Griff took charge. “Miss Jacobs is here to see her uncle.”
The color in the woman’s cheeks darkened with confusion as she shot a brief glance in Carmen’s direction.
Had the housekeeper heard the horror stories? Or did she recognize Carmen from her book? Either way the woman took a hasty step backward, waving them through the door.
“Please come in,” she said, waiting for them to enter the foyer. “I’ll tell Mr. Jacobs you’re here, if you’ll wait in the salon?”
She led them across the marble floor and Carmen’s gaze moved over the walls that were painted a pale peach with crown molding at the top. On one side of the open space a staircase formed a half crescent as it soared toward the second-floor landing. At the back was an opening that led toward the rest of the house.
The servant turned to the right to enter a long room with the same peach walls. There was a bank of windows that offered a view of the front drive, and a large fireplace that had a marble mantel. The floor was wide wooden planks polished to glow beneath the chandelier that hung from the medallion in the center of the high ceiling.
The furniture was created more for style than comfort, with a narrow sofa and matching love seat. The tables were low and delicate with a plethora of ceramic figurines arranged on frilly doilies.
Carmen felt Griff flinch, no doubt worried about whether the sofa would hold his weight and if he could cross the room without knocking over any figurines. But as the housekeeper left the room, she found herself pulling away from his side so she could circle the room.
Now that she was actually in the house, the memories that she’d spent the past fourteen years trying to bury suddenly burst free. Like a dam fracturing beneath the force of flood waters.
Her fingers touched the mantel. There’d once been silver framed pictures there. Of her at her piano recital. Of her parents’ wedding. Of her mother performing Carmen. The silver frames remained, but the pictures were of people she barely recognized.
The pictures, however, were the only thing that were different.
Captured by her memories she headed toward the door. Her fingers continued to touch familiar objects. The table with the crystal vase where her mother kept the flowers her father would bring her after he returned from a business trip. Out into the foyer where Carmen would whoosh down the curved staircase by sliding on the banister. She crossed the marble floor to head down the hallway.
The memories came faster and faster.
Some of them good. The sound of her mother singing as she moved through the house. Her father tossing Carmen in the air to make her giggle. Birthday parties for her, and grown-up parties for her parents with expensively dressed guests who’d drifted through the house like glittering ghosts.
And some of them bad. The chiding from Ellen when Carmen dragged in mud on her clean floors. The torments from her older cousins who’d once locked her in the wine cellar for an entire day. And the shouting between her parents. When she was young she’d thought they were arguing because they enjoyed the drama.
In retrospect, she accepted that her father had been possessive of his young, beautiful wife. And quick to anger when he feared she might be pulling away from him.
Maybe that was the reason . . .
Her mouth went dry as she passed by the hidden door that held the coat closet. A brutal cold filled her veins as her feet continued to carry her forward. Just as they had that fateful night.
Step. Step. Step.
She thought she heard someone say her name, but it was difficult to hear. As if she was underwater.
Her hands were shaking as she finally entered the kitchen. It was a newer addition to the main house, with lots of sunlight and stainless steel appliances. Once upon a time it’d been Carmen’s favorite room in the house.
Now her memories tinted it in red.
Blood red.
“Carmen.” Strong fingers wrapped around her upper arms, giving her a small shake.
She blinked, struggling to come back to reality. Desperately she clung to the sight of Griff ’s lean, handsome face as he leaned toward her.
“Nothing’s changed,” she said, the words coming out like a croak.
His brows drew together, his expression worried. “You mean the furniture?”
“The furniture. The artwork.” She shuddered, sucking in a deep breath. “It even smells the same. Like my dad’s pipe.”
“Carmen, I’m sorry.” His arms slid around her, tugging her against his chest. “I know this is difficult for you.”
She remained stiff in his arms, but she didn’t try to pull away.
“You know what happened here?” she demanded.
He nodded. “I read a few articles.”
She wasn’t surprised. Griff probably had done a complete background search on her as soon as he realized she’d deliberately approached him on the beach.
“Then you know that fourteen years ago my father shot my mother and then killed himself.” Her gaze lowered to the tiled floor. “In this room.”
His hand slid up and down her back in a soothing motion. “Were you here?”
She gave a slow nod, feeling beads of sweat form on her brow. It was weird. She could remember exactly what she’d done on that fateful day. She’d gone to a friend’s house for a birthday party. They’d played in the pool, rode horses, and giggled over boys. She’d come home after dinner and gone straight to her room. A few hours later she was sound asleep.
After that, things got . . . fuzzy.
“I was asleep upstairs,” she said, her voice low and strained. “The first shot woke me. I didn’t know what it was. I thought someone had broken a window. It frightened me.”
His fingers threaded into her hair, combing through the golden curls.
“What did you do?”
“I crawled out of bed and went to find my mother.” It’d been a warm night, she abruptly recalled, but she’d been shivering as she’d silently crept through the dark house. “I looked in my parents’ bedroom, but it was empty. So I came downstairs.”
