Armed With Steele Read online

  “I think he’s the one I talked to when they were loading Grace into the ambulance.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Matt and I stared at each other for half a second, then launched from our seats, hungry for answers.

  The officer stood with his back to us, absorbed in conversation with a young, busty nurse who’d just emerged from the back hallway. Even from behind, I could tell he wasn’t the middle-aged, ex-marine with a spare tire around the middle and salt-and-pepper buzz cut that I’d expected to see after hearing Matt speak of him earlier. He couldn’t have been much older than me. And no evidence of midriff excess…or excess anywhere else, for that matter. His broad shoulders tapered down to a slender but solid waist, giving his upper body a nice, well-defined V-shape. The back of his neck still held a trace of summer tan, and not a single gray hair could be seen throughout his thick mane of dark, wavy locks.

  Shame on me for having such a lackluster imagination.

  It was a view I might have enjoyed, had our circumstances been different. Eye candy or not, his failure to turn around after thirty seconds or so began to piss me off. I faked a cough, which garnered a nasty look from the nurse.

  The officer turned toward the sound and his gaze fell upon Matt. Recognition soon washed over his face, and he extended out his hand. “Mr. Harris.”

  The front view of Mr. Officer was even better than the one from behind. I scanned his face, and couldn’t help but admire his smooth jaw line, perfect nose and brilliant blue eyes. Blue eyes?

  Oh, no.

  “Officer Steele,” Matt said, extending his own hand out.

  Chapter 2

  I clenched my eyes shut. Please tell me I heard wrong, please tell me I heard wrong… Unfortunately, I hadn’t. When I opened them again, the jerk who’d delayed my arrival at Glenview was still standing there in front of me. Only this time, instead of his perpetual scowl, an amused smirk played at his lips.

  “And I see you made it here okay.”

  “Um, yeah.” I felt my cheeks warm. “Thank you. Again.”

  “Wait,” Matt’s brow furrowed. “You two know each other?”

  “I’ll explain later,” I muttered under my breath. Would have explained it to you earlier if you hadn’t blanked on his damned name until now.

  “Okay.” He turned his attention back to Officer Steele. “So, did you figure out what happened?”

  “No, not yet. I’d hoped to ask Miss Sullivan a few questions so I could close out my report, but she’s still out cold.”

  Out cold implied she was still breathing, which gave me hope. I put my irritation with the patrolman aside and refocused my energies on Grace. “But surely you’ve come up with something.”

  Officer Steele glanced around the crowded waiting area, then tipped his head in the direction of a nearby door. “Why don’t we continue this conversation somewhere a little more private.”

  The room he directed us to was barely larger than a broom closet. Yet some brilliant administrator had decided to try and wedge a small, round oak veneer table and four matching chairs inside. We had no choice but to sit. Being the smallest of the group—five foot two on a good day—I took a seat in the back corner.

  My fingers drummed a will-you-hurry-it-up-already rhythm while I waited for the men to get situated. Officer Steele took the seat to my left, and a cologne I hadn’t noticed before began to tickle at my nose. Something cool and clean, with a hint of spice. Definitely not something Matt would wear—Grace preferred him in more of an evergreen aroma. The whole pine needles scent wasn’t really my thing, but this…

  “You need to find a new nail tech.”

  “What?” I glanced up at Officer Steele, then followed his gaze down to my hands on the table. One set of fingers was without polish, the other now an apricot nightmare. “Oh, that.” I withdrew my hands to my lap. “Let’s just say today’s appointment got cut a bit short.” By a certain phone call, about a certain best friend of mine.

  Matt dropped into the chair across from us, and I took it as my cue to begin our interrogation. “So, Officer, what happened to my roommate?”

  The teasing look in his eyes vanished. “I’m not entirely sure. We got a call from the resident at 7101 North River Road at approximately five fifteen this evening. She’d been in the bathroom and heard a loud noise outside. When she…” He cleared this throat. “Finished her business, she looked outside and spotted Miss Sullivan’s car in the ditch to the east. The woman called 911, who then dispatched the call to me.

