I put the key in and unlocked the chamber, but I didn’t pull her out.
I turned, now standing so close to this guy. He hadn’t moved back, but he needed to know. They all did.
“When I—”
He rasped out, “I know. She’ll be uncovered so no evidence was tainted.”
Okay. The guy knew police protocol.
“We haven’t finished her autopsy,” I explained. “We were waiting for her—”
He looked at me, his eyes finding mine, and I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even swallow.
“I know,” he said softly.
I nodded and stepped aside.
He was the one who rolled his shoulders back, reached forward, and pulled her out.
I couldn’t be here. This was his time to say goodbye.
“Take your time,” I murmured for only him to hear. “The ring was bagged. I’m sorry. The cops took it.”
I left, not wanting to see the extra dose of sadness I’d just poured over him. I took Benjamin with me. I kept a firm hold on him, not stopping until we were back in the staff quarters. Once the door was shut, he twisted his arm free.
I let him go.
“What the hell, Car?”
“You leave them alone.”
He smirked. “Look at you, all being down with—”
“Shut up. Not one fucking word.” I pointed out the door. “That’s family saying goodbye to family. You won’t take one dime from them, you hear me?”
Anger tightened his face. “What? You can’t—”
“You take one dime, and I’m reporting you to Milo. I don’t give a fuck what that’ll do to me, too.”
He looked at me like I was a stranger to him. “Shit. Where’d this new Carson come from? You usually only whine if you get the wrong coffee.”
“Stop,” I snarled. “Talking.”
“You’re no longer Car to me anymore. It’s only Carson from now on. And I’m no longer Ben to you.”
I gave him a scathing look. “You never were, Benjamin.”
He shut up after that, thank God. If he hadn’t, I’d have had to involve the police in his murder, by me.
I wasn’t kidding.
I’d never had a reaction to a guy like that, ever. But that man was in me.
He was still in me when they left, when I booted Benjamin out, and when I performed the last set of tests on her.
I wasn’t sure he was ever going to leave.
Chapter Seven
JONAH
Melissa had a lovely funeral. Her family was there. Her friends from high school and college. A couple medical students from our year.
Not me.
Her family didn’t want me there.
But I was still present. I was in an SUV, parked across the street. My brothers were with me. They couldn’t keep me all the way away.
And I was wrong. She had a beautiful funeral.
* * * *
“What are you going to do?” Kai asked me.
Sometime later—weeks? A month? I wasn’t sure—I was with Kai at the house in Vancouver.
Riley and Kai’s two children were here, playing. They’d kept me distracted. There were lots of tea parties with Brooklyn, but not with Blake. His nickname was Blade, after one of Riley’s friends. He was a hellion, and had no time for tea with his younger sister. He’d wanted hide-and-go-seek on the hundred-acre woods we owned. He did it up right, too. Camouflage. He came out wearing a parka with leaves and sticks glued on the back.
Riley had choked up. She was so proud.
Kai cleared his throat, an expectant look on his face. He was asking me this question because my time was up. I had to go back to being a doctor or decide on a different path.
“I’m going to go back.” I decided as I said this, and it felt right.
“You sure?” he asked. “You don’t have to do medicine. Or you don’t have to do it now. You can take time off.”
I shook my head, feeling it in my gut. “Melissa would be pissed if I did that. I need work, to be honest. I’ll be a better surgeon, for her.”
He nodded. That was done.
* * * *
“Brooke called, asked why you aren’t returning her calls,” Tanner informed me over the phone. I’d been back at work for two months now. And I’d been avoiding Brooke’s calls. She’d just had a high-risk pregnancy. Millie was still in the NICU.
“I don’t want her to know,” I told him. “The stress for her? I don’t want to be a part of that.”
Tanner sighed. “You sure?”
“I’m sure. Tell her I’m busy. Tell her I love her, but I can’t talk to her about this. I will, just not yet. She needs to focus on her family, on her new little girl.”
“Okay.”
I heard the sarcasm in his voice, and I almost smiled. Almost.
Brooke probably wouldn’t believe him. “You need to sell it, Tanner. I mean it. If anyone can, it’s you.”
“Riley wants to tell her.”
Kai’s wife. I loved her to death, but I shook my head as I held the phone up. “She can’t. I can’t handle Brooke falling apart over me. Put it that way to her.”