Jasper, page 16
“That makes sense if you’re talking strictly Chinese,” she said. “I was afraid that you’d ordered Italian, Chinese, burgers, and whatever else.”
“No, not at all.” He smiled at her.
“But this should give us enough leftovers that we won’t have to worry about food for another day or two. Good Lord, it should be enough for half a dozen people,” she noted.
He smiled broadly, when her eyes widened as she looked around at all the dishes. He handed her a pair of chopsticks. “You get to start first.”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“So I can finish it up,” he stated, with a chuckle.
“You can’t seriously eat all this. No way.”
He shrugged. “Hey, I’m a big guy, and I’m hungry, so you better take the offer while you can.”
He watched while she opened several of the containers and served herself a decent portion. He nodded approvingly. “I do like a woman who can eat.”
She laughed. “I do like my groceries,” she murmured, “but I hadn’t considered that was something I should be even thinking about.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said. “That’s my job, and groceries are important, particularly right now.” He kept his tone jovial and calm, hoping that she wouldn’t feel the need to ask any questions about what was going on outside. He held a faint hope; she was a nurse after all. She had certainly seen more-than-enough trauma in her life to recognize that some definite issues existed outside.
After she’d eaten about half of the food on her plate, she set down her fork and sighed. “That’s a good start.”
He laughed. “Yeah, especially for somebody who thought I brought way-too-much food.”
“You did, but I do love leftovers,” she noted. “Right now, I’m wondering when you’ll tell me about what’s going on outside.”
“You already know,” he murmured.
“I know that the forensics people will be there,” she added. “I can’t believe that nothing is happening in terms of solving this.”
He stared at her in astonishment. “Just because we don’t have definitive results or a culprit in handcuffs, don’t think that nothing’s happening. We’re all working to track down the man who dropped off our dead body, checking all the city cameras, checking all known associates, running facial recognition, everything that can be done. We’re doing all that, but some of it can take quite a bit of time to assimilate.” He noted her bottom lip wobbled and then suddenly firmed, and he understood. “This isn’t so much about not getting answers. It’s more about the fact that this man died and that you still feel guilty.”
She sniffled and nodded. “Once a little time and distance has passed, I probably won’t feel the same way, but, for the moment, it’s very hard to see this as anything other than my fault.”
He stared at her, wondering how to convince her otherwise.
She looked over at him. “I know we’ve hashed it out a couple times and that, as far as you’re concerned, if anybody is at fault, it’s you. However, I don’t see it that way, and, until this is over, it feels so very wrong.”
“It is very wrong,” he confirmed. “It’s all very wrong, and I understand that the guilt is eating away at you, particularly the way they did it.”
“And that’s another thing,” she pointed out. “They targeted me.”
He sat back and nodded. “Yes. The way they dropped off the body was also a dig, almost a message to say, Hey, you think you’re hidden, but you’re not, you know? And of course, they emailed you the photo.” She sucked in a breath and stared at him, and he nodded. “Just in case you hadn’t seen that aspect too.”
“Honestly I hadn’t,” she acknowledged and then stared around the room. “Are you sure we’re safe here?”
“We’re safe,” he confirmed. “I’m not exactly sure what their next move will be or why they felt the need to do this, but a warning for you is a warning for me. It’s another reason I won’t be leaving you.”
Then she looked at the Chinese food and back at him, nodding. “Right. Your special delivery by your own men, whom you trust.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I have plenty of people running around, helping me,” he explained. “So it wasn’t an issue to get somebody to pick up food for us. I had food delivered to Tesla as well.” He smiled, as she relaxed. Something about getting food was okay, as long as for other people, not just for her. “You have trouble accepting help, don’t you?”
She blinked at the sudden change in conversation, and then she slowly nodded. “Maybe.”
He reached into a container and pulled out another egg roll and put it on her plate. “No maybe about it.” She glared at him, and he shrugged. “Be honest. You help others, but you have trouble accepting help.”
“Maybe,” she repeated, and hearing the word coming out of her mouth again, she laughed.
“It does seem to be a common word for you,” he murmured.
“I think it’s just that, when you’re put on the spot, you do anything you can to deflect interest.”
“Absolutely,” he agreed, a bright grin on his face, “and I’ll let you continue to deflect interest, at least for a little while.”
She shook her head. “Do you think all this surrounding me is personal?”
“No, I don’t. I think it’s definitely all connected to Mason, but we can’t ignore the fact that there could be some crossover involved as well.”
Chapter 13
‡
Well after the Chinese food had been cleared up and Amber had had another nap, she sat in the living room with him. And then she admitted, “I didn’t delete that video.”
She brought it up and played it in front of him, memorizing it, and taking a last look to see if anything else was important. He looked over at her, and she felt the intensity of his gaze, as she watched the video once more. She frowned at one point, as she recognized that more people were involved. Then she backed it up slowly and watched again.
