Hard Irish (15 page)

“It’s been years since I was here but...Uncle Pat wasn’t one to change anything.”  Rocky eased from Jared’s hold and glanced around the great room.  The book shelves, entertainment center, even the sofa, were all the same as they’d always been..  Fearful, but unable to stop, she moved over to where Jesse stood, searching the room.   The magazines on the coffee table were the same, just newer issues.  Pat liked reading about race cars, motorcycles, and fishing.  The TV remote was in its customary place on the end table by the recliner.  The curtains and pictures, all aged by sun and time, were the same.  She shook her head.  “No, everything is as I—wait, I smell something burnt.  Like wood in the fireplace.”  She moved to the hearth.  “Uncle Pat never uses the fireplace.  Wood smoke sets off his asthma.”

Jesse and Jared joined her.  Before she could touch the thick iron mesh covering the opening, Jesse stopped her.  He used the blade of his pocket knife to ease open the grate.

She gasped.  Sitting on the rack, with burn marks curled all around it, was a rose painted box she had no trouble recognizing.  “It’s my mother’s hatbox.  She kept notecards and letters in it on her writing desk at home.  I haven’t seen it...since she died.  I even asked my Da about it and he’d just said that he might have packed it up with all of my mother’s things.  Her death was so painful to him at the time that he put everything in the attic.  We went through it all two years ago when he sold the house and moved to an apartment, by then I had forgotten about it.” She turned to Jared.  “What if this is the box from my mom that Pat had at the bank?”

“I’d bet on it,” Jared said.  “He opened it.”

“And maybe found something that made him take his life?” Jesse suggested.

Rocky glanced Pat’s way then quickly averted her gaze.  “I can’t imagine what.”

“Believe me,” Jesse said.  “I’ve seen it all.   Although there is never a good reason to throw in the towel because life means hope, sometimes a person takes their life over the stupidest reasons.  You do realize that if we touch the box, we’ll be tampering with evidence that may or may not be part of a crime scene.  I might be able to work a deal with the local police so that—”

“Hell no,” Jared interrupted.  “You and I both know shit gets tied up in red tape and evidence protocol.  It will be days if we’re lucky before Rocky could even get a look.  The box belonged to her mother.”  He grabbed a stack of newspaper and spread it on the hearth.  “What if this man’s death isn’t an accident?  What if the killer tried to destroy evidence?  This puts her in even more danger than before.  I’ll take the blame and pay the penalty, but we’re taking that hat box out to the truck before the police arrive.  Don’t you have the ability to process evidence at the R&D?”

Jesse exhaled.  “Yes.  State of the art.  Better than anything they’ll have here.  It’s still breaking the law.”

“You can’t tell me that if Alexi or Jake’s safety hung in the balance you wouldn’t break the law.”

“Done,” Jesse said.  “I’ll take it now, before the police arrive.  You two meet me at R&D as soon as you are finished here.”  After snapping several pictures of the hatbox and hearth, he got a large plastic bag from the kitchen and with gloved hands placed everything in the fireplace inside, even the ashes.

“Jared, until the police arrive, use your cell and take pictures of everything, if you catch my drift.  Don’t know what might become important as this case develops.  Don’t touch anything though, okay?”

“You got it,” Jared said.  Jesse started to leave then turned back.  “I’m going to send a man to guard her father until we can figure this situation out.”

Jared smacked his own face.  “I should have thought of that.  Might even be a good idea to contact the attorney holding papers for Rocky, too.”

“On it,” Jesse said and left.

Was her father in danger?  Rocky stood in the center of the room at a complete loss, unable to think, to process the facts.  Uncle Pat was dead.  And something her mother had left could be the reason why.

Someone had to call Collin, but she didn’t want to be here with Jared when her ex showed up.  She called Mack and told him Pat was dead.  She didn’t say anything about the circumstances.  That would be for Collin and the police to share.  “Can you call Collin and come here?  He’ll need someone to be with him.”

“Taken care of, boss.  Man, I am sorry about this.  Guess I should send the crew home.  Maybe even give them a day or two off until we sort this out.”

“Yeah.  I’m glad you’re thinking.”  She hung up.

Jared turned to her, crossed the room and placed a kiss in the middle of her forehead.

