‘Yeah. I’ll cover that.’ He looked to the door with a sigh. ‘When everyone gets here.’
Within five minutes, Gwyn’s small living room was packed to near bursting. Jamie had positioned his chair at the foot of the sofa. Phil was sitting at his feet. Sam and Ruby were on the floor along with Paige. Clay and Stevie took the only chairs because they’d accumulated enough injuries over the years to make walking painful, so sitting on the floor was not going to happen. Stevie still walked with a cane after being shot nearly three years before, and probably always would. Clay was noticeably slower after his last brush with a bullet – taken while guarding his adult daughter, Taylor.
Clay had brought Tweety back, and the dog followed Gwyn around, looking puzzled at all the people.
Taylor’s stepfather, Frederick, filled out the group. He pulled two of the milk crates she used to store her vinyl albums from a corner, carefully stacked the albums on the floor, then made the crates into a makeshift chair. ‘I worked a ranch for years,’ he said when Clay tried to make him take his own chair. ‘I’ve sat on a whole lot worse, trust me.’
The two men had bonded over their love for Taylor, who was absent. ‘Is Taylor babysitting?’ Gwyn asked.
‘She is,’ Lucy confirmed.
‘And loving it,’ Frederick added, then gave Thorne his attention. ‘What the hell happened, Thorne? Who is Patricia Segal, and why was she in your bed?’
‘And why is she dead?’ Clay added, and heads nodded throughout the room.
Thorne sighed. ‘Okay. Look, this is hard. I haven’t talked about this in nineteen years. So . . .’
‘So . . . ?’ Clay prompted.
‘Take all the time you need, Thorne,’ Paige said quietly. ‘We’ll be patient. Won’t we, Clay?’
‘No,’ Clay answered. ‘Because this is really bad.’
Heads bobbed in nods again, murmurs rippling through the room.
Her dog curled up at her feet, Gwyn perched on the arm of the sofa, leaning against Thorne’s rigid back. Here she could give him support, but the mirror on the opposite wall allowed her to see his face. There were mirrors all over her condo. Nobody would ever sneak up on her in her own home, ever again. ‘At least he’s honest,’ she murmured in Thorne’s ear. ‘You want me to tell them what we know so far?’
Thorne nodded gratefully. ‘Please.’
Gwyn proceeded to tell them everything she, Thorne and Jamie had discussed in the hospital room, including the possible scenarios. ‘Hyatt says the woman is Patricia Linden Segal. This means something to Thorne and Jamie. All I know is that Patricia Linden is the sister of the boy Thorne was accused of killing nineteen years ago.’
Thorne twisted abruptly so that he could look up at her over his shoulder. ‘Did I tell you that?’
‘No, but I can Google,’ she told him, keeping her tone sarcastic. Sarcasm was both her weapon and her best shield, and she wielded it as bravely – and as often – as she could. ‘It wasn’t easy to find, but I was determined. You were being seen to by the doctor and I needed something to do.’ She’d always respected his right to privacy, but the game had changed the moment she’d found a dead woman in his bed.
It would have been nearly impossible to find the article about the murder of which Thorne had been accused if she hadn’t known his legal last name had once been White. He’d changed it to Thorne when he was eighteen and she’d never asked him why. But now she thought she knew. The name change had been filed in the court only a few days after the jury had returned with their not-guilty verdict.
She wondered why he’d chosen Thorne as his new name and not Jamie’s last name – Maslow. When they were alone, she planned to ask. Among many other things. Her list of private questions was steadily growing.
‘So the murder of Patricia Segal is a deliberate link to your past,’ Clay said.
‘Deliberate and painful,’ Phil murmured, and Gwyn remembered that the man had known Thorne back then. He’d been Thorne’s teacher in high school, and he and Jamie had taken Thorne in. But that was all she knew. Neither Thorne, Jamie nor Phil ever talked about that part of their lives.
‘Yeah,’ Thorne murmured, then bumped her lightly with his shoulder, indicating that she should continue.
‘The only other thing I know,’ Gwyn went on, ‘is that the doctor said that Thorne had been given GHB – and a lot of it. It is possible to OD on the stuff, and he’d come very close to full cardiac failure.’
Angry murmurs filled the room and Jamie’s jaw clenched. ‘The doctor also said that had Gwyn not found him when she did,’ he said, ‘there wouldn’t have been enough of the drug left in his system to find. It has a short half-life. Levels had already dropped considerably. The doctor wasn’t exactly sure when he’d been dosed, but she guessed at the minimum he could have been given based on his body weight, considering he’d been knocked out. She believes he’d been dosed at least four hours before Gwyn arrived, maybe a little more.’
‘How long had the victim been dead?’ Stevie asked.
Lucy shrugged. ‘Her wounds were fresh. I’ve recused myself from the autopsy due to my friendship and business relationship with Thorne. Neil Quartermaine will do it, but I trust him to do a good job. We’ll have to wait for the report, but I can tell you that rigor had only started to set in. I noticed that her jaw was affected when I tried to find her pulse, but her extremities were still fluid. I’d guess that she’d been dead no more than two to four hours.’
‘Does Hyatt know this?’ Stevie asked.
‘Yes,’ Lucy said. ‘Well, he knows my two-to-four-hour guess because I told him that when they first brought Thorne in. Unless Thorne gives his permission for the ER doc to share his medical information with Baltimore PD, she hasn’t told Hyatt yet about the time frame in which he was drugged.’
‘I didn’t give my permission,’ Thorne said. ‘I’m not sure if I will or not. It depends on what else we find.’
‘We’ll come up with a plan of action, but we can’t do that until we hear the whole story.’ Clay grimaced as Paige elbowed him. ‘Dammit, Paige, that hurt.’
‘You’re supposed to be being patient,’ she hissed.
‘You’re supposed to not hurt me,’ Clay shot back.
Stevie rolled her eyes. ‘Guys, enough. See what I put up with every damn day? They call themselves professional business partners, but they squabble like siblings.’
Clay had brought Paige into his PI firm three years before, but their work styles – and their personalities – had meshed together as if they’d known each other forever. The two grinned at one another before turning back to Thorne expectantly.
Thorne shook his head. ‘I’m so sorry for you, Stevie. I’d have knocked their heads together a long time ago.’
‘Like to see you try that,’ Paige muttered, but it was said with humor. Paige was a black belt and an international sparring champion. Thorne had her by about eight inches in height and a hundred pounds of solid muscle, and Paige had recently given birth to a beautiful daughter, but it would still be a fairer fight than most.
Gwyn chuckled. ‘I’d buy tickets.’ She had a lot of respect for Paige. The woman had helped her immeasurably over the last few years. The self-defense classes she taught had enabled Gwyn to feel confident enough to leave her house again. Now Gwyn had her own brown belt. Her personal goal was to be a black belt by the time she was forty. That gave her two years, and Paige believed it was possible. Paige was her hero and one of her greatest allies.
Now she gave Gwyn an encouraging wink that managed to convey as much sympathy as sass, and it struck Gwyn that her sensei was there for her as much as for Thorne. That at some point the woman had become one of her friends as well. It shouldn’t have surprised her so much. But it did. Maybe they’d been friends for a while. Maybe I just never noticed.
It made her wonder what else she hadn’t noticed from within the walls she’d hidden behind for the last four years. Maybe it’s time to come out now. Thorne needs us. All of us. All of me.