“What is it that you see?” he asked.
“At one point in time it seems our dead man is talking to Dr. Charles,” she shared, taking yet another look.
Jasper got up and sat on the couch beside her, as she replayed that part.
He frowned. “All I see is part of a white coat, the back of it. How do you know which doctor this is?”
She pointed at the edge of the video. “Watch him turn his head here.” After a moment or two, she said, “That mole behind his ear tells me this is Dr. Charles.”
“Okay. So do you think that would be unusual for Dr. Charles to speak to someone in the ER hallway?”
She pondered that. “If somebody managed to catch him in the ER and talked to him, I could see it. Other than that, generally he’s pretty unavailable. He’s in the OR suite or in his office, dictating notes for the medical files.”
Jasper frowned. “That doesn’t mean a whole lot to me. So, what does that mean to you?”
“Somebody could have called him specifically, on his direct line, whether personal or business. So, if somebody knew him or if somebody might have some pull in that area—like a big donor for the hospital, a rich family on the board, or somebody who’s been a director, somebody who hobnobs with these donors—then Dr. Charles might come in response to their call and talk to them in person. However, generally it would be another surgeon or another doctor or even someone in management who would make those kinds of personal contacts, especially for someone who appears without an appointment.”
“So, Dr. Charles is a well-placed doctor. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, he’s the head of the surgical department,” she shared. “Sometimes he will come to the ER, so maybe this is just more because of Mason.”
“And yet some random guy shouldn’t ask questions of Dr. Charles regarding Mason,” Jasper pointed out.
“I know, that’s why I’m wondering about this discussion caught on tape here. Maybe this is just some guy … getting information, with the surgeon fobbing him off or not checking close enough to see if he has the right to that personal information,” she suggested. “It just hit me that it’s off.”
He studied her for a long moment, then looked back at the video stilled on her phone, now bringing out his own phone. “Let me make some phone calls about that.”
She looked over at him. “I don’t want to get Dr. Charles in trouble. He’s nice. He found me in the parking lot after I got hit by that car.”
“So, is he a little distracted? Is he one of those genius people who lives in his head?”
“He’s one of those genius people who lives in his heart,” she replied, “and he would go the extra mile to help somebody. Thus, if somebody at the hospital was waiting for information, he would normally not be there to interact with the family or the patients. However, if he was, it’s quite possible he got stopped and was asked about a patient.”
“Interesting. I’ll make a quick call.”
“To him?” she asked in astonishment.
He nodded. “Yes. Any reason not to?”
She thought about it and shrugged. “I guess not. I’m just not used to the idea of cold-calling somebody like that.”
“He’ll have to be contacted at some point in time because, if he had any information to give, and he gave it to the now-dead guy, then we need to know about that conversation.”
“Right.” She frowned.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I won’t get Dr. Charles in trouble.”
She flushed. “I would appreciate it if you didn’t because he is a good doctor. I wouldn’t want to think that he would pay for something I pointed out.”
“I’m not the bad guy here, and I’m not getting everybody in trouble. You know that, right?”
“I think you can do it without trying,” she muttered. “You just have that knack.” His eyebrows shot up, and she nodded. “I think it’s complete BS that you’re acting as if you aren’t the head of this investigation.”
“I haven’t officially been given that status yet,” he stated coolly.
She eyed him intently. “You may not have been given it, but I also think a part of you hasn’t formally reached out and taken it, even though in reality you already have it.” Surprised, he just stared at her, and she nodded. “You know I do see people, inside and out,” she murmured, “so it’s not as if this is a surprise to me. You are a hands-on leader, and I don’t know whether the other investigators are willing to step into alignment over all this, but it’s obvious to me that this is where you belong.”
“Now you sound like Tesla,” he muttered.
“Whatever pain, problem, or headache happened in your world that sent you away from this work,” Amber began, “it’s too bad because you’re obviously very gifted.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” he said, looking at her. “You can hardly call me gifted when, so far, all we’ve done is get your apartment burned.”
She started to laugh. “You’re right. I hadn’t thought about it from that point of view.” He shot her a look but they both got up, headed downstairs before moving into the kitchen. She wasn’t sure whether he was looking for privacy to make phone calls or what, but, in his house, she did feel like an interloper in some ways, even though he’d made her feel incredibly welcome, cozy and snug, and definitely secure. Whether that was a false sense of security or not, she didn’t know.
When he walked back out of the kitchen a few minutes later, he was frowning.
“Uh-oh. What’s up?”
He shrugged. “He’s not on shift at the hospital. So I sent some people to Dr. Charles’s house to speak with him.”
She winced. “I don’t want to get him in trouble,” she reiterated.
“He’s not answering his phone,” he shared, staring at her intently.
She stared at him for a moment, before she realized what he was saying. “Oh my God.” She bolted to her feet, then grabbed her leg and cried out in agony. He swept her into his arms and just held her while she shuddered and shook, catching her breath.