“What’s that for?”

“Nothing.  I have a feeling you’d worry about the devil being thirsty in hell if you ever saw him.  As far as I can tell, the man has given you nothing but grief, but you’re still looking out for him.  What did he do to you that put the fear I saw in your eyes that night in the bar?”

Rocky started to turn away from Jared, but then drew a deep breath and met his gaze instead.  “It was after we’d separated.  He showed up at where I was staying, drunk out of his mind.  When I wouldn’t let him in, he broke the chain on the door, and...well...tried to force me.  I fought back, but he was stronger.  He ripped my shirt.  I pretended to finally give in and hit him in the groin hard at the first opportunity.  He passed out.  I dragged him outside, barricaded the door, and called Mack to come pick him up.”

“I’ll kill the SOB.  Why didn’t you call the police?”

“If he had succeeded, I would have.  But the situation was all already so hard for everyone.  Collin and I had grown up together.  Uncle Pat and my father are best friends.  Up until then Collin was still working in the company.  Rather than involve the police, I forced him out of McKenna Construction.”

  Jared looked as if he wanted to take aim and fire the pistol he carried or slam his fists repeatedly in Collin’s face.  “Christ.  I could kil—“

Rocky pressed her finger to Jared’s lip.  “No.  No more violence.  I dealt with it and it’s over.”

Jared pulled back, gripping her shoulders.  “Is it?  That’s not what I saw in the bar Sunday night.  Why are you still defending him?”

She shook her head.  “I don’t know.  I just know in my gut that Collin would never hurt his father.”

Jared exhaled sounding exasperated and angry.  “I need to finish taking pictures before the police arrive.  Why don’t you check the rest of the house to see if anything else is out of place and we’ll talk more about this later.”

“There’s not much else to say.  It’s a part of my life that needs to stay buried,” she said then turned away as it hit her again that Pat was dead.  Tears welled.  Thankful to be able to leave the room, she walked through the small house and let those tears fall.  Many memories were attached to the place and a lot of them had ended in broken dreams, but that didn’t stop them from being dear to her heart.  Collin hadn’t always been the angry man he was now.  His decline into alcohol abuse had amplified his problems, but there had been some good times amid the turbulent ones.

The police arrived, asked a number of questions and took their information.  Then Mack appeared and set up vigil outside of the house.  She and Jared were just leaving the subdivision when Rocky saw Collin’s black truck speed by them as he raced to his father.  No matter what her and Collin’s problems had been, she still ached for the pain she knew he would be in, even more so because of the unexpectedness and the violence of his father’s death.

Her face was numb, her hands shook and she was still shivering, her insides still as cold as the house despite the near ninety degree temperature outside.  Her world was shaken to the core and the only thing steady seemed to be the man at her side, a man she mentally realized that she barely knew, but somehow the connection they’d made had broken the rules.  On an inexplicable level, Jared was closer to her than any man had ever been.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

Jared knew Rocky was in hurting, in shock, and that he needed to do something to help but was at a complete loss.  She was pale, her gaze was unfocused, and her body shook.  Though they really needed to go directly to Sheridan-Weldon Solution’s R&D building and meet with Jesse, she was in no shape to face anything else at the moment.  He pulled into the first drive-thru that advertised coffee and breakfast to go.  They never did eat the breakfast he’d fixed.

“I can’t eat,” Rocky said, wiping her red-rimmed eyes.

“I know,” he said, remembering having uttered those same words to his mother years ago.

Jared went through the drive-thru and ordered a range of things plus lots of coffee then pulled into a sunny parking spot.  He put the truck in park and unbuckled his and Rocky’s seatbelt.

“Come here.”  He drew her into his arms, pulling her close to his chest as she sat sideways in his lap between him and the steering wheel.  It was a tight fit, but comfortable, and reminded him of the innocence of his first dates a long damn time ago, when he had to spend time growing a relationship before even kissing a girl.  Somehow that had all changed and hooking up had become the norm.  A mix of emotions wrapped around his heart as he tightened his hold on Rocky.  He rested his cheek against her head, closed his eyes, and just focused on breathing.  The Collin situation wasn’t over by a longshot, but he put it on the backburner for the moment.  Rocky was clearly overwhelmed and Jared knew he needed to stay level headed. 