He pressed his lips to the top of her head. “You’re safe now.”
Her hands lifted to lie against his chest, taking strength from the feel of his strong arms wrapped around her.
“I started to go toward the living room where my parents usually watched TV at night. Then I turned to go to the kitchen.”
“Why?”
She tilted back her head to meet his dark, steady gaze. “What?”
“Why did you come to the kitchen?”
Oh. Her brow furrowed. Why did she?
She tried to battle through the fuzz.
“I think I heard something,” she finally decided, allowing herself to feel the floorboards beneath her feet that creaked as she moved, and the lingering scent of pipe tobacco that hung in the air. “A voice, maybe,” she said, then gave a shake of her head. It hadn’t been a conversation. “Or my father’s cry,” she at last concluded, still not satisfied. “I was just outside the doorway when the second shot went off.”
His hand splayed on her back as he lifted his head to stare down at her with dismay.
“You didn’t come in here, did you?”
“No.” She grimaced. “The sound was so loud I ran back down the hall and hid in the coat closet. That’s where the cops eventually found me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I.” She released a shaky breath. “I was a coward.”
“Coward?” He sent her a confused glance. “You were just a child.”
The guilt that churned deep inside her bubbled to the surface, searing against her nerve endings like acid.
“If I’d come in here instead of running away—”
“You’d have what?” he sharply interrupted. “Spent the rest of your life tormenting yourself with the image of their bodies?”
She hunched a shoulder. “I could have called nine-one-one right away. My mother might have been saved.”
He jerked, as if struck by a sud
den thought. “Who did call the cops?”
She hesitated, sorting through the thoughts. At last she concluded that she’d never been told who’d been responsible for the call.
“I assume it was Ellen,” she said with a shrug. “I really don’t know.”
“Was anyone else in the house?”
She glanced toward the window, a wrenching sadness making her feel as if she weighed a thousand pounds.
“The cops asked me the same question, but I really didn’t know. I’d been gone all day and I went straight to my room when I came home.”
Perhaps sensing she was reaching the edge of collapse, Griff slid his fingers beneath her chin and turned her face back.
“Look at me.” He patiently waited for her to meet his gaze. “There’s nothing you could have done to change what happened that night.” He leaned so close their noses were nearly touching. “Nothing.”
She pulled back. It was the same thing she’d told herself a thousand times.
She still didn’t believe it.
“How can you be so sure?”
There was a long silence, as if Griff was weighing something in his mind.
“Because I was just five feet away from my mother when she was murdered,” he said. “Sometimes fate decides to be a real bitch, but blaming yourself doesn’t help anyone.”
The air was pressed from her lungs as she studied his grim expression.
“I didn’t know,” she murmured, even as she silently wondered if she had somehow sensed that tragedy had struck his life.
It might be why she’d felt so drawn to him from the beginning. A shared sense of loss that few people could understand.
“Like you, it’s not something I talk about.”
She slid her hand across his chest to rest it over the rapid beat of his heart. She sensed how much it cost him to speak about the past. And she knew he was only doing it to ease her own emotional roller coaster.
“What happened?” she asked.
“My mother was a cop in Chicago.”
She blinked. She didn’t know why that surprised her. It certainly explained Griff ’s decision to concentrate his computer expertise on catching criminals. Still, she found herself staring at him in amazement.
“Really?”
“Yeah.” A small, bittersweet smile touched his lips. “She grew up in a small town, and no one, including my grandparents, thought she’d last more than a few weeks in the big city, but she loved it. And she was good at it.”
There was no missing his pride in his mother.
“She was killed in the line of duty?”
His pride was replaced with the same aching grief that haunted her.
“No, she was out of uniform.” There was a short pause before he forced out the words. “I’d just gotten an A on a quiz and she’d promised me I could have anything I wanted for dinner. I told her that I wanted to go to the pizza joint that was just down the street from our apartment building.”
She raised her hand to lightly touch his cheek. “Was it just the two of you?”
“It was.” His eyes grew distant as he became lost in his memories. “My dad had walked out when I was just a baby. He wanted a wife who’d stay home and take care of him and his kids, not a woman who was dedicated to her career.”
She wrinkled her nose. Jerk.
“Did the shooting happen on the street?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No, we were in the restaurant waiting for our order when a man came in to rob the place.”
“Oh, Griff.” She cupped his cheek in the palm of her hand, her heart twisting with sympathy.
“It might have been just another robbery, but the man was high on crack, and when a waiter came out of the kitchen the movement startled him.” She felt the tremor that shook his body. “He started shooting around the room.”
“And your mother was hit?”
“Everyone screamed and fell to the floor.” His lips twisted. “Everyone except my mother.”
Carmen could visualize the scene. The panic. The cries for help. The frantic attempts to get low to the ground.
And the woman who was trained to react during times of crisis.
“The cop,” she said softly.