“Remember about looking after yourself,” he muttered.
She took several deep breaths and nodded. “I’m working on it. I am, honest.”
“Work harder. We can’t have you hurting yourself even worse,” he stated in a firm tone. “Now we don’t know that anything is wrong with the doctor, but we must find him and confirm that he’s okay. Then we’ll find out what the dead man may have said to him.”
“Dr. Charles knows me,” she said. “He would talk to me.”
“He’ll talk to me too,” he declared, with a note of amusement in his tone. “He won’t have any choice.”
“Back to that whole investigator role? You should know that projecting your role as sitting on the sidelines doesn’t work when you say things like that,” she pointed out.
“Maybe not,” he conceded, “but it is very much the way I’m working this right now.”
“Right, you’re doing what you can do for the moment. Then, after that point in time, you’ll change it.”
He gave her a smirk and slowly helped her back onto the couch.
“I do need to watch those sudden reactions,” she admitted.
“You sure do. The last thing I want is for you to reinjure yourself.”
“That’s just because you don’t want a house guest for too long,” she teased, interjecting some levity.
“As far as I’m concerned, … you’re here for a couple months. It’ll take that long to get your insurance claim through and your new apartment sorted.”
She sat in shock, but just then his phone rang.
He stepped back and answered it, his tone turning cool. She settled back to wait for whatever news had developed, but her mind was still stuck on the fact that he considered her being here for more than just a couple days. It certainly added a level of security that she hadn’t realized she was looking for. She seemed numb from everything that had happened, with all the constant changes, as new information kept coming in.
She hadn’t had a chance to get her balance and to get comfortable in her current situation. Everything was moving too quickly. Yet just knowing that he wasn’t expecting her to get out within a day or two was a huge gift and one that she was damn grateful for. At least with that level of stress off her shoulders, she settled back to wait for his return.
Just as she started to relax, her phone rang. As she answered it, she winced because something told her that maybe she should have let it go to voice mail, but too late. “Hello,” she answered cautiously.
“Like your present, bitch?” And then the man went off in a horrific round of laughter, and he hung up.
*
Jasper walked back into the living room, glad that he at least had some news to tell her, and then he saw the look on her face. “What’s the matter?” he asked, racing toward her.
She took a deep breath. “I made the mistake of answering a call on my phone,” she said frantically.
“What did they say?” Jasper asked.
“They said, ‘Like your present, bitch?’”
He took the phone from her numb fingers and jotted down the last phone number. “It’s not blocked,” he murmured, “so it’ll be an unregistered number.” She frowned, almost in disbelief. He shook his head. “Not your problem. Don’t you worry about it.”
“That’s a good thing because I have no idea what I would even do with that information.”
He quickly sent off the phone number to be tracked but expected it to likely be a dead end or somebody else’s phone or something else.
He got a return call within minutes. “That was Dr. Charles’s phone number at his home,” Evan declared, with a snap in his tone.
Jasper shook his head. “I just heard from the two officers who went to his house. They stated he was fine, and he would be willing to answer a few questions.”
“I don’t like the sound of that at all,” Evan replied, “but I’m tied up at the hospital.”
“Not a problem. I’ve got somebody else I can send.” He quickly hung up and phoned Masters. “I haven’t had a reason to pull you further into this, but I could sure use you now.”
“What do you need?” Masters asked easily.
Jasper explained the situation about the doctor and the phone call that just came through from his home phone.
“Ah, shit, so you think he’s a hostage?”
“I don’t know, but check it out, then give me a heads-up as to what we’re looking at or if he’s got somebody hiding in his house?”
“Which we won’t know because, the minute I go up to the front door to check on him—”
“I know. I need a backup plan, but I don’t want to move Amber, who’s already been attacked. You also don’t know the update on what already has happened.” Jasper quickly explained about the body dumped outside his home.
When the whistle came through the phone, Masters added, “You’ve got shit happening, don’t you?”
“I do,” Jasper confirmed, with a light chuckle.
“What about the rest of your investigators?”
“I haven’t been able to reach Sam, and Morgan is at the morgue right now with our most recent dead body. I don’t want to send him on a wild goose chase if that’s what this is. Not sure about Lichen. I think the other guys mentioned Lichen was due for three weeks of leave. As far as I’m concerned, better he’s gone right now.”
“I don’t think anything is a wild goose chase,” Masters noted casually, “and I’m already on my way over to the doc’s place.”
“Good enough. I’m hoping it’s nothing, but—”
“Yeah, I’ll give you a report in about twenty minutes,” Masters said, before he disconnected.
As Jasper turned, Amber was staring at him.
“What was that?” she asked.
“The phone number your caller used returned as Dr. Charles’s home office.”
She stared at him. “So, that’s even more reason to be worried.”
