Damon (18 page)

“You’ll have a child
. Y
ou
and Charlie will have a child.
I don’t get premonitions often, but w
hen I do, they’re always true.
I don’t know what happens between now and then, but from experience, I can tell you that it’ll make you strong
er.
If this is…if this man is a part of this crime, Damon, I’ll know it.”

“I know you will, kiddo.
But I can’t hel
p but be terrified that he is.
I’ve waited my whole life for Charlie and I don’t want to see her hurt anymore.”

~CHAPTER 1
4
~

Charlie looked out the window of the big SUV and tried
to get her emotions together.
No matter what they tried to hide from her,
she knew that it was Anthony.
He’d found them and he’d hurt someone
else because she had left him.
She looked down at the ring on
her finger.
When Jamie spoke, she jumped slightly.

“What
ever you’re thinking, stop it
. Y
ou’re safe and so is Connor.
Dam
on loves you and you love him. End of story.
Now, tell me ho
w you liked the charity thing.
Mom will ask me ten times what you had to say about it.”

She continued to look out the wind
ow and knew what she had to do.
Keepi
ng her son safe was paramount.
But she also knew that now that Damon was wi
th her, he’d be in danger too.
She wanted to have what they all had, but this man, Anthony, would hurt them if she did.

“It was lovely.
I can’t believe how much…Jamie
, what happens if he finds me?
You know as well as
I do that he will eventually.
And when he does, whoever is with me will be hurt too.”

“How much what, Charlie?
You can’t be
lieve how much what?
And no one is getting to you wit
hout coming through all of us.
F
ocus on the good, not the bad.
Tell me what
you liked about the function.
And by the way, you might as well get used to these sorts of things. Mom wants to start havin
g more of them in the future.
Also, and don’t tell her I warned you, but Dane is going to ask you to help her with the annual Mother’s Day thing she’s putting together to surprise Mom.”

The
y talked about mundane things.
Things in the future when she became Damon’s wife, things tha
t he thought she’d find funny.
He told her stories about the men as children and the thin
gs they’d done to one another.
How Damon would always be the voice of reason and would hav
e to patch them up in the end.
All the time they were talking, Charlie had half her mind on the fact that she needed to leave and how she was going to leave the only man she would ever love.

When they got to Jamie’s house, he carried a sleeping Connor up to t
he room he’d stayed in before.
Jamie had told Connor before they’d left for the event that he could have the room permanently and that whenever he wanted, he could co
me and stay with Dane and him.
Charlie was taking off his tuxedo pants when he woke up and looked at her.

“He’s found us, hasn’t he?
That’s why Aunt Cait had
to leave and Aunt Dane, right?
Mr. O found us.”

“You like these people
very much, don’t you, Connor? I’m so glad
. Y
es, Anthony found me.
I think he might have killed someone tonight and that’s why they took Dane over to the place Cait went.”

She didn’t know he was calling them aunt and uncle, but she was glad he liked
them enough to give them that.
It would make doing w
hat she had to do much easier.
She loved Connor too much to let him get hurt and Anthony had told them enough that if she ran again, he’d kill her son.

“Are we gonna run again soon? I don’t wanna, Momma. I like it here a lot.
Damon is really nice to me and he tells me a
ll the time that he loves you.
Can’t we stay?”

She smoothed his hair from his face and marveled again at how much she loved
this little person she’d made.
He was all she had in the world that she was proud of and she couldn’t…no, she wouldn
’t let anything happen to him.
And doing this now hurt her more than she’d ever thought it could.

“You are
n’t running this time, Connor.
I
can’t let you keep doing this.
I have to—”

“No!
You
aren’t going to leave me here.
I can’t be here without you, Momma. We can go now if you want, but you have to take me with you. Please, Momma, don’t leave me here. I love you.”

“I love you too, sweetheart.
Oh Connor, you’re everything to me and I
don’t want you…he’ll kill you. Do you think I want that?
Do you think I’d want to live knowing tha
t he killed you because I ran? You have to live
. Y
ou have to live for
me and be happy.
If he catches me this time
, I won’t be able to run again.
He’ll never let me have
the opportunity to leave him.
I want to know every day that you’re out there somewhere being my happy little boy.”

When he threw himself at her, she hugge
d him with everything she had.
They cried in each othe
r’s arms until he fell asleep.
Lifting him as gently as she could, she took him over to the rocking chair she’d seen in the corn
er of the room and rocked him.
She told him stories of him and the thi
ngs they’d done together.
Then when she couldn’t spea
k anymore, she put him to bed.
Taking off the ring that Damon had given her, she laid it on the nightstan
d and slipped out of the room.

