Chapter Eighteen
The woman was young. She was also very, very sad.
“That’s Wynonna Harrison, Lloyd Harrison’s little sister,” Price whispered at her side. “She came in yesterday to handle everything for Lloyd but is here for Damon today.”
Rose and Price were inside Lane Medical lurking in a hallway, watching the young woman fiddle with the vending machine down the hall from Damon’s room.
An even younger deputy named Cameron was sitting in plain clothes on the bench next to his door.
The department was on rotation to keep an eye on the suspect until the case could be officially closed.
“Hospital security is nice but Damon took on one of our own, so the sheriff wanted the department to handle it,” Price had told her earlier in the car as they drove from the house to the hospital.
Price had agreed to give her the ride to and from as a favor to their friendship since she wasn’t allowed back to work until the next day.
Even though she had been resting—something Rose Little never did—he understood better than most that sometimes you had to see something all the way through before you could stop looking at it.
That friendship and understanding, though, apparently had limits.
“I have a feeling James wouldn’t be too happy about you sneaking away to go see the man who’s been trying to kill you,” he had said, flatly.
Rose had rolled her eyes.
“I’m not sneaking and I’m not going to see Damon either,” she had responded. “I’m going to see the person who is seeing Damon. Plus, last I heard Damon hasn’t woken up yet.”
Price hadn’t seemed all that convinced.
“All I’m saying is that I’m not lying to James about where we’re going, so I’ll stay in the car while you figure it out.”
Rose had taken offense to that.
“Who said I have to lie to him? I’m a grown woman. I can go where I want.”
She had stayed true to that word. She hadn’t lied to James about where she was going. She had simply decided to leave him a note instead.
It wasn’t like she was doing anything wrong. And she was a grown woman after all, but somehow she felt a whole lot of guilt for going. Doubly so that she hadn’t asked him to come too.
She had tried to reason with herself that it was because James had already been through so much because of her. He didn’t need to do the technical parts like tying up loose ends too.
Was this even a loose end, though?
Rose watched as the young Wynonna bought a drink. After she took the can, she stayed standing right there.
“Hey, why don’t you take Cameron to the cafeteria?” Rose said to Price. “They finished fixing it up already. I’ll even give you some cash to throw around.”
Price snorted.
“Spot me a ten and we’re in business, Little.”
She did but Rose knew he wouldn’t actually spend it.
In all of the years of their friendship, he’d never taken her money.
Just her barbs and stubbornness. Rose decided one day she should thank him for being such a good friend.
Until then she waited for him to lead Cameron away and then walked over to meet Wynonna before she could go back inside.
Rose could see the red-rimmed eyes, the tiredness. She also saw recognition.
“You’re Deputy Little,” she said.
Rose gave her a polite smile.
“I am. And you’re Wynonna Harrison? Lloyd’s sister?”
If there was any resentment or anger or worry about Rose, someone who had been a strange part—but a part nonetheless—in her brother’s death, she didn’t show in. On the contrary, she also seemed polite.
“I am,” she said with a nod. “And I was really hoping to find you. Could we talk?”
They sat in the bench seats next to Damon’s door. The room next to it and across the hall were empty and the staff had just finished their rounds. The two women were alone for now.
And they both made quick use of that privacy, starting with Wynonna.
“I’ve already heard what the sheriff had to say and the detective too, but I’d really like to hear from you what happened the day my brother—” she stopped herself and took a breath before continuing “—the other day. If you don’t mind.”
Rose didn’t.
She told the woman everything that had happened, leaving no details out. There was no way to soften the impact of Lloyd’s death, but Rose had seen enough in her career to know that having the whole story could help the loved ones left behind move on.
And Rose wanted that for Wynonna because she obviously had been very close to her brother.
When Rose was done with her retelling of the events she had gone through, the younger Harrison was drying her eyes with a tissue she had pulled from her pocket.
Rose was going to give her some time before starting in with some of the questions she had and was thinking of offering to go get the younger woman something to drink or eat, when Wynonna shook her head.
“This doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense.”
Rose’s attention snapped back to her like a rubber band.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Wynonna put her tissue down and angled her body to face Rose more directly. Her brow knitted together as she spoke.
“They said that they think Lloyd killed himself because Damon was threatening him with something but then Lloyd was able to get the upper hand last minute. But Damon would never do that. Not to Lloyd. Just like Lloyd would never do that. Not to Damon.”
Rose’s confusion must have shown on her expression.
Wynonna stopped.
“I’m sorry but why wouldn’t Damon hurt Lloyd?” Rose asked. “You make it sound like they were close.”
The other woman responded with no space between.
“They were.”
Wynonna looked as bewildered by the question as Rose felt about the answer.
“Damon and Lloyd were close?” Rose had to clarify.
Wynonna nodded.
“Since they were kids, or teenagers, really. You didn’t know?”
Rose didn’t. After Derrick had passed, she had only ever seen Damon and once Damon had started to attack her, the only information they had found about him had been basic. He lived alone, not married, no kids. He was a consultant for a business that Rose had never really paid attention to.
Why would she have?
It had been so cut-and-dried.
Damon blamed her for Derrick’s death, and he wanted revenge.
Lloyd had seemed like a simple addition to that plan.
“I had no idea.”
Wynonna looked down at her phone. She let out a breath.
“There’s actually a pretty big age gap between me and Lloyd,” she started.
“We weren’t actually that close because of it until our mom died.
