Finding Our Reality (The Reality Duet #2)

Chapter 37

ELLA

Fourteen days.

Twenty-three times.

I’ve had sex with Ryland Joseph Crutchfield twenty-three times over the past fourteen days, and I’m ready for a million more. I never wanna stop making love to him.

Never. Ever. Ever.

And that’s what I’m thinking about when Marcum tosses a box of tissues in my face. The box bounces off my chest and lands on the edge of his desk.

“Ow. What was that for?”

“A Kleenex, for you to wipe that smile off your face.”

I lean forward, splaying my hand across the form he’s been trying to read for the past twenty minutes, the twenty minutes I’ve been sitting here pestering him. “You like it when I smile.”

He tries to camouflage his chuckle with a cough. Leaning back in his chair, he gives me the evil eye. “So, living together now, are we?”

I’m not a rocket scientist, but I am a pretty good detective, and I know the ‘we’ he is referring to is not me and him.

“Well, not technically speaking. I still have my parents’ house. And I still have my house in Mobile. I mean, I’m still making a mortgage payment on that one for goodness’ sake.”

The air around me sparks to life. I feel the connection of his presence even before he rounds the corner and walks into the office. Standing behind me, his fingertips trail underneath my hair, searching for my scar. His calloused thumb gently strokes the raised skin.

The timbre of his voice sends chills up my spine. “Technically, the answer is yes. And I told her to put the Mobile house on the market.”

Marcum pokes out his bottom lip, glancing between me and Ry. I can’t decide if he’s happy or angry. I fully expect him to say that we’re moving too fast; instead, he folds his hands behind his head and says, “I hear the market is really hot down there right now. Might not be a bad time to sell.”

Well, that was unexpected.

Shifting in my seat, I look up at Ry. “Did you come in here just to make Marcum worry about my finances?”

He looks to Marcum and back at me. “Nope. I’ve got the DNA results.” He doesn’t wait for us to respond; he simply walks out of the office and heads into the conference room.

I jump out my chair so fast, I nearly knock the thing over. Marcum flings his ink pen across the desk. We race into the conference room, trailing behind Ry.

Waiting on him to pull out his laptop and sign into the secure portal for the private lab is agony. Pure slow death. I tap my foot impatiently on the floor. When I hear the ding, telling me he’s entered an incorrect password, I reach for the computer. “Here, let me do it.”

He cocks his head and twists out of my grasp.

“Ella, settle down. You’re gonna give yourself a heart attack.” Marcum pulls a protein bar out of his interior jacket pocket. “Here, have a protein bar.”

I pick it up off the table and study the mangled bar. “How long has this been in your jacket?”

“I’m not exactly sure. But it’s a protein bar. It doesn’t expire.”

“It most certainly does. And your armpit sweat probably speeds up the rotting process.”

“Okay, I’m in.”

Ry’s voice makes me jerk, and I loudly drop the bar on the table. I toss it across the room, ringing the trash can. “What does it say?”

He holds up a finger. I watch as his eyes flicker back and forth. It’s like watching a typewriter. He mumbles to himself while scrolling through the screens. Scrolling back to the top of the page, he clears his throat and starts. “Okay, here we go. Tape: Carrie, you, and Unknown Female (1). Envelope body: Carrie, you, and Unknown Female (1). Envelope flap: Carrie and Unknown Female (1). All six pictures: Carrie and Unknown Female (1). Pregnancy test: Carrie. And trace amounts of DNA in the urine are a match for Carrie as well.” He sighs, “No hits. Unknown Female (1) is not in any system.”

I shake my head back and forth. It’s not enough. I need more. This was supposed to give us answers. This wasn’t supposed to give me ‘Unknown Female (1)’. I hold out my hands, and Ry slides the open laptop across the table. I read and re-read the words. Over and over and over.

Marcum reaches out, squeezing my shoulder. “Ella?”

I bite my lip, refusing to cry. Instead, I shift in my seat, squaring my shoulders and stiffening my spine. “This is what I paid for? This bullshit? This lab is supposed to be the best.” I slap the offensive computer away from me. “We’re never gonna find out what happened to her. This was pointless! The evidence died with that piece of crap, Trey!”

Ry sits back, folding his arms across his chest. I can see it in his eyes. He’s not going to coddle me on this one. He’s not going to let me play the woe-is-me card. “Lulu, this isn’t your first investigation. You do this for a living, it’s your job. One, I might add, that you’re damn good at. You knew the likelihood of having a hit come back on the DNA was not very probable unless the offender was in the system. We know more now than we did. And that always equates to good news in this world.”

He leans forward, staring deeply into my eyes. He enunciates each word slowly, like I’m hard of hearing. “Now. Tell me what you see.”

My lips flatten into a small line. “I see the death of this case, Ry. That’s what I see. Dead. Just like my sister.”

His growl is angry, demon possessed. “So, help me, Lulu, if you don’t tell me what you see, I’m gonna flip my shit.”

“Fine!” I close my eyes and rub my temples, thinking. “Well, there’s no doubt now; Carrie was pregnant. It’s safe to assume she was pregnant at the time she went missing. It’s safe to assume she kept it a secret. At least, she didn’t show anyone else the pregnancy test. Someone else would’ve picked it up to look at it. The only DNA on it was hers.”

I blow a raspberry, thinking. “The pictures all came from the same person, a female. If anyone else was involved in sending those pictures to Carrie, they kept their distance. They didn’t touch anything. A female? I believe what Christina said. I don’t think she stayed at the trailer that night to take the pictures. If the only people who knew about the rape pictures were the people present that night, then that means our camera person was a female.” I tick through the list on my fingers, “Carrie, rapist, Trey, and Unknown Female (1).”

