Detective Daddy

He picked up the pizza box and took it into the kitchen to throw into the trash. He stopped cold. Rachel was sitting at the kitchen table, her head on her hands, asleep.

“Rach, what the hell are you doing?”

She started, then lifted her head. There was a red patch on her left cheek where it had rested on her hand. “Wha—?” She blinked. “Oh, Ash. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

Ash found himself caught by her eyes. He wasn’t sure what it was about those gold-green eyes with the reddish-brown ring around the edge of the iris, but he did know they had the power to make him think crazy thoughts—like how great it would be to fall into bed with her again, or how at thirty-three he was getting a little tired of the chase. How his flirtatious lifestyle wasn’t so much exciting these days as exhausting.

He shook his head to dislodge those thoughts that had been creeping into his mind ever since he’d cooled it between them. He had no intentions of changing anything about his lifestyle—which was why he wanted Rachel’s stuff out of here. He never brought women to his house and this was why.

Invariably, once a woman got a toe in the door, she started nesting—leaving things in his bathroom, his bedroom, sometimes even in his bed.

Plus, he didn’t like the silly twinge that squeezed his chest every time he opened his medicine cabinet and saw Rachel’s toothbrush.

“Well, you’re awake now,” he said ungraciously. “Did you get all your stuff?”

She nodded and stood, closing her eyes for a couple of seconds. She was pale as she picked up her purse. “I hope you don’t mind, I got—some water,” she said, sounding slightly out of breath.

Ash frowned. What was wrong with her? Was she upset that he’d told her to come and clear her stuff out of his house? He was the one who had a right to be upset, not her.

She stepped past him into the living room, muttering something that he didn’t catch.

“What?” he asked, following her.

She shook her head. “Nothing,” she muttered. “Nothing.” She hurried toward the door.

“Rach, wait a minute.”

She stopped without turning around.

“We never got to finish our conversation this morning.”

She turned. The red patch on her cheek stood out against her pale skin. “You call that a conversation? I’d call it an interrogation. You were really at the top of your game.”

Ash shrugged. He wasn’t happy with the way he’d acted, although for the most part, he felt like it was justified. Okay, maybe not slapping the table. “Why didn’t you give me the courtesy of letting me know you were running the DNA found on my parents’ bodies?”

“Come on, Ash,” Rachel said, sounding exasperated. “I didn’t know whose sample it was. It was a special request, with a one-day turnaround. Everything that could possibly point to a particular case had been redacted. You know how they do those things.”

“You should have known by the date,” he snapped. “How many twenty-year-old Christmas Eve murder cases do you think there have been in St. Louis?”

She leaned her head back against the front door and closed her eyes. “The date was redacted, too.”

“How about the fact that there were two victims, or—”

“Please, Ash. Even if I should have known, I didn’t,” she said, bringing her gaze to his. “Even if I had realized whose case it was, I couldn’t have told you. You know that. And this case was more sensitive than most. It was specially requested by the commissioner.”

“The commissioner?” Ash was shocked. It was the police commissioner who had granted the petition to reopen the case and have the DNA sampled, not the new D.A.?

Ash felt like he’d taken a blow to the stomach. His own boss hadn’t given him the courtesy of a heads-up. That stung.

Rachel was watching him closely. He shut his eyes for an instant, composing his thoughts and blocking the look on her face. She obviously hadn’t meant to say that much, because her lips were pressed together tightly.

“You’re sure? It wasn’t the D.A.?” he asked, even though he knew he hadn’t misunderstood.

“I can’t talk about this,” she protested. “I’m—I need to go.”

Her voice sounded strained, more strained than it should have, given their conversation. He wasn’t about to let her leave until he had all the answers he needed. “No. Not yet. What did you find? What were the results?”

Rachel turned the knob on the door, but her fingers slipped. “I—can’t—”

He stepped toward her. “Rachel, did the DNA match? This is my parents’ murder we’re talking about. I need to know!” he demanded.

“Ash, stop it. You know I can’t tell you anything.”

“This is me,” he said, thumping his chest. “I was asleep down the hall while that man murdered my mom and dad. My baby sister found them on Christmas morning. She was six years old. Six. Can’t you understand what this means to me—to my family?”

He was so close to her now that he could see sweat beading on her forehead. Her face had lost all its color, and her lips were pinched so tightly together that their corners were bluish-white.

“Rach?”

“I—can’t,” she gasped. “I just can’t—” She turned and tried again to twist the knob and open the door. But her fingers slid off.

“Ash—?” she whispered. “Help—”

And she collapsed.

Chapter Three

By the time they got to the hospital, Rachel was alert and begging the EMTs to let her go home. But to Ash’s relief they didn’t pay the least bit of attention to her.

She’d only been unconscious for a few minutes, but it was long enough to scare the spit out of him. One second she’d been turning the knob on his front door and the next, she’d collapsed directly into his arms. He’d lowered her gently to the floor and made sure she was breathing, then he’d tried to wake her, but she’d been out cold.

He’d called 9–1–1 and identified himself as a detective with the Ninth District of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, and ordered an ambulance.

By the time he’d hung up, Rachel had stirred. But she was nearly incoherent, so he’d made her stay on the floor and cradled her head until the EMTs got there.

Now he was pacing the waiting room floor like an expectant father as he waited for the doctor to finish examining her. They’d probably run a bunch of tests. Hell, they could be here until midnight.

A woman—who’d been sitting in the waiting room knitting ever since the nurse had deposited him in this drab little room that smelled of old coffee—looked up at him. “Your wife?” she asked.

Ash stared at her for a second, uncomprehending. “Uh, no. A coworker.”

“A coworker?” the woman said meaningfully, then she held his gaze until he relented.

“And you?”

“My son,” she said. “He came home tonight with a bloody nose. He got into a fight.”

“It’s broken? How old is he?”