Chapter 7 Mitch
MITCH
Mitch sat at his desk in the home office, completely astounded by the story Sally was telling them.
He and Marcus had been listening for the better part of an hour now, with Lori seated beside Sally on the leather sofa against the wall, and Mitch couldn’t believe Sally had never told him any of this when they were dating.
The hunting cabin. The kidnapping. Bradley’s murder. The Lanes and their connections. Barstow Security and Elias Dane. The support group for abused women. Judge Whittaker. Dr. Jackie Simons and the incident with Queen Nasty in high school.
It was like peeling back layers of an onion, each revelation more shocking than the last.
Marcus was equally enthralled by Sally’s story, leaning forward in his chair with his full attention focused on her. Mitch noticed, with some amusement and interest, just how close his old friend had positioned his chair next to Sally on the sofa. Close enough that their knees were almost touching.
Then he realized something else. Marcus was really taken by Sally. Not just as a subject of investigation or as someone with valuable information. This was of personal interest. Genuine attraction.
Mitch had known Marcus for more than fifteen years, had worked alongside him in some of the most intense and dangerous situations imaginable, and he’d never seen Marcus look at a woman quite like that before.
He filed that observation away for later consideration.
When Sally finished speaking, her voice raw from the emotional toll of reliving those memories, Mitch leaned back in his chair and studied her carefully.
“Why didn’t you ever think to trust me with all this before?” he asked gently. “When we were dating, I mean. You knew what I did for a living. You knew I could have helped you.”
Sally’s eyes met his, and there was something sad and resigned in them.
“I knew after the first week we started dating that we would be great friends but nothing more,” she said honestly.
“Still, I felt safe with you, Mitch. It had been such a long time since I’d felt that way with anyone.
I didn’t want to lose that feeling by burdening you with my past or by making things complicated between us. ”
Mitch understood her reasoning completely. He nodded slowly.
“I get it,” he said. “And for what it’s worth, I’m glad we’re friends, Sally. I’m sorry you went through all that, but I’m glad you’re here now and that you felt safe enough to finally tell us.”
He also noticed, with interest, how Lori’s attitude toward Sally had changed throughout the conversation.
The initial wariness and suspicion had transformed into genuine compassion and even the beginnings of friendship.
The two women had seemed to bond over Sally’s tragedy and her quiet heroism when she was at school.
Mitch, like Tessa before him, was amazed to find out that Dr. Jackie Simons had been the one to actually clock Queen Nasty with that lunch tray, although he was pretty sure it had been self-defense, given the circumstances Sally had described.
It was incredibly heroic of Sally to take the fall for that, to sacrifice her own record to protect her friend’s future.
Still, Dr. Simons? She was soft spoken, gentle, and was always praised for her bedside manner.
Mitch found himself wondering how they’d managed to get Queen Nasty not to say anything about what had really happened. He pushed that question aside when he heard the distinctive sound of Ryan’s pickup truck pulling into the driveway.
Mitch turned toward the window and saw his son climb out of the truck and slam the door with considerably more force than was necessary. He knew that stance, the rigid set of Ryan’s shoulders, the sharp movements.
Ryan was angry about something.
Mitch frowned, wondering what had set him off. Ryan had gone to get his truck window repaired. What could have possibly happened between the auto glass shop and here to put him in such a foul mood?
“Ryan’s home,” Mitch announced to the room. He glanced from Marcus to Sally to Lori. “I’ll update him on everything. Will you excuse me for a moment?”
The three of them nodded, and Mitch stood making his way out of the office. He found Ryan in the kitchen, yanking the refrigerator door open with enough force to rattle the bottles inside before pulling out a bottle of ice-cold water.
“What did the refrigerator do to you?” Mitch asked mildly.
Ryan spun around, already twisting the cap off the water bottle.
“Oh, sorry,” he muttered. “Just having a bad day.”
“Want to talk about it?” Mitch asked, his frown deepening as he studied his son’s face. There was anger there, yes, but also something else. Pain, maybe. Or confusion.
“Not really,” Ryan told him. He turned to walk away and walked straight into the still-open refrigerator door with a solid thunk.
“Oof. Oww.” Ryan bent double, gripping his right side. The water bottle slipped from his fingers and splattered to the floor, sending water everywhere.