My fingers leave my temple and tap against the table. “If we still operate on the theory that the rapist and supplier are one in the same, then we have Unknown Female (1) in the mix. She sent the photos to Carrie. Why?”

I try to think of all the reasons someone would send the pictures to my sister. “Jealousy? Maybe the supplier was her boyfriend. But if the pictures were meant to be a threat, a ‘stay away from my man’ warning, you’d think there would be a note in the envelope saying just as much. There wasn’t a note. Carrie kept everything else, I can’t imagine she threw away a threatening letter.

“So, if not for jealousy, then maybe… empathy? Unknown Female felt sorry for Carrie. She didn’t like keeping this secret from her. She wanted her to know the truth. Why? Either Unknown Female had been a victim of sexual assault herself, or Unknown Female actually knew my sister.”

My eyes fly open. “She knew Carrie. Before that night, she knew her. Knew her well enough to feel bad for her. The envelope wasn’t addressed. Unknown Female knew where we lived. She dropped it off. Or she put it on Carrie’s car. Or put it somewhere where Carrie would specifically find it. None of the normal people from Trash’s parties knew that much about Carrie. This was someone else.”

Anger beats against my heart like a drum. “Someone who knew my sister showed up that night and watched her get raped.”

Marcum whispers a curse word. Ry’s eyes leave mine, and he winks at Marcum. Standing up from the table, he kisses the top of my head on his way out. “I told you she was good. That’s My Lulu.”

***

Will leans across the bar, handing a drink to the guy behind me. “Well, I guess it was wishful thinking to believe the DNA report would give all the answers, just like that.” He snaps his fingers.

Ridge takes a deep pull from his beer. “Still doesn’t make it easy.” He nudges me with his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Ella.”

“Thanks.” I lean forward, sipping on my cocktail.

“You made us watch all those crime documentaries after Carrie went missing. I guess we all got our hopes up, that this would be one of the stories that had an immediate ending. DNA test, bad guy, jail. Boom.” Ridge slaps his hand on the bar.

I shake my head. “We just have to keep digging.”

I catch Cullen nodding to the door, and I spin on my barstool. Ry stalks across the room. It’s a good thing I’m sitting because he’s making me weak in the knees. His gray T-shirt is sticking to his sculpted chest, courtesy of the mid-July heat. He just came from the station, so he’s still wearing cargo pants and boots. Cargo pants, might I add, that are the perfect fit across the rounded globes of his ass. Lifting his arm, he raises and repositions the ballcap on his head. He smirks when he sees me watching him. It’s a teasing smirk that only lifts one side of his luscious mouth.

Right before he’s about to reach me, a small brunette spins around and accidentally bumps into him. She’s thrown off balance, so he reaches around, grabbing her upper arms to steady her. Once she’s back on stable feet, she looks up to thank him. “Than— Oh.” She’s immediately struck mute by the gorgeous man standing in front of her.

She flips her hair and quickly recovers. Obviously, hair flipping is where she gathers her strength.

“Thank you. I’m such a klutz.” She places a hand in the middle of his firm stomach. “Buy you a drink?”

Ry looks over her head, studying my reaction. Growling, I spin back around on my barstool. Will, Cullen, and Ridge are all laughing.

Jackasses.

“Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think my live-in girlfriend would appreciate that. Have a good night.”

Well, that’s new. And unexpected.

And quite frankly, music to my ears.

Sitting beside me, his large hand circles around my hip, and he tugs my barstool closer. It screeches across the floor. “I was worried about you for a minute.”

I snort. “Oh, yeah?”

“Your eyes rolled so far back in your head I thought you were having a stroke.”

“I did not roll my eyes.”

Cullen puts a beer in front of Ry. “You totally rolled your eyes.”

My mouth falls open. “Cullen!”

He holds his hands up in surrender and disappears to help the next customer.

“Well, if I rolled my eyes, it was only because you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself.”

He chuckles. “She was about to fall.”

I sip on my cocktail, talking around my straw. “She probably fell into you on purpose.”

Ry nods at my drink. “I see you’re drinking again.”

I spin the glass, watching the pretty blue liquid swirl around against the ice cubes. After my incident with the Long Island Iced Teas, Will and Cullen decided to have me taste-test a sampler platter of non-alcoholic mocktails. Knowing I wanted something pretty, Cullen plied me with all sorts of concoctions in hues of pink, red, purple, and green. The winner was a non-alcoholic version of a Blue Lagoon. Cullen garnishes it with a stick of oranges, cherries, and mangoes.

“Yep. And who knows, I may get shit-faced tonight.”

He leans forward, playfully nibbling on my ear. “Good thing you’re coming home with me tonight. I can take care of you.” He sits back, taking a long drink from his bottle. “As long as you keep your throw up to yourself.”

Will leans against the bar, tossing a rag over his shoulder. “Eww. Raylee told me you threw up on him. I forgot about that. Gross.”

Ry laughs, squinting his eyes in good humor.

I open my mouth to make a catty comment, but really, there’s no defense. I did throw up on him.

Ridge points at his brother. “Cullen threw up all over me once. Remember, C, on that road trip to the Grand Canyon?”

“Shit. I completely forgot about that. You’re the one who paid me five bucks to eat five hotdogs.”

“Okay! As intriguing as this conversation is, me and my woman have somewhere to be.” Ry tosses some money down on the bar and grabs my hand.

“We do?”

He leans in and almost growls, as if I didn’t know what he meant. “Yes. Bed.”