Head Start (Cedar Tree #7) (21 page)

“Certain sexual favors.” He sheepishly smirks.

The ambulance makes a sharp turn and slows down, but before it comes to a full stop, the doors at the back are pulled open.

“Jesus, Neil. Wait for the damn thing to come to a stop first, will ya?” I hear Gus’s voice from the back of the ambulance.

A familiar EMT I hadn’t really noticed before stands up to block the doors. “Please sir, let us do our job.”

“I need to see her.” Even though I can’t see him, I can hear by the sound of Neil’s voice that he’s close to losing it.

“Joe?” I plead, and he immediately gets up and whispers something to the medic who reluctantly steps to the side. Joe climbs down and a few muted words are exchanged that I can’t quite catch.

The medic disappears as well and then I feel the gurney I’m on moving. The moment my body clears the open door, Neil’s face is over me. “How are you doing, Pup?” is all he says, but it’s not the words that have the tears pooling in my eyes, it’s the dark anguish in his eyes.

“I’m all right, honey. I’m good.” I put my hand on his cheek and he turns his face into my palm, his hand covering mine. “I promise,” I whisper when he bends and softly touches his lips to mine.

-

“K
endra?”

I’d just closed my eyes for a minute after finally convincing Neil to grab something from the hospital cafeteria before they close for the night. He refuses to go home tonight, even though they’ve told us I’ll have to stay at least until tomorrow. I have a concussion and a nasty cut along my hairline from my forehead almost to my ear. I was lucky, apparently. I haven’t looked in the mirror yet, but I’m thinking it doesn’t look pretty, judging from Emma and Naomi’s faces when they’d peeked in earlier. Gus and Mal had both come in about an hour ago, after I was stitched up, and I told them what I remembered. Neil had kicked them out at some point, saying they’d have to wait until tomorrow. A hushed conversation had taken place by the door before those two left, leaving Neil and I alone in the room. Finally, a quiet moment to call my mother. Neil had already spoken to her earlier and assured her I was fine. He promised her I would call her as soon as I could. She was full of apology that she hadn’t shown up yet, but one of her patients had slipped into a coma and is not expected to make it through the night. I have to admit, I was a little relieved.

I’m tired to the bone when I hear my name. Opening my eyes, I see Tom Bridges standing in the door opening.

“Hey, buddy. Come in.” I watch him limping as he approaches my bed and I pat on the mattress beside me. “Come sit. I understand I owe you big time.”

He gingerly sits down beside me on the mattress, not looking at me. “I don’t know about that,” he says quietly.

“How is that? If you hadn’t followed us, I might’ve been...” Realizing I was about to let on more than perhaps was wise, I shut my mouth and instead grab his hand in mine.

“I’m the reason you got hurt,” he says, his voice cracking on the last word. “I ran you off the road.”

“I’m grateful, Tom. So very grateful you did exactly that.” I squeeze his hand when I see him furiously blink against tears.

“But—”

“No buts.” Neil’s voice sounds from the door. “No ifs or ands either.” Both Tom and I turn toward Neil, standing just inside the door, a brown bag and a coffee in his hand. Slowly he walks toward the bed, and Tom instantly stands up, wincing a little when he does. Neil puts his stuff on the nightstand, turns to the young man and holds his hand out. “It’s not only Kendra who owes you gratitude, my man. I do too. Having you on the phone, knowing my girl was looked after—meant the world. Not to mention, you having the presence of mind to follow and stop the guy when you did. I don’t know many guys your age with that kind of courage.”

Obviously taken aback and a little hesitant, Tom places his hand in Neil’s. “Thanks,” he says hoarsely. “My dad just picked me up from the police station and I said I wanted to quickly come and apologize.”

“No reason to apologize, son. You did exactly what I would’ve done in your shoes,” Neil says, clapping the boy on the shoulder. I have to work hard not to snort at his use of the term
son.
He would’ve been a very young father at fourteen.

“Thanks for checking on me, Tom. I should be right as rain in no time. But you hurt yourself, didn’t you?”  I put him on spot.