“Okay,” Mitch said, rushing to his son’s side immediately. “That’s it. What is going on with you?”
Before Ryan could object or pull away, Mitch grabbed the hem of Ryan’s T-shirt and yanked it up. He sucked in his breath sharply at what he saw.
A dark purple and yellow bruise surrounded a large bandage that ran from just below Ryan’s belly button all the way around to his side, disappearing toward his back.
“What on earth, Ryan,” Mitch said, his voice tight with concern.
“It’s nothing,” Ryan tried to brush it off, stepping back and pulling his shirt down quickly.
“That doesn’t look like nothing to me,” Mitch said, his voice dropping to a dangerous hiss. His eyes narrowed. “Wendy didn’t come back and try to finish the job again, did she?”
“Oh no, I haven’t seen her in years,” Ryan assured his father quickly. “You know I can’t tell you about this, though. It’s classified.”
That confirmed Mitch’s suspicion that this had happened during Ryan’s military service, likely during the operation that had made his son come home weeks earlier than expected. Ryan was on medical leave.
“Then let me at least see if you’ve opened the wound or burst a stitch,” Mitch said. “Because I presume there are stitches under that bandage.”
Ryan sighed deeply, the fight going out of him. He pulled his shirt off over his head.
“Fine,” he said. “Take a look, but don’t ask questions I can’t answer.”
Mitch stood there and carefully peeled the dressing away from Ryan’s skin, making his stomach churn at the sight of the jagged gash beneath.
It was an ugly wound, still red and angry-looking despite clearly being at least a week or two old.
His heart dropped to his feet as a thought struck him.
This was a near-fatal wound. One that could have cost him another son.
Mitch swallowed the panic and bile rising up into his throat.
“That’s a knife wound,” Mitch stated flatly. It wasn’t a question. He’d seen enough of them in his career to recognize the distinctive shape. “And you’ve popped a few stitches open.”
“Mitch...” Lori’s voice came from the hallway, and then she stopped abruptly in the kitchen doorway. Her eyes widened at the sight of Ryan standing there shirtless, revealing his washboard abs marred by that jagged gash running through the lower half of one side. “What on earth happened?”
She was across the floor before either Mitch or Ryan could say anything, her professional instincts clearly taking over.
“How did you pop those stitches?” she asked, already assessing the damage with a practiced eye. She looked at Mitch. “Do you have a first aid kit with butterfly bandages?”
“I do,” Mitch nodded. “But you already know that. You’ve patched up my head.”
“With supplies from the hospital,” Lori reminded him.
“Right,” Mitch agreed. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”
“But you still need to go to the hospital and get these stitches properly fixed,” Lori told Ryan firmly. She went over to the sink and washed her hands thoroughly with soap and hot water. “What did you do to open them?”
Mitch smiled to himself as he opened the kitchen cabinet where he kept the first aid kit for kitchen emergencies.
He knew Ryan would appreciate that Lori wasn’t demanding to know what had happened to him or how he’d gotten injured in the first place.
Instead, she was focusing entirely on how he’d managed to rip the wound open just now.
“I walked into the open refrigerator door,” Ryan admitted, sounding sheepish.
“Which he left open,” Mitch pointed out as he set the first aid kit on the counter. “Since he was a kid, Ryan has had this problem with closing the refrigerator door for some reason. Drives me crazy.”
“Is this a knife wound?” Lori asked as she snapped on a pair of latex gloves from the kit.
“Yes,” Ryan answered honestly. “But it’s healing.”
“It seems pretty recent to me,” Lori told him, gently probing the area around the wound with careful fingers. “Not older than two weeks or so.”
“How do you know so much about wounds?” Ryan asked before Mitch could voice the same question.
Mitch popped the second compartment of the first-aid kit open, and Lori took some disinfectant and a cotton swab to clean around the open stitches.
“This is going to sting a little,” Lori warned. “My mother was a nurse and my father a doctor. I grew up around medical talk and helped patch people up from the time I was old enough to hold a bandage.”
She spoke in a low, soothing voice, she gently cleaned away the blood, and Ryan flinched despite himself. Mitch watched, admiring her way and wondering why she never became a nurse or doctor; she seemed to have the affinity for it.
“Sorry,” Lori said softly.
“It’s okay,” Ryan assured her. “You’re very gentle. Much more so than the doctor who stitched me up in the first place.”