“Always the cop.” His jaw tightened. “She charged forward and took the man down. His weapon discharged and caught her in the chest.”
She flinched. “And you watched it happen.”
“Yes.” His voice sounded far away. “I was angry for a long time.”
“No one would blame you,” she assured him. “I hope they put the bastard away for life.”
He gave a shake of his head. “I wasn’t angry with the shooter.”
“You weren’t?”
“He was a pathetic junkie who had no idea what he was doing,” he said. “I was angry with my mother for not saving herself like everyone else in the room. And with myself for not stopping her.”
Her heart melted. Not just with sympathy for a boy who’d watched his mom die. But with gratitude.
His story hadn’t only assured her that she wasn’t alone in her grief, but his words forced her to consider her own anger. And how she’d allowed it to taint the memories of her childhood.
It hadn’t all been bad. In fact, most of her younger years had been filled with happiness.
She should cherish those times. Not try to suppress them.
“Your mother couldn’t have done anything else,” she said. “That’s the reason she became a cop.”
“I’m learning to accept that.” His gaze swept over her face. “Just as you have to accept there was nothing you could have done to protect your mother.”
“Thank you,” she breathed.
He lowered his head to press his lips against her forehead. “I promised I would be at your side.”
She briefly leaned against him, accepting that the walls she used to protect herself were crumbling.
“Where did you go after your mother died?”
“To my father.”
“That must have been difficult,” Carmen said, instantly regretting her stupid words.
“That’s one way of putting it,” he said dryly. “We were complete strangers, and to make matters worse, he had a new family. I was little more than an unwelcome intruder into their home.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I survived. I had my computer. And every summer I spent a few weeks with my grandparents.”
“And now you have Rylan?” she said.
A smile instantly curved his lips. “Yes. And his new wife, Jaci. They’re a part of my family now.”
She was happy for him. She truly was. Griff clearly deserved to be surrounded with loyal, supportive friends. But she was also just a little envious.
Unlike Griff, she hadn’t reached out to create a new family. Instead, she’d convinced herself that it was better to keep herself isolated.
If you didn’t care about anyone, they couldn’t hurt you.
Her lips parted, but before she could speak there was the sound of sharp footsteps. She turned to watch her uncle march into the kitchen, his face familiar despite the deepened lines and touch of gray in his light brown hair.
“I don’t know who you think you are, but—” His angry words dried on his lips as his eyes abruptly widened. “Carrie? Is it really you?”
Chapter Eleven
Griff allowed Carmen to pull away, his gaze locked on the man he assumed was Lawrence Jacobs.
He reminded Griff of a square. A short, broad body that was currently clothed in a casual sweater and charcoal slacks. A block-shaped head with brown hair dusted with silver, and blunt features. His eyes were a pale blue that remained cold as they stared at his only niece.
He looked like the kind of guy who went around telling everyone how important he was.
“Hello, Lawrence.” Carmen filled the sudden silence, her voice steady.
Griff smiled with pride while Lawrence managed a grimace.
“My dear. This is such a s
urprise,” he breathed.
Carmen shrugged. “I happened to be in town and it seemed rude not to stop by.”
“Of course. Of course.” Lawrence cleared his throat, his gaze shifting to Griff. “And you are?”
Griff stepped forward and held out his hand. “Griffin Archer.”
Lawrence clasped his fingers in a firm grip, his expression puzzled.
“Why is that name familiar?”
Griff pulled his hand free and stepped back to stand next to Carmen.
“I own a tech firm.”
“Archer,” Lawrence said slowly, and then he snapped his fingers. “Tyche Systems, right?”
Griff nodded. Tyche Systems was the corporate branch of his business. It was more lucrative than the government contracts, but not nearly as interesting.
“Yes.”
A restless greed flared through the older man’s eyes. No doubt his brain was busy trying to decide how he could take advantage of Griffin Archer standing in his kitchen.
“We just installed your latest security software for our office.”
“Good to hear.”
Easily sensing Griff ’s lack of interest in discussing business, Lawrence returned his attention to his niece. He pasted a stiff smile to his lips, shifting uneasily.
The older man was clearly nervous.
But why?
A question that Griff fully intended to have answered before he left Louisville.
“Yes, well. What a pleasant surprise.” Lawrence glanced over his shoulder. “Your aunt will be down shortly. Preparing for the holidays has been exhausting for her.”
Carmen’s smile was equally strained. “Are Matthew and Baylor here?”
Lawrence turned back, his fingers drumming against the side of his leg.
“They have their own apartments in Louisville, but we’re expecting them to spend the next couple of days here,” he said. “It’s a family tradition.”
An awkward silence filled the kitchen. Griff folded his arms over his chest, saying nothing. He wanted to get Lawrence alone before he asked the questions that were on the tip of his tongue.
“The house hasn’t changed much,” Carmen finally said.
“No.” Lawrence glanced around the kitchen. “I wanted to keep it the same. It’s all I have left of my parents.” He paused, then continued. “And Stuart.”