In the room she’d shared with Damon, she stripped out of the beautiful gown and pu
lled on her jeans and t-shirt.
It was nearly four in the morning when she walked out of
the house and down the drive.
She was glad that Jamie had given her the code to unlock the door when they arrived or she was sure she would never have mad
e it out as easily as she had.
Charlie had almost a hundred dollars left of the money t
hat they had started out with.

She wasn’t naive enough to think Anthony was going to take
her back without hurting her.
In fact, she was reasonably sure that he wou
ld kill her when he found her.
As long as Connor was all right, then she wo
uld be able to die peacefully.

~~~

Damon was just pulling up in front of the hotel when Cait came out of a room where about
ten cops were milling around.
She noticed Dane an
d him and started toward them.
Someone had given her a coverall. But s
he was still wearing her heels.
It would have been something he would have found very funny. But the blood on her front made it too real to even smile.

“I don’t suppose you can prono
unce. Can you?
The coroner can’t be
here for another three hours.
He’s stuck at an airport in Virginia and hi
s assistant is in the hospital.
I want to get the body to the office and get it taken care of tonight.”

Damon n
odded and pulled out his cell.
“I just have to
get it verified from someone.
I’ve even done a few autopsies in the past
. I’ll ask about that as well.”

He just wanted to make sure
that whatever he did was legal.
With his involvement with Charlie and if this man had been killed by the same man, he didn’t want to
screw up the case to convict.

“Hello,
Damon. It’s been a long time.
Please tell me that you’ve decided
to come back to work with us.”

The director of OSU hospital, Justin Sawyer, had been calling weekly to see if Damon was ready to come and take
over the teaching department.
He hadn’t been
tempted at all until recently.
Being home every night and on weekends sounded good now that he had a family.

“No, but I’m thinking about it.
I’ll come in and talk to you next week. Thomas is out of town and Peterson is sick, and the pol
ice need a quick autopsy done.
I might be involved with the case
due to my fiancée and her son.
Would you back me if I did it for them?”

Damon wasn’t worried about ethics or anything like that, but he would need to use the hospital to perform it and he didn’t
want to step on anyone’s toes.
The medical field had as many la
nd mines as most corporations.
Plus, he wanted to make sure that if he did take the job, that everyone knew right from the start he was a team player.

“Of course I will. I’ll send someone to assist, that way there won’t be any ques
tion as to the validity of it.
Are you c
oming with the body or police?
I need to know so that if I have to make a statement, I want to make sure they film me from my good side.”

“Police.
I’ll
let you talk to Captain Grant. She’s in charge of the case.
She can give you details that you can work with.”

Damon handed his cell phone to
Cait and walked over to Dane.
She was leaning against the car and rubbing her
feet.
He had to smile; he’d told her not to wear those heel
s being eight months pregnant.
When she noticed that he was smiling at
her, she stood up and glared.

“I’m pregnant and it’
s nearly three in the morning.
Of cou
rse my feet are going to hurt.
If you sa
y one more word, I’ll hurt you.
How much longer is this going to be?”

He laughed out loud this time.
He l
oved the women of this family.
They could be just as sweet as sugar one minu
te and hard as nails the next. He hugged her to him.
Then he reached into his car, pulled out a pair of sli
ppers, and handed them to her.
He had bought them for himself a few days ago, but was will
ing to sacrifice them for her.
She squealed in delight and nearly took his head off when she tossed the high-heeled shoes at him.

“Okay.
Damon is going to pronounce and as soon as that
happens, then we’ll transport.
Once that happens, Dane, you can go in. Is there anything you need before the body is taken away? I think I
can get you whatever you need.
According to Sawyer, Damon has been appointed acting
coroner until further notice.”
Cait was saying this as she handed Damon back his phone.

“Wait!” Damon nearly sh
outed at her. “Acting coroner?
How
the hell did you manage that? Or do I want to know?
Damn it, Cait, I said I’d help, not
take over a damned department.
If this comes back and bites me in the as
s, I’m going to paddle yours.”
Her laught
er followed him into the room.

The scent of blood hit him first, the
n the smell of bowel movement.
The room reeked of
them.
When he stepped into the bathroom and saw the young man lying in the tub, he had to take several deep breaths before he could le
an down and check for a pulse.
Anyone around them could see that he was dead, but witho
ut the official pronouncement,
h
e was presumed living.

Damon stood nearby
as they pulled Tim’s body out.
When he was rolled over to his belly, Damon couldn’t believe the d
amage that had been inflicted.
Tim’s sh
irt was shredded and bloodied.
And through the tears, he could see where whatever had hit the
young man had broken his ribs.
Broken them badly enough that they stuck out like
broken twigs through the skin.
Large muscle tissue was tor
n from his back and shoulders.
The back of his head
was also broken and bloodied.
When Damon leaned forward, he could see where brain matter had seeped from a massive cont
usion on the back of his head.
Whoever had hit him must have been covered in blood and very strong.