His first instinct was to blame Collin for everything happening especially after hearing what the bastard almost did to Rocky, but he realized that was driven by his emotions.  He needed to keep an open mind to be sure he didn’t miss another shark lurking beneath the surface of her life.  

When she stopped shaking and began to relax against him, he started talking, knowing from last night, it was one thing that helped ease her anxiety.  “When James and I were sixteen we were out motorcycle riding with a friend of ours.  We were young.  We considered ourselves hot stuff, and we thought we were invincible.  We weren’t exactly being stupid, but we were definitely skirting the edge of danger by pulling a few tricks on the road.  David motioned that he was going to move ahead and wanted James and I to watch him power slide a little on an upcoming turn.  He pulled it off, waved his hand back at us, and the next moment a car ran a red light and hit him dead on.  None of us even saw the car coming.  David was killed on impact.  The driver was drunk.  I’ll always wonder that if we’d been more aware of the cars around us rather than in how cool we were, if David would be alive today.  James and I were a mess.  We were shaking so bad we couldn’t even ride our bikes home.  The whole family came to rescue us.  Jackson and Jesse rode our bikes and we sat in the back seat of my dad’s truck.  My mother talked the whole way, telling us inane things about I don’t even remember what.  I just remember the steady sound of her voice.  The first thing she did when we got in the house was to sit us down at the kitchen table and make us a cup of tea.  I remember thinking at the start that she had screw loose.  My gut was wrung so tight I couldn’t even breathe and she wanted to serve tea?  James looked as if he felt the same way.  By the time she finished, put the cup in front of me, and I’d drunk half of it, I was shaking less.  She’d made it extra sweet and heavy on the cream.  By the time the cup was empty, I could breathe.  Sugar, sitting still, the comforting sound of her voice, and the simple act of drinking something counteracted the shock I was in.  James felt better, too.”  Jared gave a half laugh.  “Especially after the little dollop of whiskey my dad added to our cups when my mother had her back turned.”

He shifted back and met her teary gaze.  His insides went haywire, a mix of care and fear for her and anger at whoever was behind this.  He gently brushed a light kiss to her lips.  “You’re in shock.  You need to eat something and drink some coffee.  It will make you feel better and will help you think clearer when we get to Jesse’s, okay?”

She nodded and he helped her ease from his lap to sit next to him.  He laid out the food on the dash.  “Pick something.  A biscuit and jam, a piece of fruit, some of the cheese off the egg sandwich if you can’t eat the whole thing.  And how do you like your coffee?  Oh, I almost forgot.  You’re a triple X-gal.  Extra cream and extra sugar, I bet.”

She stared at the food then sighed.  “I’ll take three creams and four sugars.”

“Good.  For a moment there, I thought you were going to be a blue-nosed mule.”

She gave a weak grin and took a deep breath as she picked up the fruit cup and a fork.  “That’s better than being a corn cob.”

He exhaled hard.  Apparently that comment was going to haunt him.  “You are not a corn cob, okay.  A prickly pear maybe, but not a corn cob.”

She frowned and he laughed, relief flooding through him.  She was going to be okay.  By the time they ate, drank coffee, and made the drive to meet Jesse, color had returned to her cheeks and though red-rimmed, her gaze was stronger and more focused.

“Uh, this isn’t just a little lab attached to an ordinary security company.”  Rocky said after they’d been cleared by the guard and drove through the gated entrance to Sheridan-Weldon’s Research and Development facility. 

Jared winced.  The place wasn’t little.  It was huge, like something out of a James Bond movie.  He’d help design and build it.  To him, it was one of his greatest achievements in commercial architecture, but it wasn’t hyped up in any magazine or even listed in development annuals.  The dark granite and glass building, surrounded by strategically placed live oaks, almost seemed to be part of the landscape.  It had been designed to blend in with its surroundings.  In fact, considering Jesse’s top-secret contracts and the importance of what he and his people did world-wide, relatively few people knew the place existed.  It wasn’t because the place itself was top secret. It was just that security-wise, Jesse believed that the fewer people who knew about the place, the better.

“Sheridan-Weldon Solutions is based in Washington D.C. and does business internationally.”