  “When I arrived at the scene, the paramedics were also just pulling up. We made our way to the car, and found Miss Sullivan unconscious. While they worked to extract her from the car, I surveyed the accident site. Deep ruts just off the road indicate her vehicle made a hard right, which caused the car to roll once it met the embankment. The car eventually came to rest upright against a utility pole, the impact pinning the driver’s door shut.”

  “Oh, God,” I breathed.

  Matt shifted in his seat. “How did you get her out?”

  “Through the passenger-side door.”

  An image suddenly came to my mind. One of Grace, just a few months back, prancing around her new car like a small child around the tree on Christmas morning. I groaned at the thought of how it must look now. Officer Steele’s gaze shifted to me, one eyebrow raised.

  “Sorry,” I said, and wrung my hands together under the table. “I’m just picturing you guys having to break a window to get her out. Grace loved that car.”

  “We didn’t break any windows—the doors were unlocked. Not that it really matters.” He looked over at Matt. “I’d be willing to bet my next paycheck the car’s totaled.”

  I blinked a few times. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Matt nodded. “Her car was in pretty bad shape.”

  I rubbed my temples, trying to stave off the headache threatening to erupt. “No, I mean, really? The doors were unlocked?”

  Officer Steele retrieved a familiar-looking black notepad from his belt and flipped through a few pages. “They must have been,” he said after a moment and snapped it shut. “I don’t have any notes about breaking windows or having to jimmy the door open.”

  “How is that possible?” I closed my eyes and tried to think back. Hadn’t Grace been all excited when she discovered her fancy new car automatically locked the doors once she put it into drive?

  Matt interrupted my concentration. “So, what caused her to go off the road?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know. There was no indication that her vehicle came into contact with anything other than the utility pole. Now, toxicology results have yet to come back—”

  “Toxicology reports?” The hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. It was one thing to pull me over for some ticky-tack traffic violation, but to imply that Grace was hitting the bottle on her drive home? She didn’t deserve that. “You’ve got to be joking. She’d just left work!”

  His blue eyes lasered to mine. “It’s standard protocol for those tests to be run, Miss Hartley, before the hospital can treat her. It also helps to ensure that we have all the facts for our investigation. And without an eye witness, we have to consider every possibil—”

  “You mean to tell me no one saw anything?” Matt cut in. “Just after five o’clock on a Friday night?”

  “Unfortunately, no. Our officers went door to door after you left, but no one besides the 911 caller appeared to be home.”

  I scowled. “What about passing motorists?”

  Officer Steele shook his head. “No vehicles were waiting there when we arrived, and no one stopped to say that they’d witnessed the accident. And since we don’t have surveillance cameras along every inch of road in this city…” He paused, eyebrow raised again as if daring me to ask why not. “I’m afraid we don’t have much else to go by.”

  Matt rubbed his face. “Unbelievable.”

  Officer Steele looked from me to Matt and sighed. “Look, the case won’t get closed until
tomorrow since I left before the tow truck arrived. Maybe the back up officer who stayed behind to assist with wreckage cleanup will discovery something I didn’t.” He fished two business cards from his uniform shirt pocket. “In the meantime, if either of you are around when she comes to, call me.”

  “Will do,” Matt said as we stood and each took a card. “And hey, thanks for letting me, you know, ride here with Grace.”

  Officer Steele clapped a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “You’re welcome. If it’d been my girl, I would have wanted to be right there with her, too.”

  Out of sheer habit I glanced at his ring finger. Bare; not that it mattered. I didn’t expect to see Officer Steele again, nor did I want to—he’d probably ticket me next time for sure. All I cared about was getting Grace upright and back home, where the biggest decisions we had to make were no bigger than what to wear or whose turn it was to take out the trash. Decisions that would take my mind off Officer Blue Eyes and that annoyingly intriguing cologne of his.