“Not so bad,” he mumbles, but I can see he’s worried. He’s downplaying it.

“Please see your orthopedic surgeon as soon as possible, honey. If you damaged it again...”

“I will,” he blurts. “I’d better get going. Hope you feel better.” With an awkward hug for me and a nod for Neil, he walks out the room.

Neil turns to me. “I’m just gonna see him off. It’s dark out. I’ll be right back.” With a quick kiss, he disappears as well.

I’m just dozing when Neil comes back in a little later. I hear him pull up a chair and crinkle the brown paper bag. An odd sense of wellbeing comes over me as I listen to him sip his coffee and eat his food.

“I’m not sleeping,” I admit after a few minutes, slowly lifting one eyelid. “I’m just resting my eyes. But if you’re done eating, I wouldn’t mind a hug.” The words haven’t left my mouth before he’s out of the chair, his cup and bag discarded and he’s toeing off his boots. When he approaches the bed, I scoot over as far as I can, making room. It’s a bit tight, but when he carefully rolls me on my side, and curls around me from behind, we fit perfectly. “Is everything all right with Tom?” I ask.

“Yeah. Just wanted to make sure his dad knew that if not for his son, I might’ve...” He stops mid-sentence, but I know what he was going to say. He lets out a deep sigh. “I was so scared,” he admits softly, his face in my hair. I close my arms over his, wrapped around me. “I asked the kid to hold your hand, because I couldn’t, and he said he already was. I’ll be forever grateful for that.”

“I’m all right,” I tell him again, but it’s not until after I hear his breathing deepen with sleep, that I manage to drift off myself.

N
eil

It’s been only three days, but it feels like a month.

After I was able to bring Kendra home on Saturday morning, the house has had a revolving door. People in and out non-stop, even though I’d tried to limit the visitors so she could have some rest. That was our first run in. Damian and Luna, who’d set up shop in Cortez while Maryn’s lead was hot, had come to take Kendra’s statement. Cayman was in the wind and that in itself put him right back at the top of the list of suspects, although no concrete connection had been found between the two other than their name. Well, and their connection to the case. Not five minutes prior, Emma, accompanied by Arlene and Kara, had left. They came loaded with food, as per usual. It seems to be a habit here in Cedar Tree that whenever something happens, first thing people think of is food. Kara’s presence was a bit tense. Especially since Emma made some references to my visits with her last week. I could feel the cool breeze coming from Kendra’s direction and cursed myself for not telling her earlier. Probably doesn’t look too good that for those few days, I barely had time to even talk to her, yet I obviously managed to see Kara. Worst part is, I wouldn’t have been able to explain without betraying Kara’s trust. It’s fucked up.

The moment the three left, leaving us with enough food to last the week, Kendra turned to me. “You don’t have to stay,” she said in a cool voice. “I can manage, thank you.” Before I had a chance to respond, she disappeared into the bathroom. Yup, I fucked up.

It was minutes later, while I was waiting for her to reappear, that the two FBI agents announced themselves. I wanted to tell them to come back later so I could fix things with Kendra first, but with Casal Maryn, or whoever the hell he is, still out there, I had no choice. Seating them in the living room, I went to get Kendra. The bathroom door was still closed, so I knocked softly.

“Kendra? The FBI is here,” I tried. The only response I could hear was the flushing of the toilet. I gave her a minute before trying again. “Kendra?’

With a soft click, the bathroom door was unlocked and opened. Kendra, her face swollen and head bandaged stepped out, her eyes downcast. She tried to slip by me but I stopped her by the shoulders.

“Are you okay to do this?”

Slowly her face came up and the moment I saw her eyes, I suspected she’d been close to crying. Still, she lifted her chin and her mouth was pressed into a tight line. “I’m fine.”

“Look,” I started, wanting to smooth things over. “I can explain.”

Don’t know what I was expecting but it sure wasn’t the derisive snort.

“I’m sure you can, but I believe I have guests,” she said before pulling from my grip and turning to the stairs. I wasn’t about to create a scene with Damian and his agent sitting downstairs so I reluctantly let her go, following closely behind.

