Wren Ryland’s Home

Los Angeles, California

 

“You have to take these pills,” Wren said, settling on the edge of her own bed and nudging Cormac’s arm. “Rachelle’s aunt said that your biggest concern now is infection.”

“I’m fine. It’s not like this is the first time I’ve been shot.”

Wren could attest to that. While he was bleeding out on her kitchen floor, she couldn’t help but take notice of the array of scars that dotted his abdomen. Knife scars, a bullet wound, and various smaller scars that likely came with a nice variety of stories. She wanted to ask, but it felt invasive, somehow.

“You still haven’t told me what happened.”

“It’s complicated.”

That’s all he’d said for three days. He’d shown up here bleeding…

Wren pulled up to her condo after visiting the serial killer, Devin Wilde, in prison, her thoughts a jumble. She was slightly surprised to find Cormac Delaney’s car parked out front. Had he found out about her visit to Wilde? He’d warned her not to go, but she couldn’t stop investigating her mother’s murder just because he didn’t like the direction her investigation was going. Wilde had answers, and she needed those answers.

The sight of her roommate, Brad, pacing on the front porch pulled her out of her thoughts. When he saw her, he frantically began waving her over.

“I don’t know what to do! He just showed up, stumbled into the house like he belonged here. He said he’s a friend of yours, and you can help him. But I don’t know—”

“It’s okay, Brad. I know him.”

“He’s in the kitchen, bleeding everywhere.”

Wren glanced at him. “What do you mean he’s bleeding?”

Brad just waved his hand, the gesture wildly flamboyant in a way only Brad could do it. She hesitated, wondering what the hell she was getting herself into now.

Cormac was sitting at the kitchen table, his face pale as he looked up, but he managed a smile.

“Hey, Wren.”

“What’s going on, Cormac?”

He lifted a hand off his belly, grimacing as he did. There was blood all over it, some of it dried, most of it fresh. And there was fresh blood spreading across his shirt.

“What the hell?”

She snatched a clean towel out of a drawer and dropped to her knees, pressing the towel to the spot that seemed to be bleeding the most. He grimaced again, but he was still conscious. She knew that was a good sign, but it seemed to be the only good thing about this situation.

“We have to call for an ambulance.”

“No.” He touched the top of her head, his blood sticking to her hair. “They’ll ask questions.”

“You could bleed to death!”

“It’s a through and through. I just need the wound sewn up.”

“And antibiotics. How do you think I’m going to get that for you?”

“You’re resourceful.”

“Does this have something to do with Wilde? Or my mother?”

He smiled again. “Not everything revolves around you, darlin’.”

His eyes rolled back into his head, and he was gone, his body sliding down out of the chair.

“Brad!”

He came running, and together they managed to lay him on the floor. Blood was pouring from his wound, but he was right about it being a through and through. She’d seen a few gunshot wounds when she was a cop, even something like this. She knew what needed to happen, but wasn’t sure she was capable of doing it.

Did she have a choice? If she called an ambulance, was she placing his life in danger? If she drove him to the hospital, there would be trouble for them both, and the fact that she had no idea what had happened wasn’t going to make that easy. She had a choice to make and only seconds to do it.

“Call Rachelle. We’re sewing him up.”

…and refused to say what had happened.

Rachelle, Wren’s other roommate, had an aunt who was a retired registered nurse. She sewed him up and got them in touch with a clinic where they could get antibiotics without too many questions. But she warned over and again that infection could still crop up and lead to terrible consequences if they didn’t keep a close eye on him. She was trying, but Cormac wasn’t making it easy.

“Why did you come here? Isn’t there someone out there wondering where the hell you are?”

“No, not really.”

“You don’t have any family?”

His expression tightened with that question. He had nothing to say.

“What about work?”

He sighed. “If you want me to go, Wren, just say so. I can probably take care of myself now.”

She shook her head, gesturing to the bandage on his lower abdomen. “You’re still healing. If you pop a stitch, you’ll be in trouble.”

“I can get myself to a clinic.”

“And explain the stitches how?” She shook her head. “You can’t leave now, not if you plan on doing something that could get Rachelle’s aunt in trouble.” She pushed the pill at him. “Take your medicine.”

“Yes, mother.”

Cormac swallowed the pill and opened his mouth, showing her that he hadn’t hidden it under his tongue. She just sighed, wondering if this was what it might be like to be a parent.

“Just tell me one thing: is whatever this is going to come to roost on my front step?”

Cormac seemed slightly offended by the question. “I wouldn’t have come here if that was a possibility.”

“I just had to make sure.”

He lowered himself onto the mattress, the sheet that had been covering him to the waist slipping and exposing not just the completeness of his large bandage, but also the patch of hair that led down his belly and disappeared under the waistband of his tighty whities. The sight made her blush, much to her embarrassment. It wasn’t like she hadn’t had a man in her bed before. Just never one quite this good-looking or this mysterious and frustrating and intensely erotic.

She stood up, nearly dropping the bottle of pills she’d had in her lap. She deposited them on the side table and headed toward the door.

“I’m going to work, but Brad should be here most of the day if you need anything.”

“I was thinking,” he said before she could reach the door. She turned and glanced at him, found him studying the pictures and notes she had taped to her wall, the case notes from her mother’s murder investigation. “I could do some research if you have a laptop around here I can use.”

“Research?”

“Check out Devin and his associates like you suggested the other night.”