  * * * *

  Sharon Sullivan finally surfaced around 7:30. The older, softer version of Grace, she was always perfectly dressed—clothes without wrinkle, not a hair of out of place. Even now, as she clickety-clacked toward us in conservative pumps that complimented her khaki slacks, ivory tank and chocolate cardigan, she looked every bit the modern day June Cleaver. And her demeanor matched the look. Sharon had always been the cool, calm, and collected ying to my mother’s domineering, twenty-questions-every-conversation yang.

  Today, however, her usual soothing countenance had some visible cracks. She stayed only long enough to give us a brief update on Grace. X-rays had come back clean. So had the MRI.

  “So, she’s awake?”

  Sharon shook her head. “Sorry, dear, but no. Grace is still unconscious. But we’re…hopeful…that it won’t be long now.”

  I gave her a hug and smiled, determined to hide my disappointment—she had enough on her plate without having to worry about me. Matt offered a few words of support and hugged her as well. Then she was off, allowed admittance to the ER by the reception desk’s hefty blonde sentinel.

  Around 8:30, Matt had a friend swing by so they could go and retrieve his abandoned SUV. With him gone, and Grace’s parents still back with her, I was left to fend for myself once more. I sat huddled in my seat, edgy, bored, and lonely. Apparently I was exhausted as well, because at some point I dozed off.

  Next thing I knew, I was sitting across from Robert Pattinson in a secluded booth at the back of a small, Italian restaurant, his pale blue eyes locked with mine. I played coy. Shifted my gaze down to the glass before me and took a drink. When I lifted my eyes back to his, they looked different. Darker. And more brilliant. Like those of Officer—

  “Jessica?”

  A hand touched my shoulder. Only, it wasn’t my dinner date who had reached out to me.

  “Jess, honey, can you wake up for me?”

  This time I recognized Sharon’s voice. I jerked awake, and squinted against the bright, overhead florescent lights. “How is she?”

  Sharon took the seat on my other side with a heavy sigh. “She’s hanging in there.”

  “That’s the fighter we all know and love.” I stretched, grimaced. The lobby chairs had not been kind to my back while I’d slept. “So, when do we get to take her home?”

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw Matt, now perched on a seat across from mine, lower his head while his knee resumed its high-speed bouncing. I zeroed in on Sharon’s weary face. “We do get to take her home tonight, don’t we?”

  She looked down at her hands, carefully folded in her lap, and answered in a voice so soft that I had to strain to hear her. “No, honey, we don’t. Grace…well, Grace still isn’t waking up. The doctors think she’s in a coma.”

  My world came to a dead stop.

  “A coma? H-how can she be in a coma? I mean, I’m sure she was wearing her seatbelt—she always wore her seatbelt. And she’s got airbags. Bunches of airbags. She…she should’ve been well protected, and—”

  Sharon reached over and placed a comforting hand on my knee. “I don’t understand it either, sweetheart. No one does.”

  Coma. The word ricocheted through my brain like Oswald’s magic bullet.

  The only thing I knew about comas was what I’d seen on TV. People trapped in their own mind for years, life eventually going on without them. But I didn’t want my life to go on without Grace. I needed her. She was everything to me: the sister I’d never had, my closest confidante in all things boys, and the one person alive who could cheer me up with a single peal of laughter.

  “Did…did the doctors say how long they think she’ll be like this?”

  Sharon’s eyes darted from mine back to her lap. “They don’t know.”

  “They don’t know?” I jumped up out of my seat, ready to storm the ER for answers. Heads across the lobby turned in my direction. “They’re doctors! This is what they get paid to do! Couldn’t they at least have offered you an educated guess?”

  “Jessica, honey, please.” Sharon offered a tight-lipped smile to someone across the lobby and reached out to pull me back down into my seat.

  I relented, for her sake alone.

  “No, they didn’t. All they said was that she’d wake up when she’s ready.”

  I shook my head and saw my future flash before me. Stuck in this damned lobby with every contagious sniffle and sneeze in Fort Wayne for weeks on end. Or longer. “Great, we’re doomed. Grace never likes to be rushed into anything.”

