Page 15 of One Little Memory
“What?” he asked.
She looked down at her feet. They were bare. “I don’t seem to have any shoes. I have no idea what happened to the ones I came in with, but everything seems to be missing.”
“Huh. Well, you’ll have to go without at the moment, and we’ll figure it out later. I need to drop you to the house and get back to work.”
“Of course. I’m so sorry for keeping you from your work.”
He narrowed his eyes at her.
“What?”
“I’m just wondering if you’re Canadian with all this apologizing.”
She smiled then, and it was like the sun broke through the clouds. “I don’t think so, but who knows? Maybe I am.”
A nurse named Bert arrived in the hallway with a wheelchair. “Your chariot awaits, milady,” he said with a sweeping bow.
Jo giggled and then turned and sat down in the chair. They took the elevator to the bottom floor. When they reached the door to the outside, Phoenix asked Bert to wait a second. Jo looked up at him questioningly. He scooped her gently into his arms, and she let out a small yelp.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. You just surprised me.” She turned and waved to Bert. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “It looks like you’re in good hands.” Then he turned and disappeared down the hallway.
Phoenix walked them out of the hospital into the parking lot. “Bert can’t be the only chivalrous one. No walking on the pavement in bare feet for you, my lady,” He offered her a wink as he carried her over to his police SUV, trying not to notice how right she seemed, fitting snuggly in his arms. As he struggled to open the door, she offered to get down, but he managed it in the end and slid her onto the passenger seat.
“You don’t like to give up, do you?”
He smiled. “Never say die.” The words were out before he thought about them, and his stomach hit his feet.
“Are you okay? You just turned a bit…pale.”
“Fine,” he said as he closed the door. He used the time it took to walk around the SUV to the driver’s side to pull himself back together. Was this going to be what it was like? Everything wasfine one minute, and the next he remembered that his brother might be dying. He swallowed hard as he got into the truck.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into his driveway and came to a stop. He hopped out and went around to the passenger side of the truck.
“You really don’t have to carry me.”
“Jo, it’s rock between here and the patio. You’ll cut your feet.”
She looked out the windshield at the cute little building he’d painted a creamy white, accented by black shutters. It was easy to see that it had been a garage in a past life but now it was adorable. A couple Adirondack chairs rested on a tidy little patio out in front of the door, but between the end of the driveway and the patio was gravel.
“I see what you mean.”
He reached in and picked her up again, fighting uncomfortable feelings as he carried her to the garage apartment. He set her down, took a key off his key ring, and opened the door. “You should be fine here. I’ve got to run. I will drop by later with some groceries. Rest up.”
He handed her the key and went back to his SUV. He was pulling out of the driveway seconds later. Jo, whoever she was, was a distraction he could ill afford at the moment. He needed to get his head back into the Marchand investigation. This was the biggest case of his career so far, and he did not want to screw it up.
After a short drive, he parked in the lot and then entered Jagger’s office. He took a seat across the desk from his former teammate. “Sorry for the delay.”
“No problem.” Jagger stood, reached across the desk, and shook Phoenix’s hand. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”
“No, I’m good. What’s going on? Were you guys investigating Marchand for something?”
Jagger sat back down. “It’s complicated. We weren’t investigating him exactly, but something weird turned up.”
“Okay, you’re being clear as mud. I have a dead body, and I have to find out what the hell is going on. I need you to spell it out for me.”