She hadn’t thought he’d been conscious when she mentioned that. She’d sat up with him all night the night he showed up on her doorstep. She talked mostly just to keep herself sane, attempting to keep worry from overwhelming her. She talked a lot, about a lot of different things. Funny that would be the one thing he heard.

“Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

She left the room, pausing just outside the door to catch her breath. Cormac was a complicated guy. He was an FBI agent who was investigating her mother’s case as a side thing, a hobby. It wasn’t official FBI business. They spent hours on the phone every week, texted each other nearly every day, and saw each other at least twice a week. Yet, she barely knew anything about his personal life. He knew everything about her. She knew he didn’t currently have a woman in his life, and that was about it. And now he was convalescing in her bed, and she felt like she knew less than she did before he walked into her life.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true. She knew he had a tattoo on his shoulder that looked like a date. And she knew he’d been shot before and was covered in scars that seemed a little too violent for someone who spent his days in a suit investigating murders from a distance. And she knew he was very healthy, very well-built. She knew he had a six-pack that was better defined than that of some of the guys who showed off at the gym, better than a desk jockey should be allowed. She knew he had amazing blue eyes and dark hair that she ached to run her fingers through. And she knew that if he lay in her bed much longer, he’d have a beard that would be tough to trim with a simple razor blade.

“Wren!”

She shook herself, feeling the heat of a blush burning on her face.

“What?”

Rachelle, her roommate, grabbed her hand and pulled her away from the bedroom door. “Did you talk to him? Do we have anything to worry about?”

It took Wren a second to comprehend Rochelle’s question. Then she shook her head, almost too enthusiastically. “We’re fine. He promised nothing’s following him here.”

“Good.”

“But I’ll leave Orion here with the four of you a while longer.”

Relief washed over Rachelle’s face.

Wren wasn’t stupid. She’d had Cormac’s car moved to a parking garage downtown before Rachelle’s aunt was even done sewing him up and called Orion, one of her operatives at Mastiff, and asked him to hang around for a while. Rachelle didn’t mind because Orion was one of the hotter guys who worked for Wren. In fact, Rachelle had swooned over his photograph back when Wren was still interviewing and choosing operatives, so to have him in the condo was pretty exciting for her. Not that her beautiful, aspiring actress of a roommate ever had trouble meeting men, but having one delivered to the house every morning was something of a pleasure.

“Call me if there’s any trouble.”

“No problem.”

Wren didn’t think there’d be any trouble.

 

***

 

Wren barely had a chance to sit down and go over her emails before Andres walked into the office.

“Jackson Chamberlain is here.”

“Why?”

Andres dropped into a chair in front of her desk. “He thinks we’re his own personal security firm, I guess.”

“He has a case?”

“Something like that. He wants us to find a screenwriter who escaped the funny farm and take her back.”

Wren shot Andres a warning look. “Respect?”

“Sorry.”

She sighed. “A screenwriter? Anyone I’d know?”

“I haven’t really talked to him yet. My secretary told me that much.”

“Where is he?”

Almost as if summoned by her words, the door opened, and Jackson Chamberlain, the father of the man who owned Mastiff Security, walked in followed by an average-looking fellow ten or fifteen years Jackson’s junior. Hiding her annoyance, Wren got up and rounded her desk, her hand held out.

“Jackson. How are you?”

“I know this is a little unexpected, Wren. I apologize for just dropping in, but my colleague here has a problem I told him you’d be more than happy to fix for him.”

“And what’s that?”

Jackson gestured to the man beside him. “Norman, why don’t you explain?”

The man stepped forward, smiling quite charmingly as his eyes moved over Wren’s body. She knew when she was being checked out, and it was pretty clear this man was checking her out. Very obviously at that.

“Six months ago, I unfortunately had to have my wife admitted to Waterfall Springs Psychiatric Hospital after she suffered a severe psychotic episode. She’s been responding well to treatment there, but last night she disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

The man Jackson called Norman lowered his head, trying his best to look as grieved as he could, but it came off as false to Wren. Maybe she was just cynical, but this did not seem like a man who was terribly worried about his wife.

“Security footage shows her slipping down a hallway she shouldn’t have been able to gain access to. She vanishes after that, but we have reason to believe she left the hospital and is headed back here to Los Angeles.”

“And you’d like her located and returned to the hospital?”

“Yes.”

Wren crossed her arms over her chest. “Do her doctors agree with you? That she needs to be returned?”

Jackson stepped forward. “Finley has a very serious mental disorder, Wren. She needs to be on medication, and she needs to be under the supervision of people who know how to deal with these things.” He touched her arm lightly. “She’s a friend of mine. I’m sure you understand that I would be exceedingly grateful if you made sure this case was treated with the utmost respect and discretion.”

“Of course.”

Jackson dropped a wink, then moved back toward the door. “I’ll leave you to the details. Keep me updated, if you don’t mind.”

Wren sighed. Some days she found herself wondering what she’d gotten herself into by agreeing to run this satellite office of Durango Masters’ security firm. She thought it would be exciting, something different from the police force where she’d once made her living as a homicide detective. But if she’d known she’d just be a lackey for a high-profile movie producer, she might have thought twice.

“Okay, Mr.—”

“Sumner. Norman Sumner.”

Wren gestured to the empty chair beside Andres. “Why don’t you give us some idea where we might start looking for your wife?”