Our dad was a truck driver and never really home, so Lloyd kind of took over as my parent.
Then one day our dad just never came home.
If that wasn’t enough kicks to the teeth, I got really sick when I was twelve. That’s the first time I met Damon.”
Wynonna ran her thumb over her phone screen. She kept staring down at it, but Rose suspected she was seeing a memory instead.
“They had just graduated high school and instead of going off to college and doing normal things eighteen-year-olds would do, they got jobs at a local restaurant and paid for my treatment. One would work day shift and the other nights and the same went for staying with me.” A smile briefly passed over her lips.
“A nurse complained once that it always smelled like fried chicken and alcohol in my room.”
Wynonna looked up as a couple walked across the end of their hallway. The reality of where they were must have sobered her.
Her head lowered again.
“That’s how I grew up, though. From twelve until eighteen I had two brothers, two best friends, two parents.
Whatever you want to call them, they were always there.
Day in and day out. The big stuff and the little stuff.
For seven years I saw Lloyd and Damon every day, and after that, I saw them during breaks from school.
Holidays, special events. My college graduation.
And if one of them couldn’t make it because of work, the other always showed.
I was never alone because of them. Never.
Not once. Their love for me? For each other?
For our little family? Has been the best part of my life.
And now? Now I’m being told that Damon was betrayed by Lloyd?
That Lloyd tried to kill Damon? Then himself because of some unknown reason? ”
Tears had started to fall down the woman’s cheeks.
They were full of frustration.
“I’ll never ever believe that,” she said. “And if you had seen them together, you wouldn’t either.”
Her frustration devolved into sorrow. She pulled more tissues out of her pocket and sobbed into them with palpable feeling.
Rose didn’t ask any more questions after that.
For one, no matter what Lloyd had done, his sister mourning him was a separate matter altogether. She deserved peace. Rose wasn’t going to beat through that to answer her curiosity.
And secondly, Rose believed she had the answer she had wanted most.
Why had Damon and Lloyd been so gentle with such violent acts? Why had Damon let himself be tied up and then shot without an ounce of fight in him? Why had Lloyd, the one who had seemingly beaten the bad guy, walked away only to end his own life?
The answer was something Rose had never even considered as a possibility.
Love.
That was why Damon had smiled like that, even at what he believed would be his end.
Which meant that their last stands made no sense…unless someone else was forcing their hands.
Normally, Rose would have wondered what could force two men to abandon their plans of revenge and their love for one another so quickly and in complete agreement.
But after hearing Wynonna praise Damon, Lloyd and their little family, and Rose was absolutely certain of the answer now.
It was her.
Someone had threatened Wynonna, their sister, their best friend, their child.
And so they had gladly gone to death.
Rose watched the young woman cry.
She had come to the hospital with questions in hopes of getting answers to help her move on. To put closure between her and Damon Tillman’s violent attempts to take her life.
When Rose left later, she left with a new purpose burning a hole through her chest.
She was going to find the third man.
And she was going to make him pay for what he had done.
* * *
THE WEATHER WAS done being fickle. The heat and humidity gave way to rain just a half hour before Rose came back. It wasn’t a big downpour, but it wasn’t a misting either. It would have watered the flowers, had James bought and planted them.
He sat on the front porch, looking out at spots he had been thinking about starting a garden. Never a man with a green thumb, but he thought he’d do fine enough with the simple flowers.
He was sitting there on the front porch, arms crossed over his chest, when Price’s cruiser drove down the driveway.
James stood and grabbed the umbrella he had leaned up against the wall next to him. He opened it with purpose; he walked to the passenger’s door with frustration.
Rose’s gaze was downcast when the door came open. Price called across the seat to him.
“I wanted to get her home before the rain, but it snuck up on us. Looks like it might keep up until tomorrow afternoon. Nothing too bad, though.”
James felt his jaw clench but didn’t direct his ire at the deputy, especially since he had been the one to give a follow-up call to him once they had gotten to the hospital.
“The more I think about the way she was acting, I’m not so sure Rose told you where we were going,” Price had said. “With everything that’s been going on, I figured you might be a little more worried than the rest, so I wanted to make sure you knew she was okay.”
James had thanked him and they had ended the call. The keys James had had in his hand stayed there until he finally put them back on the hook.
The note James had found on his bed had indeed said she was going to take care of a few things with Price. But that had been it. No other details and, when he had called her, her phone had kept ringing until getting to voicemail.
Price had timed his own call well.
James had been ready to drive out and search for the woman before it had come in.
He had been relieved.
Now he was grumpy.
Rose must have sensed the mood.
“Thanks for the ride, Price,” she said, a little louder than what felt like normal. Instead of waiting for a reply she was out of the car and hurrying to the house.
James nodded to Price before easily catching up.
He thought he heard laughing behind him, but James’s focus had only one aim now.
When they got to the porch, James lowered the umbrella and shook it out.
Rose was smart. She used the time to escape inside.
Four of her quick steps, though, was a lazy two steps for him.
Rose made it to the living room and only had enough time to turn around and face him, hands up in defense.
“Listen, before you say anything, I know I should have talked to you before I just up and left but—”
She might have been a whole lot smaller than him, but in that moment, her lips were an easy reach.
James felt Rose stiffen against his kiss but he wasn’t intending to prolong it.
Not without saying exactly what was on his mind first.
James pulled away but only enough to give space to his words.
“Rose Little, I’m mad at you.”