She spent at least an hour going over the whole ordeal when Luna asked her to describe Lars Cayman again. I knew what she wanted to know. I’d still not asked Kendra about the limping. It took her a minute to think before responding. She indicated perhaps he was favoring one leg, but explained it could have just been because she’d watched him maneuver through the tables of the coffee shop.

The agents left shortly after that and while I was showing them out, Kendra had disappeared upstairs. When I went to check, she’d been curled up in bed, her back to the door. Knowing she was probably exhausted, I figured it probably wasn’t a good time to address Kara, so I left her to sleep.

Since then we’d barely been alone, especially when her mother showed up Saturday night, and stayed. Her patient had sadly passed away that morning and she’d been busy with the family. The moment she could, she’d hopped in the car to come here. There’d been an awkward moment when sleeping arrangements were discussed because Elsa of course would take the spare bedroom, which was fine, because I’d intended to sleep with Kendra anyway. That is, until Kendra pushed a pile of blankets in my hands, relegating me to the couch.

That’s where I’ve been every fucking night since. With Elsa taking care of Kendra, I’ve been keeping busy going over all of the victims’ records, to see if I could find any ties with Maryn/Cayman. I’d simply used an online anagram creator to come up with as many versions of names possible with that set of letters. There were quite a few of them and I was able to connect him that way to four more victims. Each time he’d set up an entirely new online identity. Jasper is working on it from his end and together we’ve generated quite a few leads for the task force to run down.

But now with Elsa heading back to Durango after breakfast, it’s time to clear the air with Kendra. She’s frozen me out long enough. I find her in the kitchen putting dishes in the sink and without pause, I take the plate from her hand and pull her to the living room.

“What the hell, Neil?” she snaps instantly, trying to yank her hand from mine, but I don’t let go. Instead of the couch, I push her to sit in the chair where she is boxed in with armrests and me crouching in front of her. “Is it necessary to manhandle me?”

“Unfortunately—yes. Seems to be only way for me to get some face time with you.” I’m hanging on to my patience by a thread, so I take a few deep breaths before I launch in. “Kara is a
friend,
nothing more. I know I’ve said it before but it bears repeating.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she mutters, looking at her hands. “This was all just a bad idea to begin with.”

“Jesus Christ, Kendra. Are we seriously back there again? Please don’t tell me that after I fucking laid myself bare to you, after barely keeping it together when you got hurt, you’re gonna use this to push me away?” My voice steadily rising, I take another breath to calm down before continuing. “I get it’s not the simplest thing to wrap your head around, believe me I know that. I still get a little itchy when you talk about Mal. The difference is I
trust
you when you tell me he’s just a good friend. Maybe it’s because I can’t see anything but good in you and yet you seem determined to find the bad in me.” Exasperated, I run my hand through my hair at the lack of response. It fucking stings. I drop my head while at the same time pushing up from my uncomfortable position on the floor. At this point, it feels like anything I say will fall on deaf ears and I can only hope a few of my words will eventually filter through.

Dejected, I sit back down at the dining room table and start working on the property searches I’m running in Montezuma County in the name of Casal Maryn, Lars Cayman, or any of the other aliases we’ve found. I’m trying hard not to listen for sounds coming from the living room and instead make an effort to focus on my screen.

A soft hand is placed in the center of my back, and without her needing to say anything, I drop my head in my hands in relief.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “You’re right. I’m ashamed that you’re so very right. You’ve given me no reason to doubt your honesty. It’s been a crazy roller coaster of a week—not that I’m trying to offer excuses,” she quickly adds, “but even though these extreme circumstances seem par for the course for you, they’re not for me. I’m a little overwhelmed at it all and went into protective mode.” I can feel her resting her cheek on my head, and when she faintly whispers, “I’m scared,” I know she’s talking about more than the serial killer we have on the loose. She’s talking about us. I turn and immediately pull her down on my lap, my arms holding her tight.

“It’s all good, Pup.”