Page 5 of Enigma
The next twenty minutes passed in a blur of controlled chaos.
Paramedics arrived first—two men who immediately took over Lloyd’s care, checking his vitals and preparing him for transport.
Olive had stepped back to give them room but stayed close enough to answer their questions.
A detective arrived as the paramedics loaded Lloyd onto a stretcher. Santos was his name. He had the weathered look of someone who spent too much time doing stakeouts and not enough time sleeping, his white dress shirt already showing damp patches despite the early hour.
Right away, Olive showed him the puncture wound she’d found, and he frowned before making note of it.
Then he began to question her.
“What’s your relationship to Mr. Stewart?” Detective Santos’s pen was poised over his notepad as he waited for her answer.
Olive hesitated.
How did she explain that Lloyd was the father of her former boyfriend and that she’d come here without telling saidformer boyfriend because she suspected his father might have information about her family’s murder?
Easy—she didn’t.
“I’m a family friend,” she said finally. “I was in town and stopped by for a visit. When he didn’t answer the door, I became concerned—I saw his car was outside. That’s when I found the sliding door open.”
Santos seemed satisfied with the explanation and continued taking notes.
As he did, Olive watched out the window as paramedics loaded Lloyd into the ambulance. The vehicle’s red and white lights cut through the late morning sunshine.
Only after the ambulance pulled away, sirens wailing, did she feel like she could breathe again.
Detective Santos took her contact information and promised to follow up if he had more questions. He remained inside checking for prints and other evidence as Olive returned to her rental car.
She sat in the driver’s seat, leaving the door open to let out the heat that had built up while she was inside Lloyd’s house. Her hands shook slightly—adrenaline, she told herself.
The normal aftermath of finding someone in crisis.
But it was more than that.
She was about to make a phone call that could change everything between her and Jason. There would be no going back from this moment, no way to undo her decision to come to Florida without telling him.
The truth was she had wrestled with whether it was fair to judge Jason for his father’s actions. But she was also terrified of being conned by someone she cared about. She was so afraid of this potential discovery that she’d avoided being completely honest with him about her suspicions.
Which had led her to this point.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled to Jason’s contact. His photo smiled back at her—a candid shot she’d taken with him when they were out to eat once at a rooftop restaurant in Indianapolis. She looked so happy in the picture with a wide, almost goofy grin stretched across her face.
Her gaze shifted to Jason’s image.
He had the kind of presence that made the world tilt just a little when he walked into a room. Tall and broad-shouldered, with a hulking frame that spoke of strength and quiet power, he carried himself with an ease that only made him more magnetic.
His face was all sharp angles and masculine lines, softened only by the warm brown eyes that seemed to hold secrets—and linger on Olive a little longer than necessary. His short, dark hair emphasized the clean cut of his jaw, while the shadow of a tattoo beneath his shirt hinted at a rougher, more dangerous edge.
His deep, rumbling voice had a way of wrapping around her, stirring something achingly familiar, while the woodsy scent of his cologne made her want to lean a little closer.
Whether he wore a perfectly fitted black suit, a rugged flannel with worn jeans, or a simple white shirt that revealed the outline of his tattoo, Jason managed to look devastatingly handsome without even trying.
There was something about him—protective, steady, enticing—that drew Olive in, heart first, before she could even think about resisting.
He’d been her first love and someone she never thought she’d see again. But then they’d run into each other on a case she was working, and she’d realized her feelings for him had never died.
He’d since taken a job at Aegis and was currently working a case south of Atlanta. Only four days ago, they’d wrapped up an investigation in West Virginia where they’d had to pose as a married couple.
