresh doughnuts. It had Susy-Q’s Bakery stamped on the lid.
The other side of the room opened out wider, held three desks and was lined with file cabinets. Every desk had a typewriter, and there was one computer in the room, which the men apparently had to share.
The officers were coming over now, two of them smiling and vaguely familiar—she’d worked with both of them during the Mordecai Young incident last year. Good men.