  The words were out before I could edit. Matt chuckled, and a faint smile appeared on Sharon’s lips. “You do know my Gracie well.” She wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a motherly squeeze.

  I nodded. “So, where is she now?”

  “Intensive Care. Once she’s stabilized, they’ll move her into a regular room.”

  “Can I see her?”

  Sharon shook her head. “I wish you could, Jessica. I truly wish you could.”

  My eyes drifted toward the lobby’s double-doors, and I wondered for the first time what Grace was feeling right now. Was she scared? Lonely? In unbearable pain? If only I could go back and see her. Hold her hand and tell her that everything was going to be alright…

  “Oh, before I forget.” Sharon reached around to produce a familiar-looking, oversized black Coach—the one Grace had fallen in love with at the outlet mall this past spring. “Officer Steele retrieved this from Grace’s front seat. I guess it made the trip here in the ambulance with her and Matt. Would you mind taking it home with you tonight? That way it’ll be there for her when she—” Sharon attempted a smile. “When she comes home.”

  Matt piped up. “And I sure as heck don’t want to carry that thing around anymore.” From the look on his face, you’d think Sharon was holding a giant pink box of tampons.

  I grinned at him, then looked back to Mrs. Sullivan. Hope fluttered between us. “Sure.”

  She patted my knee and sighed. “I really should get back to Grace. You two might as well head on home—we’re in for a long night.”

  Leave…without Grace? “B-but we need to be here, in case something changes!”

  Sharon rose from her seat. “Then I’ll call you right away. Now go home, and get some rest.”

  I knew from the look on her face that her words were an order, not a request. And the persistent ache in my back was a not-so-subtle reminder that a night in my own bed was a much better option than sticking around that lobby. Still, the thought of leaving Grace pained me. I could only hope that by the time I returned, she’d be awake and this whole nightmare would be over. Then I could pay penance for not answering her call. Wait on her hand and foot until she’d made a full recovery. And never not answer a call from her again.

  * * * *

  “I don’t see what the big deal is, Jess,” Matt said as we walked out to our vehicles. “So her purse was open?”

  My little legs strained to keep up with his long strides. “Matt, l
ook at this bag. It’s ginormous. The last thing a woman who carries a purse this size wants to see is its contents scattered all over the floor of her car. We stomp on the brakes too hard one time and wham!—stuff’s flying everywhere.”

  Matt stopped beside my Civic and stared at me, a vacant look in his eyes.

  “Just trust me, alright? Grace never, and I mean never, leaves her purse unzipped.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and raised a hand to rub the back of his neck. “Seems like a minor detail to me. My guess is that Officer Steele did it, looking for her ID before I got there. Or maybe she unzipped it to dig around for something while she drove. Hell, maybe that’s what caused her to go off the road.”

  “I hope you’re right.” I climbed into the driver’s seat and peered into her purse. “Hmm, nothing seems to be missing. Cell phone’s here. Her wallet. But…”

  “But what?” Matt swooped in for a view. “What is it?”

  “It’s a mess.” The status quo for my purse, but never for hers.

  “Her car rolled into a ditch! What did you expect?”

  I shook my head, adamant. “Yeah, I know. But look at this—all her zippered interior pockets are open, papers and receipts everywhere... No, something’s not right. You know Grace—she’s an organization freak.”

  “Jessica,” Matt said, his voice softer now. My inquisitive gaze left the Coach and traveled back to him. “I know you’re having a hard time dealing with this. We all are. But you analyzing the condition of her purse isn’t going to change anything. It was a freak accident. We may never know what caused it. All we can do now is be there for Gracie when she’s ready to wake up.”

  I dug my fingernails into my palms and blinked back the tears now stinging my eyes. Sure, at first glance what happened to Grace looked like a simple enough one-car accident, but something in my gut told me there was more to it than that. Clearly, Matt was not of the same mindset.

  I took a deep breath, flashed him the best attempt of a smile I could drum up, and set her purse down on my passenger seat. And then I began a dangerous new trend: I lied. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”